At nearly 9:00 PM, Yan Ziruo came home weighed down with bags of all sizes. The moment she was through the door, she flopped onto the sofa like a boneless heap and whimpered, “My dear brother, I’m dead tired.”

“Get me a glass of water, and then give me a massage!”

Yan Feifan, who was also sprawled on the sofa as if he had no bones, didn’t even acknowledge her.

Yan Ziruo waited a moment. When nothing happened, she had to get up herself, fill a glass from the water cooler, and gulp it down.

When she returned, however, she didn’t forget to bring a glass of water for Yan Feifan.

Still, she gave Yan Feifan’s calf an indignant kick and chided, “You heartless jerk.”

Yan Feifan took a sip of water and scoffed, “You were striding through the mall like you were on air, but the second you get home, suddenly it’s ‘Oh, the pain!’ and you’re playing dead?”

“I’m not going to spoil you.”

“Besides, I was exhausted a long time ago.”

Yan Ziruo lay back down on the sofa, this time resting her head on Yan Feifan’s lap.

“We women are ruled by our emotions. Stimulated by the shopping environment at the mall, we’re in a great mood and naturally don’t feel tired.”

“Home is for relaxing and resting. The accumulated fatigue is released all at once, so of course I don’t want to move a muscle.”

“And you? You looked for a place to sit down every time we entered a store. How dare you say you’re exhausted?”

Yan Feifan didn’t want to waste energy arguing over such a pointless issue, so he couldn’t be bothered to reply.

Just then, his phone rang.

It was Xiao Man.

“Feifan, my friends—the couple—are interested. They said they want to go with me to the orphanage tomorrow to visit the little girl.”

Hearing the excitement in her voice, Yan Feifan replied happily, “That’s wonderful news.”

“With a good environment for auditory training, she’ll be able to communicate verbally just like any other child within a few months after getting the cochlear implant.”

At this, Yan Feifan added a reminder, “Mrs. Man, not all deaf-mute children are candidates for cochlear implants.”

“If the auditory center of the brain is damaged, or if there are factors like mental illness, psychological instability, or cochlear inflammation, then it’s not suitable.”

“We’ll only be able to determine if she’s a suitable candidate for a cochlear implant after she undergoes a series of strict and detailed examinations.”

Xiao Man’s voice came through the phone, “I’ve told them that as well.”

“The moment they saw the little girl’s photo, they were completely smitten. Perhaps it’s fate.”

After a brief pause, Xiao Man asked, “Feifan, we’re going to get her the best cochlear implant, right?”

Yan Feifan grunted in agreement. “It has to work inside the human body for decades, so naturally, we have to use the best product…”

After ending the call with Xiao Man, his sister’s curious voice piped up next to his ear. “Feifan, why are cochlear implants so expensive? They can easily cost well over a hundred thousand, sometimes even two or three hundred thousand.”

Yan Feifan explained slowly, “First, there are the R&D costs. In other words, they have very high patent and technology fees.”

“Second, they’re extremely precise, so the manufacturing costs are high.”

“Third, the material costs are high. Since it has to be implanted in the human body for decades, they use precious metals to avoid adverse reactions.”

Yan Ziruo said, “Oh,” as if in sudden understanding, then asked with great interest, “Feifan, why can’t people with mental illnesses get them?”

Yan Feifan patiently explained, “A cochlear implant is actually a precision electronic device.”

“The way it works is that an external speech processor first converts external sounds into coded electrical signals. These signals are then sent through an electrode implanted in the cochlea to directly stimulate the auditory nerve.”

“This, in turn, sends corresponding nerve impulses up to the brain’s central auditory system, generating the sensation of hearing for the deaf patient.”

Seeing his sister looked a little lost, Yan Feifan simplified, “Sis, you can think of it like this: a cochlear implant converts external sounds into electrical signals to stimulate the brain.”

“This process of electrical stimulation can easily trigger or worsen mental illnesses.”

“Oh, so that’s how it is!”

Yan Ziruo murmured in agreement, sat up, and went to the bathroom. She came back with a plastic basin filled mostly with hot water.

“Feifan, want to soak our feet in hot water together?”

Yan Feifan shook his head in disgust.

Yan Ziruo huffed lightly, sat on the sofa, took off her socks, and started soaking her feet. She even let out an exaggerated shout.

“AHH! So good!”

Listening to the sound of his sister splashing her feet in the water, Yan Feifan’s mind drifted elsewhere.

The accidental death of that chubby Youth had a much greater impact on him than he let on.

Although the Youth’s cause of death had been determined—a ruptured heart.

The subsequent investigation revealed that to escape the bees, he had run frantically for at least three hundred meters with his sister on his back, not caring which way he went.

Later, when he noticed his stung sister’s condition was worsening, he had sprinted another few hundred meters through the woods.

When he couldn’t carry her any longer, he finally put his sister down and ran to the road to flag down a car for help…

His obesity had already put his heart under constant strain, and when suddenly subjected to such a high-intensity burst of exertion, his heart had finally given out.

In that situation, his chances of survival would have been slim even if he had been rushed into an operating room immediately, let alone out in the wild.

There was nothing Yan Feifan could have done.

But the image of the Youth’s eyes, refusing to close, often flashed before his own…

‘If only I’d noticed how bad his condition was earlier… If I’d been a bit quicker treating his sister… If I’d still treated it as an emergency after his sister’s crisis was averted… maybe he could have seen his sister one last time.’

Yan Feifan blamed himself once again.

At the same time, he warned himself never to let his guard down under any circumstances, and to always give it his all.

It was this heightened state of alert that had allowed him to so easily notice the abnormality in Ma Hongchen’s two children today.

And it was this same state of alert that made him even more focused on the cleft lip plastic surgery scheduled for Thursday…

Yan Feifan’s train of thought was derailed by a small, still-damp foot being placed on his thigh.

“Oh, Feifan, there’s a little hard lump on my pinky toe, and it hurts when I press it.”

“Hurry up and take a look!”

Hearing his sister’s words, Yan Feifan reached out with a look of disgust and felt her pinky toe.

He did indeed feel a hard lump about the size of half a soybean.

Yan Feifan lifted his sister’s small foot to get a better look. “It’s nothing serious. It’s a corn, also known as a bone spur.”

“I’ll go get a scalpel and cut it off for you…”

“No, no…”

Yan Ziruo pulled her foot back and quickly stopped Yan Feifan, asking worriedly, “Isn’t there any other way besides cutting it with a knife?”

“Of course there is…”

Yan Feifan explained, “There are corn removal pads made specifically for this, and you can also use cryotherapy with liquid nitrogen, or laser therapy.”

“However, those treatments are either time-consuming or don’t always get the root, and they can sometimes be quite painful.”

“Sis, you know my skills. I guarantee I can get the root out with one cut. It’ll only hurt for a second, and it won’t even be that bad.”

Yan Ziruo hesitated for a moment, then asked for confirmation, “Feifan, are you sure it won’t hurt much?”

Yan Feifan promised her with conviction, “I guarantee it!”

Yan Ziruo took out her phone to look something up. After a moment of internal struggle, she said with an air of heroic sacrifice, “Alright, Feifan. Do it.”

Yan Feifan went to his room and came back with his surgical kit and a medical pack…

After completing the pre-operative procedures like disinfection and sterilization, Yan Feifan pinched his sister’s pinky toe with one hand and brandished the scalpel with the other.

“Sis, it’s impossible for it not to hurt at all. You have to bear with it.”

“If you move around, I might cut you somewhere else.”

Yan Ziruo’s face paled a little. She turned her head away and said through gritted teeth, “I’ll hold still.”

“Okay, I’ll start after I count to three.”

“I’m starting the count… One… It’s done.”

“Done? AH… OWW, OWW, OWW…”

“Yan Feifan, you bastard, that hurt like hell…”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep