At 3:12 a.m., a woman who had slit her wrist was wheeled into the emergency room.
The man accompanying her was tall and straight-backed, dressed in an airline captain’s uniform. The four stripes on his shoulders carried the chill of a night flight.
His deep-set eyes were filled with worry.
He must be the woman’s husband.
He was also Sheng Nianxi’s ex-boyfriend.
The medical records the nurse handed over were still suspended in midair. Sheng Nianxi’s hand, hidden inside her white coat, trembled faintly, and she forgot to raise it.
Four years had passed. Fu Shennian had shed his youthful awkwardness and flamboyance. Those star-bright eyes of his now held an added steadiness and sharpness.
“Doctor Sheng?”
Sheng Nianxi came back to herself and took the medical records.
At the same time, Fu Shennian’s gaze fell upon her face.
She saw the surprise that surged instantly from the depths of his eyes. Even his eyelashes trembled.
Sheng Nianxi did not look at him again. She began examining the wound.
It was not deep. The cut had not injured the tendons, but the amount of blood was considerable, making it look frightening.
She dictated the patient’s condition in a calm voice.
From the corner of her eye, she could see him standing there, utterly motionless.
His hand gripped the rail at the foot of the bed, his knuckles white.
“Prepare the operating room. I’m going to suture the wound.”
On the way to the operating room, Sheng Nianxi touched the scar on her left wrist.
Four years ago, Fu Shennian had proposed to her, then broken up with her the next day.
She had slit her wrist, and the blood had filled an entire bathtub.
Her condition had been far more serious than this.
She had been sent to the resuscitation room and was only saved after two days and two nights.
The first thing she did after waking was ask her best friend, Lin Jie, to call Fu Shennian.
The call had been put on speakerphone. In her hazy state, she heard the voice on the other end say:
“If she wants to die, let her die. I won’t even attend the funeral!”
From that moment on, she understood completely.
Her life was worthless to Fu Shennian, let alone the ridiculous love she had stubbornly clung to.
In the operating room, the surgical lights overhead were coldly white.
Sheng Nianxi lowered her head and treated the patient’s wound, stopping the bleeding, cleaning it, and suturing it.
Her hands remained steady.
Halfway through the suturing, Chen Xuan woke up.
She opened her eyes drowsily and saw Sheng Nianxi’s face.
After her initial shock, she quickly regained her composure. Then she smiled.
“You can still continue working as a doctor?”
Hearing this, Sheng Nianxi did not look up.
“Don’t move. I’m suturing you.”
When Fu Shennian had broken up with her for Chen Xuan, it had happened to be the most crucial year of Sheng Nianxi’s preparations for her doctoral entrance examination.
Because of that incident, her future had nearly been ruined.
The young nurse beside them did not catch the sarcasm in Chen Xuan’s words and joined in conversationally:
“Our Doctor Sheng was recruited back from overseas by a top-tier hospital. She even got a permanent staff position as soon as she was hired. She’s amazing.”
Chen Xuan said nothing more.
She merely lay there quietly, occasionally knitting her brows from the pain, yet maintaining a strange sort of dignity throughout.
After finishing the final stitch, Sheng Nianxi cut the thread and removed her gloves.
“Observe her for two hours.”
She turned to leave.
“Doctor Sheng, I cut my hand accidentally while tidying up my husband’s razor. It wasn’t a suicide attempt.”
Chen Xuan’s voice came from behind her.
“My husband loves me, and my son is sensible. I’m not some woman nobody wants. Why would I ever be unable to think of anything but suicide?”
She enunciated the words “nobody wants” with particular clarity.
Sheng Nianxi’s footsteps stopped.
She did not turn around immediately.
She stood with her back to Chen Xuan for two seconds.
The operating room was quiet enough for the beeping of the monitor to be heard clearly.
Then she turned around.
She walked to the bedside and looked down at Chen Xuan from above, smiling.
“There’s no need to explain. I’ve seen plenty of this kind of ‘low-grade’ self-injury ploy. You’re not special.”
She paused. “They’re all pitiful women who aren’t loved. They hurt themselves to win attention. I hope you’re different from them.”
Chen Xuan’s face went pale for an instant. Her lips moved, but no sound came out.
Patients who have slit their wrists need to be observed for two hours and may only leave after receiving approval from the attending physician.
Sheng Nianxi stood outside the observation room, the door half closed.
Fu Shennian stood beside the hospital bed with his back to the door.
Looking at that back, she remembered the three years they had been in love.
Once, when she had been hospitalized with acute gastroenteritis, he had kept watch beside her bed in exactly the same way.
Now, that tenderness belonged to someone else.
“As long as you don’t hurt yourself again, I’ll agree to anything. Yuanyuan needs you.”
Yuanyuan.
That should be their child.
Sheng Nianxi lowered her eyes and tugged at the corner of her mouth.
She looked down at the scar on her wrist.
So, even when people traded their lives for something, the exchange could be different. Some people received a promise, while others received the words, Go die.
They really were different after all.
She pushed the door open and went inside.
“Chen Xuan, your observation period is over.”
Without looking to either side, she walked toward the patient and lowered her head to examine the wound.
“The wound is healing well. You can be discharged once you’ve signed the paperwork.”
Her tone was strictly professional, cold and distant.
Her appearance abruptly shattered the atmosphere in the observation room.
Fu Shennian turned his head.
At the instant their eyes met, Sheng Nianxi saw him part his lips, as though he wanted to say something.
“Husband, sign it for me.”
Chen Xuan’s voice cut in at just the right moment.
Fu Shennian took the pen and signed.
Sheng Nianxi’s eyes fell on the tip of the pen. His handwriting had always been beautiful, but today it looked as though a crab had crawled across the page.
“Husband, I want to go home.”
Chen Xuan’s voice was weak and carried a sobbing note.
Fu Shennian answered with a quiet “Mm,” then bent down and lifted her into his arms.
Sheng Nianxi stood where she was, watching the man carry another woman in the same manner he had once carried her.
When he passed by her, he paused.
Only for a moment.
So briefly that even Chen Xuan failed to notice.
His gaze swept across her face, and his breathing was visibly heavier for a beat.
Sheng Nianxi stood there, listening to their footsteps recede into the distance.
She lowered her eyes and realized that the fingers gripping the folder had gone white.
She took a deep breath, handed over her shift ahead of time, and walked out of the emergency building.
The predawn wind poured into the collar of her trench coat, and she huddled her neck down.
Her phone vibrated.
Zhou Yanwen had sent her a WeChat message:
“You’re getting off work soon, right? I brought you breakfast. It’s outside your duty room.”
She stared at the screen and remembered the first time she had met Zhou Yanwen.
That had been three months ago, when the head nurse had introduced them.
While they were eating, Zhou Yanwen had asked what kind of men she liked.
She had said, “Someone more down-to-earth.”
Zhou Yanwen had smiled. “Then I should fit the bill.”
He really did.
At thirty-two, he was a deputy chief physician in neurosurgery. He had made his way out of a small town through the examination system, received recommendations all the way through his education, and had a spotless résumé and a clean-cut air about him.
He was nothing like Fu Shennian.
Fu Shennian was a rich second-generation heir, the second son of the Fu family. Born with a silver spoon in his mouth, he had an elder brother to shoulder the family business. All he needed to do was fly the planes he liked and live the life he wanted.
During the three years she had been with Fu Shennian, they had clicked instantly and burned with passion. They never ran out of things to say, and holding each other while talking through the entire night had been routine.
Back then, she had truly thought she was Cinderella in a fairy tale.
Now that she thought about it, she had merely been a rich second-generation heir’s diversion. Once he had tired of playing, he had replaced her with someone else without so much as a gap between them—sex without love.
Sheng Nianxi pulled herself back from her thoughts and replied to Zhou Yanwen:
“Thank you. I’ll be there soon.”
She quickened her pace toward the duty room.
At the corner of the corridor, the corner of her eye caught a point of red light outside the glass door of the emergency exit.
Someone was standing there smoking.
She paid no attention.
After taking two steps, she suddenly stopped.
That figure was too familiar.
Broad shoulders, a narrow waist, and the captain’s uniform still on. The four stripes on the shoulder insignia gave off a dark, obscure gleam beneath the green emergency-exit light.
Fu Shennian leaned against the wall, a cigarette held between his fingers. Its scarlet tip glowed and dimmed in the darkness.
He had not left.
Sheng Nianxi’s footsteps stopped for a second.
Then she withdrew her gaze and continued forward.
But the rhythm of her heartbeat had fallen into disorder.
She suddenly remembered that he had never smoked before.
Once, she had jokingly asked him to try it. He had frowned and dodged away, saying, “It smells awful.”
Now, he seemed quite practiced at it.
When she reached the duty room, Zhou Yanwen was standing there with an insulated bag in his hand.
“Have you been waiting long?”
“I just got here.” Zhou Yanwen smiled as he handed her the insulated bag. “Preserved-egg-and-lean-pork congee. Drink it while it’s hot.”
“Thank you.”
As she took the insulated bag, the corner of her eye swept toward the end of the corridor.
Behind the glass door of the emergency exit, that figure was still there.
The scarlet tip of his cigarette glowed again.
He still had not left.
He simply stood there, smoking one cigarette after another.
Zhou Yanwen’s voice sounded beside her ear:
“How have you decided about what I mentioned to you last time?”