Surgery Godfather

Chapter 2271: Chapter 1471: Openness Brings Vitality (Part 2)

"Dad, do you think my drawing is good?"

"Yes."

"Better than your paper?"

Yang Ping laughed. This "better than the paper" joke had been used by Dabao many times. Each time he used it at just the right moment, like a well-practiced comedian.

"Better than all my papers," he said.

Dabao carefully placed the drawing on the coffee table, ran back to the kitchen door, poked his head in, and shouted, "Mom, Dad said my drawing is better than his paper!"

Xiao Su’s voice came from the kitchen, with a smile, "Then you’re really amazing!"

Yang Ping washed his hands and walked to the kitchen door. Xiao Su was serving the food: braised pork ribs, with the sauce gently shaking in the tray, steaming hot. Erbao cried out from the nursery and then stopped, perhaps just turned over.

"Today, Lin Xiaoyu’s MRI came out," Yang Ping said.

Xiao Su handed him a plate, "How is it?"

"The necrotic lesion is 11.2 millimeters. It’s 2.1 millimeters larger than last time. The surrounding edema is subsiding, indicating that the inflammatory response is decreasing."

Xiao Su looked at him, waiting for him to continue. She knew he had more to say.

"I’m thinking about something," Yang Ping said, holding the plate and standing between the kitchen and the dining room. "The necrotic lesion keeps enlarging, which is good. But the rate of enlargement is slowing down. From the first to the second time, it increased by forty percent; from the second to the third, by thirty percent; from the third to the fourth, by twenty-something; and this time, only by twenty-one percent. It’s not a plateau, but perhaps a slowdown. I don’t know if it’s a normal treatment response or if her body is developing drug resistance."

Xiao Su took out another plate of food and placed it on the table.

"What can you do?"

"There are two choices. One is to maintain the current situation and continue with the original treatment plan. The necrotic lesion is still enlarging, indicating the treatment is still effective, just diminishing. Another option is to adjust the plan, either increase the dosage, shorten the interval, or combine other medications."

"Which one will you choose?"

Yang Ping sat down at the dining table, picked up his chopsticks, but didn’t start eating.

"I haven’t decided yet."

Dabao climbed onto the chair, grabbed a spoon, and knocked on the edge of the bowl, "Eat, eat, I’m hungry!"

Xiao Su sat down beside him, picked up a piece of rib for him, and turned to Yang Ping, "If you haven’t decided, eat first, think after eating."

Yang Ping nodded, lowered his head, and started eating.

Dabao loved pork ribs the most. The ribs were well-stewed, separating the meat from the bone with a touch of chopsticks. As he chewed the meat, the thought was still in his mind. The rate of increase is slowing down. It’s not an abrupt stop, it’s gradually slowing down. The tumor still responds, but the response is not as strong as before. This is a precursor to drug resistance. It’s not resistant yet, but it’s heading in that direction.

He needs to make a decision. Not today, not tomorrow, but soon.

After finishing the meal, Yang Ping washed the dishes and spent some time building blocks with Dabao. They built a hospital, and Dabao insisted on placing an Ultraman at the hospital entrance, saying it’s to "protect the patients." Yang Ping asked him how Ultraman protected patients, and Dabao said, "Ultraman uses light to shine on patients, and they get better."

"That’s not Ultraman, that’s a radiotherapy machine."

"What’s radiotherapy?"

"It’s... a method to treat tumors."

"What’s a tumor?"

Yang Ping thought for a moment, deciding to explain in a way a five-year-old could understand, "It’s something growing inside the body that shouldn’t be there. Doctors have to figure out how to remove it."

"How do they remove it?"

"They can cut it out, use drugs to attack it, or shine light on it."

Dabao tilted his head, thought for a moment, and then said, "Then Ultraman is a doctor; Ultraman’s light is the medicine, and Ultraman fighting monsters is like doctors treating diseases."

Yang Ping was taken aback.

"Exactly!" he said, "Ultraman is a doctor."

Dabao nodded in satisfaction and placed Ultraman at the top of the block hospital.

After Dabao fell asleep, Yang Ping went into the study and turned on the computer. Several new emails awaited in his inbox. One was from Weber, titled "Final Version of Repair Program Blueprint." The attachment was a massive image file; Yang Ping downloaded it and opened it, the screen filled with densely packed nodes and connections.

Weber’s email read: "563 nodes, 3,002 connections, more than the planned nodes and connections before. All seven modules have been verified. Proliferation module, differentiation module, migration module, communication module, angiogenesis module, inflammation regulation module, extracellular matrix remodeling module. Each module’s internal connections have been independently verified three times, and cross-module connections verified twice. Every line in this map is data-supported."

Yang Ping zoomed in on the image, inspecting it square by square from the top-left corner. 563 nodes, each with a protein name and functional classification. 3,002 connections, each marked with different colors indicating verification methods and data sources. This was a map. A navigation map for human self-repair. Not a sketch, not a concept, but a map locatable with coordinates, verifiable with data, and operable with surgery.

In the lower-right corner of the image, he saw a small line of text added by Weber: "To Professor Yang, who drew the first line."

Yang Ping stared at this line for a few seconds, then closed the image.

He replied to Weber: "Received the map. Very good. Next step: find the control center of this map. 563 nodes are too many; clinical application can’t cover everything. There must be one or several nodes in key positions within the network controlling its switch. Find them, and you’ll find the master switch of the repair program."

After sending this, he added another message: "Discuss tomorrow morning during the run."

Weber immediately replied with one word: "Okay."

Yang Ping closed the computer and leaned back in his chair. The study was very quiet, with only the ticking of the wall clock’s second hand. Erbao’s even breathing sounds came from the nursery next door, footsteps from Xiao Su in the living room, probably turning off the TV. These sounds were gentle, but in the night’s silence, they seemed amplified many times over.

Xiao Su was already resting, and Erbao slept on the small bed beside her with his little hands clenched into fists, raised beside his head like a tiny sculpture. Yang Ping sat by the bedside, looking at Erbao’s face. A little over a month old, the baby’s skin was tender and translucent, showing the subcutaneous capillaries. Long eye-lines without eyelashes yet, very small mouth, and a shallow little lip pearl on the upper lip.

The next morning, when Yang Ping entered the ward department, Lu Xiaolu was already in the office. Lin Xiaoyu’s medical records and latest test results spread on the table in front of him, pen in hand, writing something, adjusting Lin Xiaoyu’s plan.

At ten in the morning, in Lin Xiaoyu’s ward.

Her mother sat by the bed, holding a partially knitted sweater, light blue, similar in color to Erbao’s. When she saw Yang Ping and Lu Xiaolu enter together, she put down the knitting and stood up.

"Professor Yang, Doctor Lu."

"Please sit," Yang Ping sat on the chair beside the bed, "We need to discuss something with you."

Lin Xiaoyu’s mother sat down. She looked very calm, but her fingers were slightly trembling. Yang Ping noticed, and so did Lu Xiaolu.

"Xiaoyu’s treatment has been going on for nearly half a year. The effect is very good. The necrotic lesion has grown from 3.2 millimeters to 11.2 millimeters, the tumor is shrinking, the symptoms are improving. But she has a genetic mutation called PDGFRA amplification. This mutation is related to the growth of the tumor. We need to make some adjustments to the treatment..."

Lin Xiaoyu’s mother watched him, her lips moved slightly, but she didn’t speak; she quietly listened to Yang Ping’s explanation.

When leaving the ward, Lu Xiaolu was already waiting at the office door, holding a document, looking more serious than usual. Yang Ping opened the door to let him in. Lu Xiaolu placed the document on the table, opened it, and it was a draft of a clinical trial plan.

"Professor, here’s the new K Therapy clinical trial plan I drafted. Please take a look."

Yang Ping sat down and flipped through it page by page. The plan was very standard, background, objective, design, inclusion criteria, exclusion criteria, intervention plan, evaluation indicators, statistical methods, safety monitoring, data management, ethical considerations, each part well detailed.

"Professor, your openness back then was right. Since you shared your theory openly, research surrounding it has mushroomed worldwide. Media speculates several Nobel Prizes could emerge in these fields, which is truly exciting."

Yang Ping flipped to the last page, finished reading, and then looked up, "Openness! It breeds vitality."

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