She hadn’t said any of that at all.
Rong Jiqiao didn’t stop what she was doing. She just gave a soft “Mm.”
Shen Hui continued, “I figured since you requested it yourself, I arranged the schedule accordingly. Any problem?”
“No problem,” Rong Jiqiao said. “I didn’t explain clearly. Could you help me adjust it next week? Don’t stack them so closely—just spread them out.”
“Alright,” Shen Hui said, then turned back to her work.
Rong Jiqiao returned to the nurses’ station and took photos of the past few days’ shift schedule, saving them to her phone.
She didn’t go confront Zhu Xiaoyue.
What was the point? Zhu Xiaoyue could simply say “I misunderstood her meaning” and wash her hands of it. In the end, if it escalated, she would be the one at a disadvantage.
She needed to wait for a better moment.
Three days before the exam, when Rong Jiqiao went to retrieve her materials, she found only the cover page and a few irrelevant basic forms left inside.
Everything else was gone.
She stood there, flipping through the folder inside and out, checking nearby shelves, even the storage cabinet.
Nothing.
A passing nurse, Shen Hui, asked her what she was looking for. Rong Jiqiao said “nothing” and casually closed the folder, putting it back in place.
After Shen Hui left, she went to the monitoring room.
She had already confirmed earlier that the storage area was within the camera’s coverage—its angle directly facing that row of drawers.
The monitoring room technician, Old Liu, knew her and helped pull up footage from after work the previous day.
The screen glowed a dull green. The timestamp read 18:47.
People gradually left the department. The corridor lights stayed on, and the frame became empty.
18:53.
Someone entered the frame.
A figure in a nurse’s uniform, hair tied up. She paused at the nurses’ station, then walked to the storage rack, bent down, opened the drawer, rummaged inside, pulled out a stack of papers, tucked them under her arm, and left.
The entire process took less than a minute.
Rong Jiqiao stared at the silhouette.
“Old Liu,” she said calmly, “help me cut this clip and send it to my phone.”
Old Liu hesitated. “This is—”
“My materials were lost. I just want to confirm whether someone accidentally took them by mistake.”
After a pause, Old Liu nodded.
She handed the clip to him.
Rong Jiqiao thanked him and left the monitoring room.
……
The night before the assessment, Rong Jiqiao kept flipping through that stack of A4 revision materials. The cover was already worn soft from being handled too much.
She had backed up the materials on her phone and gone through them three times. Her head was filled with emergency procedures and case analyses, but the moment she closed her eyes, it all felt like it had vanished. She had no choice but to open them again and reread.
“CPR… thirty to two…”
She muttered under her breath, turned a page, then immediately felt she hadn’t memorized the previous one well enough and flipped back again.
The clock pointed to 11:40.
Duan Yan had just finished showering. His hair was still slightly damp as he walked out, casually drying it with a towel. He glanced at her by the coffee table but said nothing and went into the bedroom.
Rong Jiqiao continued staring blankly at her materials.
Another twenty minutes passed. She had already reread the same page so many times the edges of the paper were wrinkled.
“That’s enough.”
Duan Yan’s voice came from the bedroom. Calm, slightly lazy from sleepiness.
Rong Jiqiao didn’t move. “I’m not done memorizing yet.”
“You’ve read that page three times already.”
Rong Jiqiao: “…”
Frustrated, she slammed the stack of papers onto the coffee table and stood up.
She went into the bedroom. The lights were off, with only a thin strip of orange streetlight slipping in through the curtains. She climbed into bed and curled under the blanket, closing her eyes.
She couldn’t sleep.
Her mind kept running on its own—emergency procedures, case analysis questions looping endlessly. Zhu Xiaoyue’s face floated in. The examiner’s face, whom she had never even seen, felt suddenly very real—
She turned over.
Then turned back.
Then again.
“Stop.”
Duan Yan’s voice came, flat but firm. That single word froze her movements instantly.
The next second, a long arm reached over from behind and pulled her into his embrace.
Her back pressed against a broad, warm chest. Duan Yan rested his chin lightly on the top of her head, his breathing steady—like he had never known what exam anxiety was in his life.
“You can do it.”
Rong Jiqiao didn’t move. “How do you know?”
“I just know.”
She was just trying to buy time.
“You’re just brushing me off,” she muttered, picking at the sleeve of his arm. “Give me something with reasoning behind it.”
Duan Yan fell silent for two seconds.
“You’ve gone through it three times and you’re still reviewing it. That means you’re serious.”
Rong Jiqiao: “But what if the examiner asks something I didn’t memorize?”
“Then improvise on the spot.”
“What if I mess up under pressure?”
“Then if you mess up, Zhu Xiaoyue probably will too.”
That logic made her choke for a second.
She couldn’t help but curl her lips slightly. “What kind of reasoning is that?”
Duan Yan didn’t respond. He just tightened his arm around her a little.
Rong Jiqiao stared at the wall in the dark. Her heartbeat slowly calmed down, but her mind still wouldn’t stop.
After a moment, she spoke again.
“What if—”
“Rong Jiqiao.”
“Mm?”
“Shut up and sleep.”
She held her breath in frustration, struggled a bit but couldn’t break free. In the end, she simply turned over to face him.
In the darkness, they were very close—so close she could feel his breath brushing against her bangs, carrying the coolness of the night.
She could vaguely make out his features: the curve of his nose, the line of his pressed lips, his eyes still open, like two quiet points of light staring at her.
Her heartbeat skipped for no reason.
Neither of them spoke.
The night was too quiet. Occasionally a car passed below, and the streetlight cast a faint moving shadow on the wall. A strip of orange light slipped through the curtain gap, falling between them and outlining half of Duan Yan’s face.
She could see the arc of his eyelashes, the slight movement of his throat as he swallowed.
At some point, her fingers tightened around the edge of the blanket.
Duan Yan slowly lowered his head.
Rong Jiqiao held her breath.
Closer.
Even closer.
Her back was pressed into the pillow, nowhere to retreat. Her heartbeat nearly burst out of her chest.
His nose was almost touching her forehead. Their breaths tangled together. She could even smell the faint scent of laundry detergent mixed with post-shower freshness on him.
Her eyelashes trembled.
She instinctively closed her eyes.