indianbanksassociation Chapter 37 The Art of Facial Expression Management and Those Hands
Chapter 37 The Art of Facial Expression Management and Those Hands
The mornings at Renxin Pharmacy usually begin with the arguing between Li Siyuan and Zhao Na.
These two promising medical graduate students are currently analyzing a blurry video frame by frame.
In the video, a woman who looks remarkably like actress Angie is hanging on a rockery in the zoo, baring her teeth at a red-bottomed macaque, her features distorted like a crumpled piece of draft paper.
"Look here, at the twelfth second," Li Siyuan pointed to the screen, his dark circles even more pronounced than yesterday. "The contraction of the zygomaticus major and risorius muscles is completely asymmetrical, but at the forty-fifth second, when the monkey snatched her hat, her anger exploded, and the instantaneous contraction of the orbicularis oculi muscle actually caused the corner of her mouth on the paralyzed side to twitch. This is an emotional forced escape from the nervous system."
Zhao Na nodded while munching on a steamed bun: "Senior, I've already thought of a topic for the paper: 'On the Stress-Induced Repair of Peripheral Facial Paralysis by Atavistic Behavior.' However, the internet is in an uproar right now, saying that An Qi has gone mad, and the agency has sent three lawyer's letters but still couldn't quell it."
Wang Minyu sat behind the counter, twirling a pair of walnuts with a less-than-perfect patina in his hands, while the system panel flickered in front of him.
[Received 200 points of anger from Angie's fans]
[Received 500 points of ridicule from onlookers]
[Received gratitude points from Angie herself +1000]
"That's about it." Wang Minyu turned off the panel and took a sip of the strong tea that had been sitting overnight.
The wind chimes at the door rang.
The person who came in wasn't a patient, but a woman wearing sunglasses and a mask, wrapped up like a rice dumpling.
She wasn't followed by her loud and boisterous manager, nor did she have any bodyguards; she was all alone.
Shen Jia was sitting in the corner on her "exclusive paid bench" in a daze when she was startled by the scene and shrank back.
The woman walked to the counter, didn't say anything, first took off her sunglasses, and then slowly pulled down her mask.
Li Siyuan and Zhao Na stopped writing.
That face was no longer a stiff ice sculpture.
Although it has not yet fully recovered to its peak perfect symmetry, the deathly stillness that kept strangers away has disappeared.
Instead, there is a vivid, slightly weary vitality.
Anqi looked at Wang Minyu, and suddenly the corners of her mouth turned up, revealing a not-so-standard, even slightly crooked smile.
"Dr. Wang," her voice was no longer cold, but a little hoarse, "look, I've learned to smile. Even if it's a little ugly."
"It's a bit ugly, but it looks human." Wang Minyu put down his teacup. "It's better than that wax figure from before."
Angie wasn't angry; instead, she laughed out loud.
Her smile revealed the fine lines around her eyes, yet it made her look more beautiful than ever.
"Go lie down in the back." Wang Minyu pointed to the treatment bed. "Your facial nerves have been activated, and now we need to unblock your meridians. Before, your face was like frozen pork, and we couldn't even get a needle in. Now that it's thawed, it's time to start using our methods."
Li Siyuan immediately pulled out his notebook excitedly, ready to record some lost and magical acupuncture technique.
However, Wang Minyu did not take the silver needles.
He took out something more familiar to modern medical students from the drawer—a sophisticated surgical instrument kit and a box of medical catgut.
"Dr. Wang, this is..." Zhao Na was stunned. "Is it for thread embedding?"
"Although the facial nerves have awakened, the muscle memory is still disordered." Wang Minyu put on sterile gloves, his movements so skillful they were dazzling. "I performed minimally invasive thread embedding at several key insertion points of her facial muscles, using the stimulation of the threads to continuously induce muscle repositioning. This is called 'physical cheat code'."
The next ten minutes were ten minutes in which Li Siyuan and Zhao Na's worldviews collapsed.
They expected to see some mysterious qigong or acupressure, but instead they witnessed a textbook-level minimally invasive surgical procedure.
Wang Minyu's hands were frighteningly steady. Holding the needle, piercing, tying the knot, cutting the thread—every movement was precise down to the micrometer level.
There were no unnecessary movements, no hesitation whatsoever, as if his hands were not made of flesh and blood, but rather the mechanical arms of a precision machine tool.
The system rewards of [Basic Suturing (Master Level)] and [Proficiency in Western Medicine Surgery] were fully revealed at this moment.
"That needle-holding technique..." Li Siyuan was sweating profusely as he watched. "It's even more skillful than the head of surgery at our First Affiliated Hospital. The angle of entry perfectly avoided the branches of the facial artery, and not a single drop of blood was drawn."
Zhao Na swallowed hard. "Senior brother, I'm starting to believe it. He might really be a surgical genius whose talent was wasted on traditional Chinese medicine."
Ten minutes later, Wang Minyu took off his gloves and threw them into the trash can.
"Alright, go back. Look in the mirror less and watch more comedies." Wang Minyu dismissed him. "Also, don't waste your annual pass to that monkey mountain. Go visit it more often. The monkeys there are more real than the people in your circle."
Angie touched the almost invisible needle marks on her face, her eyes filled with complex emotions.
She took out a card and placed it on the table. This time, there was no sense of condescending charity; instead, she bowed solemnly.
"Thanks."
After Angie left, the shop returned to quiet.
Looking at the gloves in the trash can, Li Siyuan couldn't help but ask, "Dr. Wang, since you have such excellent surgical skills, why...did you come to this traditional Chinese medicine shop?"
Wang Minyu glanced at him, then picked up his teacup again: "Because removing the appendix won't save the world, but harvesting leeks can."
Li Siyuan: "..."
Just then, Shen Jia, who was in the corner, suddenly stood up. She had been staring out the window, and her voice trembled slightly: "Dr. Wang, something's not right outside..."
"What's wrong?"
"That old man selling roasted sweet potatoes," Shen Jia pointed across the street, "he's been in the same spot for half an hour, staring blankly, not even noticing the sweet potatoes were burning. And that delivery guy, his bike's parked in the middle of the road, looks like... he's asleep."
Wang Minyu frowned, put down his teacup, and strode to the door.
After an autumn rain in October, the air in Changxiang City was filled with a damp, musty smell.
The sky was hazy and gray, like a dirty rag that hadn't been washed properly.
Wang Minyu activated the [Aura Observation Technique].
What should have been a vibrant, colorful cityscape was now shrouded in a thin, grayish-green mist.
The fog was thick and cold, slowly seeping into the pedestrians' respiratory tracts.
"It seems," Wang Minyu narrowed his eyes, looking at the slow-moving passersby, "that a big deal is coming."