three surgeries and a mercy kill (джен)

Does it count as surgery if the patient is a sabre/spiritual weapon? If the answer is no, then it's probably just two surgeries, no mercy kill.
Two geniuses in a radish field can come up with a lot of theories bouncing their ideas off on another, and when one is the grandmaster of demonic cultivation and the other is the best medical doctor alive, there's no telling what they can come up with. Now they just need a hospital room to put theory into practice and the Nie sect is the lucky winner. No, really, the Nie Sect lucks out and life gets better for everyone.