Zhou Yalan’s hand paused as she served the soup.
Only for a moment.
The next second, she handed the bowl to the nanny as if nothing had happened, then turned her head, her expression even carrying a hint of confusion.
“Sheng Nianxi?”
She seemed to have finally recalled someone completely unimportant.
“You mean that girl who studied medicine? What could have happened to her?”
Fu Shennian’s father picked up a dish with his chopsticks without even raising his head.
“How long ago was that? Why bring her up now? She isn’t young anymore. She’s probably already married with children.”
The two of them reacted cleanly and decisively, as though they had rehearsed it countless times.
It was too deliberate.
So deliberate that it seemed they were trying to hide something.
Fu Shennian said nothing more.
He lowered his head, picked up the glass in front of him, and took a drink of water.
He did not press them further.
Because he knew that in this family, pressing for answers had never yielded any.
But he could investigate on his own.
Early the next morning, Fu Shennian drove out.
In the rearview mirror, the outline of the Fu Family Villa grew smaller and smaller, before finally disappearing into the morning mist.
His phone vibrated twice.
Zhou Yalan had sent him a WeChat message: “The date has been set. June eighteenth. It’s an auspicious day.”
He did not reply.
Another message came in: “Shennian, isn’t life good now? The whole family together, safe and happy. Yuan Yuan needs you, Xuanxuan needs you, and this family needs you too.”
The same tactic again.
He gave a self-mocking smile. His parents really did seem to understand him, pinning down the most vulnerable places in his heart with precision.
He turned off his phone screen and tossed it onto the passenger seat.
Outside the car window, the March sunlight was so harsh that it made his eyes sting.
His destination was the most authoritative hospital in Jingbei—the medical university’s Affiliated Hospital.
It was also the hospital where Sheng Nianxi worked.
He was not sure what he would be able to find out.
Medical records were private, and the hospital would not casually show them to anyone.
The medical records room was on the fourth floor of the old building. The corridor was dimly lit, and the air was filled with the smell of aged paper.
The staff member was a woman in her fifties who was sorting through files.
“Medical records from four years ago?” She looked up at him. “What is your relationship to the patient?”
Fu Shennian paused.
What was he to her? Her ex-boyfriend?
“Family,” he said.
“Family members need the patient’s authorization, or supporting documents like a household register or marriage certificate.”
Fu Shennian was silent for several seconds.
“I don’t have them.”
The woman pushed up her glasses. “Then I can’t look it up. Medical records are private. We have regulations.”
Fu Shennian stood where he was without moving.
He knew he would not be able to look them up.
He had known that before coming.
“Then could you help me check something…” He paused, his voice slightly hoarse. “Four years ago, was there a patient named Sheng Nianxi who was hospitalized at this hospital?”
The woman looked at him, her gaze becoming more scrutinizing.
“That can’t be checked either, unless you have the proper legal authorization.”
Fu Shennian nodded.
He turned and walked out of the medical records room, then stood in the corridor with his back against the wall.
A little light entered through the window at the end of the corridor, shining onto the dusty concrete floor.
He took out his phone, scrolled through his contacts for a while, found a number, and dialed it.
“Old Xu, it’s me.”
Sheng Nianxi had been off duty the day before. When she came to work early that morning, she immediately sensed that something was wrong.
Little Liu at the guidance desk saw her and briefly averted her eyes, looking as though she wanted to speak but hesitated.
Two nurses beside her were huddled together, looking at a phone. The moment Sheng Nianxi approached, they immediately separated.
She paid it no mind.
After changing into her white coat, she entered the duty room.
A duty roster lay on the desk.
She picked it up and glanced at it.
Her fingers abruptly tightened.
This was outrageous.
On next month’s emergency-department roster, she had been assigned seven consecutive night shifts.
Seven!
Night shifts in the emergency department were notorious for wearing people down. They lasted twelve consecutive hours, without a single minute to close one’s eyes.
Car accidents, myocardial infarctions, cerebral hemorrhages, drunk people causing trouble… everything was sent to the emergency department in the dead of night.
After one night shift, a person felt as though they had been hollowed out.
Two consecutive night shifts were already the limit.
She flipped through the roster. Everyone else’s night shifts were spread out, with at most two in a row.
Only hers had been lined up together in a neat, unbroken row.
“Sister Xi.” A head appeared at the doorway. It was Zhang Xiaoyin, a young nurse who had a fairly good relationship with her. Her voice was lowered to a whisper. “Have you heard?”
Sheng Nianxi’s hand paused. “Heard what?”
“They’re saying that you…” Zhang Xiaoyin hesitated, biting her lip. “They’re saying you’re arrogant and look down on people, and that you went on a blind date with a male colleague only to toy with his feelings. They’re also saying that you rely on being an overseas returnee at the hospital and don’t take your colleagues seriously—not even the director.”
Sheng Nianxi said nothing.
“These rumors have been going around for several days. Even the director has heard them. As for your roster…” Zhang Xiaoyin glanced at the sheet in her hand and did not continue, but the meaning was already perfectly clear.
“I understand.” Sheng Nianxi set down the roster, her voice calm. “Thank you.”
After Zhang Xiaoyin left, she stood by the window, looking at the sky outside.
The March sunlight was bright, shining white across the parking lot in front of the emergency building.
She had clearly done nothing wrong.
She had only rejected someone who was not suitable for her.
When she rejected him, she had not lost her temper or said anything harsh. She had even bowed and apologized, giving him every bit of dignity.
In the end, she had even voluntarily paid Zhou Yanwen her share of the cost of every meal they had eaten together.
Zhou Yanwen had accepted it.
She did not owe him anything.
But now, she was the “arrogant, stuck-up” bad woman.
And Zhou Yanwen remained the “honest, down-to-earth man who had been wronged.”
No one cared what the truth was. No matter what she did, she was always in the wrong.
Sheng Nianxi drew a deep breath.
Her chest felt painfully constricted, as though something were pressing down on it—something she could neither swallow nor spit out.
She opened the duty-room door and walked out.
Several nurses in the corridor saw her, and their voices cut off abruptly, as though someone had switched off the power.
Sheng Nianxi walked past them without looking at them once.
But she could feel those gazes sticking to her back like countless tiny needles.
All morning, Sheng Nianxi treated seven or eight patients without even drinking a mouthful of water.
Every time she came out of an examination room, the voices in the corridor would lower. Once she had passed, they would start up again.
It was as though an invisible wall had shut her outside.
At two-thirty in the afternoon, she finally had time to sit down and open her lunchbox.
The food inside had already gone cold.
The rice had clumped into hard lumps, and the vegetables had wilted against the edge of the lunchbox. Just looking at it killed her appetite.
She did not care and casually shoveled a few bites into her mouth.
Her phone vibrated once.
It was a message in the department group chat.
She opened it and saw a notice from the director:
“For the emergency department’s selection of core physicians for the next quarter, the department’s recommended candidates are as follows: Xue Jianzhou, Li Cen, Wang Zaifang…”
Her name was not on the list.
Sheng Nianxi stared at the screen, her chopsticks suspended in midair, forgotten.
Being an emergency-department core physician was more than just a title.
It meant better performance bonuses, more resources, and a broader path for advancement.
She had returned from abroad the previous year and been assigned to the emergency department as soon as she was hired.
Over the past year or so, she had handled the most patients in the entire department. Her resuscitation success rate was also the highest, and her patient satisfaction ratings were the best.
She had thought those figures would speak for themselves.
Now she knew that figures could not speak.
People could.
The rice churned in her stomach, grinding painfully against it.
The duty-room door was knocked on twice.
Zhang Xiaoyin poked her head in.
“Sister Xi, a really handsome man gave this to you.”
Sheng Nianxi accepted it in confusion.
It was a brand-new insulated lunchbox.
“Where is he?” she asked.
“He left. He was really handsome—like he’d walked straight out of a television show. Is he your boyfriend?” Zhang Xiaoyin asked curiously.
Sheng Nianxi did not answer. She opened the bag directly.
There were three tiers: braised pork ribs, scrambled eggs with tomatoes, and soft-boiled eggs.
Every dish was something she had once liked.
He had specially learned to make them for her.
Sheng Nianxi’s fingers paused for an instant.
Her throat felt as though something had lodged in it.
A sour bitterness surged up from her throat, rising into her nasal passage and then to the rims of her eyes.
She swallowed hard and forcibly pushed the bitterness back down.
“Wow, that looks so appetizing. Who made it?” Zhang Xiaoyin leaned over.
Sheng Nianxi suddenly stood up. The chair legs scraped across the floor with a harsh screech.
“I don’t know.” She closed the lid. “You can take it and eat it.”
“Sister Xi, you’re not going to eat?”
“I already ate.”
Zhang Xiaoyin happily carried the lunchbox away.
The duty room fell silent.
Sheng Nianxi looked at the empty insulated bag on the table.
The bag was brand new, and the price tag was still attached.
She reached out, tore off the price tag, crumpled it into a ball, and threw it into the trash can.
In the corridor.
Fu Shennian hid in the shadows, his eyes fixed on the door of Sheng Nianxi’s duty room.
He was extremely anxious, desperate to know how Sheng Nianxi would react after the young nurse delivered the food to her.
In the past, she had loved the dishes he made most. He had learned to cook every one of them for her.
Soon, the door opened, and the young nurse came walking over.
Fu Shennian looked up, his heart rising into his throat…