Chapter 1

After a busy day, Qin Chuan dragged his somewhat tired body home. He finally entered Tan Shan Central Hospital, the best hospital in Tan Shan City, but he did not get into the surgical department, which was his ideal and most suitable department. Instead, he was assigned to the emergency department.

The emergency department is the hardest and most tiring department in the hospital, and it is also the least appreciated. In the news, the doctors and nurses in the emergency department are the ones who get beaten up the most. After all, they deal with the most critical patients. The families of the patients are all in a state of urgency, and one wrong move could lead to a complete breakdown.

Qin Chuan walked out of the hospital, and a cold wind blew past him. After working continuously for over ten hours in the emergency department, he felt a refreshing coolness. He rubbed his face vigorously with both hands, stretched his arms, and strode home.

He had only been working for a short time, and to secure this job, his family had spent a lot of money on connections. Therefore, Qin Chuan had not yet bought a car. The senior colleagues in the department all had cars. Although the emergency department was tiring, the salary was not bad. Qin Chuan planned to buy a car when his conditions improved, which would make it more convenient for him to deal with the wind and rain. Fortunately, his home was not too far away, and it took him about twenty to thirty minutes to walk home.

His home was in an old alley on Infrastructure Road. As soon as he entered the alley, he heard a series of painful moans from an animal. Qin Chuan set his phone to flashlight mode and walked towards the dark corner of the alley. In the corner, a pair of eyes flickered like two small fireflies. A Pekingese looked at Qin Chuan pitifully, whimpered softly, and weakly wagged its tail.

"Whose dog is this, left here?" Qin Chuan said softly, preparing to turn and leave. As he was about to leave, the puppy whimpered again. Qin Chuan couldn't help but look back, and in the darkness, he could only see the dim light in the Pekingese's eyes.

Qin Chuan paused, then turned back and picked up the Pekingese.

"Meeting you is a kind of fate. I'll treat you," Qin Chuan said softly, not caring whether the Pekingese understood him. Below the old house, each family had a small storage room. Qin Chuan's storage room was filled with some of his small gadgets. Toys from his childhood and old computers he had used before were all piled up there. The key was naturally in Qin Chuan's possession.

He opened the storage room and placed the Pekingese on the ground. The Pekingese still whimpered in pain, but even so, it weakly looked around the storage room.

"Rustle."

Qin Chuan swept all the items on a table into a basket and set it aside. He then cleaned the table and laid a white cloth on it. The lighting in the storage room was dim, so he turned on an old desk lamp and hung it on one side.

He then found a set of surgical knives he had bought when he was in school. They were well-preserved and cleaned with alcohol, making them very clean. This was the best he could do in such an environment.

Qin Chuan placed the Pekingese on the table and tied its four legs with tape to secure it to the table. Strangely, the Pekingese did not seem afraid; it seemed to know that Qin Chuan was trying to save it. Sometimes, the intuition of animals is more acute than that of humans.

When Qin Chuan examined the Pekingese, he found a large lump on its belly, suspecting it to be a tumor. To treat the Pekingese, he needed to cut open this area and see what was inside.

First, he used a sharp surgical knife as a razor to shave the fur around the lump. The lump was fully exposed, about the size of a ping-pong ball.

During the process, the Pekingese was very cooperative and did not even whimper.

"This dog really has a spirit, as if it knows I'm treating it," Qin Chuan thought to himself.

With limited conditions, Qin Chuan had no way to provide any treatment to the Pekingese. There was no anesthesiologist to assist, and no equipment to monitor various parameters. Success or failure would ultimately depend on the Pekingese's fate. Qin Chuan also had no way to make the Pekingese sign a liability waiver.

"We're starting. If I can't save you, don't blame me. This is all decided by fate," Qin Chuan said softly.

The surgical knife was very sharp, but Qin Chuan could still feel the sensation of the blade cutting through the Pekingese's skin. The feeling of cutting into a living body was different from dissecting a corpse. When cutting into a corpse, the flesh was already cold, and no warm blood would gush out, and the muscle fibers were already tightly bound. When cutting into a living body, fresh, dark red blood would immediately gush out. This was the vitality of life.

Qin Chuan held his breath, fearing any mistake. At that moment, the Pekingese was no longer just a dog to him but a life.

A teacher at the medical college once said that a doctor's fingertips dance with life. At that moment, the doctor controls the life and death of a being. This is a sacred moment.

The surgical knife cut through the Pekingese's lump, and Qin Chuan controlled the force of his hand very well. He made a properly sized incision, smooth and causing minimal harm to the patient.

However, what surprised Qin Chuan was that inside the incision was not a tumor as he had imagined, but a dark object. It was about the size of a walnut and looked very sci-fi. He couldn't tell what it was.

"Pervert!" Qin Chuan couldn't figure out who would be so bored as to hide something inside a dog's body. Was it a secret organization using this method to hide something?

Thinking about this, Qin Chuan became nervous. "No, this dog can't be seen by anyone. Otherwise, it will harm me and my family."

Qin Chuan's hands did not stop. He carefully removed the dark object and set it aside. The most important thing now was to treat the Pekingese's wound. After cleaning and suturing the wound, Qin Chuan treated the Pekingese's wound.

Throughout the process, the Pekingese did not make a single sound, as if the wound was not on its body.

"This dog is really special," Qin Chuan thought, finding the dog increasingly different from ordinary dogs. But he couldn't pinpoint what made it different. He just felt that the Pekingese had a special spirit.

Qin Chuan cut the tape securing the Pekingese, and the Pekingese struggled to stand up. Due to the pain in its abdomen, it trembled on its legs. But it still managed to walk to Qin Chuan's side, lick his hand, and weakly wag its tail. It seemed to be expressing gratitude to Qin Chuan. Then it circled the table, looking at the ground, as if trying to get down from the table.

Qin Chuan picked the Pekingese up from the table. "Stay here for a while. I'll get you something to eat."

Qin Chuan didn't know if the Pekingese could understand him, but he cleaned up the items from the makeshift operating table. After everything was cleaned up, Qin Chuan's eyes fell on the strange object in the old dish.

He opened the door, cleared the items used for the surgery, and threw them into the garbage bin in the neighborhood. He then got some water from a public faucet. This house used to be a unit house for Qin Chuan's parents' workplace. In the past, the water was provided by the public. Now, although it had become a private residence, the faucet had not been changed.

He washed his hands and then cleaned the strange object in a basin, drying it with a towel. He looked at it for a long time but couldn't figure out what it was.

It was getting late, and his parents, who were retired, should be waiting for him to have dinner. He quickly carried the Pekingese upstairs.

As soon as he reached the door, it opened automatically.

"Xiao Chuan, I knew it was you. You must be tired. Come in quickly, Lao Qin, go heat up the food," Qin Chuan's mother, He Shudi, quickly prepared slippers for Qin Chuan and then called to Lao Qin, who was reading a book.

Lao Qin, whose name was Qin Yaning, was a retired professor. They both responded to the call for late marriage and late childbearing. As a result, they had Qin Chuan when they were in their forties. Although it wasn't a late child, Qin Chuan was still the apple of their eye. The old couple adored him.

"How did you bring someone else's dog home?" He Shudi finally noticed the Pekingese in Qin Chuan's hands.

"I found it on the way. It was injured, so I bandaged it. This little guy has a spirit. It didn't whimper or cry when I bandaged it, and it even showed gratitude after I treated its wound," Qin Chuan quickly changed the topic.

"Dogs are very human-like. When we went to the countryside, every household in the rural areas had a dog. Some of the educated youth also kept dogs," He Shudi recalled the past.

"Stop chatting and come eat," Qin Yaning said, placing the dishes on the table.

"Our home is small, and there's no place to keep a dog. We can't let it outside either. Now, keeping a dog requires a permit, or the city management will intervene. Your father and I worked all our lives, but we didn't save much money. We originally planned to save for your wedding, but all the money went to helping you find a job," He Shudi said.

Qin Chuan quickly said, "Mom, don't bring up that topic. I'll take care of buying a house myself. You don't need to worry about it."

"Our son is now a chief physician at the central hospital. Isn't it easy to buy a house? You old lady, why are you worrying about it?"

"Can't I be concerned about my son?" He Shudi was unhappy.

"Mom, the sky is big, the earth is big, but my mom is the biggest. It's natural for a mother to worry about her son. But don't worry about the house. The housing prices in Tan Shan City are not outrageous. I'll have enough for a down payment after working for a year or two. I'll buy a house then. You can rest assured," Qin Chuan said.

"Xiao Chuan, I'm not worried about the house. I'm worried that the house issue will delay your marriage. Nowadays, girls first look for a car and a house. You don't have either yet," He Shudi said.

On this point, Lao Qin and Lao He had a very unified attitude, so they quickly formed a united front.

"Okay, okay. Let me eat in peace. It's so late, and I haven't had dinner yet. My stomach is almost empty. The emergency department is the most tiring in the hospital. Today, I handled over a dozen emergencies, all life-threatening cases," Qin Chuan said.

"Then hurry up and eat. We can talk about other things after dinner," Lao Qin said.

He Shudi laid a newspaper on the ground, found a small bowl, and put some food in it, calling the Pekingese to eat. The Pekingese, having just had surgery, seemed to have no appetite and weakly wagged its tail at He Shudi.

"This dog really has a spirit. Lao Qin, shall we secretly keep it?" He Shudi asked.

Lao Qin looked at the Pekingese, also feeling a bit moved, and said, "If you want to keep it, keep it."

Qin Chuan finished dinner and quickly ran into his room before Lao Qin and Lao He launched their attack.

"This child, he eats dinner and then runs into his room. He's afraid of getting sick from the stuffy air," He Shudi said, looking at Qin Chuan's closed door.

"The child is growing up and needs his own space. There's a generation gap between us, and we don't have much to talk about. Especially, he's afraid of your nagging, so he runs into his room," Lao Qin said.

Lao He was unhappy: "Hey! Why must it be because of my nagging? Are you also annoyed by my nagging? Fine, I won't bother with you two anymore. Really."

Qin Chuan lay on the bed and faintly heard his parents bickering in the dining room. The old couple had been bickering for a lifetime, and Qin Chuan had seen countless versions of it. In the end, Lao Qin always solemnly admitted his mistake to Lao He.

"Hey?" Qin Chuan suddenly felt the strange object in his pocket. He took it out and examined it under the desk lamp. The object seemed to be made of metal, with many strange patterns carved on its surface. He couldn't tell what it was.

Qin Chuan examined the object thoroughly and finally noticed that one of its sharp ends seemed to be twistable.

Qin Chuan gently twisted it.

"Click!"

A small sound came from inside the object.

"Ouch!"

Qin Chuan suddenly felt a sharp pain in his palm. When he looked, he saw that his palm had been pierced by the object, and bright red blood was gushing out, being absorbed by the object.

"Damn! This thing actually sucks blood!" Qin Chuan was shocked and tried to throw the strange object away, but it seemed to be stuck to his hand, and he couldn't get rid of it.

Qin Chuan became even more panicked as the blood from his palm seemed to flow faster. However, he found that he couldn't throw the object away, couldn't speak, and couldn't move his body. He didn't know how long it had been, but he felt dizzy and then fell directly onto the bed.