Lynn's hemostat clamped the two most severely bleeding arterial branches.

Left hand pressing with gauze, right hand suturing.

Frank didn't make a sound throughout.

Not because it didn't hurt.

Lynn could feel the operating table vibrating slightly...

That was caused by the involuntary contraction of Frank's entire body's muscles under extreme pain.

He clenched all the pain between his teeth.

The spleen repair took eight minutes.

Then the right kidney... The tear in the renal capsule was easier to handle than anticipated because Frank's body's repair mechanism had already formed a thin layer of fibrous tissue around the tear, as if his body was trying to stop the bleeding on its own.

Although it didn't stop the bleeding, it gave Lynn a better foundation for suturing.

The pneumothorax in the left lung was dealt with even faster.

The puncture drainage expelled about two hundred and fifty milliliters of hemothorax, and two penetrating wounds were sutured closed.

Then came the shrapnel.

Seventeen pieces of shrapnel embedded in his body, varying in size and depth.

Lynn didn't use forceps to'search' for them one by one... His Super Senses had already constructed a complete three-dimensional map in his mind, with the coordinates of each shrapnel precise to the millimeter.

His hands moved so fast that Frank couldn't help but turn his head to look.

One. A 'ding' sounded in the metal tray.

Two. Three. Four.

By the eighth piece, Frank spoke.

'You don't seem like an ordinary doctor.'

'You don't seem like an ordinary patient either.' Lynn didn't stop his hands, 'An ordinary patient wouldn't watch himself being cut open without anesthesia.'

'Habit.'

Fifteenth. Sixteenth.

The last piece was hidden behind the left scapula, pressed right against the periosteum.

Lynn used forceps to precisely pry it out from between the bone crevices.

'Ding.'

Seventeen pieces of shrapnel lay neatly in the metal tray.

Including the two intact bullets removed earlier by incision, a total of nineteen metal objects.

Lynn began suturing.

After finishing the last stitch, he took a step back and removed his gloves.

Thirty-five minutes.

Frank sat up from the operating table slowly, but far more steadily than when he had entered.

He looked down at his abdomen... The suture line was as neat as if done by a machine, with uniform spacing and consistent depth.

He moved his shoulder.

Then tried taking a deep breath again.

'Does it hurt?' Lynn asked.

'Not anymore.' There was something in Frank's voice that he himself probably didn't realize.

'Over thirty holes, and you patched them up in thirty-five minutes.' Frank looked at Lynn, 'When I was in the military, the best medic took four hours to handle twelve bullet wounds on me.'

'His hands weren't as steady as mine.'

Frank stared at Lynn for a few seconds, not responding.

At the same time, a system prompt tone rang in Lynn's mind...

【Ding! Treatment Complete! Evaluation: S·Transcendent!】

【Divine Hand Copy activating... Scanning target ability library...】

【Core talent detected: Tenacious Vitality/Healing Factor (B+ grade)】

【Based on treatment contribution (S grade), automatically copying highest quality talent...】

【Copy progress: 18%...45%...77%...100%!】

【Ding! Copy complete! Obtained B+ grade talent: Healing Factor (Weak Version·60%)!】

【Ability details: Body recovery speed increased to four times that of a normal person. Minor injuries can self-heal within a few hours. Recovery time for moderate injuries significantly shortened.】

A warm energy surged in his body for about five seconds.

Lynn felt a subtle change in his bones, muscles, and tendons... tighter, more resilient.

A red scrape on his arm from moving equipment this afternoon had completely vanished by the time he looked down.

It wasn't an earth-shattering change.

But it represented something very important... From now on, he was no longer an ordinary person who would break at a touch.

Frank had put on his clothes.

He bent down, picked up the bullet-riddled bulletproof vest from the floor, looked at it for two seconds, then tossed it back down.

'Your fee?'

'Do you have money?'

Frank tilted his head slightly.

The answer to that question was obvious... Where would a lone desperado constantly fighting crime find spare cash.

'No.' He answered bluntly.

Lynn leaned against the instrument table, thinking for two seconds.

'Guard my door for a month.'

Frank frowned: 'What do you mean?'

'Exactly what it sounds like. My clinic has been targeted lately. I need a presence that makes everyone too scared to come in and cause trouble. You happen to fit the bill.'

'I'm not a bodyguard.'

'And I'm not a free charity. You can't pay the fifty thousand for the surgery, so use your time instead. Be at the door during the day, do whatever you want at night, I don't care. One month.'

Frank looked at Lynn.

'You've got guts.' He said, 'Do you know who I am?'

'I know you single-handedly took out an arsenal in the southern docks last night, killed at least twelve people, and then got turned into a sieve by the arriving reinforcements. On your escape route, you passed my street, saw my sign, and decided to try your luck coming in.'

Frank's expression didn't change.

But his silence lasted longer than any previous time.

'One month.' He finally said, 'After a month, I leave, owing nothing.'

'Deal.'

The 'onboarding' effect of Frank Castle was even better than Lynn had anticipated.

The next morning at eight o'clock, when Lynn went downstairs to open the clinic, Frank was already sitting at the entrance.

A folding chair dug out from the storage room, a cup of black coffee bought from a convenience store.

He was wearing a clean black jacket... Lynn didn't know where he got it... sitting there reading a newspaper.

He looked normal.

If you ignored the dark canvas bag by his feet.

The zipper on the canvas bag was half open. Lynn's Super Senses scanned the contents with a glance... a disassembled Remington 870 shotgun, two handguns, four M84 flashbangs, and about three hundred rounds of various calibers.

'You've moved the arsenal to my doorstep.' Lynn said.

'Protective measures.' Frank turned a page of the newspaper.

'If any police happen to pass by...'

'No police will pass by.' Frank's tone was certain, 'This is Hell's Kitchen.'

Lynn thought for a second and decided he was right.

The speed at which the news 'The Punisher is sitting at the entrance of a clinic' spread completely exceeded Lynn's expectations.

At ten in the morning, three residents coming for treatment stopped in their tracks upon seeing Frank at the clinic door.

They tugged at each other's sleeves, whispered for a while, and finally mustered the courage to come in... because one of the uncles had knee pain so bad he could barely walk.

At noon, a young thug on a motorcycle passing by the clinic saw Frank, swerved, and nearly hit a fire hydrant.

At two in the afternoon, Murphy called.

'Dr. Lin, I heard Frank Castle is at your place?'