Surgery Godfather

Chapter 2175: Chapter 1429: Turning a Blind Eye

After Weber returned to Germany, Manstein received an email.

It wasn’t from Weber; it was signed by Hanna, the young female postdoc who came to China with Weber. She was blonde, had a low ponytail, and hardly spoke throughout the entire time. The email was very brief:

"Professor Manstein, this is Hanna, Professor Weber’s student. Last week in China, I saw your data. After returning to Germany, I reviewed our laboratory’s data from the past five years and found that three independent studies exhibited phenomena similar to your primordial cell activation. At that time, we interpreted those phenomena as ’non-specific reactions’ or ’background noise’ and did not investigate further. Now, I suspect we might have missed something important. Professor Weber asked me to inquire if you would be willing to help us reanalyze the raw data if we sent it to you."

Manstein forwarded the email to Yang Ping, with a note: "Professor, Weber’s team found shadows of our phenomena in their past experimental data."

Yang Ping’s reply: "Not shadows, but the same phenomenon from a different perspective. They saw it but didn’t recognize it, just like you saw in M21 initially. These things were always there, just waiting for someone to identify them. In fact, we didn’t create anything; we merely discovered what already existed. The whole process is about recognition, not creation."

Manstein looked at these words and recalled M21.

The monkey they called "Surprise," whose recovery was long considered an "accident." It wasn’t a successful case in the targeted intervention group, nor was it the focus of mechanism research, just a footnote, an anomaly mentioned in passing. If it weren’t for that late-night recoloring, if he hadn’t insisted on using double labeling with bicortedine and NeuroD, those red, migrating, repairing cells might have forever slumbered in wax blocks, unnoticed by anyone.

That night, as Manstein sat before the microscope, when the double labeling result lit up in the field of view, he thought he was mistaken. He adjusted the focus and looked again. Adjusted again, and looked once more. It wasn’t that blurry gray-red of background staining but a clean, intense red, like flames. Hundreds or thousands of positive cells extended outward from the damaged area, forming chains like a migrating flock of birds.

His first reaction wasn’t excitement but doubt. Was there an issue with the antibodies? He repeatedly checked the experiment records, brought out the negative controls, and asked Fritz to verify. Fritz, a veteran lab technician with nearly thirty years of histology experience, had seen every type of tissue section. He placed the tissue section on the microscope, adjusted the focus, remained silent for about ten seconds, then looked up at Manstein with a gaze that wasn’t surprise but something more complex, with a hint of reverence.

"This wasn’t a mis-stain," Fritz said.

The day the double labeling results were released, everyone in the lab gathered around. Two fluorescent photos lay side by side, the left one with bicortedine, the right with NeuroD, with nearly complete overlap in the positive areas. Those glowing cells shone like silent lamps against the dark backdrop, as if saying: We’ve always been here.

Manstein replied to Hanna’s email: "Send the data over."

Three days later, a huge parcel from Germany arrived at the Sanbo Research Institute. Inside were three external hard drives, with a total capacity of 4TB, containing all the raw data from a laboratory over the past five years. Manstein connected the hard drives to the computer, and as he opened the first layer of folders, his fingers paused.

Yang Ping walked over and stood behind him. On the screen was a list of folders sorted in chronological order, with the earliest date going back five years. Five years of data, thousands of experiments, tens of thousands of microscope photos, hundreds of thousands of data points. Weber had sent all the raw data over, with no reservations.

"He’s moved out all his assets," Yang Ping said.

"Not moved out, but handed over," Manstein said. "He trusts us."

As he said this, Manstein himself felt the weight of the words. Trust does exist in academia, but those trusts usually have limits. Laboratories can collaborate, share data, and peer review each other, but rarely does someone hand over all the original data, including those deemed ’invalid,’ labeled as ’anomalies,’ or archived in ’discarded’ folders, without reservation to another laboratory.

Weber wasn’t just collaborating; he was surrendering.

Manstein assigned the task to five people in the lab, each responsible for data from one year. Clara handled electrophysiology, Hans took care of behavioral science, August focused on histology, Fritz was in charge of animal housing records, and Manstein himself was responsible for the integration and cross-verification of all data. Every day at 3 PM, the five gathered in the Meeting Room, each spending ten minutes reporting the day’s findings.

Soon, Clara discovered an electrophysiological signal marked as an ’anomaly’ in the data she was responsible for. The original record stated: "M44, twentieth week postoperative, irregular myoelectric activity in the lower limbs. Possibly related to electrode placement, exclusion recommended." Clara pulled up that section of the original waveform, magnified and filtered it, and compared it to the new potential waveforms recorded by Manstein’s team. They were nearly identical.

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