Soon, the magnesium in the syringe was added to the IV.
“Slowly, slowly.”
As though reciting a prayer, Jeong Min-su adjusted the rate of administration.
It was to adjust the dosage while observing the patient’s response.
Checking that response was Tae-su’s job.
Feeling it with his hands was faster than watching it with his eyes.
Plop.
He placed one hand each on the thigh and calf and waited for a reaction.
The magnesium response appeared quickly.
Twitch……
At last, the cramp stopped.
“Is it done?”
Whip.
Tae-su’s gaze immediately turned toward the ECG.
As if it had been waiting for Tae-su to look, the ECG’s response changed as well.
Beep-beep-beep…… Beep.
The intervals between the ECG sounds, which had been gradually widening, soon became regular.
The fluctuations in the blood pressure readings also decreased sharply.
It was a normal response.
They had escaped the crisis.
With his certainty solidified, Tae-su sent Jeong Min-su an ‘OK’ sign.
“That’s it.”
“Phew.”
“Let’s continue the surgery.”
Tae-su immediately returned to his position.
Jeong Min-su also moved toward the calf to finish the treatment he had been performing.
A short while later.
Click.
Jeong Min-su stepped up beside Tae-su and spoke.
“I’ve finished making the bridge, and just as you predicted, the blood is being distributed.”
“What about the toes?”
“They turned blue, but they’re becoming red again.”
“We’ll check the sensory response once the patient wakes up. Aren’t you going to jump in?”
Tae-su urged him on.
He felt a tingling sensation.
The feeling was so good right now.
He was urging them on because he did not want to miss this moment.
Tae-su was not the only one growing impatient.
Click.
Jeong Min-su hurriedly found and grasped a surgical instrument as he answered.
“I’m going in.”
“Raise the speed.”
“Urgently—no. At this point, we really should hurry.”
“Ready, set, go.”
Tae-su gave the signal out of nowhere.
At the same time, he began moving his hands fiercely, as though running a hundred-meter dash.
Whip, whip, whip.
He moved so quickly that one might have believed he had been resting until now.
Even Tae-su himself was surprised by the speed.
And yet, the tingling sensation was gradually becoming refreshing.
This was it.
His intuition that this was the moment had been right.
Then?
Tap.
He set everything down.
Tae-su put down every burden and lightly rolled his shoulders.
Soon, something astonishing began to happen.
Tae-su’s surgical instruments danced in and out of the wound.
It was an intensely violent and spectacular dance.
Whip, whip, whip.
It was not only his hands that were fast.
His eyes were sharper and more precise than a hawk’s.
“Min-su, pull a little farther to the right.”
“Huh? Oh, okay.”
“What are you doing with your other hand? Aren’t you going to hold this?”
“I—I’m doing it.” Realizing his mistake, Jeong Min-su quickly pulled himself together and moved.
Whip, click, smack.
Tae-su’s hands were not merely fast; they were ever-changing as well.
“Faster.”
“No, why?”
“This side.”
“Th-this—ugh.” Even Jeong Min-su, who had reportedly become accustomed to working with his hands in the field, found it difficult to follow that flow.
In the end, their rhythms fell out of sync, as if their legs had been pulled apart.
Tae-su paid it no heed.
He was not even restricted by the fact that he absolutely needed Jeong Min-su.
He immediately looked for Kim Hyeok-gwon.
“Hyeok-gwon, move the suction farther in.”
“Here.”
“Saline, liquid hemostatic agent, and gauze.”
“Give me one at a time. The fire’s really burning now.”
Kim Hyeok-gwon responded to Tae-su’s orders with a deeply furrowed expression.
But even he found it overwhelming alone.
“More, faster.”
Tae-su’s urging was impossible to predict.
Before long, Kim Hyeok-gwon’s hands reached the point of becoming tangled.
“That doctor, seriously.”
“I’ll take that.”
Rustle.
Jeong Min-su joined in again, matching the rhythm.
Perhaps relieved not to be alone, Kim Hyeok-gwon did not voice his displeasure too strongly.
Tae-su’s solo performance continued after that.
His hands never stopped.
As time passed, his momentum only seemed to increase; there was no sign of his speed slowing down.
“Ha, ha.”
Whip, swish, click.
He drove the operation forward roughly, breathing in short bursts.
There was no consideration for the others in Tae-su’s movements.
It was an absurd forced march—running a marathon at the speed of a hundred-meter dash.
The results were unmistakable.
Tap, tap.
Deep-seated necrotic tissue was tossed out of the operating field.
Tae-su did not even spare it a glance.
He was too intent on moving his instruments in search of new prey.
More. More.
As if unsatisfied, he whipped himself onward even harder.
His chest still did not feel clear.
He wanted to experience the liberating sensation of everything opening up.
The summit was right ahead.
Then he had to go.
Whip, whip, whip.
Tae-su’s hands became even more agile.
For Jeong Min-su, trying to keep up with him was agony.
“You’re going to lose the use of your arms at this rate.”
“……”
Kim Hyeok-gwon also expressed his concern.
“Doctor Choi, this…… this isn’t right.”
“……”
No matter how they tried to coax or scold him, Tae-su did not react.
That only drove the two men even crazier.
At first, they could at least keep up.
As time passed, however, they gradually began to complain about physical exhaustion.
Their hands were starting to creak.
They had clearly overheated.
Jeong Min-su braced his abdomen and shouted loudly.
“Tae-su, Tae-su!”
“……”
“You bastard, come on. ……Are you not listening at all?”
Even when he shouted furiously, there was no response.
He called out several more times, but still received no reaction.
Until then, Jeong Min-su had been too busy merely keeping up. For the first time, he looked at Tae-su.
His gaze, fixed on the wound, was filled with a murderous intensity.
Flash.
Every so often, a hint of madness gleamed in his eyes.
But it was more than that.
The atmosphere in the operating room seemed to be drawn along by Tae-su.
Feeling it, Jeong Min-su found Tae-su unfamiliar.
“You……”
He was just about to ask who he was.
At that instant, Tae-su shifted only his eyes and stared directly at Jeong Min-su.
A sidelong glance.
It was not the fierce gaze itself that was the problem.
Under the torrent of pressure bearing down on him, Jeong Min-su felt as though his breath stopped for a moment.
“Gasp.”
“Who told you to stop?”
“I—I’m doing it. I was doing it.”
Slice, slice.
Jeong Min-su’s hands, which had paused briefly, began moving in a fluster.
Tae-su was unmistakably different from the man he had known until now.
This was the real him.
This cold, sharp, overwhelmingly intimidating figure was Tae-su’s true form.
Jeong Min-su became certain of it.
But that thought lasted only a moment.
No, there was not even time left to think.
Tae-su’s orders poured out like a torrent.
“Jeong Min-su, farther in on this side.”
“Jeong Min-su, what are you doing?”
“Min-su, come in faster.”
“Dr. Jeong. You bastard, if you pull out from there……”
Tae-su’s orders changed without pause, bursting out like a dialect no one could understand.
Jeong Min-su was truly only able to struggle after him.
“Crazy bastard.”
The words he should have kept to himself simply slipped out.
But once he had said them, something felt strange.
What about him, operating alongside Tae-su at this moment?
“Damn it, I’m a crazy bastard too. Let’s go completely insane.”
Muttering, Jeong Min-su looked only ahead without thinking about what came next.
What if his hands broke down?
He would rest then.
He would rather break them.
And yet, it was strange.
Jeong Min-su’s form, which had been floundering as though he had reached his limit, began to change little by little.
He himself did not realize it.
He was pouring all his resentment toward Tae-su into his movements and doing exactly as ordered.
Meanwhile, Tae-su’s concentration continued without end.
That heightened focus allowed him to proceed without hesitation even through sections he himself had once called difficult.
A blockage?
There was none.
Whenever he encountered a difficult problem, a solution emerged immediately, as though he had already considered everything.
“For this part, we’ll rotate it this way and proceed.”
“Here, here, and here. All at the same time.”
He was not merely talking.
Click, whip, whip.
His fierce hands were like a bulldozer.
Nor was it a solo performance.
He thoroughly looked after both Jeong Min-su and Kim Hyeok-gwon, drawing them along so they could respond to his pace.
The problem was that this pace lasted far too long.
It would not have been strange for them to collapse at any moment.
Even so, the two men gritted their teeth.
You’re finished once this is over……
What does that money matter that I have to go through all this suffering?
They cursed him inwardly a hundred times over, but could not say it aloud.
Even if they were reduced to half-dead corpses, Tae-su would be the first to drop.
That was how soaked Tae-su had become in sweat, from his face down to every inch of his body.
Drip, drip.
Sweat poured down, but he did not notice it.
He did not even blink when Kim Hyeok-gwon wiped away his sweat.
He simply loved this moment.
At last, he was tasting freedom.
At least right now, he envied no one in the world.
He could do this.
He was filled with the confidence that he could move even more and transform the wound into something clean.
Come on. Come on.
Encouraging himself, Tae-su continued moving his hands.
Within Tae-su’s constantly changing movements, the aggressive surgery continued relentlessly.
Swish, slice-slice.
He did not spare any part of the wound.
The thigh, the knee, and the calf.
Even though each wound had different characteristics, he showed no hesitation.
The surgery had progressed considerably as a result.
The problem was that the sight was far from pleasant.
Muscles had been gouged out here and there, while blood vessels had been cut and then anastomosed.
Nerves had been arranged, and bones had even been scraped away.
The surgery had reached a certain point.
Shiver……
The sense of liberation Tae-su had been feeling gradually began to fade.
Everything was like that.
Where there was a beginning, there was an end.
It would be a lie to say he felt no regret.
Tsk. Someday, again……
He did not cling to it.
That was because he vaguely sensed what the feeling meant.
Tae-su ten years from now.
Or Tae-su twenty years from now.
It was clearly the skill he would possess after all his tempering was complete.
A chance experience born of desperation.
But he knew what it felt like.
He was satisfied simply to have tasted it.
The look in Tae-su’s eyes gradually returned to calm.
Drip, drip.
Sweat poured down like rain.
“Phew, phew.”
He exhaled in short breaths.
That did not mean his strength had run out.
Even now, he stood firmly on both legs, staring precisely at the operating table.
The final difficulty stood in his way.
The femur (thighbone).
They had used retractors to spread the gap between the muscles as wide as possible.
That allowed them to see the white bone lying within.
The femur was unmistakably far from normal.
The portion near the knee had melted considerably due to inflammation.
“The last hurdle is a high one.”
Tae-su muttered bitterly.