The Year I Stopped Being His novel Chapter 328

"However..." Vivienne shifted her tone, "there are some risks I must clarify upfront."

"Understood," Garrison nodded. "Please tell me."

"The risks come from three areas."

"First, the brain tumor she had before she died. Even though the Vitas-1 drug you developed can be administered immediately upon resuscitation, the blood reperfusion process might trigger any residual cancer cells to re-enter a proliferation cycle. We can't rule out the possibility of a rapid relapse. Second, the damage to her lungs is quite severe. You already know this. We will use an extracorporeal circulation support system to reduce the burden on her cardiopulmonary system during the rewarming phase, but there is still a high risk of respiratory failure."

She paused. The third risk wasn't explicitly written in the report.

"Third," she said, her voice dropping lower, "is the most unpredictable risk of all—brain damage."

"Her brain endured long-term hypoxia and an inflammatory microenvironment during the terminal phase of her cancer, and there was already some neurodegenerative change before she was cryogenically frozen. Even though neural electrical signals have returned, that's only a portion of the neurons in the Hippocampus CA1 Region firing. Once she wakes up, her cognitive function, memory, language skills—any of them could be compromised. Or, none of them might be. We have absolutely no way of predicting it. Only after she wakes up."

Garrison didn't speak immediately.

He kept his head down, staring at the hands that had once held scalpels, tracing the faint scar on his knuckle left by a splinter from a cello. Finally, he looked up, his gaze calm and resolute.

"Manager Hayes, I want to transport her back to the United States and carry out the resuscitation at The Haven Medical Center."

"Resuscitate her back in the States?"

Vivienne frowned. She hadn't expected Garrison to make such a demand.

The medical environment back home was undoubtedly more advanced and convenient than Endurance Station, but...

*

A silver-gray helicopter landed on the helipad outside Endurance Station, its rotors whipping up a blinding storm of snow across the ice.

The frost on the fuselage hadn't even melted before the cabin door was thrown open from the inside, and a short-haired girl leaped out.

She was wearing a dark green flight jacket and black combat boots that hit the ice with a sharp crunch.

It was Cassandra Jenson.

Five years had passed, and Cassandra had barely changed. Her hair was still cut incredibly short—shorter than most men's—tapered neatly at the nape to show off her striking, sharp jawline.