On the morning of March 11th, the third day after the Luolin earthquake, a small-scale aftershock occurred in Luolin. It only lasted a few seconds. The military had detected and warned of it in advance. It caused no casualties, had minimal impact, and the rescue mission continued. The medical team had recorded over a thousand deaths, with the number of missing persons undetermined.

Injured people were continuously being brought into the temporarily built medical center. Rescue vehicles carrying critically ill patients rushed toward hospitals outside the disaster zone. The medical staff on site were like tireless spinning tops, constantly shuttling between the wounded. The usually clean white coats were stained with blood and dirt, looking dusty and gray.

Ruan Mian was at the medical center in the morning. In the afternoon, she went to the scene with the medical team and stayed busy until nine in the evening before returning to the medical center with the last injured person.

After coming back and hastily eating a few bites, Meng Fuping temporarily assembled personnel from Union Medical College Hospital to hold a meeting on the open ground outside the center. Ruan Mian quickly threw on her white coat and hurried out.

Meng Fuping said, “Tomorrow the rescue team will organize disaster zone personnel and some medical team members to evacuate together. Anyone here who is an only child can apply to be transferred back.”

Over a dozen people had come for training in their batch. Most were only children, but Meng Fuping waited ten minutes without seeing a single person raise their hand to say they wanted to leave.

Ruan Mian stood quietly in the crowd with both hands in her white coat pockets. Above her head was the starry sky, beneath her feet was rubble, and her heart was completely calm.

After a long while, Meng Fuping smiled and shook his head. “Alright, I underestimated you all. Since everyone doesn’t want to leave, then work hard and don’t lose face for our Union Medical College.”

Several soldiers resting in the shadows heard Meng Fuping’s words and raised their hands to applaud. The group turned around, each person’s face showing a tired yet resolute smile.

After the meeting, the group returned to their respective posts—checking on the wounded, preparing for surgeries, taking inventory of medicines. Everything proceeded in an orderly manner.

At one in the morning, a series of hurried footsteps suddenly came from outside the medical center. Immediately after, several injured soldiers were carried in, each one bloodied and battered.

Director Zhou from the affiliated hospital, as the duty leader that night, urgently arranged surgeries for four soldiers with more serious injuries.

“Send these to the treatment room, hand them over to the doctors there.” Director Zhou ran toward the operating room with the vehicles, his tone urgent. “Go call Director Jiang and Director Meng!”

“Alright.” The nurse hurriedly went outside again to call for people.

Ruan Mian, Lin Jiahui, and several doctors from other hospitals heard the commotion outside while in the treatment room. Before they could go out, those soldiers with lighter injuries were carried in.

The one Ruan Mian received had a skin wound on his forehead, and his right lower leg also had a very deep gash, about an inch long, with the skin and flesh turned outward—it looked quite shocking.

The nurse was slightly older. After setting up his IV drip, she asked with concern, “How did this happen?”

Probably due to excessive blood loss, the man’s voice was somewhat weak. “During rescue operations at a residential building in the south district, we encountered a secondary collapse. At that time, everyone was inside rescuing people and didn’t have time to run. I was lucky—I was at the entrance in charge of coordination. When the wall fell, our captain pulled me, but my teammates…”

At this point, his voice already carried some choking, and his eyes reddened.

“Don’t worry, they’ll be fine.” Ruan Mian put on gloves, pulled over a chair to sit down, lowered her head and began treating the wound, asking gently, “What’s your name?”

“Yu Zhou.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty.” He was the youngest in this batch who came. During the rescue, everyone had been deliberately taking care of him.

“Pretty young.” Ruan Mian first cleaned the wound on his leg. “It might hurt a bit.”

“It’s fine, I’m not afraid of pain. Doctor, go ahead.” Yu Zhou clenched his jaw tightly, his entire right leg trembling involuntarily.

Ruan Mian had a nurse come over to hold down his shoulder and chatted with him to distract his attention. Her hands didn’t stop moving. For a while, the entire treatment room was filled with various sounds of teeth clenching and sharp intakes of breath.

……

Outside the treatment room, several other people who had brought these soldiers stood in the corridor. They would go look at the operating room for a bit, then run back to peek into the treatment room, extremely anxious.

One of the taller ones, named Lin Sui, had sharp eyes and saw a figure walking through the lobby. He quickly went to meet them. “Captain, were those kids rescued?”

Four children were trapped under that residential building, all buried under heavy concrete slabs. Machinery couldn’t be used at all—only people could go underneath.

Chen Yi had been preparing to go in last. He had just put on his equipment when the building started to collapse, completely disrupting the entire rescue rhythm.

Later, Shen Yu’s side brought people over to drag out these soldiers buried inside, while Chen Yi and the rest continued to stay on site for rescue operations.

“They were rescued.” Chen Yi patted off the dust on his body and asked in a low voice, “How are they doing?”

“Little Zhou and the other three were buried deeper and are still in the operating room. The rest are in the treatment room having their wounds treated.” Lin Sui turned his head to look to the side, his voice somewhat choked.

Chen Yi raised his hand to pat his shoulder. “I’ll go in and take a look.”

The so-called treatment room was actually just a small area temporarily enclosed by several medical screens, with a few beds placed inside.

Chen Yi walked to the screen. Taking advantage of his height, he could directly see inside. Yu Zhou, who was nearby, turned his head to see him and grinned.

He smiled back, his gaze naturally falling on the doctor beside him who was lowering her head to treat Yu Zhou’s wound. After just one glance, he withdrew his gaze. Just as he was about to leave, he suddenly felt a shake beneath his feet.

It was almost instantaneous—all of them outside rushed in, and all the doctors on site in the treatment room also instinctively leaned forward to protect their patients. Ruan Mian was no exception.

But Yu Zhou’s primary identity was as a soldier. Almost the second he sensed the disturbance, he tried to stand up. However, because of the wound on his leg, he couldn’t exert force. Before he could stand steady, he was pushed back down by Ruan Mian who had lunged toward him.

“Don’t move!” Ruan Mian pressed down on Yu Zhou’s shoulder, her left hand supporting the table beside her. Chen Yi, who had rushed in first, stood at the foot of the bed using his foot to brace against the wheel underneath while supporting another bed opposite with his other hand, his body turned sideways.

A few seconds later, the aftershock passed again, and the surroundings gradually became calm.

Yu Zhou had just been startled by Ruan Mian’s shout. After quite a while, he finally spoke. “Doctor Ruan, I’m a soldier. My first duty is to protect you all. Next time there’s a situation like this, you don’t need to block me—it’s too dangerous.”

“Outside, your duty is to protect us.” Ruan Mian released her hand and straightened up to look at him. “But here, you are my patient. As a doctor, my first duty is to protect my patient. There’s no such thing as dangerous or not dangerous. When you rescue people, do you not rescue them because it’s dangerous?”

Yu Zhou was stumped, yet also moved by Ruan Mian’s words. Chen Yi, standing at the foot of the bed, heard these words and also released his hand to look back. The person speaking wore a mask, so her appearance couldn’t be clearly seen. Her long hair was casually tied in a ponytail hanging down her back. Her figure was slender and tall.

Probably sensing the gaze, Ruan Mian instinctively looked up around her. At exactly this moment, someone ran in from outside. “Captain Chen, Captain Shen is calling for you to come over.”

Chen Yi withdrew his gaze and lifted his foot to walk outside. Behind him followed a swarm of several people. With such a close distance, Ruan Mian could only see a back view. She withdrew her gaze without paying much attention.

The nurse beside her picked up instruments that had fallen on the floor and threw them in the trash, unwrapping a new set. Ruan Mian continued treating Yu Zhou’s wound.

The entire treatment took over an hour. Ruan Mian removed her gloves and had the nurse wipe away his sweat, instructing, “These next few days, you temporarily shouldn’t go out. Here, an infected wound would be a very serious matter.”

Yu Zhou took a light breath and said, “Alright, thank you, Doctor Ruan.”

Ruan Mian made an acknowledging sound. After lowering her head to write a few medical instructions on the medical chart at the head of his bed, she put away her pen and walked out.

The others who had been brought in were still in surgery. The corridor was empty. Ruan Mian walked with drooping shoulders to the lobby consultation desk. Unable to find an extra stool, she simply stood beside it filling out medical records.

After a while, Lin Jiahui also came out of the treatment room, poured two cups of hot water, and gave her one.

“Thank you.” Ruan Mian’s pen didn’t stop. Her other hand reached over to pick it up and take a sip. “Are Director Zhou and the others still in the operating room?”

“Mm, I heard from the nurse that the situation is quite serious.” Lin Jiahui drank a sip of hot water and sighed.

By then it was already past three in the morning. The rescue rhythm had temporarily slowed. On the east side of the lobby slept patients’ family members sprawled every which way and some wounded with less serious conditions.

In the silent deep night, any movement seemed especially clear.

The pen tip scratched across the paper. Ruan Mian heard a burst of chaotic and urgent footsteps behind her. Thinking more wounded had arrived, she stopped her pen and turned her head to see several soldiers running in from outside.

She didn’t know if it was the lobby lights being somewhat dazzling, but Ruan Mian actually felt the person walking at the front looked somewhat familiar. Her heartbeat inexplicably skipped, though she felt it wasn’t very likely.

The figure drew closer and closer.

The man’s outline gradually became clear—a dust-covered face, a pair of eyes exceptionally deep and sharp, as unforgettable as when they first met. “Hello, may I ask just now—”

His words abruptly stopped due to his gaze falling on a certain place. His eyes moved from the name pinned on the upper left pocket of Ruan Mian’s white coat to her face.

Both people saw surprise and disbelief in each other’s eyes.

In those first two years after high school graduation, Ruan Mian could occasionally learn fragmentary bits and pieces related to Chen Yi from Meng Xinglan—good and bad, she accepted them all.

Later on, each had their own busy lives. Ruan Mian and Meng Xinglan also didn’t contact each other often. Chen Yi seemed to have disappeared from her life—there was no news of him at all.

He kept moving forward, and she also slowly learned to forget. Wishing him a bright future was real, and no longer liking him was also real.

But whenever it was late at night and quiet, Ruan Mian had still imagined many times the scene of reuniting with Chen Yi. But she never thought it would be like this now—her face pale, her white coat dirty and disheveled, him covered in dust, carrying the same lack of dignity.

She saw him running toward her. Besides familiarity, there was actually strangeness. He was no longer that young man in her memory who was like a clear breeze and bright moon, nor was he the gentle and refined person in her imagination. The man now standing before her eyes wore a military uniform, had a neat and clean buzz cut, with sharp and distinct features.

Nine years.

It really had been too long.

So long that aside from those eyes, Ruan Mian could no longer find any place on him that was the same as that young man in her memory.

Clearly only a dozen seconds had passed, yet it seemed as if an entire age had changed.

Ruan Mian suppressed the turbulent waves that briefly churned in her heart for a moment. As if treating an old friend she hadn’t seen for a long time, polite yet distant, she said, “Long time no see.”

She was no longer that girl from back then who chased behind him, using all her efforts wanting him to see her. These past few years, she had stumblingly learned to forget, traveling a bumpy road all the way. Although she would occasionally think of him, she had long passed the age of letting a single word from him determine life or death.