Chapter Fifty: Survival [Please Recommend!]

Having temporarily saved Chen Feng's life, Zhang Wenhao then gave Xiao Si's wound a simple hemostatic treatment. It was only then that the police and ambulance finally arrived, belatedly.

An armed kidnapping involving gunfire and injuries was an exceedingly serious crime—something that hadn’t happened in Jiangcheng for a long time. Thus, the police took the emergency call extremely seriously, immediately mobilizing nearly all available officers from the High-tech Zone precinct. Yet when they arrived at the Senge Hotel Apartments, they were utterly stunned by what they saw.

The kidnappers had already been subdued. Of the entire gang, three had been captured alive, while the rest all bore serious and obvious injuries.

Wang Cheng, the chief of the High-tech Zone precinct, happened to be on night duty that evening. He personally led the team upon receiving the emergency call. Initially, he’d been worried about how to explain such a grave incident to his superiors, but, unexpectedly, he found himself presented with an enormous opportunity.

One of his squad leaders immediately recognized the man lying unconscious on the ground, knocked out by Zhang Wenhao. Excited, he ran over to Wang Cheng and said, “Chief Wang, luck is on our side tonight! That guy’s a national A-level fugitive—Li Chunyang!”

Wang Cheng was overjoyed. Over the past six years, Li Chunyang had committed over ten crimes across the country, with nine registered victims whose deaths were directly linked to him—a truly heinous criminal. He was also extremely cunning and had a sharp sense for counter-surveillance, which had long kept him at large. No one had expected him to sneak into Nanjing Province to commit further crimes, let alone that he would be apprehended in Wang Cheng’s own jurisdiction, and captured without a single officer lost—his entire gang, in one swoop!

“Excellent!” Wang Cheng exclaimed, unable to contain his excitement. He turned to a trusted subordinate. “Xiao Chen, seal off the scene, then bring these witnesses in to take their statements and organize the details of what happened.”

Just promoted to precinct chief, Wang Cheng was clearly flushed with excitement, convinced that the credit already belonged to him. He frowned as he looked at the two blood-soaked men lying not far away and asked, “Xiao Chen, who are the injured over there?”

“Not sure,” Xiao Chen replied. “Apparently, they acted out of bravery. Several witnesses said most of the kidnappers were taken down by that young man squatting over there.”

“Which young man?” Wang Cheng frowned, trying to see through the dim light. He patted Xiao Chen. “Let’s go, take a look.”

The two approached Zhang Wenhao. Wang Cheng spoke first: “Comrade, I’m Wang Cheng, chief of the High-tech Zone precinct. Please briefly describe what happened here.”

By now, Zhang Wenhao was exhausted from the fierce fight. His left arm had a through-and-through gunshot wound; though not life-threatening, he’d lost plenty of blood. Only moments ago, he’d also exerted himself to save Chen Feng from the brink of death. Now, able at last to catch his breath, waves of weakness swept over him. That was why he squatted there, eyes closed, resting to avoid fainting—and he certainly had no energy to answer Wang Cheng’s questions.

Seeing Zhang Wenhao remain silent, not even lifting his head in basic courtesy, Wang Cheng felt a flash of displeasure. He raised his voice with the stern authority of a leader. “Comrade, please cooperate with our work!”

“He’s not feeling well. Don’t bother him!” Beside them, Su Ruoran turned and snapped at Wang Cheng with a face full of disgust, leaving him momentarily dumbfounded.

A girl—a mere child—daring to speak to him like that!

“Outrageous!” Wang Cheng’s face darkened. He was about to burst out with some official reprimand when Xiao Chen, by his side, interrupted in astonishment, “Chief, the man on the ground is Chen Feng!”

“What?!” Wang Cheng felt his scalp tingle. Chen Feng? This had to be a joke.

He hurried closer for a better look. That deathly pale face—he recognized it. It was indeed the influential Chen Feng, a man who could shake the very fabric of Nanjing Province.

“Trouble, serious trouble,” Wang Cheng’s heart pounded with anxiety. Could it be that Li Chunyang had come to Jiangcheng just to kidnap Chen Feng? How daring could that man be? Wang Cheng had no idea if Chen Feng was dead or alive, and for a moment he didn’t know what to do. Inwardly, he cursed the ambulance for still not arriving. Better Chen Feng die en route to the hospital than here at the crime scene—otherwise, if blame came down from above, how would he answer for it?

At that moment, two ambulances finally arrived. Police directed them over to Chen Feng’s position, and several doctors, nurses, and orderlies rushed out with stretchers. One doctor, wearing a white mask, immediately shone a flashlight into Chen Feng’s pupils.

“You two, move aside! Don’t delay the rescue—the patient’s on the brink of death!” The doctor was clearly displeased with Zhang Wenhao and Su Ruoran, who were squatting in front of Chen Feng. What were a couple of high school students doing in this situation?

Zhang Wenhao lifted his head and glanced at the doctor. “Before you take over, let me warn you: First, stop his arterial bleeding. The bullet shattered his pulmonary artery and upper right lung. He also has hemothorax and pulmonary congestion. I’ve already performed an intercostal drain, but pulmonary congestion can easily trigger coughing, which could worsen the arterial bleeding. If you move him to the ambulance without proper precautions, you’ll kill him.”

The doctor was stunned. He wanted to ask this kid if he was the real doctor here, but then he noticed Su Ruoran was pressing on the patient’s proximal artery, and the wound was indeed in the upper right lung. He grew suspicious, and then spotted the penholder used as an intercostal drain in Chen Feng’s side. For a moment, he was speechless.

Such a makeshift intercostal drainage? What kind of nerves did it take to perform that? Was this kid some kind of battlefield medic? But the country hadn’t fought a war in decades!

“Did you bring plasma?” Zhang Wenhao asked suddenly.

“Ah? No.” The doctor, still in a daze, answered reflexively.

“They said on the phone someone was shot—how could you not bring plasma?!” Zhang Wenhao roared in anger.

A girl in a nurse’s uniform, also masked, quickly spoke up: “Dr. Zhao’s ambulance didn’t have plasma, but ours does!”

Zhang Wenhao immediately pulled over Xiao Si, shook him awake, and asked, “Do you know Chen Feng?”

“Yes,” Xiao Si replied weakly.

“Do you know his blood type?” Zhang Wenhao pressed.

Xiao Si nodded faintly. “Brother Feng is type O.”

Upon hearing this, the nurse hurried to the ambulance, took out an emergency kit, and pulled out a bag of type O plasma. “Should we start the transfusion now?” she asked Zhang Wenhao.

“How many bags of plasma do you have?” Zhang Wenhao asked at once.

The nurse replied quickly, “Six bags of type O, a total of nine hundred milliliters.”

Zhang Wenhao ordered without hesitation, “Give him a pressure infusion of three hundred milliliters first, then move him to the ambulance. That way you won’t cause more bleeding during the transfer. Continue the transfusion normally en route, all the way to the emergency room.”

“Pressure infusion?” The nurse looked embarrassed. “What’s that?”

Zhang Wenhao had no time to explain. “Give me the transfusion kit!” he demanded.

The nurse quickly took a disposable transfusion set from the kit and handed it to Zhang Wenhao, who tore it open. She then handed him an alcohol swab. He quickly disinfected the needle, inserted it into the plasma bag, and, without even using a tourniquet, grabbed Chen Feng’s arm, chose a spot, quickly swabbed it, and, with a deft motion, slid the needle half in and then angled it upward before advancing it further. The needle went straight into Chen Feng’s vein.

The ambulance staff were dumbfounded. Normally, finding a vein without a tourniquet was difficult, not to mention successfully inserting the needle—in this dim light, no less. Just how well did Zhang Wenhao know human vascular anatomy?

Zhang Wenhao then grabbed the plasma bag and squeezed it, forcing the plasma into Chen Feng’s body much faster than gravity alone would allow.

He glanced at the wide-eyed nurse. “This is pressure infusion. If you rely on gravity alone, the transfusion will be too slow—blood loss will outpace it, and you won’t save anyone.”

The nurse lowered her head in shame. She’d done plenty of emergency calls, but this was her first case involving a gunshot wound with major arterial damage.

In a short time, Zhang Wenhao had already transfused two bags of plasma into Chen Feng. Then he called the orderlies over to carefully lift Chen Feng onto a stretcher, personally taking over from Su Ruoran to keep pressure on the wound.

Zhang Wenhao climbed into the ambulance with the stretcher, Su Ruoran close behind. The doctor, who had been silent all this time, tried to follow, but Zhang Wenhao blocked him at the door. “From here to the hospital, there’s nothing you can do for him. I’ve got it.”

The doctor, unable to argue, nodded and got into another ambulance.

The nurse, who had been holding the plasma bag for Chen Feng, now sat opposite Zhang Wenhao, staring at the young man—probably even younger than herself—with a mixture of awe and fear. She couldn’t help but ask, “Did you really know how to do all that, or were you just winging it?”

Zhang Wenhao glanced at her and replied, “If I told you I learned it from movies, would you believe me?”

The nurse shook her head in blank confusion.

Zhang Wenhao looked at the still-unconscious Chen Feng and muttered, “As long as the ER doctors aren’t complete idiots, your life will be saved.”