The Celestial Engineer

Chapter 3: The Untrained Surgeon

Brenda was screaming, her voice a piercing siren of panic as Howard Vance slid down the hood of his BMW and slumped onto the gravel. "Alex, do something! Call an ambulance! If anything happens to him on this site, we’re ruined! Do you hear me? We’ll lose everything!"

She was hysterical, not out of concern for Howard’s life, but out of absolute terror for her own social standing. If the billionaire developer died on a site managed by her husband's crew, she knew the fallout would drag them even lower into the dirt.

Alex didn’t answer. His mind was unnaturally calm, operating with the cold, calculating efficiency of a master architect analyzing a collapsing building.

Through his golden-flecked eyes, Howard’s tailored suit and pale skin vanished. Alex saw the true battlefield: the hepatic tumor, a dark, jagged mass, was pressing ruthlessly against the hepatic artery. The blood flow to Howard's heart was choking out. The billionaire’s heart rate was plummeting—forty beats per minute, thirty-five.

If I wait for an ambulance, he’s a dead man, Alex thought.

He stepped forward, pushing Brenda aside with a gentle nudge that carried the immovable strength of a hydraulic press. She stumbled back, gasping in shock at how easily he had brushed her away.

"Alex! What are you doing? Don't touch him!" she shrieked.

Alex ignored her. He knelt beside Howard, whose eyes were rolling back, his lips turning a dangerous shade of blue. Acting as if he were just checking for a pulse, Alex placed his rough, calloused palm directly over Howard's upper right abdomen.

The moment his skin made contact, a strange, subtle vibration rippled from Alex's palms. It was the cosmic energy of the meteorite, completely under his mental control.

Through his X-ray vision, Alex watched his own hands enter the equation. He didn't need a scalpel. By applying a highly concentrated, microscopic burst of physical pressure combined with the celestial energy, he targeted the exact structural weak point holding the tumor against the artery.

With a precise, calculated push—so subtle that to Brenda it just looked like he was resting his hand on Howard's stomach—Alex forcefully shifted the tumor.

Snap.

In his vision, the dark mass slid barely two millimeters to the left, releasing its death grip on the hepatic artery. Instantly, a rush of bright, crimson blood surged through the vessel. The necrotic hue around the surrounding tissue began to recede.

Howard suddenly let out a massive, violent gasp, his chest heaving as air flooded back into his lungs. The blue tint on his lips rapidly faded, replaced by a sudden rush of color.

"What... what did you do?" Brenda stammered, staring at Alex in absolute bewilderment.

"Basic first aid," Alex said smoothly, standing up. His face was a mask of calm, though internally, he was reeling from the sheer awe of what he had just accomplished. "His airway was restricted. I adjusted his posture. But he’s still in critical condition, Brenda. That wasn't a heart attack. It's his liver."

Howard was conscious now, blinking weakly up at Alex. He couldn't fully comprehend what had just happened, but he knew that the cold hand of death that had been squeezing his chest had suddenly vanished the moment this construction worker touched him. "Help... hospital..." Howard wheezed.

"Get in the back seat, Brenda," Alex commanded. It wasn't a request. The sheer authority in his voice made Brenda’s jaw drop, but for the first time in her life, she found herself instantly obeying him without a fight.

Alex hoisted the heavy billionaire into the passenger seat of the BMW with a terrifyingly effortless lift, slid into the driver's seat, and fired up the engine. The high-performance machine roared to life, and Alex slammed on the gas, tearing out of the construction site toward the city's elite private medical center.

Thirty minutes later, the BMW screeched to a halt under the glowing canopy of St. Jude’s VIP Medical Wing.

Attendants and nurses rushed out with a gurney, wheeling Howard inside. Because Howard Vance was a well-known multi-millionaire, the hospital’s top staff was mobilized within seconds. Alex and Brenda were left standing in the luxurious, marble-floored waiting room.

Brenda was pacing, her phone already in her hand as she tried to compose herself. "I need to call my mother. If Howard survives this, he’ll be indebted to us. We might finally get that contract for the commercial plaza..." She stopped, glancing at Alex, her eyes narrowing with her usual suspicion. "How did you know it was his liver? You're a ditch-digger, Alex. Don't go telling the doctors some garbage story and embarrassing me."

Alex didn't even look at her. "I'm going to use the restroom."

He walked down the quiet, carpeted hallway of the VIP wing, needing a moment away from her venom to process his powers. But as he turned a corner near the intensive care isolation units, his golden-flecked eyes caught a massive disturbance in the air.

The hallway ahead was crowded, but not with ordinary people.

Four towering, stone-faced bodyguards in sharp black suits stood watch outside the grandest private suite in the hospital. Standing near them was a middle-aged man in an impeccably tailored, three-piece charcoal suit, pacing frantically.

Alex's sharp ears caught the man's desperate, whispered phone conversation. "...I don't care about the cost! Get the specialist from London! My father doesn't have days, he has hours! If the Sterling Group collapses because of his sudden passing, the entire national market will tank!"

Sterling Group.

Alex’s breath hitched. Even a construction worker living in the mud knew that name. The Sterling Group didn't just own buildings; they owned banks, shipping lines, and entire industries. The man pacing was Arthur Sterling, the current CEO. And inside that room was old Patterson Sterling—a man whose wealth surpassed Howard Vance's by a factor of a thousand. A true hidden titan of the country.

Alex’s focus automatically sharpened, his vision piercing right through the heavy, soundproofed oak doors of the private suite.

Lying on the bed was an elderly man, surrounded by a dozen flashing monitors. But the monitors were lying.

Alex saw the truth. Patterson Sterling’s lungs were filling with a dark, toxic fluid, a rare and aggressive pulmonary failure that was mimicking a standard pneumonia. But worse, a brilliant, arrogant-looking doctor in a pristine white coat was currently preparing a syringe, ready to inject a heavy dose of a standard respiratory stimulant.

Alex’s hyper-calculating mind ran the simulation instantly. The stimulant will cause the heart to pump harder, forcing more fluid into the lungs. If that needle touches his IV, Patterson Sterling will suffocate and die within sixty seconds.