Sitting in a half lotus position, Li Yun focused on manipulating his meridian. He had manipulated the channels before to clear out the mysterious qi poison, but had not been able to replicate it since coming back. His sweat beaded down his face, spending much of his energy as he focused his meridian to move.

As the morning sun peeked through the window, Rouxi yawned and opened her eyes. Li Yun’s shadow partially blocked the sun. She looked at him for moment. For the past couple of weeks, Li Yun had been waking up at irregular times to meditate and she had gotten used to it. She stretched her arms and then decided to get up to make breakfast. Before she could, Li Yun dragged her back into bed.

“Yun! We need to get to the airport!” Rouxi yelled at him as he pinned her onto the bed.

They had a flight to Magic City, courtesy of the Magic City Hospital who had formally requested a consultation for a “special” client. Li Yun wouldn’t normally care, but Magic City Hospital was the largest hospital running Phase III clinical  trial on Huifu. In the meanwhile, Academician Tan also extended an invitation when he heard that Li Yun would be in town.

“Let me recover some jing,” Li Yun kissed Rouxi to seal her from talking.

They skipped breakfast and arrived at the airport before boarding time. Rouxi was upset the entire time as they were boarding. She hadn’t talked to him since they left the clinic.

“You’re not going to be angry the entire time?” Li Yun asked as he took his seat, located in the middle of the plane. It was the cheapest seat he could book.

“You made me miss breakfast!” She hissed in a low whisper next to him.

Li Yun wanted to say she was also an active participant, but held his tongue before upsetting her even more. Instead, he asked the flight attendant to bring him youtiao, which seemed to appease Rouxi a bit. She finally smiled after finishing her share. It was important to keep a partner well-fed.

During the flight, Rouxi spent her time researching sales while Li Yun fell asleep watching archery and shooting competitions. In the midst of watching the rifle shooting the target, Li Yun heard a woman’s muffled scream. His brows knitted as his mind narrowed in on the voices around the woman.

"Miss, are you okay?” A female voice asked. Li Yun remembered the voice as being one of the flight attendants.

“Ah! I’m okay, you see, I’m 15 weeks pregnant, it’s just some cramps,” the woman responded.

After a few moments, she flinched, trying to hold back some tears.

“Nini, drink some water,” the man sitting next to the pregnant woman said in a concerned tone as he passed her a bottle of water.

“Argh! My stomach...” The woman’s voice strained, but still in a low voice to avoid interrupting the people around her. ”Argh!”

“Nini!”

Suddenly, a thud. Li Yun opened his eyes and removed his seatbelt.

“Yun, what’s wrong?” Rouxi asked.

“Someone might be in trouble,” Li Yun lifted up the storage cubby, grabbed his medical kit, and then walked up toward the front.

He looked ahead toward the front of the cabin and saw the flight attendant closing the fabric screens to prevent the other passengers from looking into the first class cabin. At that moment, the speakers signaled an announcement with three melodic tones.

“We have an in-flight medical emergency, is there a doctor on board?” The flight attendant's slightly shaken voice signaled to everyone that something serious had happened. “Please head to the first class cabin.”

Before the flight attendant finished her request, Li Yun had already arrived by the woman's seat and checked her pulse. The woman had lost consciousness and her pulse was very weak.

“Are you a doctor?” The husband assumed, but he wasn’t sure how the young man arrived so quickly when the announcement was just made.

“She has appendicitis, we may have to get her to the hospital,” Li Yun told the man as lowered the back of the woman’s seat.

The flight attendant arrived with a doctor in his fifties. The doctor approached the woman and asked for the medical kit as he put his gloves on. He looked at Li Yun as though expecting him to move out of the way. Although the first-class cabin was slightly roomier, it was still crowded with everyone huddled around the aisleway.

“She has appendicitis,” Li Yun repeated, but looking at the demeanor of the doctor who had just arrived, he wasn’t sure if the man would listen to him. “You’re Dr. Ping from the Yide Hospital?”

Dr. Ping's mouth gaped open slightly as he was bit of surprised. He was an attending family doctor at Yide Hospital and barely anyone remembered him, so he wondered how the young doctor knew him.

“I’m Dr. Li, trauma surgeon at Qinbei,” Li Yun introduced himself. He had remembered some of the names from the Yide Hospital while he was investigating the organ harvesting case. “I happen to know Dr. Tsang from Yide.”

Dr. Ping felt a bit deflated; most people had heard of Dr. Tsang. Not only that, being a trauma surgeon, Li Yun was sure to have more experience than him in dealing with emergencies. He didn’t know whether he should back down. As the older of the two, he felt like he should take the lead.

“How do you know she has appendicitis?” Dr. Ping asked, checking the patient himself.

“Miss, can you tell the captain to make an emergency landing and contact the hospital to prepare a room for a 15 weeks pregnant woman with a ruptured appendix?” Li Yun ignored Dr. Ping and asked the flight attendant in a calm tone. "It's not life-threatening, but it's urgent."

Li Yun’s voice was calm, but forceful. The flight attendant wasn’t used to emergency cases, so there was no need to make her more unsettled. The flight attendance quickly ran to the front cabin and told the captain what was happening.

In the meanwhile, Li Yun opened up his personal emergency kit. Dr. Ping looked in amazement at the assortment of tools and watched as Li Yun took out a portable suction, stethoscope, bag of saline, scalpel, and a battery-powered endocutter.

“Mister?” Li Yun asked the husband, wondering how he should be addressed. It was important to know the names of both the patients and the next of kin, especially when he was planning an in-flight surgery.

“Ma Sheng,” the husband replied. “My wife is Ma Nini. Is she going to be okay?”

“Mr. Ma, her appendix ruptured, and there are abscesses in her abdomen that should be removed as soon as possible to protect the peritoneal cavity and the child,” Li Yun explained as he prepared all of the necessary equipment. “I’m going to drain as much abscess as possible and remove the appendix. It’s not a difficult procedure, but we aren’t in a sterile environment and I want to make sure you give a verbal agreement.”

Dr. Ping scratched his head and wondered in what realm was removing an appendectomy in mid-air was not considered a difficult procedure.

"What if we wait?" Asked Ma Sheng. It was likely at least another hour before they land, and another hour before they reach the hospital. Ma Sheng wasn't sure about allowing the surgery on the flight was the best decision.

"We can wait, but it's a huge risk to leave the abscess in the peritoneal cavity," said Li Yun. "She might suffer a miscarriage and her intestine will be infected."

“Will my wife be in any pain?” Ma Sheng asked. The way Li Yun explained everything in such a deliberate and calm voice made him a bit more confident.

“She fainted from pain, but should be fine after we clear her cavity.”

Ma Sheng nodded. With his approval, Li Yun wrapped himself in a portable surgical gown and then looked at Dr. Ping. “Dr. Ping, please help me with the suction.”

Li Yun didn’t need help, but if he didn’t ask the guy, the doctor was going to complain and cause problems. The flight attendant returned and told them that the captain will make an emergency landing in Changkou and  the ambulance is on the way.

“We will arrive in 45 minutes,” the flight attendance said. She looked nervous as Li Yun inserted a needle into the woman’s arm.

The woman was unconscious, but Li Yun needed to make the procedure as painless as possible in case she wakes up. He used the available lidocaine in the kit, and then inserted two acupuncture needles to keep her asleep. 

He sensed both the mother’s and baby’s CV systems. The little cavity and gap in between them was his target location. He made a small incision and inserted the suction tube into the lower right side of the woman and into the peritoneal cavity.

“Please turn on the suction,” Li Yun instructed Dr. Ping.

While Dr. Ping fumbled around with the ON button, Li Yun put on the stethoscope and placed it on the stomach. Li Yun rarely used the stethoscope, but with his sense of hearing sharpened, he could hear when the abscess was removed inside the cavity.

With the suction on, Li Yun moved the tube to the lower portion of the cavity. It was the reason why he didn’t move the body too much. He didn’t want the abscess to move and spread to other parts of the body.

The sound of the tube air suction produced a dry hiss, Li Yun stopped and inserted the saline solution into the cavity to clean it out. He then removed everything out once more with the suction tube. Once completed, he inserted the endocutter into the same incision point, cut out the ruptured appendix, and removed it.

It looked so mythical in Dr. Ping’s eyes. He had seen plenty of appendectomies, and this was not an appendectomy, it was some sort of witchcraft. Suddenly, he remembered hearing about a Dr. Li from Qinbei Hospital who had performed surgery on Minister Yue.

“Ah! You’re that Dr. Li!”