tkworld Chapter 1441 will only affect oneself
Chapter 1441 will only affect oneself
Chapter 1441 will only affect oneself
Three days after the video conference ended, Chen Jianguo received an official email from the United States.
The email, sent by the executive director of the International Spinal Cord Injury Research Society, was meticulously worded and included a twelve-page appointment document and an even longer statement of responsibility. The Society formally invited Chen Jianguo to serve as the "Global Spinal Cord Injury Rehabilitation Hope Ambassador" for a two-year term, during which he will participate in academic conferences worldwide, visit rehabilitation facilities, and share his rehabilitation experiences with patients. All expenses will be covered by the Society's charitable fund, and he will also receive a generous remuneration.
Chen Jianguo stared at the numbers in the email and remained silent for a long time.
"Professor," he looked up at Yang Ping sitting opposite him, "can I take this money?"
"Why can't I take it?" Yang Ping retorted.
"Professor Yang, you cured me. It was M7 that gave me confidence. I don't think I should take this money."
Yang Ping put down his teacup and looked at Chen Jianguo.
“Jianguo, do you know what you’re doing? You’re about to go all over the world, stand in front of the most desperate patients, and tell them, ‘You can stand up.’ You will be watched by countless people, expected by countless people, with countless people placing their last hope on you. If you don’t get paid, how can you do this job well? Will you do it on an empty stomach? Or will you give up? Why do you always think that taking money means you’re not doing good deeds, and that bad things are definitely not related to you? What kind of logic is that? Is it necessary to carry such a moral burden? I suggest you take the money openly and do your job conscientiously.”
Chen Jianguo was stunned by Yang Ping's words and found them to be very reasonable.
“Professor,” he asked again, “could I send some to my mother? She’s back in our hometown, and her legs aren’t good either. She’s been reluctant to go to the hospital for treatment.”
"That's your money, you decide what to do with it."
Chen Jianguo looked down at his legs, those legs that were once numb, now firmly planted on the ground, supporting his body, supporting his life, and also supporting the thoughts of an old man thousands of miles away.
April 15, San Francisco.
The annual meeting of the International Society for Spinal Cord Injury Research was held in a hotel in the city center, marking its 41st year. More than 2,000 researchers from over 50 countries gathered here, making it larger and more vibrant than last year.
The reason is simple—it's a cover story for Cell.
In the four months following its publication, the paper was cited over 300 times, and its Altmetric attention score ranked first among all papers published during the same period. More than 200 media outlets worldwide reported on the story of M7, from the BBC to CNN, from The New York Times to the Süddeutsche Zeitung, and photos of M7 appeared on screens around the globe.
But today, people are not focused on M7, but on Chen Jianguo.
Richardson's keynote address began at nine o'clock in the morning. He stood on the podium, with a large screen behind him displaying epidemiological data and progress in basic research on spinal cord injuries. He spoke for forty minutes, his presentation rich in data and logically rigorous, but the audience was clearly waiting for someone else.
Richardson certainly knew this. In the last five minutes of his report, he abruptly changed the subject.
"Colleagues, a major event has occurred in our field over the past year. It's not the cover article in Cell, not the data from seven monkeys, not the cross-center blinded validation. These are science, and they are important, but they are not the biggest event."
He pressed a button on the remote control, and a photo appeared on the screen.
It's Chen Jianguo, sitting in a wheelchair, being wheeled into the Sanbo Research Institute. The photo was taken casually, like a screenshot from a surveillance camera—the image quality is rough, and the lighting is dim. Chen Jianguo sits in the wheelchair, head bowed, hands resting on his knees, like someone abandoned by the world.
"This is what Chen Jianguo looked like when he first arrived at Professor Yang Ping's research institute. His diagnosis was a complete T5 segment spinal cord injury, grade A, which means that there is no motor or sensory function below the level of injury. He has been paralyzed for eleven years, and according to medical consensus, he will never be able to stand up again in his life."
The audience fell silent.
Richardson pressed the remote control and switched to the next photo. Same corridor, same angle, but the person was standing. Chen Jianguo, wearing that faded blue T-shirt, stood at the doorway of the rehabilitation room, one hand on the doorframe, the other hanging at his side. His legs were still trembling slightly, but his back was ramrod straight, his chin slightly raised, as if telling the world, "I'm standing."
"This is Chen Jianguo. A few weeks ago, he stood up and was able to walk 30 meters independently."
Applause erupted from the audience—not the polite, perfunctory kind, but genuine, heartfelt applause filled with shock and admiration. Richardson waited for about ten seconds until the applause subsided before uttering the words that silenced everyone.
"Now, let's welcome Mr. Chen Jianguo to the stage and say a few words to us."
Chen Jianguo walked out from the side stage.
He walked slowly, each step as if measuring something. The distance from the side stage to the center of the podium, about twenty meters, took him nearly two minutes. The more than two thousand people below watched him walk step by step; no one urged him on, no one whispered among themselves, everyone was focused on his legs.
He walked to the center of the stage, turned around, and faced the audience. His hands were trembling slightly, whether from nervousness or fatigue, it was hard to tell.
He didn't take out any notes; his pockets were empty. He didn't use PowerPoint; the large screen behind him displayed only one line of text: "Ambassador of Hope—Chen Jianguo."
He remained silent for a few seconds.
Then he spoke, in Chinese.
"Hello everyone, I am Chen Jianguo."
English translations came through the simultaneous interpretation headsets in the audience. More than two thousand people put on their headsets at the same time, and a rustling sound filled the hall, like the wind blowing through an autumn forest.
"Twelve years ago, I started sitting in a wheelchair. Back then, I often lay in my hospital bed, looking at the ceiling, thinking, 'This is how my life will be.'"
His voice wasn't loud, but it was clear. He spoke each word slowly, as if he had weighed it in his mind before letting it out.
“Last year, I came to the Sanbo Institute and met Professor Yang Ping. He said something to me that I still remember to this day. He said, ‘Jianguo, you can stand up again.’”
“I didn’t quite believe it at the time. I’ve been in a wheelchair for so long that I thought the wheelchair was my legs. But Professor Yang showed me a monkey. The monkey was called M7. It had the same spinal cord injury as me and couldn’t move its hind legs.”
Chen Jianguo paused.
"Later, M7 was able to stand, walk, run, and play soccer. Watching it run, I thought to myself, if a monkey can stand up, why can't I? M7 didn't give up, so why should I?"
His voice started to tremble, but he took a deep breath and steadied himself.
"Today, I stand here before more than two thousand of the world's leading researchers in spinal cord injury. I am not a doctor, not a scientist, I am just a patient. But I want to tell you one thing: I am able to stand up not because of my willpower, not because of my persistence, but because of medical breakthroughs and progress."
"It was the efforts of Professor Yang Ping, Professor Mainstein, and Professor August that led to a breakthrough in the repair of spinal cord injuries."
"Thank you!"
He bowed deeply.
"Thank you too. Your work may lead to a breakthrough in a certain field. In other words, if you publish a paper, we may have one more hope. If you conduct an experiment, we may have one more opportunity."
"Thank you. It is because of Professor Yang and scientists like you that medicine can advance."
Everyone in the audience stood up.
It wasn't a few scattered people standing up; over two thousand people stood up simultaneously. Applause surged like a tide, wave after wave, showing no sign of stopping. Some were clapping, some were wiping away tears, some were hugging those next to them. Richardson stood beside the podium, his fist pressed against his mouth, his shoulders trembling slightly. Chen Jianguo stood on the podium, watching all of this.
His eyes reddened, but he didn't cry. He turned around and walked back to the side stage step by step. Twenty meters, two minutes, every step accompanied by applause.
Backstage, Chen Jianguo leaned against the wall, panting heavily.
His legs were shaking violently, not from nervousness, but from exhaustion. Walking from the side of the stage to the center of the podium and back, a distance of forty meters, took him nearly four minutes. This was the longest distance he had ever walked in a single session since his recovery.
Mannstein stood backstage waiting for him.
"Jianguo, you're overtime."
"How long overdue?"
“You talked for almost ten minutes, and Richardson only gave you five minutes, but he didn’t interrupt you.”
Chen Jianguo laughed, a tired laugh. "Professor, how was my presentation?"
Mannstein looked at him and said, “You speak very well, a million times better than I imagined, not because your words are so beautiful, but because the very act of standing there is the best speech.”
Sister Li rushed over from the side, hugged Chen Jianguo, and cried so hard she couldn't speak. Chen Jianguo patted her back and said softly, "Don't cry, take care of yourself. Why are you crying? There are so many reporters here, don't let them see us."
Sister Li immediately stopped crying and started laughing.
Fritz had flown in from Nandu sometime earlier and was standing in a corner backstage, holding a copy of "Journey to the West." He didn't speak, but just looked at Chen Jianguo with an indescribable look in his eyes.
"Fritz," Chen Jianguo called to him, "how's the M7 going?"
“M7 is great,” Fritz said. “It ran 400 meters today and broke Hoffnung’s record.”
Chen Jianguo smiled. "Please tell M7 for me to thank it. Without it, I wouldn't have been able to walk these forty meters today."
Fritz nodded.
“I will pass on the message, but it doesn’t understand Chinese, so I will speak in German.”
"Can the M7 understand German?"
"Probably!" Fritz said seriously.
Chen Jianguo's speech video was uploaded online that afternoon.
Richardson arranged for the society's media team to edit a three-minute highlight reel with English subtitles, which was then posted on the society's official website and YouTube channel. The title was simple: "Chen Jianguo – Speech by the Ambassador of Hope".
Within three days, the video had been viewed over five million times.
The messages came from all corners of the world, written in various languages, but the meanings were all roughly the same.
“I cried. I am a family member of a spinal cord injury patient. I have been waiting for this news for fifteen years.”
“Mr. Chen, you are a hero, not because you stood up, but because after you stood up you did not forget those who were still sitting, and you did not forget to share this good news with patients all over the world.”
“I’m a neurosurgeon who has been performing spinal cord injury surgeries for twenty years. This video made me rethink what I’m actually doing.”
"Professor Yang Ping and Professor Mannstein are heroes."
"Professor Yang Ping's theory is so great that it can actually help achieve a breakthrough in spinal cord injury repair."
Some people also tagged Mannstein in the comments, asking him when he could use this technology for human clinical trials.
Mannstein did not reply to these messages. He had Tang Shuntong reply with the following: "The technology is still in the preclinical stage and is still undergoing safety and efficacy verification. We are accelerating the process, but we will not sacrifice safety to save time. Please trust us and please wait a little longer."
This reply was pinned as the first comment in the comment section.
After the San Francisco annual meeting, Richardson called Yang Ping.
“Professor Yang, I have watched Chen Jianguo’s speech video many times. Every time I watch it, I feel that the keynote reports I have given in the past twenty years are all nonsense.”
"Your report is not nonsense. Scientific progress depends on the collaborative efforts of everyone. We have only taken the final step."
Richardson remained silent for a moment.
"Professor Yang, I'm planning to use Chen Jianguo's speech video as the official promotional video for our association and put it on our website for permanent display. What do you think?"
"of course can."
Richardson remained silent for a long time.
"Professor Yang, I sincerely apologize to you. When you published the three-dimensional guided gene theory and K therapy, I was an opponent. Now I see how naive and ridiculous I was."
Yang Ping said calmly, "Science itself progresses through constant questioning."
“But…but…my doubts at the time stemmed from subjective prejudice and were not based on facts. I really apologize for my ignorance and arrogance, and I hope you can forgive me,” Richardson said, mustering his courage.
Yang Ping tapped his fingers rhythmically on the table as he spoke into the microphone: "If your doubts stem from prejudice, then that is indeed very bad. Since you have already recognized your mistake, I think I can forgive you. But I hope you will remember in the future that arrogant and ignorant prejudice will not affect the progress of others, but only your own."
Richardson blushed slightly and said sincerely on the other end of the phone, "I understand, Professor Yang, thank you."
Yes!
Arrogant and ignorant prejudices will not hinder the progress of others, but will only affect oneself.
Einstein has now made a huge breakthrough in the field of spinal cord injury, while I have been trapped in the cage of prejudice all these years, unknowingly falling far behind. If it weren't for that paper, I would still think I was standing at the pinnacle of academia.
Looking back now, I realize I was nothing more than a clown.