Chapter 2

Like Jiang Xinhe, the child had a heart condition. The moment he was delivered, his face was already blue.

There was no point in even trying to resuscitate him.

Despite knowing this fact, Chen Jue instinctively flipped the baby over and gave his bottom a few pats. The baby didn't cry, just let out a few faint whimpers, and even the follow-up resuscitation efforts couldn't save him.

When the baby's heartbeat flatlined, the whole operating room went quiet.

Because the patient was high-profile, three departments worked on this surgery at once, with Dean Chen himself supervising while Chen Jue led the operation.

Everyone in that silent room knew exactly what the flatline meant.

They were silent because Huachen Pharmaceutical Group, owned by the Huo family, was the hospital's biggest shareholder.

Two lives lost—their biggest client gone.

Chen Jue was the attending physician, and he was the one who had delivered the baby via C-section, so it was his job to go out and explain to the waiting family.

He went.

Many people were waiting outside the operating room—people from the Huo Group, people from the Jiang Group.

Chen Jue took off his mask and gave a half-bow to the two families waiting outside.

"I'm sorry. I did everything I could."

Chen Jue couldn't remember if his voice had sounded as flat as usual, but after he spoke, the scene went so quiet it felt frozen in time.

Chen Jue understood their grief, but it was too late for that.

Chen Jue didn't look up to see the faces of the immediate family. He didn't really want to.

Just as he turned to leave, Jiang Xinhe's younger brother grabbed him by the collar.

"You did everything you could? Two lives, and you just brush it off with that?!"

Chen Jue could understand his pain. This was Jiang Xinhe's closest brother—she'd talked about him often, and they were really close.

But Chen Jue pulled his arm free. A cold feeling rose in his chest. Why had her own family let Jiang Xinhe—a woman with a heart condition—go through with a pregnancy?

Jiang Xinhe shouldn't have been having a baby at all. In the end, her heart gave out, and her body couldn't get enough oxygen. The baby, who already had a heart condition, had been starved of oxygen in the womb. By the time Chen Jue delivered him, it was too late.

Jiang Xinhe's brother pulled away and swung at him again: "How old are you to be the lead surgeon! My sister's dead—what do you have to say for yourself!"

Chen Jue just looked at him, his face blank. These accusations had been following him ever since he became the Director of Cardiac Surgery last year.

He was used to it. He didn't bother explaining anymore.

Yes, he was young—just turned thirty—but they didn't know he'd already been on the operating table hundreds of times.

He didn't explain because he'd earned this position through sheer skill.

And there was a reason he, specifically, had been the one to operate on Jiang Xinhe.

It wasn't that there were no more experienced doctors. It was that no one was bolder, more decisive, or more confident than him—because he was also Dean Chen's son.

The other doctors, who didn't want to take the case and didn't dare to, had all silently agreed that Jiang Xinhe could only be his patient. Their reasoning was: 'If something goes wrong and she can't be saved, the Huo family will at least hold back out of respect for Dean Chen.'

Unfortunately, they'd all miscalculated. The accident happened anyway.

No one had expected the first to throw a punch wouldn't be the Huo family, but Jiang Xinhe's brother.

The Huo family, including Jiang Xinhe's husband, had already gone to the ward to see her one last time. But Jiang Xinhe's brother wouldn't let it go.

Maybe because Chen Jue's face didn't show enough grief, Jiang Xinhe's brother screamed at him, his voice hoarse: "They all say you have no feelings—that a doctor without compassion won't take their patients seriously! And it's true! You cold-blooded butcher! Give me back my sister!"

In his overwhelming grief, he dragged Chen Jue to the stairwell and shoved him down the stairs with all his strength.

It happened in an instant. No one had time to react, and neither did Chen Jue.

After a twelve-hour surgery, Chen Jue was completely exhausted, so he had no defense when he was shoved down the stairs.

And just like that, he was dead.

Chen Jue slowly took his hand away from his eyes. A single tear rolled down his cheek.

Cold. As if it had been frozen for way too long.

Chen Jue's hand slowly dropped to his stomach.

He thought he was dead. If he were having nightmares, they should've been about the grief-stricken faces of the Jiang family and the gruesome sight of him tumbling down the stairs. But somehow, every time he dreamed, it was about that child he'd pulled from the womb.

Covered in blood, blue and purple...

That nightmare that haunted him, that his soul couldn't escape—he'd been having it for three days straight.

Yes, he'd been in this world for three days now...

Three days was enough to decide.

"I accept this child. I'll give birth to him and let him live a good life. Xinhe."

Chen Jue looked up at the faint light of dawn outside the window and spoke slowly.

When he said that name at the end, a faint smile tugged at the corner of his lips.

He looked back on his years of medical practice.

In all those years, he'd never felt guilty about his medical skills—except when it came to Jiang Xinhe.

It wasn't that his skills were lacking. He'd done his best.

But it was exactly that effort that filled him with an unshakable pain over Jiang Xinhe—a pain that pressed on his chest and turned into nightmares night after night.

Jiang Xinhe had asked him to save the baby. Before going into the delivery room, she'd made him promise. But he hadn't saved either of them.

If he'd chosen to save the baby first instead of resuscitating Jiang Xinhe, could he have saved the little one?

You can't question yourself. Once you fall into that spiral, it's like trying to prove your own innocence—endless, with no way out.

Jiang Xinhe had become his obsession.

Outside the window, the rooster had finished pecking at the corn and wandered off somewhere. A thin layer of light now spread through the window. In the growing light, Chen Jue looked down at his stomach. It wasn't showing yet—all he could see was a big patch on his undergarment.

The patch was big, covering his lower belly completely.

Chen Jue stared at the patch, not sure what expression to make.

He was naturally cold. Dean Chen had once suspected he might have an emotional disorder, lacking emotional expression, and had even gone out of his way to book an appointment for him with the psychologist Qin Shu.

"I've booked you an appointment with your classmate. Don't feel pressured—talk to him about anything."

Qin Shu had been his classmate for a while, but after he skipped grades twice and they ended up on different tracks for the combined master's and doctoral program, Qin Shu started to look down on him.

Sarcastically, Qin Shu said, "What, is the genius here to mock us mere mortals? Emotional disorder, lacking emotional expression—your eyes are only on medicine, too lazy to deal with us ordinary folks, let alone crack a smile. Now get out of here—don't waste my time treating us mortals."

He showed Dean Chen the chicken-scratch medical record from Qin Shu, and Dean Chen said, still shaken, "Thank goodness, thank goodness." What exactly was fortunate, Chen Jue never asked.

In short, there was nothing wrong with him—he was probably just naturally cold.

With that thought, he looked down at the child beneath the patch and said, "I've agreed to have you. Since you've come for revenge, then you need to live well. I'm not good at raising children—I'm not that responsible mother from your past life, the one who'd sacrifice herself to keep you alive. So you have to work hard on your own."

What happened in a past life shapes this one.

Chen Jue recalled the head nurse's constant saying.

"Don't get involved in others' karma, or you'll end up paying for it yourself."

Back then, the head nurse hadn't been talking to him—his relationship with patients was strictly defined, like a clear line drawn in the sand.

The head nurse probably never imagined that she would one day be dragged into it herself.

Jiang Xinhe had become his obsession, making him throw his materialist worldview out the window in this life.

Author's note:

I'm back. First, let me wish everyone a happy New Year.

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