Huo Ting suddenly said, “Hold on — Yu Hao, from a personal standpoint, I don’t want you to step forward. Not for any other reason, but because I believe it would be meaningless. We don’t have evidence from back then. If you just went to the police like this, they wouldn’t take you seriously. On top of that, you’d be facing enormous pressure from public opinion. So I don’t think it’s necessary for you to come forward at this moment.”

You can never control what other people think, so there’s no need to put yourself at the center of the storm — that was Huo Ting’s philosophy.

The others exchanged glances. Yu Hao understood his reasoning, yet now that she’d made up her mind to step forward, she was prepared to face whatever came. Huo Ting knew this stubborn little girl from the Yu family wouldn’t easily back down. He lowered his head and smiled. “If we need you, we’ll come looking for you. But right now, we’re not entirely out of options. With someone like Hu Jianming, getting a handle on him is easy enough. Can you trust your uncle-in-law on this one?”

The moment the words “uncle-in-law” left his lips, Yu Hao’s face flushed crimson. She instinctively glanced at Lu Huaizheng sitting beside her. He was looking right at her, and a rare flicker of amusement had crept into his eyes.

Even Jia Mian could sense it — Huo Ting was very fond of Yu Hao.

Seeing Yu Hao’s shy reaction, the smile at the corner of Huo Ting’s mouth grew wider. He leaned back and looked over at Lu Huaizheng, unable to resist teasing his usually unflappable nephew.

“What’s this? Shy now?” He raised an eyebrow at Lu Huaizheng.

Lu Huaizheng paused, instinctively rubbing the tip of his nose, and let out a decidedly awkward cough. “No.”

Huo Ting had finally found his opening to poke fun at him.

“You don’t know this, but—”

That kind of opening always meant gossip was coming. Both Jia Mian and Yu Hao perked up, ears at the ready — only Lu Huaizheng let out a casual cough and shot Huo Ting a warning glance. Huo Ting, however, was in full swing, rattling off his nephew’s embarrassing moments like someone dumping beans from a bamboo tube.

“Back in his second year of high school, he came crying to me, told me he’d been dumped. Even showed me your photo. Looking at you now, you haven’t really changed — same as before, same look and spirit. A bit thinner than back then, maybe. That night at the private room, I spotted you two the moment I walked in. Neither of you said a word, just sitting there — and I thought to myself, there’s something there.”

Huo Ting had no airs about him whatsoever, and told the story with vivid flair.

“He came crying to me, acting all dramatic, saying he didn’t like anyone else, only you — didn’t like anyone but the girl in that photo. We’ve all been young once — who doesn’t have their own red rose, their own white rose during school days? I told him to go spend time with other girls. He refused. Just cried every day, wallowed in tears, telling me over and over how much he liked you.”

Lu Huaizheng made no effort to hide his disdain for Huo Ting’s embellishments. Leaning back on the sofa with his arms crossed, he let out a scornful laugh. “Your talent for spinning stories just keeps growing — I’m impressed, truly.”

Jia Mian raised his hand and said to Yu Hao, “I’ll vouch for that — Huaizheng really was heartbroken back then. Stopped playing basketball and everything. We all teased him about it — called him a lovesick fool.”

Lu Huaizheng didn’t hesitate for a second — he kicked out at him. “Get lost.”

Jia Mian laughed and dodged to the side. The two of them had seized this chance to poke fun at him in front of Yu Hao.

Somehow the conversation had veered wildly off track, and both of them were mixing truth with exaggeration. He really hadn’t cried — it was nowhere near as dramatic as Huo Ting made it sound.

He’d been young and hot-headed back then, with a stubborn streak burning inside him. He wasn’t about to fall apart over anyone. He didn’t quite know who he was pushing back against — just felt that yes, he liked her, but a real man doesn’t grovel over feelings like that. That’s not what a man does.

Still, he regretted it. If he’d known then how things would turn out, he’d have sooner died than clung to that sliver of pride.

But at least neither of them had changed.

He was drifting into his own thoughts when he heard Yu Hao’s voice, soft and quiet: “Alright, Director Huo. I’ll do as you say.”

Huo Ting looked at her with a warm smile. “You can call me uncle-in-law, just like Huaizheng does.”

Yu Hao’s face burned. She lowered her head and murmured softly, “Uncle-in-law.”

“There we go!” Huo Ting was so delighted that the creases on his face practically bloomed with joy.

Lu Huaizheng was caught somewhere between laughter and exasperation. This girl really was too easy to coax — three words and she was already calling him uncle-in-law. Huo Ting really had a way with her.

He didn’t embarrass Huo Ting though. He held himself together and waited until the two of them had left before pulling Yu Hao over to sit beside him. The girl looked a little puzzled. Seeing his expression — that half-smile — she asked quietly, “What is it?”

Lu Huaizheng leaned back at his ease and studied her for a long moment, then lightly tapped her on the forehead with his hand.

“Huo Ting tells you to call him uncle-in-law and you just do it? How are you so easy to manage?”

Yu Hao let out a startled little sound.

Lu Huaizheng knit his brows in bewilderment. “Back then, getting you to go along with anything was like pulling teeth. Why the difference?”

“That was different!”

“Oh? How so?”

The meaning behind her words was obvious. The amusement deepened in his eyes — he was definitely doing it on purpose.

Yu Hao said nothing. Lu Huaizheng made no real effort to press her for an answer. Some things, he thought, had already been made perfectly clear and firmly decided between them just a little while ago. Then he heard Yu Hao say softly, “Because he’s your uncle-in-law. Your only family.”

Those words made Lu Huaizheng’s heart sink quietly. She always found a way — in the most offhand moments, with the most ordinary words — to strike straight at the center of him.

“But from now on, I’ll also be your—”

Lu Huaizheng didn’t let her finish. He kissed her, sudden and deep, pressing her back against the sofa cushions. After a long, fervent exchange between them, Lu Huaizheng’s breath came low and shallow against her ear.

Yu Hao felt like a fish — flushed and overheated, her whole body warm and swollen with the kiss. By the time it ended, the two of them had somehow wound up tangled together on the bed. Lu Huaizheng, to his credit, very considerately helped Yu Hao straighten her clothes, coaxed her to sleep, and then turned and headed into the bathroom for a shower.

The next morning was the day of the initial screening.

Yu Hao woke before Lu Huaizheng — a rare occurrence. She was thinking about going downstairs to pick up some breakfast for him, since it was one of the few days he hadn’t risen first. But the moment her bare feet touched the floor, Lu Huaizheng stirred. He was propped on the sofa, elbows on his knees, blinking himself awake, when he noticed out of the corner of his eye that Yu Hao’s slippers were still on his side. He picked them up without thinking and carried them over to her.

Yu Hao was bent over the edge of the bed searching underneath for her slippers when she looked up to find his tall frame stepping through the doorway. He set the shoes down by her feet and leaned against the doorframe. “Up so early today? I seem to remember that during those days at the base, you never stirred before nine.”

“It’s your screening day. I couldn’t sleep.”

“You could wait at home for me?”

Yu Hao slipped on her shoes and bounced up from the bed immediately. “No!”

Lu Huaizheng smiled, his eyes still soft with sleep. He walked over and pulled her into his arms, resting his chin on the fuzzy, slightly disheveled top of her head. He let out a long breath. “Then let’s set a few ground rules.”

Yu Hao wrapped her arms around his waist, pressing against the firm, solid wall of him. His body was impossibly built — like a fortress, hard and warm — and she found herself reluctant to let go of the heat of his embrace.

“What ground rules? I already said I want to be with you — you’re not having second thoughts, are you?”

“Last night, Professor Han sent me a message. He said Dr. Wu brought back news from Hong Kong — there are promising developments in AIDS treatment. Whether it has any bearing on my situation or not, it’s still an incredibly hopeful development for medicine in this country. That said, it’s still only a breakthrough in academic research, not yet implemented in practice — the road ahead may be long. But there is hope. If today’s initial screening results aren’t good…” Lu Huaizheng glanced down at her and gently rubbed her shoulder. “Promise me you won’t cry, and you won’t despair. We’ll both try our best together, alright? I’m genuinely worried that if there are too many people and things get chaotic in there, I won’t be able to tend to your emotions the way I want to.”

Yu Hao closed her eyes and held him tighter, listening to the strong, steady beat of his heart. “Alright. Whatever the results are, we’ll deal with them then.”

The initial screening was done at the Air Force Hospital.

It had rained through the night, but by morning the sky had cleared to a perfect blue. The car moved along the road through brilliant dawn light, the early rays filtering in through the windshield. Lu Huaizheng pulled down the sun visor to block the glare, only for Yu Hao to flip it back up herself.

“The weather is really beautiful today.”

Every cloud had scattered, and sunlight poured down across the earth in extraordinary clarity. It was as if the great storm the night before had swept everything away — the trees looked freshly born, standing tall and brimming with life. Planes rumbled through the cloud layer overhead; the air in the streets was crisper than usual. The whole city seemed to have been scrubbed clean, gleaming brightly, every worry washed away.

Lu Huaizheng felt it too — the day was unusually luminous.

When they parked and got out, he took off his sunglasses and led Yu Hao inside.

There were even more people than he’d anticipated. It happened to coincide with the Navy’s medical examination day next door, and familiar face after familiar face came toward them.

Only the people in his unit knew about the biting incident, so those familiar faces assumed it was a routine check-up, and looked puzzled. “Your special forces unit is here for physicals today too? Didn’t you all just have one a few months back?”

Lu Huaizheng deflected with a few vague words and moved on.

By the time the blood draw actually came, Lu Huaizheng felt, for the very first time in his life, genuinely nervous.

He was not a man who got nervous easily. Even while defusing bombs or handling in-flight emergencies, he was the kind of person who could still crack jokes with his teammates over the radio. Yet here he was, uncharacteristically tense.

Even Li Hongwen, standing outside the glass doors with his hands clasped behind his back, noticed. He turned to Professor Han beside him and said, “That kid’s nervous.”

Professor Han, in a rare moment of defending Lu Huaizheng, replied, “That’s normal. Anyone would be nervous. Even you.”

Li Hongwen gave Han Zhiqin an odd look and shot back, “Didn’t you say you couldn’t stand my subordinate? What’s this — now you’re speaking up for him? What, now that there might be something wrong with him, you’re suddenly feeling sorry for him?”

Han Zhiqin pointed at him in indignation. “The reason I couldn’t stand your subordinate is entirely because of that mouth of yours! As a longtime classmate, I am offering you the most sincere advice I have — if you actually care about the wellbeing of those under you, then stop talking. Because every word that comes out of your mouth lowers everyone else’s opinion of them.”

Li Hongwen bristled. “Oh, to hell with you! Han, are you out of your mind?” He glanced around and dropped his voice threateningly. “This is my territory, you know. Keep spouting that nonsense and I’ll have you detained!”

Han Zhiqin let out a cold, dismissive laugh. “Oh, really…”

These two had been bickering so long it had become second nature. Everyone around them was long past surprise. Yu Hao especially had stopped reacting entirely.

Han Zhiqin gave up on Li Hongwen and turned toward Yu Hao. The young woman was straining her neck like a swan, her attention fixed on whatever was happening inside. He asked, “How have you been feeling lately?”

Yu Hao looked back at him. “No problems.”

Han Zhiqin studied her carefully for a moment, then asked again, gently, “Are you sure?”

She couldn’t honestly say there was nothing left — but she was choosing, for herself and for her future with Lu Huaizheng, to try her best to set it down. To live seriously, to push back against the world’s unfairness, to work toward her own happiness, to keep him from worrying about her every moment of every day.

That morning on the way out, she’d seen flowers. Trees. Grass and green things.

All of it had seemed bright to her, full of hope. She felt, step by step, she was finding her way through.

At least for now, things were looking up.

Han Zhiqin listened to everything she said and found that every word rang with genuine strength.

He finally let go of the worry he’d been carrying. He patted her on the shoulder and said, “Take it one step at a time. You’re both good people. Heaven looks after good people.”

For Han, a man who had never believed in gods or fate — only in himself — to say those words, Yu Hao nearly let her tears fall.

As it turned out, the hardest part wasn’t the blood draw itself.

It was the waiting.

In the office, Yu Hao and Lu Huaizheng sat calmly on the sofa. Everyone else was either bouncing their legs or pacing the room restlessly.

Li Hongwen was pacing the fastest, his brow so furrowed with anxiety it seemed about to take flight.

Han Zhiqin had started by complaining at him — but every few minutes he found himself caught up in it too, and eventually began circling the room right alongside him.

Han Zhiqin was somewhat broader than Li Hongwen, and the two of them moved fast enough to stir the air. Add one more person, and they’d have a proper ceiling fan — the three-blade kind, spinning endlessly.

The results had been rushed through.

Results like these normally took two to three business days, but Li Hongwen couldn’t wait — making everyone sit with it for another three days would have killed him — so he’d insisted they be analyzed immediately and delivered to the office. The group sat waiting in the cardiology department chief’s private office, thanks to his long acquaintance with the doctor.

At two o’clock in the afternoon, a knock came at the door.

All five people in the room, including the department chief, turned as one to look.

Every heart climbed into every throat.

The door opened to reveal a young technician from the lab named Little Liu — buzz-cut, square-faced, with a cheerful kind of look to him, and two little dimples that appeared when he smiled. Li Hongwen took one look at him — bright-eyed as a magpie — and knew at once it had to be good news. The young man’s voice rang out loud and clear as he waved the report with barely contained excitement. “It’s positive! It’s positive!”

Everyone froze. “What?”

They’d nearly relaxed the moment they saw his expression — only for those two words to send them into a complete panic.

“Oops!” Little Liu clapped a hand over his mouth. “Wrong one, wrong one — it’s negative!”

“Commander Lu’s results are completely clean. Dr. Wu just came by our lab — yes, the AIDS specialist, the one who just returned from Hong Kong — and he said Commander Lu’s physical condition shows basically no issue. The one-month exclusion period essentially clears him, and on top of that, our department chief just reviewed the photographs of Commander Lu’s wound from the scene alongside images of the other patient’s oral deterioration. Dr. Wu confirmed there was essentially no possibility of infection — because the other patient’s condition was oral ulceration, and given the degree of deterioration at the time, the surface of the oral tissue showed only residual white fungal matter — not transmissible in this way. With the one-month mark now passing, infection can be considered effectively ruled out. Congratulations, Commander Lu — you can go file your marriage application!”

—

A few hours earlier, during the blood draw.

The nurse who drew his blood was a familiar face — years ago, her colleagues had teased her about Lu Huaizheng, and she hadn’t known then that he now had a girlfriend. Unable to help herself, she started in on her again. “Commander Lu is really something — always ending up with our Nurse Zhang somehow. Nurse Zhang herself almost got infected a while back by a patient who hid their medical history. Once these results come back, maybe the two of you should just make a go of it. Commander Lu doesn’t have a girlfriend anyway!”

Lu Huaizheng wasn’t in uniform today — he wore plain black from head to toe, clean and sharp. Nurse Zhang’s face went red. “You all stop making things up,” she scolded.

He was handsome, and he was exceptional — a man among men. She’d once said offhandedly that the special forces commander who came in for a check-up was very good-looking, and these women had never let it go, bringing it up to tease her at every opportunity.

The man leaning against the chair, though, just smiled — a little crooked, a little playful around the eyes. Then he turned his head and looked out through the glass at Yu Hao, and his gaze went entirely soft and warm.

“Don’t do that,” he said lightly. “My girlfriend is sitting right out there. Took me long enough to win her over.”

—