Surgery Godfather

Chapter 2174: Chapter 1428: Joining In (Part 2)

"Professor Weber!" Manstein also replied in German, shaking his hand.

Their handshake lasted less than a second before they released it, crisp and straightforward, with no unnecessary emotional exchange. Weber’s gaze moved past Manstein’s shoulder and saw Yang Ping standing behind him.

"Is this Professor Yang Ping?"

"Yes!" Manstein stepped aside to make space, "Professor Yang, this is Professor Herman Weber."

Yang Ping stepped forward and extended his hand, which Weber grasped, holding it longer this time. He spoke in English, "Professor Yang, I’ve read your papers, it’s a pleasure to meet you. The medical field didn’t expect to have a genius like you."

Yang Ping looked at him, "You’re too kind, it’s just a bit of luck."

Weber was taken aback for a moment, then smiled, "Chinese people are always so modest."

Weber skipped the small talk about the weather or the journey. He straightforwardly asked, "Professor Yang, your hypothesis on the last page of your review, how confident are you in it?"

Yang Ping looked at him, "If I answered you now, would you believe me?"

Weber was taken aback again, having asked this question countless times at academic conferences, usually getting answers like "quite confident," "preliminary data supports it," or "we are in the process of verifying"—all clichés. No one had ever asked him back, "Would you believe me?"

"No!" Weber replied honestly, "That’s why I brought two students to let them see the data for themselves."

"Then let’s look at the data first."

Yang Ping led Weber and his two students directly to the meeting room. Manstein had already arranged all the data in logical order, from M7 to M8 to M21 to Chen Jianguo, from animals to humans, from acute to chronic to non-targeted. Spread across the desktop were dozens of charts and photographs, with each one having a yellow sticky note marked with dates and conditions.

Weber sat down and began looking at them from the first one. He looked very slowly, spending several minutes on each one, sometimes picking up a magnifying glass and looking at the microscopic photos for a long time, then asking the students beside him, "Did you see this?" The students leaned over and either nodded or shook their heads. Weber said nothing, continuing to the next one.

Manstein stood by, watching Weber leaf through the data, feeling a strange sensation in his heart. Ten years ago, at an academic conference in Germany, after hearing his report, Weber publicly said, "Dr. Manstein, your experiment design is quite ingenious, but your conclusions are too far-fetched. Science is not a hundred-meter sprint but a marathon; running too fast will make you stumble."

At that time, Manstein was very resentful of Weber, feeling that he was always self-righteous and didn’t understand how a genius like himself thought.

Now, with Weber sitting here, he didn’t feel that much resentment anymore.

Two hours later, Weber finished looking at the last one, a photo of Chen Jianguo’s cerebrospinal fluid cell smear. He put down the magnifying glass, leaned back in his chair, and took off his glasses to rub his eyes.

"Manstein."

"Here!"

"You do have the capital to proceed quickly."

Manstein said nothing.

Weber turned to Yang Ping, "Professor Yang, your data is clean. I can’t say I completely believe your conclusions because the word ’believe’ carries too much weight. What I can say is that your data supports your conclusions. Also, your hypothesis is very imaginative, beyond what I could conceive."

"But?" Yang Ping spoke the unspoken word for him.

Weber glanced at him. "But, your hypothesis hasn’t been proven. You’ve seen correlation, the microenvironment change is related to cell activation, and cell activation is related to functional recovery. But what about causation? How can you prove that cell activation caused functional recovery, rather than functional recovery attracting some cells to join in the fun? Mechanism? That’s the toughest part."

Manstein wanted to speak, but Yang Ping pressed his hand.

"Professor Weber, you’re right; the causation hasn’t been rigorously proven. Our next experimental design aims to solve this problem. Using chemical genetics, we will specifically clear the activated cells to see if the recovery is hindered. If after clearing these cells, recovery stops, then it proves causation."

Weber was silent for a moment. "How much funding does this experimental design require?"

"About ten million dollars," Yang Ping replied.

"I’ll help you find funding when I get back."

"No, thank you, we have enough funding."

Weber rubbed his eyes; is China really that financially bold now? He found it hard to believe.

In the afternoon, Weber requested to see Chen Jianguo.

Yang Ping took him to the rehabilitation training room. Chen Jianguo was doing stand training, with Sister Li standing beside him holding a towel. Weber stood at the door, not entering, watching through the glass on the door.

Chen Jianguo was holding onto the parallel bars, his legs trembling slightly but standing steadily. His gaze was focused on the wall in front, his expression concentrated, like he was completing a very important task—standing. Weber watched for about five minutes, then turned and asked Yang Ping, "How long has he been standing?"

"His first independent stand was in the fortieth postoperative week. Now, it’s the forty-eighth postoperative week, and he can stand for about five minutes."

"Injury segment?"

"T5 thoracic, complete, injured eleven years ago."

Weber nodded, then fell silent for a moment. "Professor Yang, I have a student. She had a car accident five years ago, resulting in cervical spinal cord injury and high-level paralysis. She can’t move anything below her shoulders. She was only twenty-four and had just graduated with a Ph.D. when she was injured. She is still alive, still doing research, using a stick in her mouth to tap the keyboard and has published several papers. She never complains, never gives up. But every time I see her, I feel terrible. Not because she’s in a wheelchair—she doesn’t even mind—but because I’ve done fifty years of research and still can’t help her."

Yang Ping did not speak.

"Before I came today, she said to me, ’Teacher, go and see if Professor Yang and Professor Manstein’s theories are true. If they are, I will keep waiting.’ Weber’s voice finally had a slight tremor, not very obvious, but Yang Ping heard it.

Yang Ping looked at him, "Professor Weber, I cannot guarantee your student will stand up. But I can guarantee that we will not stop. It’s not about proving who is right or wrong, just the pursuit of unknown knowledge."

Weber extended his hand and shook Yang Ping’s. He turned and walked into the rehabilitation training room. Chen Jianguo saw him coming but did not let go, continuing to hold onto the parallel bars.

"Mr. Chen, I am Herman Weber from Germany," Weber said in heavily accented but understandable Chinese. "May I ask you a question?"

"Please."

"How long do you stand every day?"

"About five minutes."

"Is it tiring?"

"Tiring!"

"Then why keep standing?"

Chen Jianguo thought for a moment, "Because I want to walk out, not far, just out to the door, to see the sun outside. I’ve been in a wheelchair for eleven years, long enough."

Weber said nothing, standing there watching Chen Jianguo stand for the last two minutes. Chen Jianguo released the parallel bars, and Sister Li came over to help him sit back in the wheelchair. He took a few breaths.

When Weber came out of the rehabilitation training room, Yang Ping and Manstein were both standing in the corridor. Manstein leaned against the wall, arms crossed over his chest, expression calm.

"Manstein," Weber said in German.

"Here!"

"I used to say you were moving too fast, speaking too much, and drawing conclusions too early. I don’t think that now."

Manstein said nothing, and Weber continued, "It’s not that you moved too fast, it’s that you went too far. So far that we old guys couldn’t see your back and thought you were going the wrong way. You never went the wrong way; you just didn’t wait for us."

Manstein wanted to say something.

"No need to explain, I’m not apologizing, I’m stating a fact," Weber interrupted him, then turned to Yang Ping, "Professor Yang, I’m going to change the research direction of my laboratory. The previous direction has been pursued for almost forty years with nothing clinically useful. I want to turn to your direction."

Yang Ping looked at him, "Your laboratory, your students, your funding, you decide freely."

"I’ve decided to get involved now!"

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