Hu Xiu felt somewhat shy under his gaze. "Dr. Pei, if you're tired, you should go home and rest. Eating a rushed meal at the convenience store is already unhealthy enough—don't push yourself too hard."
"I appreciate your concern. But I don't like people paying special attention to my health—I'm perfectly fine. I only want everyone to see how excellent, one-of-a-kind, and charming I am."
This was a topic Hu Xiu happened to be well-versed in—Qin Xiaoyi, Minister Qin's collection of self-praises. She gathered her hair in her hand and tossed it back. "What a coincidence, I'm not particularly fond of telling people to take care of their health either. After all, I have no interest in taking on a maternal role. Right now, it's only because Li Ai is still in the ICU, and I'm feeling a bit unsettled. Plus, Dr. Pei is indeed the department's key protected panda—the hospital's unique, star-surrounded celebrity. From a caretaker's perspective, I think you should get some sleep."
As she finished speaking, Hu Xiu thought to herself that her ten playthroughs of Snowpiercer weren't in vain. Battling wits with people every day had not only honed her eloquence but also sharpened her logical thinking.
Pei Zhen was amused and laughed. "Who taught you to talk like that? Ask the juniors in the department who call me 'boss' if they'd dare speak to me like this."
"Someone has to talk back to you. But don't get the wrong idea—this is just a colleague's persuasion. It's good to keep some honest friends around. At the hospital, aside from surgeries, you're either in consultations or doing research. Patients respect you, students fear you, and colleagues guard against you. You hardly get any chance to speak your mind."
Pei Zhen didn't respond, simply sitting on the stool pretending to sleep. Just as Hu Xiu was about to leave to check on Li Ai, Pei Zhen suddenly spoke up. "What will the caretaker feed me tomorrow morning?"
Oh no, she'd been so caught up in their banter that she'd forgotten her boundaries. While Hu Xiu was still processing this, the convenience store's doorbell chimed. Diao Zhiyu walked in, the tip of his nose red from the cold. Seeing them sitting close together, he couldn't control his expression and asked in a low voice, "Oh, running into you here. On a date?"
Talk about damn coincidences. Meanwhile, Pei Zhen stood up. Last time at REGARD was his turf, but this time the hospital was his home ground—and he wasn't going to lose in a war of words either. "Well then, caretaker, I'll trouble you to bring me some food tomorrow. Even though I'm off tomorrow, I'll come to work just for your feeding."
Diao Zhiyu stood right in front of her, his expression shifting unpredictably. There was a reason Hu Xiu couldn't tell if he was Qin Xiaoyi or Diao Zhiyu. His jealous expression carried over from the script to real life—always this kind of quietly brooding intensity. Hu Xiu reflected for a moment—their bickering had indeed been somewhat ambiguous. But if Diao Zhiyu liked her, and Pei Zhen did too, why not give them a fair chance to compete? Since no relationship had been established, why should she trap herself in moral constraints?
After buying yogurt and instant noodles, Diao Zhiyu sat silently waiting for his noodles to soften, swallowing stomach medicine before eating. The cashier girl watched Diao Zhiyu from afar, her admiring gaze meeting his. Diao Zhiyu sat with his legs apart and looked up. "Anything you want to say to me?"
Hu Xiu certainly wouldn't say "take care of yourself"—that trick only worked once. Sitting beside him, she completely avoided the topic and instead asked, "Do you ever play Escape Rooms?"
"We have subsidies for Live Action Role Playing Games and Escape Rooms—we're supposed to go once a month. Why, are you interested?"
"Never been, just a bit curious.""Then do you prefer American horror or Japanese style, immersive cinema or mechanical puzzles, do you want NPCs, what difficulty level for the puzzles..." Halfway through, Diao Zhiyu looked at Hu Xiu's expression and laughed: "With your courage, do you really want to play an escape room? Don't end up clinging to me the whole time."
"NPCs should have a service mindset."
"I'm a player, what service?" Diao Zhiyu hastily prepared instant noodles: "It's rare to have free time after work, and you want me to accompany you to an escape room. Why not ask that giant panda from earlier to go with you?"
Hu Xiu frowned: "Were you eavesdropping at the door?"
"Do I need to eavesdrop? Your voice was so high-pitched earlier, unbearably sweet."
"Jealous, are you?"
"Why would I be jealous? I have plenty of 'warlord's wives'." After finishing his meal, Diao Zhiyu wiped his mouth and stood up, pressing Hu Xiu's head and ruffling her hair: "Let's go, let's visit Li Ai."
"I'm going to buy some yogurt..." Hu Xiu slipped out from under Diao Zhiyu's hand—she hadn't washed her hair since last night. At the checkout counter with several bottles of yogurt, the cashier girl whispered, "Sis, you're really something—both of them are handsome guys. How do you do it?"
Hu Xiu swelled with pride: "Low-key, low-key. It's all about charm."
Li Ai was still in the ICU. The two of them could only see the monitor glowing in the darkness through the door, nothing else was visible. Diao Zhiyu checked the time and said, "I'll take you home." In the car, Diao Zhiyu sat in the passenger seat enjoying the breeze—strangely, he didn't seem cold. Hu Xiu kept holding the yogurt boxes, planning to seriously discuss with Diao Zhiyu how to split them at the building entrance while spending a bit more time with him. But as they approached the building, she spotted a figure downstairs—her father.
Instinctively stopping in her tracks, Hu Xiu said to Diao Zhiyu, "Sorry, you should go first."
Diao Zhiyu glanced ahead: "A friend?"
"My dad. He's... a bit eccentric. So please go back first. If anything comes up, message me on WeChat."
Hearing "dad," he squinted for a better look, just as her father with his crossbody bag made eye contact from a distance. Diao Zhiyu said, "Leaving like this would be impolite. Let me greet him." After saying this, he cleared his throat, straightened his back, and walked forward. Watching Diao Zhiyu's calm retreating figure, Hu Xiu could already predict the storm that was about to unfold.
"Hello, uncle. I'm Diao Zhiyu, Hu Xiu's friend."
"Boyfriend?"
"No, just a regular friend. I live nearby and came to see her home."
Her father shifted the bag from his right shoulder to holding it by the strap, taking a deep breath: "I came from out of town to teach some students and thought I'd check on Dingding. Seems I came at the right time. You look quite young."
"Not that young. I just graduated from the Shanghai Theatre Academy, acting department."
"An actor."
"Yes."
Diao Zhiyu's voice brimmed with confidence, expecting positive recognition. But her father merely snorted through his nose and said, "I see. You can go now. I'll have a few words with Dingding and leave too." He pulled out a pack of Eighth Central South Sea cigarettes from his pocket, lit one, exhaled, and his gaze drifted toward her. Her father smoking was mostly meant to—hasten the guest's departure.
When Diao Zhiyu turned and walked back to her, he whispered, "Call me if you need anything."
His tone suggested he'd already figured everything out.Facing her father's smoking silhouette, Hu Xiu suddenly recalled the Chekhov plays she read at seventeen and I Am a Seagull performed at Nanjing University's small theater during her college years. In 2010, she traveled to Beijing for Chekhov's 150th-anniversary commemorative event, where one line made the entire audience laugh: "Why is everyone a neurotic! Why is there love everywhere!"
Her father's silence must contain this same sentiment—he surely couldn't comprehend through his exhaled smoke why his daughter was obsessed with romance, just like her promiscuous mother. Before Hu Xiu could speak, her father laughed first: "Good thing I came today. If I weren't here, he'd probably be upstairs sleeping with you, right? You're exactly like your mother."
"I..."
"Let me go upstairs with you."
What followed was predictable. Her father turned on the light and immediately opened her wardrobe—no men's clothes; the bookshelf contained only medical and translation textbooks, spared from scrutiny—until he saw Qin Xiaoyi's stage photo and the Marriage Certificate on the wall. He'd found his outlet for venting. The carefully applied adhesive strips bought online to preserve Qin Xiaoyi's composition were torn off and shredded into the trash within moments. The Marriage Certificate was ripped to pieces by her father: "What kind of nonsense is this? Is it between you and that boy from earlier? Why are you as cheap as your mother?"
Hu Xiu's tears fell the instant the Marriage Certificate was torn: "Dad."
"Things going smoothly at the hospital, are they? No ambition at all? After twenty-eight, you'll be in administration—no one will want you. No residency permit, no apartment, staying alone in Shanghai—have you considered your situation? That young boy will have his fun with you and leave. Do you think you're getting the better end of the deal? You never fail to disappoint me!"
"Dad, is it so hard to accept an imperfect me and let me do what I want?"
"Waiting for reality to teach you a lesson will be too late. Have you seen what happened to your mother? After I kicked her out, that man dumped her. She ended up alone, far from home, doing odd jobs up north without even a pension. A woman who doesn't value herself will live miserably, no matter the era—that's reality. Am I disciplining you? I'm guiding you back to the right path!" Her father hadn't even removed his leather shoes since entering, stomping forcefully on the floor. He used his foot to push aside clothes on the chairback, attempting to kick them into the cabinet, but they slid off his shoe and fell to the floor: "Filthy and messy."
"Please leave."
"What?"
"If you can't respect me... then please leave. I'm not as worthless as you think, Dad. If you paid even a little attention, you'd see the hospital's major conferences and lectures are livestreamed—click into the stream and you'll find me sitting behind the dean as an interpreter. Anyone who cares about me would notice. You're my father; you should be the first to see these things... I expected too much from you. You've never really looked at me—you only see yourself. If you insist on looking down on me, then don't come to see me."The living room fell silent again. Hu Xiu sat on the floor staring at the muddy footprints and piles of scattered clothes, unsure where to begin restoring order. Her gaze couldn't even settle on the torn paper fragments in the trash bin. At seventeen, during a piano competition—having lived her whole life among eighty-eight keys—she needed to give her father a final answer at the Jiangsu provincial contest. When the results were announced, the first-place girl showed no surprise or tears, simply tossed her chin-length black hair and walked offstage, taking with her the sole admission ticket to the Central Conservatory of Music. It was her father who wept—his dream of attending a top-tier music academy, unrealized in his own life, had now shattered for his daughter too. Soon after, her father moved out. Having always looked down on her mother, he found the bookless home suffocating. Hu Xiu spent the first month of senior year in classrooms alongside light-chasing gnats until her mother's boyfriend entered their home carrying clothes and a toothbrush. After the college entrance exams at eighteen, her father returned to discuss her applications. She was in her room, barefoot, eating vermicelli soup over the phone, her back damp with sweat, but one glimpse of her father chilled her instantly. The "uncle"—her father's term for the other man—walked straight through her room and exited behind her father. The final outcome: every one of Hu Xiu's college applications was for English or business majors, utility above all else—perhaps her way of offering solace to her father after her mother's betrayal.
She had once desperately wanted to apply for film and theater literature, but by the time she learned about the program, her classmates had already received their arts examination acceptance notices. The arts exams were in spring, and no one at home would have cared anyway.
Wiping the sticky tear stains from her face, Hu Xiu washed her hands, turned on the desk lamp, and took out tape to carefully piece together the Marriage Certificate. Her father had torn it with such force—reduced to such tiny fragments, twisted out of shape. Her phone vibrated incessantly behind her—probably Diao Zhiyu checking on her—but she just wiped her tears with her sleeve and stubbornly focused on reassembling the certificate. The vibrations continued, yet she refused to turn and answer, treating each paper shard like a puzzle piece preserving the persistence of her feelings.
By dawn's first light, Hu Xiu gazed at the heavily cracked Marriage Certificate with unexpected calm. Though missing corners and gaps remained, it was ultimately whole again. The text read: This certifies that this document possesses notarial power to fairly attest and recognize the authentic existence of matrimony between both parties. The marriage is entered voluntarily by both individuals who pledge mutual love, respect, assistance, shared upbringing in harmony and unity, and joint efforts toward family happiness. Certified: Feng Youjin, Xu Zhenping. Issued by Rong City Wedding Ring Association Notary Office.
Having painstakingly completed her task, Hu Xiu leaned against the bedside and finally glanced at her phone—twenty missed calls from Diao Zhiyu. She thought, for matters that couldn't be clearly explained, she might as well pretend she'd muted her phone and fallen asleep.
Li Ai officially transitioned from the intensive care unit to the sterile ward, taking three full days to reach the general ward. Hu Xiu had worked three extra shifts at the hospital during this time. Upon receiving Li Ai's text, she rushed to the hospital at seven sharp, climbing straight to the fifth floor. His leg was tightly wrapped in plaster and bandages—Pei Zhen mentioned the third day was when swelling peaked—yet Li Ai smiled and said, "The hardest two days are over. Earlier I couldn't leave bed, and all I heard were nurses discussing catheter bags. Utterly humiliating.""The patient will be fine, it's only temporary." Pei Zhen stood with the surgeon beside Li Ai, but his eyes were fixed on Hu Xiu. "Keep up with the rehabilitation, and you might not even need crutches in the future."
"If you get the chance, come by the shop. I’d like to treat you to a meal—I’ve caused you a lot of trouble."
"It’s nothing. Hu Xiu’s friends are my friends." Diao Zhiyu’s intermittent texts appeared, and Pei Zhen caught Hu Xiu sending updates to reassure him. "I really envy the bond you two share, like real siblings. I’d love to be a part of it."
The surgeon, Pei Zhen’s senior from the same medical school, gave Hu Xiu a meaningful look upon hearing this. "Xiao Hu, Dr. Pei is the hospital’s treasure. Whether it’s academic competitions or internal tests, he’s the one leading Reconstructive Surgery. So talented and handsome—don’t let him slip away easily. For Li Ai, he hasn’t returned to the hospital for three days, handling everything in the ICU personally, even meddling across departments. It’s probably because he has feelings for you."
Hu Xiu and Pei Zhen stood side by side, neither responding. Li Ai glanced around and asked Hu Xiu, "Did Zhao Xiaorou not come?"
"She’s filming long Weibo videos today—three a day—and still has to edit them. She’s put together a team, so it’s a bit tough." Busy as she was, Zhao Xiaorou was clearly too embarrassed to show up. "Don’t take what she said the other day to heart. She’s always been sharp-tongued."
"I know."
Li Ai’s parents seemed to have driven back to their hometown, leaving him alone in the ward once he was out of danger. This was probably why Hu Xiu felt their souls had grown closer—after all, lonely paths must be walked alone, she thought. The thermos beside her was full; someone must have come by in the morning. Hu Xiu quietly tested the waters with Li Ai, "Did someone come to help fetch water this morning?"
"Xu Meng." Li Ai didn’t hesitate to answer.
Hu Xiu thought to herself, it’s just as well Zhao Xiaorou didn’t come, or she might have smashed the cast on Li Ai’s leg in a fit of rage. Stepping out of the ward, Hu Xiu called out to Pei Zhen and spoke with unusual seriousness, "Dr. Pei, before you go abroad, I’d like to ask—how should I prepare for the official translation position in Reconstructive Surgery?"
"The knowledge system is quite extensive. If you’re studying from books, you’re not a medical student, so you can’t compete with those trained systematically. But I can lend you my notes, and you can come to the hospital in your free time for some tutoring. Why the sudden interest?"
"I want to become a full-time translator and leave administrative work behind. I want to take translation seriously."
"You’ll probably still have to handle odd jobs in Reconstructive Surgery. If you’re truly committed, I can mentor you. But… do you not need my help?"
"I want to rely on myself."
"Alright. But, about the pan-fried buns you promised—I haven’t had any lately." Pei Zhen leaned against the windowsill and lowered his voice. "If my joke about being your feeder the other night went too far, I apologize."
The floor at home hadn’t been mopped, the laundry basket was overflowing with clothes, and she was still wearing a shirt from her student days. These were things she couldn’t easily explain to anyone. Hu Xiu just smiled and said, "I’ll go buy some now."
PS: This chapter might be a bit sad, but it’s part of the warming-up phase as the plot slowly unfolds~ Welcome to add to your bookshelf, vote for recommendations, and join the comments section~ Little Zhang is waiting in the comments for good luck today~
OpenNovel