An Irreversible Medical Verdict

"She's not going there armed with a submachine gun for an attack."

"They're technical workers now. Sitting in an armored command vehicle, enjoying air conditioning and hot milk, they glance at who has black lines on their clothes and report their location via walkie-talkie."

"Dozens of SWAT officers are out there with real weapons to arrest people; that's called a technological barrier. You, who rely solely on brute force, can't understand that."

"What if there's danger? Criminals don't care if you're a skilled worker or not!"

"Danger? She's surrounded by plainclothes officers. Lingling Liu is also in the Ministry of Public Security. If she loses even a single hair, Old Six will have to stand outside Director Wang's door as punishment with a written self-criticism. Why are you meddling in this?"

Zhang Tiehan opened his mouth, but couldn't say anything.

"Besides."

Old Zhou patted him on the shoulder, "This is a collaboration between ministries, a temporary assignment for training. When she returns, her resume will have added an experience point in handling cases at a ministry level."

Seeing his still bitter face, Sing Sing clicked his tongue in exasperation.

"Instead of lamenting here, why don't you go to the finance department and ask how the relocation allowance and high-temperature allowance for this trip will be paid! Don't let the special investigation team swallow up our unit's benefits."

The Wandering Girl walked over at this moment, still holding a cup of milk tea in her hand.

"I suspect your mouth has been blessed."

Sing Sing straightened his suit and tie, "Tch, you call this grassroots ideological work!"

"Let's go see Luke, and while we're at it, pick up two boxes of genuine fragrant pears. Lao Wang is such a cheapskate; he never approves fruit allowances for business trips. We'll have to fend for ourselves."

The Wandering Girl didn't reply, but instead placed her hand on Sing Sing's arm.

A flash of purple light, and both feet touched the ground.

Sing Sing habitually took a deep breath, preparing to face the rugged, sandy smell of Northwest China.

What hit my nostrils was a strong smell of disinfectant.

He opened his eyes and saw a sign on the wall: The Fourth Medical Center of the Capital Military Family Hospital.

Next to it are four red characters: Severe Burns.

Sing Sing had never been to this hospital, but he knew exactly where it was—the top place in the country for treating burns, basically only admitting critically ill patients whose lives were hanging by a thread.

He turned to look at the Wandering Girl.

"Are Korla's fragrant pears growing in a hospital ward?"

The Wandering Girl sighed, "People from the Academy of Academy of Agricultural Sciences brought him here a few days ago on a private plane. Director Wang personally went to pick him up, and he threw a huge tantrum at the time."

Old Zhou seemed a bit down; he had a pretty good idea what had happened.

That shouldn't be the case, Luke can fly!

Explode?

Enclosed space?

The two walked towards the 749 Bureau's special area, passing three checkpoints along the way.

That afternoon, a fire broke out in the Seventh Windbreak Forest Zone on the northern edge of the Tarim Basin.

The Wandering Girl walked slowly, her voice a little hoarse, "The fire was huge. He went to test soil samples, more than 20 kilometers away from the main force. His phone was dead. There was no one around."

The two stopped in front of a large glass window, inside which lay a person on a hospital bed.

Luke Shaw.

"By the time the fire arrived, it was already out. It hadn't burned the firebreak. Three acres of windbreak forest were burned."

I revisited Korla myself last time.

His old wounds have almost healed, and the wings on his back can be more than two meters long when spread out.

They even poured Sing Sing a cup of local brick tea and called him "Director Zhou" in Mandarin with a mixed accent of southern United States and Xinjiang.

Now, a charred human-shaped body lies on the bed.

His eyes were wrapped in thick gauze, but his right arm was not bandaged from the elbow down.

The arm was a withered, dark brown color, covered with cracked lines.

Its back was padded with a special soft pad, and its original insect wings were gone.

Sing Sing stood motionless in front of the glass.

After a long while, he reached into his pocket, pulled out a cigarette case, took one out, and put it in his mouth.

He just kept chewing on the cigarette holder.

How did the fire start?

The Wandering Girl shook her head.

"I don't know. The local fire department inspected it, and it wasn't a spontaneous combustion. They found traces of a high concentration of accelerant in the soil. People from the Academy of Agricultural Sciences said that there's usually not a soul in that grove."

"He didn't run away." Sing Sing looked at the person inside the glass.

The Wandering Girl hummed in agreement, looking down at her toes. "He can escape. His wings haven't fully recovered, but he should be able to fly out of the fire."

She sniffed. "The old professor was crying uncontrollably in the corridor yesterday. He said the chemical plant's chemical reagent storage station is right behind the Seventh Windbreak Forest Zone. The wind was blowing in that direction that day."

"If the fire gets past the firebreak, half the county will be gone."

Sing Sing didn't ask any more questions, and took the cigarette out of his mouth and held it between his fingers.

He walked to the doctor's office at the end of the corridor and pushed the door open.

Inside sat a middle-aged doctor in a white coat.

His surname is Qiu, he is in his early fifties, has a round face, and his temples are completely white.

He visited the station a few months ago when Sing Sing brought Wolverine back to the station. At that time, Doctor Qiu even said with a smile, "The physiques of the people in your station are really interesting."

He wasn't smiling now; his eyes were bloodshot from staying up all night.

A stack of CT scans and post-operative records were spread out on the table. Doctor Qiu poured a glass of water and pushed it over.

Just say it.

Doctor Qiu clipped a film onto the lightbox.

In the black and white image, the orbital bone is intact, but the structure of the two eyeballs is no longer distinguishable as normal.

"The corneas of both eyes have suffered full-thickness thermal damage, the lenses are cloudy, and the retina has detached. In the simplest terms, they are blind."

"Irreversible?"

"With current medical technology, it is irreversible."

Doctor Qiu hesitated for a moment, "Unless Da Vinci has some technology beyond my understanding, otherwise... the sense of light cannot be restored."

He changed the film.

"Right forearm. From the middle of the ulna to the fingertips, all the muscles and nerves are carbonized. We've performed three debridements, but the area of tissue necrosis is still expanding. The conservative option is amputation up to four fingers below the elbow; otherwise, the infection will spread upwards."

Doctor Qiu removed the film from the lightbox and put it back in the folder.

"The wings."

He stopped using X-rays and started gesturing with his hands.

"The wing membranes themselves are not skeletal structures, but rather more like specialized epidermal products. After being burned at high temperatures, the entire basal stem cell layer died, and the remaining ends were sealed by fibrosis."

"In layman's terms?"

It's like it's been uprooted. It won't grow back.

Will he survive?

Doctor Qiu nodded.

"His life has been saved. He suffered burns over 87% of his body, but his basal metabolic rate is much faster than the average person's, and his recovery speed exceeded expectations after the infection was brought under control. During his coma, all his vital signs were improving."

When can you get out of bed?

"Optimistically, two months. But psychologically..."

Doctor Qiu took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

"You need to be mentally prepared. Going from being able to fly in the sky to becoming like this is not something everyone can handle."

Sing Sing left the office, Wandering Girl leaned against the wall, seeing his expression but saying nothing.

He walked up to the glass and stopped.

Luke Shaw lay quietly in his hospital bed.

His chest rose and fell slightly, yet with extraordinary resilience.