Shen Nanxing was not unaware of how others viewed her and Gu Cheng'an.
At the hospital, Gu Cheng'an was a young and promising surgical doctor. He was fresh-faced, well educated, valued by the director, and even the patients' families were willing to trust him a little more when they saw him. Shen Nanxing, meanwhile, was a nurse in the Emergency Department who had worked for twelve years—skilled, reliable, and able to shoulder responsibility. But in the eyes of many people, she was still just a nurse.
“Teacher Shen, how did you manage to win over Doctor Gu back then?” During lunch, Xiao Zhou held her boxed meal and asked brightly.
Several nurses nearby laughed as well.
“Exactly. Doctor Gu must have had lots of people chasing him when he was young, right?”
Shen Nanxing was shoveling rice into her mouth. Hearing this, she smiled. “He didn’t look so much like Doctor Gu back then.”
“What did he look like?”
“Like a poor student who spent every day in the library and even used discount coupons when buying meals.”
Everyone burst out laughing.
Someone sighed with emotion. “But you’ve finally made it through. Your husband is a doctor—what a great sense of security.”
Shen Nanxing’s hand paused as she picked up a dish.
A sense of security.
Those three words were like a beautiful coat draped over the marriage in the eyes of others, making it look dignified and warm. But only the person wearing it knew whether there was any wind underneath.
Before lunch break ended, the head nurse called her to help handle a complaint. A patient’s family member believed that a nurse had failed to remind them to pay the fees in time, causing the examination to be scheduled for the afternoon, and was becoming agitated in the office.
Shen Nanxing stood nearby and explained the procedure, but the family member immediately shot back, “You nurses only know how to shirk responsibility. Call the doctor and have him talk to me.”
The head nurse’s expression shifted slightly. Shen Nanxing was already accustomed to such moments. She did not argue, merely explaining one by one the payment time, the queue records, and the examination schedule.
The other party finally stopped making a scene, but still threw out one last remark before leaving: “Wouldn’t this have been over if you’d said that from the start? You had to make people angry.”
After the door closed, the head nurse sighed. “Nanxing, don’t take it to heart.”
Shen Nanxing smiled faintly. “It’s fine.”
She walked out of the office and happened to see Gu Cheng'an step out of the elevator. A patient’s family member followed him the entire way, speaking with a politeness bordering on caution.
“Doctor Gu, is my father’s condition still serious?”
Gu Cheng'an patiently explained, “At present, the indications for surgery are still unclear. We’ll have to wait for the examination results. Don’t be too nervous for now.”
The family member nodded repeatedly. “Yes, yes, yes. We’ll listen to you.”
Shen Nanxing stood at the side of the corridor and watched the scene. She felt no jealousy, only an inexplicable weariness. They both worked at the hospital and both dealt with patients and their families, yet when a doctor said, “Wait for the results,” people considered it professional; when a nurse said, “Wait for the results,” people considered it perfunctory.
Gu Cheng'an saw her and walked over. “Have you eaten?”
“I have.”
“I may have to work overtime tonight. Go home by yourself.”
“I know.”
He seemed to want to say something else, but his phone rang. The department colleagues called him back to review the scans. After answering the call, he only said, “Make sure you get some rest too.”
Shen Nanxing nodded. “You too.”
Both words of concern were perfectly appropriate, and both were very light.
During the afternoon dressing change, an elderly patient recognized Shen Nanxing. “Little Shen, you’re still working here? You were the one who gave me my injection during my last hospital stay. You have such steady hands.”
Shen Nanxing smiled. “You have a wonderful memory.”
“You nurses work hard,” the elderly patient said. “My son didn’t understand last time and even complained that you were too slow. I scolded him when I got home. Who in a hospital isn’t busy?”
At that moment, something inside Shen Nanxing suddenly loosened a little.
It was not that she had no value.
It was simply that this value was often too quiet—so quiet that it was difficult to notice.
When she returned home that evening, her mother-in-law was watching television in the living room. Gu Cheng'an had not yet returned, and the two children had already finished their homework. As soon as Shen Nanxing put down her bag, her mother-in-law said, “Nanxing, I asked about Yiming’s olympiad mathematics class. The tuition is eighteen thousand per term. It’s expensive, but everyone else is enrolling their children. You should consider it too.”
Shen Nanxing stopped in the middle of changing her shoes.
“Eighteen thousand?” she asked.
“Isn’t that how children are raised nowadays? Cheng'an is under a lot of pressure too. Save wherever you can in your daily life.”
Shen Nanxing looked at the pair of shoes she had worn for three years and suddenly felt like laughing.
At the hospital, patients’ families urged her on; at home, life urged her on. Everyone thought she should be a little steadier, endure a little more, and save a little more. Because she was a nurse, a wife, a mother, and a daughter-in-law.
But very few people remembered that she was also Shen Nanxing.