Jiang He walked quickly.

Chen Hao had to jog to keep up, panting as he spoke, "Hey, Old Jiang, slow down! Where are we going?"

"Back to the dorm."

The two of them passed through the tree-lined path in front of the academic building.

He looked up, squinting at the sky. Maybe it was just his imagination, but he felt that the sky in ’08 was even bluer.

Even though thousands of kilometers separated him from Shen Yu.

But Jiang He knew that under this same sky, she was living a happy life right now.

Just the thought of it was almost enough to make him lose control of his emotions...

In his past life, the two of them had also gone through a period of long-distance dating.

Back then, Shen Yu loved to post on her social media: "Even though I can’t see Dr. Jiang today, just looking up at the sky and knowing we’re under the same one makes me feel so happy. Miss you~"

The chirping of cicadas, sunlight filtering through the leaves, the clamor of the basketball court—it all came rushing back.

It was too real.

So real that Jiang He felt as if he had just woken from a long nightmare...

"I’m serious, what the hell is wrong with you?"

Seeing Jiang He’s constantly tense expression, Chen Hao felt a little creeped out.

He couldn’t help but lean in closer to study his expression, trying to liven up the mood. "You were a beast in class just now. You even answered such a difficult question. Have you been secretly studying behind our backs?"

When Jiang He still didn’t respond, Chen Hao scratched his head and said, "Hey, let me tell you something juicy. I heard this from my cousin who’s an intern at Affiliated Hospital No. 1. It’s absolutely firsthand gossip."

Jiang He nodded, indicating he was listening.

Chen Hao immediately perked up. "So, last night, in the middle of the night, the ER admitted a real character—a girl who came in clutching her butt, refusing to let anyone touch it."

"They ended up taking an X-ray, and guess what they found?"

"A light bulb stuck in her rectum!"

"The director of general surgery even came for a consultation. Said the negative pressure was too strong to pull it out. Apparently, they ended up having to break the bulb first and take out the glass shards piece by piece..."

"Tsk, tsk, tsk, just thinking about that scene gives me the creeps."

Chen Hao’s description was very vivid.

But Jiang He was completely unfazed.

He’d seen far too many strange cases like this in the emergency room.

Eels, eggplants, bottles of toilet water...

There was nothing people couldn’t imagine, and nothing they wouldn’t do.

Besides, breaking the glass would make it extremely easy for the shards to rupture the intestinal wall.

That general surgery director would have been unlikely to do that.

It was most likely a rumor spread by the interns.

"That girl was lucky. It’s a miracle there was no perforation."

Jiang He commented nonchalantly, not bothering to explain the Foley catheter extraction method to Chen Hao.

Chen Hao paused, then said helplessly, "...Dude, is that really the point? Forget it, forget it. Since you’re in a bad mood today..."

After a five-minute walk, with Chen Hao leading the way, they arrived back at the men’s dormitory.

Room 402.

He pushed the door open and went inside. The room was a little dark.

It was a four-person room with loft beds over desks.

Two posters were taped to the wall.

One was of Tracy McGrady’s pull-up jumper, and the other was of Illidan from World of Warcraft.

Jiang He followed his faint memories to his own bunk.

The blanket was balled up, and a copy of *Zhiyin Manke* was tossed next to the pillow.

He looked up and asked, "Where’s the charger?"

"On your own desk, duh?" Chen Hao tossed his backpack onto his bed. "Seriously, Old Jiang, have you lost your mind today?"

Jiang He rummaged around on his desk for a moment.

From a messy tangle of data cables and headphone wires, he pulled out a strangely shaped object.

It was a plastic clip half the size of his palm with a transparent case, revealing a red and green circuit board inside. On top were two adjustable metal pins.

A universal charger.

Jiang He stared at the thing in his hand, stunned for a few seconds.

’This thing...’ he thought. ’It must have been over a decade since I last used one...’

Jiang He seriously tried to recall how to use it, and then it came back to him.

Once you plugged it in.

The LED light would flash.

Red on the left, green on the right, with a cheap, plasticky feel.

This was 2008.

No internet everywhere, all the time. No battery anxiety. A single battery could last for three days, and when it died, you just swapped it for a spare.

Everything was slow.

Slow enough to give people enough time to think, to make amends.

After a moment of thought, Jiang He said, "Let’s go. To the library."

Chen Hao checked, "Go where?"

"The library."

"???"

Chen Hao was completely baffled. "Bro, don’t tell me you skipped out of Old Xie’s class just to go study somewhere else?"

Jiang He’s tone was calm. "I need to look up some information on the latest advancements in hepatobiliary surgery."

"Why are you looking that stuff up?" Chen Hao asked, confused. "Besides, we have diagnostics this afternoon. Aren’t you going to take a nap?"

"I’m skipping it." Jiang He quickly tidied his desk and stuffed a notebook into his pocket. "You’re not napping either. Come with me."

"I’m not going! You can kill me, but I’m not going! I need to catch up on sleep!" Chen Hao hugged his pillow, refusing to yield.

「Ten minutes later.」

In the library’s electronic reading room, Chen Hao sat in front of a computer, the will to live drained from his face, and skillfully opened a game of Spider Solitaire.

He muttered, "I’m such an idiot. I never should have bothered with you, seriously..."

Jiang He sat at the station next to him.

In front of him was a bulky CRT monitor, typical of the era. The screen was slightly yellowed, and the low refresh rate tired your eyes after a while.

He clicked the Internet Explorer icon on the desktop.

The white page froze for a full five seconds before slowly loading.

Jiang He typed several keywords into the search bar one by one:

"Latest literature on pancreatic cancer treatment."

"Gemcitabine clinical data."

"Laparoscopic progress in Whipple procedure."

He hit Enter.

The page began to slowly refresh.

Jiang He read through the results seriously, his brow furrowing deeper and deeper.

Although he had prepared himself for it, seeing the actual state of medicine in 2008 was still suffocating.

It was so backward.

For pancreatic cancer, the standard treatment was still the extremely limited gemcitabine monotherapy.

As for albumin-bound paclitaxel, which would later shine, it wasn’t even on the market yet.

The FOLFIRINOX regimen? Still in the clinical trial phase, and highly controversial at that.

As for surgery...

Jiang He clicked on a paper just published by the Chinese Medical Association.

Regarding laparoscopic pancreaticoduodenectomy (LPD), very few hospitals in the country could perform it, and the complication rate was extremely high.

The mainstream view was still that a major open surgery was the safest option.

"They’re still using such primitive methods..." Jiang He muttered under his breath.

At this point in time, the medical world had almost no way to fight the "King of Cancers."

There was no precision medicine, no targeted drugs, and even the surgical instruments were terrifyingly crude...

"What’re you searching for?" Chen Hao, sitting next to him, glanced at Jiang He’s screen. It was packed with dense English and technical terms, and his head immediately started to ache. "Are you secretly studying English behind our backs again?"

Jiang He ignored him and continued searching for Professor Yang Xu—his mentor from his past life—to see what his research focus was at this time.

Soon, he had his results.

Professor Yang Xu was currently leading a study at Nanshan Medical University Affiliated Hospital on improving the "radical resection for hilar cholangiocarcinoma."

Jiang He’s fingers paused over the keyboard.

After a moment, he said, "Chen Hao, go check out a few books for me."

He scribbled down a few book titles, all in fields that were still very cutting-edge, even obscure, in 2008.

"Also," Jiang He paused, his tone softening slightly, "do you have any money?"

"Huh?" Chen Hao instinctively covered his pocket. "What for? I only have this week’s living expenses left..."

"I don’t need much, just ten yuan." Jiang He pointed at the computer screen. "I need to print out some articles."

In 2008, printing cost ten cents a page.

Chen Hao looked at Jiang He’s serious expression, sighed, and pulled a crumpled ten-yuan bill from his pocket.

"I give up. I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but since you’re in a bad mood, I’ll lend you the money!"

Chen Hao put his headphones back on and mumbled, "But we have a deal. If you get lucky and pass the preliminary round, you have to treat me to malatang from that place on the back street!"

Jiang He took the money and nodded lightly. "Deal."