sinovels Chapter 1440 Ambassador of Hope
Chapter 1440 Ambassador of Hope
Chapter 1440 Ambassador of Hope
Spring arrives quietly in Southern Metropolis Daily.
First, tender green buds sprouted from the branches of the sycamore trees, then white flowers bloomed on the magnolia trees in front of the research institute, and then dandelion seeds, which seemed to have drifted from somewhere, took root on the lawn outside the rehabilitation training room and bloomed into the first small yellow flower.
On the last day of February, Chen Jianguo stood up for the first time without a walking aid.
That morning, he was the only one in the rehabilitation room. Sister Li had gone to the cafeteria for lunch, Tang Shun had gone to a meeting, and Fritz was giving M7 a bath in the animal room. Chen Jianguo stood holding onto the parallel bars for a while, his legs stopped shaking, his breathing became steady, and a thought suddenly popped into his mind.
He released his right hand.
The parallel bar was still on his left, but his right hand was hanging in the air, unsupported. His body swayed, the muscles in his right leg tensed instantly, his knee bent slightly, and then he regained his balance.
He stood there, holding onto the bar with only his left hand, for three seconds.
Then he released his left hand as well.
Without holding onto anything, his two legs were firmly planted on the ground, his knees straight, and his back ramrod straight, like a tree that had been blown by the wind for a long time and finally stood up straight.
One second, two seconds, three seconds, four seconds, five seconds.
His body began to sway, and the muscles in his right leg trembled slightly, like a string stretched too long. He quickly grabbed the parallel bars, his palms sweaty.
But he stood there for five seconds, five seconds, without holding onto anything, and managed to stand on his own.
When Sister Li pushed the door open, Chen Jianguo was leaning against the parallel bars, panting. His expression was strange, as if he was laughing or crying at the same time.
"Jianguo, what's wrong?"
His voice trembled, "I just... stopped."
"You stand here every day."
"It's not about standing while holding on, it's about standing without holding on. Standing on your own two feet without holding on to anything for five seconds."
Sister Li almost dropped the lunchbox in her hand. She put it down, walked up to Chen Jianguo, and looked at him.
"Really?"
"Really, I really stopped."
Sister Li's eyes reddened. She took out her phone and called Yang Ping. When the call connected, her voice was choked with sobs: "Professor Yang, Jianguo stopped. He let go and stopped. Five seconds."
There was a two-second silence on the other end of the phone.
"I'm coming right away."
When Yang Ping arrived at the rehabilitation training room, Chen Jianguo had already tried three more times. The first time he stood for six seconds, the second time for seven seconds, and the third time he could only stand for three seconds before he couldn't go on, his legs were shaking violently.
“That’s enough,” Yang Ping said. “You’ve done very well today. Do the rest tomorrow.”
Chen Jianguo sat in his wheelchair, panting heavily.
"Professor, I can stand up now."
"I see, five seconds, six seconds, seven seconds, you're improving."
When can I leave?
Yang Ping squatted down to look him in the eye.
"Jianguo, do you know how long it took for the M7 to go from standing to moving?"
"do not know."
"Two weeks. Two weeks after it stands still, it takes its first step. But M7 is a monkey, and its quadrupedal gait is innate. You are a human, and a human's bipedal gait is learned. You learned it when you were one or two years old. Now you have to learn it again, and you will be much slower than M7."
Chen Jianguo's eyes darkened for a moment, but then immediately became firm and confident.
"It doesn't matter if it's slow. If the M7 can go, so can I. It takes it two weeks, I can take it two months, or even two years, it doesn't matter, as long as I can still learn."
Yang Ping looked at him for a few seconds, then stood up.
"Okay, starting tomorrow, we'll practice walking."
On the first day of walking practice, Chen Jianguo fell seventeen times.
The floor of the rehabilitation training room was covered with thick soft mats. Tang Shun stood by, ready to help him at any time, but Chen Jianguo wouldn't let him.
“Let me do it myself,” he said. “M7 did it himself too.”
He stood up, holding onto the parallel bars, then released one hand, then the other, and stood still. Then he shifted his weight forward, lifted his right leg off the ground, and stepped forward.
He took a step forward, his left foot still in place, his right foot landing about twenty centimeters ahead. Then he shifted his weight from his left foot to his right, and stepped forward with his left foot as well.
Just as he shifted his weight halfway, his right knee suddenly buckled, and he collapsed like a wall. With a "thud," his body hit the soft mat, kicking up a cloud of fine dust.
Tang Shun rushed over to help him, but Chen Jianguo waved his hand.
"No need, I can get up myself."
He braced himself on the mat with his hands, slowly getting up, grabbing the parallel bars, and standing up again. Then he started taking steps again. He stepped out, fell, got up, stood up, and took another step. He fell seventeen times, got up seventeen times, and on the twentieth step, he took both feet out.
With my left foot in front and my right foot behind, I stood on the soft mat without holding onto anything. I stood there for two seconds, then slowly and controlledly sat down. I didn't fall; I sat down on my own.
“Professor,” he turned to look at Yang Ping standing in the doorway, “I took a couple of steps.”
Yang Ping walked over, squatted down, and looked at him.
"Two steps?"
"Two steps, one step with the left foot, one step with the right foot, two steps."
Yang Ping reached out his hand, and Chen Jianguo grasped it. Their hands clasped together, and neither of them spoke.
Weber, who was far away in Heidelberg, received an email from Yang Ping that evening.
The attached video is a clip taken with a mobile phone. The quality isn't great, but you can clearly see Chen Jianguo's every move, from letting go of his hand to regaining his balance, taking his first step, falling down, and getting up.
Weber watched the video several times.
He then replied to Yang Ping with an email: "Professor Yang, this video is more important than any paper we have published. Papers are written for scientists, but this video is written for all of humanity. Please tell Chen Jianguo: There are six monkeys in Heidelberg applauding him."
Yang Ping replied, "I will pass on the message. How are your six animals doing?"
Weber replied: "Hoffnung ran 300 meters today and broke the M7 record. Vertrauen has started trying to jump. They are both improving, in line with the direction of Nandu. Two continents, seven monkeys, one result. Professor Yang, this is not a coincidence, it is a pattern."
Yang Ping replied: "The pattern has been found. The next step is to make it a pattern for everyone."
Weber sat in his office for a long time looking at the message. Outside the window, it was snowing in Heidelberg, and the snowflakes fell on the Neckar River and disappeared instantly.
He stood up, walked to the window, and watched the ancient castle gradually turn white in the snow.
M7 received a special gift on the third day after Chen Jianguo took his first step.
Fritz bought a small red soccer ball online with black and white pentagonal patterns. He threw the ball into M7's cage, where M7 caught it with its paws and started kicking it. It kicked the ball with its hind legs, and the ball rolled to the other side of the cage. It ran over and kicked again, making excited noises as it did so.
“It’s playing football,” Hans said, standing in front of the cage, dumbfounded. “A monkey is playing football.” “It’s not playing football,” Fritz corrected, “it’s just playing with a ball. It doesn’t know what a football is; it just knows that this thing rolls and it’s fun.”
“But it uses its hind legs to kick the ball,” Hans said. “Her hind legs, not its front paws, can it do such a delicate movement?”
Fritz didn't answer. He took out his phone and started recording. In the video, M7 chased the small red ball from one end of the cage to the other, then pushed off with its hind legs, sending the ball flying. The ball hit the cage bars, bounced back, and M7 ran over to catch it.
“Professor Yang,” Fritz sent the video to Yang Ping, “M7 can play football now.”
After watching the video, Yang Ping replied, "It doesn't know it's recovering; it only knows it's having fun. That's the best kind of recovery—recovering through play."
Yang Ping also forwarded the video to Weber.
Weber was having lunch in his laboratory in Heidelberg when he saw the video. He put down his sandwich, watched the video four times, and then looked up at Hannah sitting across from him.
"Hannah, do you remember what I told you?"
Which sentence?
“I said, all the papers I’ve published in my life are not as valuable as Professor Yang’s single experiment.”
"remember."
"Now I think I was wrong about that statement."
"Where did we go wrong?"
Weber turned his phone around; on the screen, the M7 was chasing the red ball.
“Those papers didn’t have any monkeys kicking a ball. But Professor Yang’s experiment had a paralyzed monkey kicking a ball with its hind legs. It’s not a problem with the papers; I was looking at the wrong problem before.”
Hannah was silent for a moment, then smiled.
"Professor, that's not called a 'paralyzed monkey.' That's called a 'rehabilitation monkey.' A paralyzed monkey can't play football, but a rehabilitation monkey can."
Weber nodded, picked up his sandwich, and continued eating. He ate slowly, chewing each bite for a long time, as if savoring something more important than the food itself.
In mid-March, Richardson, president of the International Society for Spinal Cord Injury Research, sent an email to Yang Ping, asking if he could publish a cover article about M7 and Cell on the society's official website.
Yang Ping replied that it was possible, but this matter should be handled by Mainstein, as it was a project under Mainstein's responsibility.
Richardson sent another email: "Professor Yang, I have another request. Could you arrange a video call between M7 and your patient Chen Jianguo? I want spinal cord injury patients all over the world to see what hope looks like."
Yang Ping didn't reply immediately. He thought about it for a long time before going to find Chen Jianguo.
"Jianguo, Professor Richardson wants you to have a video call with M7. The whole world will see it. Are you willing?"
Chen Jianguo sat on a soft mat in the rehabilitation training room, covered in sweat after finishing a set of gait exercises. He thought for a moment, then asked, "Professor, will people who see me know that I was once paralyzed?"
“Yes! Richardson wants them to see that a person who was once paralyzed can now stand up.”
Chen Jianguo remained silent for a while.
"Won't they think I'm pathetic?"
"No! They'll think you're very brave."
Chen Jianguo's lips moved as if he was hesitating about something, then he looked up at Yang Ping.
"Okay, I'll show the whole world how a paralyzed person can stand up."
The video conference was scheduled for March 20th, the spring equinox.
Richardson is at his home in San Francisco, with a laptop in front of him. Yang Ping is in the conference room of the Southern Metropolis Daily's research institute, next to Chen Jianguo and Fritz. M7 is in the animal room, with a tablet computer in front of him, displaying Richardson's face on the screen.
M7 stared at the white-haired old man on the screen, tilted his head, and then reached out and touched the screen.
“It’s touching Richardson’s face,” Fritz said. “It’s never seen him, but it wants to know him.”
Richardson laughed on the other side of the screen.
“M7, hello, this is James. I’ve watched your videos countless times. You’re the most amazing monkey I’ve ever seen.”
M7 couldn't understand, of course, but it heard the sound, its ears twitched, then it turned around, walked to the other side of the cage, and then walked back. Its gait was steady, it walked very fast, and its tail was held high.
“It’s moving,” Richardson’s voice suddenly became a little hoarse, “and it’s moving very well.”
The video switched to the conference room, where Chen Jianguo sat in a wheelchair, facing the camera. He was wearing a clean blue T-shirt, his hair was neatly combed, and he had a smile on his face, but it wasn't a relaxed smile; it was a tense, serious one.
"Jianguo, are you ready?" Yang Ping asked.
"Ready."
Richardson's face appeared on the screen.
"Hello, Mr. Chen. I am James Richardson."
"Professor Richardson, hello! I am Chen Jianguo."
"Mr. Chen, may I ask you a question?"
"Please ask."
"It's been almost twelve years since you were injured?"
"Twelve years?"
"Twelve days?" Richardson nodded. "From being unable to move to being able to stand. Do you consider yourself lucky?"
Chen Jianguo thought for a moment.
"Of course, I am the luckiest to be the subject of Professor Yang's new technology experiment."
“Mr. Chen, I will remember what you said. I will tell all spinal cord injury patients around the world, so they can see what you look like and hear your voice. You are not a doctor, not a scientist, you are a patient. But what you said is more powerful than all of us doctors and scientists combined.”
Chen Jianguo's eyes reddened, but he didn't cry. He took a deep breath and then asked a question that no one expected.
“Professor Richardson, may I go to the hospital and talk to the patients who have just been injured? Tell them not to give up, not to despair, that someone is doing something, doing something to help them get back on their feet.”
Richardson stared at Chen Jianguo for several seconds.
“Mr. Chen, if you would like, I can arrange for you to become our Hope Ambassador. The Society has more than 300 hospitals under its umbrella, all over the world. Which one would you like to go to? I will help you make the contact, and all expenses will be covered by the charity foundation.”
"Any company will do, as long as it can help people."
The video call ended. Yang Ping turned off the screen and turned to look at Chen Jianguo.
"Jianguo, do you know what you just did?"
"Yes, I spoke briefly with an American professor."
“Not only that,” Yang Ping said, “you did something more important than me publishing a paper. Papers are written for scientists, you wrote for patients. Patients don’t read Cell, but they can see you. You stood up, and they know that they also have hope.”
"I am the first paralyzed spinal cord injury patient in the world to stand up. I feel that if I can bring hope to other patients, that is the most valuable thing."