“If you block me for another thirty seconds, he’s dead.”
The hallway fell abruptly silent, and everyone froze where they stood.
The man on the floor was deathly pale.
His breathing was fast and shallow, and one side of his chest barely moved.
Rosalind faltered under Elara’s icy, unnervingly direct stare.
But even then, Rosalind bit her lip and forced herself to speak.
“Elara, I know you’re skilled, but this is someone’s life, not a chance to prove yourself.
If something goes wrong…”
“And if he dies while we wait, will you take responsibility?”
Elara cut her off.
Rosalind fell silent, caught off guard by the question.
Barnaby stepped in, his expression hard.
“Elara, don’t do anything reckless.”
“Tension pneumothorax isn’t something you confirm by touching around a little.
The right move right now is to get him to a hospital!”
Elara gave him a cold look.
“Wait for an ambulance?
Too late.”
She dropped into a crouch and reached for the man’s neck again.
The pulse was getting weaker by the second.
The pressure in his chest cavity was still climbing.
If they dragged this out any longer, even if he made it into a hospital, he’d probably die on the way there.
“Needle.”
Elara spoke again, crisp and firm.
One of the students finally snapped out of their shock.
“I-I’ll go get one!”
“Wait!”
Barnaby barked the order.
“Nobody moves!”
He locked his eyes on Elara, his expression hard and ugly.
“You’re not part of the research team anymore.
You have no right to treat a patient here on your own.”
Elara’s gaze hardened.
“He’s dying, and you want to argue about credentials?” Elara said evenly.
“I’m trying to keep him alive.”
Barnaby clenched his jaw.
“You don’t even have a medical license!”
Elara gave a short, humorless laugh.
“Neither do you.”
Barnaby had no answer.
His expression tightened.
But Elara couldn’t be bothered wasting another second arguing with him.
She lowered her head and looked at the man collapsed on the floor.
His lips had already turned a frightening bluish purple.
“Last ten seconds.”
“Nine.”
“Eight.”
“Seven…”
She started counting down, one number at a time.
With every second, the tension in the hallway climbed.
Even Rosalind was panicking now.
She’d wanted to use this chance to show off her medical skills in front of everyone.
But from the second the man collapsed, she hadn’t even figured out what was wrong with him, let alone save him.
All she could do was stand there while Elara took control.
“Six.”
“Five.”
“Four…”
Barnaby finally realized how critical the situation had become.
The man’s breathing had already become so faint it was almost gone.
Right then—
“The needle’s here!”
A student came sprinting back with the first-aid kit in his arms.
Elara took it without hesitation.
She disinfected the site, found the right position, and moved with quick, practiced precision.
“Everyone back up.
Don’t touch him.”
The people around them instinctively stepped back.
Elara bent down.
The needle went in, and the man’s body jerked.
Immediately afterward, trapped air burst from the man’s chest with a sharp hiss.
His chest, locked tight only seconds earlier, finally began to rise and fall again—one breath, then another, then a third.
The bluish tint in his lips began to fade, and some color returned to his face.
“He’s alive!”
Someone shouted, and the hallway erupted.
“He’s really coming around!”
“She actually got it right!”
“It really was tension pneumothorax!”
“Didn’t Barnaby just say it was heatstroke?”
Voices rose around them all at once.
Barnaby stood rigid, humiliation written across his face.
He had not expected this.
He had not expected Elara to save the man, much less do it so quickly.
From diagnosis to needle decompression, it hadn’t even taken a full minute.
But Elara didn’t spare the crowd a single glance.
Still crouched beside the man, she checked his breathing again, then reached for his pulse, calm and focused from start to finish.
Only after confirming his vital signs were stable for the moment did she slowly get to her feet.
At last, an ambulance siren sounded in the distance.
The siren drew closer.
The paramedics showed up fast.
After checking the man’s condition, every one of them looked visibly stunned.
“Who did the emergency treatment?”
Almost everyone instinctively turned to look at Elara.
Elara just said calmly, “Temporary decompression.
Get him to the hospital first.”
The medical staff nodded at once.
Very soon, the man was lifted onto a stretcher.
Just as the stretcher passed by Elara, his fingers suddenly twitched.
Right after that, he slowly opened his eyes.
Those dark, deep-set eyes still carried the faint haze of someone who had only just come back to consciousness.
His gaze moved over the crowd before settling on Elara.
“You were the one who saved me?”
His voice was low and hoarse, weak but clear.
Elara nodded.
“Yeah.”
He studied her for several seconds, clearly trying to place her.
After a long pause, he reached into the inside of his clothes, took out something, and held it out to Elara.
It was an intricately crafted gold family crest bearing the Ashford emblem.
“Take it.”
Elara didn’t reach for it.
“What is this?”
The man said evenly, “The Ashford family crest.
If you ever run into trouble, come to the Ashfords.”
The hallway fell silent.
“The Ashfords?”
“Which Ashfords?”
“The Ashford family from Y Country?”
Someone’s eyes flew wide open.
A second later, shocked cries broke out one after another.
“That’s Tristan Ashford!”
“The eldest son of the richest family in Y Country!”
“Oh my God!”
Everyone stared in shock.
No one had expected the man who had nearly died in front of them to be the Ashford family’s eldest son.
And what they had just witnessed with their own eyes—
was Elara saving the Ashford heir.
Rosalind stood behind the crowd, her expression frozen stiff.
She had been thinking this whole time that she could use this chance to show what she could do.
If she managed to save Tristan Ashford, or even just get herself noticed in front of him…
then she might have a shot at getting connected to the Ashford family.
But from beginning to end, she had done absolutely nothing.
She hadn’t even figured out what was wrong with him.
Meanwhile, Elara had remained calm from beginning to end, as though she had known exactly what to do at every step.
Rosalind clenched her fingers so hard her knuckles nearly turned white.
For the first time, a thought she absolutely did not want to face forced its way into her head.
Could it be…
that Elara really wasn’t useless?
No.
No way.
She shook her head, rejecting the thought immediately.
It had to be luck.
It had to be a fluke.
How could a fake heiress raised by the Weston family for over twenty years possibly be better than her?
Only after thinking that did the panic on Rosalind’s face slowly ease a little.
Meanwhile.
Tristan kept his eyes on Elara the whole time and held out the family crest to her.
“Take it.”
Elara glanced at it, paused for a beat, then finally accepted it.
“Okay.”
Tristan looked at Elara, his brows drawing together slightly.
“You…
remind me of someone.”
Elara froze for a second.
“Who?”
But Tristan didn’t go on.
Because the medical staff were already urging him, “Sir, you need to get to the hospital right now!”
Tristan could only pull his gaze back.
“Until next time.”
The paramedics lifted Tristan onto the stretcher and hurried off.
Elara stayed where she was, lowering her eyes to the Ashford family crest in her hand.
She felt little beyond a strange sense of familiarity when she looked at the crest.
…
Inside the ambulance.
Tristan lay on the stretcher, still weak all over.
But the girl’s face kept returning to his mind.
She was cool, beautiful, and strangely familiar.
The feeling made no sense.
They had only just met, yet something about her felt instinctively familiar.
As if he had known her long before today.
He closed his eyes, but his thoughts suddenly drifted back to a scene from before he returned home.
At the Ashford family estate in Y Country.
In the spacious meeting room, Reginald Ashford sat at the head of the table.
His hair had long gone gray, but the cane in his hand was still clutched tight.
A faded photograph lay on the table.
It showed a little girl of only a few years old, smiling brightly at the camera.
“Eighteen years.
And you still haven’t found her?”
Reginald spoke quietly, and the room fell silent.
Tristan stood to one side, his face dark and heavy.
“Grandpa, we’ve found the latest lead.”
Reginald looked up sharply.
“Where?”
“The latest lead brought us here,” Tristan said, his voice low.
“After our youngest sister disappeared, we all thought she had…”
He stopped there, his throat catching for a second.
“Later, we found out she was very likely taken by traffickers.”
Reginald’s fingers tightened around his cane.
“Go on.”
“The traffickers brought her here.
The last lead points to the capital.
We believe she was later sold to a wealthy woman.”
The revelation hit the room like a shock.
The entire hall fell into absolute silence.
A spark of hope returned to Reginald’s eyes.
All these years, the Ashford family had never once given up looking for that child.
Even when the odds seemed impossible, they had followed every lead they could find.
“The capital…”
Reginald rose slowly, his voice unsteady despite his effort to control it.
“I’m going there myself.”
Tristan froze.
“Grandpa, your health…”
“Don’t worry about my health.”
Reginald slammed the tip of his cane against the floor.
“Eighteen years.
We’ve been searching for a full eighteen years!”
“This time, even if we have to search every corner of the capital, we’re bringing her home.”
“She’s an Ashford.
No one is taking her away from this family again.”
…
The memory ended, and Tristan opened his eyes.
The ambulance had already pulled into the hospital.
But in his head, the image of that girl still wouldn’t leave.
Then a thought struck him.
That girl…
Could she be the sister they had spent eighteen years searching for—
their youngest sister?
His gaze sharpened.
Once the possibility took hold, he could not dismiss it.