◎With a pop, the screen lit up◎
/Remember to clasp your hands together when you make a wish/
“I like Dr. Ji!”
The speaker had a typical soft, lilting accent, but with a certain firmness.
Upon hearing this, the short-haired female doctor walking in the bustling corridor burst into a fit of coughing.
“You like Dr. Ji?”
The short-haired doctor turned in surprise. Behind her was a glass window, beyond which heavy snow was falling. She stared in disbelief at the resident doctor trailing behind her, suddenly realizing she was answering her earlier question.
She’d asked why the resident doctor had been prying for information about Ji Qingyou.
So the naive new resident doctor made her grand declaration, saying she liked Ji Qingyou, the most boring, most taciturn, most ice-cold doctor in the General Surgery Department.
Ji Qingyou—the doctor who most closely matched everyone’s stereotypical image of a doctor.
After a few seconds of eye contact, the short-haired doctor saw the innocence in the resident doctor’s eyes and understood what she meant by “like.” She sighed in relief. “So you young people just talk like that now, huh? All this talk of liking this and not liking that—you really scared me.”
“I think Dr. Ji is a very good person,” the resident doctor said, blinking sheepishly. “I just want to get to know her better, maybe become friends.”
“I remember you interned here before, so you probably heard some things about her. But when she first started, hearing the name Ji Qingyou, I thought she’d be a soft, sweet little girl, with that authentic Nanwu accent that could charm you to death. You know, just like you.”
The short-haired doctor glanced briefly at the swirling snow outside the window, then picked up her pace, patting the attentive resident doctor beside her. “But actually, anyone who’s worked with Dr. Ji knows she’s nothing like her name.”
The resident doctor blinked and hurried to keep up.
“Data freak, obsessive-compulsive, control freak,” the short-haired doctor continued. “She times everything—time, data, force, angles—more accurately than a machine. She’s got a search engine in her brain, practically never makes a mistake on the operating table. That’s why basically all the professors in General Surgery bring her along whenever they have surgery. Oh, and she has a nickname: the ‘General Surgery Operative Robot.'”
“Not the nicest nickname, I’ll admit, but it fits. I’ve known her this long, and I’ve never seen her show any real emotion. She really is like a robot. I heard she even uses Excel for her diary.”
The short-haired doctor turned to look at the new resident. “Ever heard of that nickname?”
The resident was stunned and shook her head.
The short-haired doctor gave her a look that said, “You didn’t know that?” As they reached the elevator, she pressed the button and continued,
“What about Dr. Ji’s ‘Three No’ principle?”
“No sleeping, no sweets…” the resident murmured, sneaking a glance at her phone.
“No alcohol,” the short-haired doctor reminded her. “She doesn’t just not drink; she won’t touch anything alcoholic at all.”
“And about the no sleeping—that’s just a joke the department likes to play on her, trying to force a third rule to complete the set. Most of the night-shift nurses say that when they call her, she sounds wide awake, either reading data or taking notes.”
“So the no sweets part is true,” the resident noted to herself.
The short-haired doctor nodded. Just as the elevator arrived, she hesitated and added, “Anyway, she’s a good doctor in every sense of the word, but she’s not very approachable. She talks in short bursts, like she’s counting her words. Making friends with her isn’t easy.”
The resident blinked, a flicker of doubt in her eyes.
“Ding—”
The elevator arrived, cutting off her thoughts.
The resident instinctively peered inside. A figure in a white coat stood tall, wearing dark green scrubs underneath. The loose outfit couldn’t hide the smooth lines of her shoulders and neck; faint blue veins were barely visible beneath the pale skin of her throat.
The face she’d seen long ago came into view. Her clear, dark eyes held little emotion, which made her otherwise soft, delicate features seem more austere and cold.
She tilted her head slightly. Beside her stood a little girl clutching an Ultraman.
“Dr. Ji!”
The short-haired doctor exclaimed, surprised at the coincidental appearance of the very person they’d just been discussing.
Ji Qingyou looked down at them. The frameless glasses on her nose seemed perpetually positioned at the perfect angle, obscuring her clear brows and eyes, making her beautiful face appear restrained and ascetic.
Her calm, indifferent gaze settled on them.
“Dr. Zhao,” Ji Qingyou acknowledged the short-haired doctor with a slight nod. Her voice was low and emotionless, like the tone you might expect from the statue of a woman at the hospital entrance.
Then her eyes shifted, landing on the name badge pinned to the resident doctor’s chest. After a few seconds, she looked away.
She didn’t speak, just reached out and held the elevator door open.
“Oh, this is Dr. Tao, new to our department for rotations,” Dr. Zhao said, stepping inside with a smile. She gestured at Tao Xingzi. “She just told me she really likes the doctors in our General Surgery Department!”
Tao Xingzi blushed and stumbled into the elevator. She watched Ji Qingyou’s slender, pale wrist emerge from her white coat, a faint scent of disinfectant trailing past her.
She looked at that thin, strikingly clean wrist, pursed her lips, and for a second, she felt a strange illusion that the smell of disinfectant on Ji Qingyou was lighter than on others.
“Oh, and Happy Birthday, Dr. Ji!” Dr. Zhao suddenly said. “But aren’t you off duty today? Why are you still here after handing over?”
“I just assisted Director Wang with an emergency surgery,” Ji Qingyou replied, her gaze dropping to the little girl in the elevator who was staring at her with curiosity.
Ji Qingyou took a step back. She didn’t know this little girl, and she was never comfortable with such direct eye contact.
“Oh, I see,” Dr. Zhao responded.
The elevator quickly reached the desired floor. Ji Qingyou stepped out, and a timid voice followed: “Happy Birthday, Dr. Ji.”
She paused, turned to face Tao Xingzi, who had caught up with her, and in the bustling noise of the hallway, she said softly, “Thank you.” Just then, a shadow whizzed past her, even attempting to snatch a pen from the set clipped to her chest.
Ji Qingyou grabbed Ji Xiruan. Failing in her attempt, Ji Xiruan grinned and held out her clean, pale palm. “I just finished writing the shift handover notes, and someone conveniently swiped my red pen.”
Ji Xiruan was Ji Qingyou’s classmate from medical school. They’d been hired together at Nanda Third Hospital, and she was the person who knew Ji Qingyou best in the entire General Surgery Department.
Ji Qingyou reinserted the almost-snatched pen into her chest pocket, carefully lining up each pen perfectly. Then she pulled out another red pen from a different pocket. She always kept a spare set ready for such “emergencies,” to prevent someone from swiping her favorite set.
Ji Xiruan knew this habit well, yet she still teased her with this little routine every time. Once Ji Qingyou produced the pen, she’d snatch it quickly, say a light “Thanks!”, and dart off faster than anyone else.
Ji Qingyou looked down again. The pens lined up on her chest pocket still weren’t perfectly aligned. She frowned slightly, but then a light tug came at her sleeve.
Her gaze dropped. It was the little girl from the elevator, still clutching her Ultraman. She wasn’t wearing a hospital gown, yet she had followed Ji Qingyou all the way to the department.
Ji Qingyou looked around. No one seemed to know the little girl.
“Doctor Sister, is it your birthday too today?” the little girl asked, craning her neck to look up at Ji Qingyou.
Ji Qingyou noticed the Ultraman in the girl’s hands was leaking water. It was some kind of unreliable water gun toy, and it had wet the child’s sleeves, but she still held on tight.
Ji Qingyou crouched down, pulled out a tissue, and wiped the water from the girl’s hands. She then used the tissue to pad the girl’s sleeve and carefully dried the water seeping from the cracks in the Ultraman toy.
She knew the water would keep coming even after she wiped it, but she didn’t insist that the little girl let go of her Ultraman.
Children’s gazes were probably always pure and innocent.
But Ji Qingyou found it hard to bear such a direct gaze. She had to change the subject. “Who else has a birthday today?”
“Me!” the little girl grinned, revealing a small dimple beside her mouth. “You have to be in the hospital on your birthday, and I have to be in the hospital on mine too. We’re both so amazing~”
Ji Qingyou paused in her wiping, saying nothing.
A rough candy wrapper poked her cheek. She saw the little girl’s other hand suddenly holding out a lollipop. “Doctor Sister, happy birthday to you.”
Ji Qingyou didn’t take it immediately. “You should call me Auntie. And I don’t eat candy.”
“Huh?” The little girl looked confused. “Doctor Sister, can’t you eat candy too?”
She still called her “Sister.” Ji Qingyou pursed her lips. She looked at the candy wrapper, which seemed to glisten with water droplets, and hesitated.
“Yu Zhijiu!”
A loud voice cut through the noise, slightly muffled by the commotion.
Ji Qingyou’s legs, still crouching, suddenly went numb. It was a numbing sensation that quivered in her heart, but she didn’t stand up. Only her eyelashes trembled.
The little girl, called Yu Zhijiu, was startled. She hastily shoved the candy into Ji Qingyou’s hands.
“Doctor Sister, you’d better eat it for me. I bought it secretly with my allowance. If my mom finds out, I’m in trouble!”
Before being led away by the adult who had come for her, the little girl waved and said,
“Thank you, Doctor Sister.”
Her shift was already over. People came and went in the department. Ji Qingyou stayed where she was, crouched on the ground, holding a wad of wet tissues, feeling the numbness creep up from her fingertips.
Someone passed by and asked what was wrong.
Ji Qingyou shook her head, stood up, and threw the tissues into the trash bin. The numbness slowly faded. She walked to the office and asked whose patient the little girl was, and why no one had come to admit her yet.
A doctor explained, saying they were about to go.
Ji Qingyou nodded slowly, her expression still blank. She changed her clothes and stepped out of the hospital. The cold wind hit her face.
It was snowing outside. Flakes floated and swirled, landing on people, feeling cold.
After a thirty-six-hour stretch of overnight shifts, her steps were tired and hurried, crunching on the snow. The streets outside were brightly lit, buzzing with the festive atmosphere of Christmas Eve. She crossed the road and spotted a cake shop.
She stopped, almost as if compelled.
Ji Qingyou gripped the candy in her pocket. She remembered the expression of the adult who had taken the little girl away—anxious, haggard, and somewhat dazed.
She pushed open the door of the cake shop and returned to the hospital.
Entering the ward, the little girl had already changed into a hospital gown, pouting and crying. The adult seemed to be gone again, leaving her all alone.
Ji Qingyou had changed into her own coat, but the little girl still recognized her at first glance. Her crystalline tears almost dried up as she happily called out, “Doctor Sister!”
Ji Qingyou walked over, opened the cake box, and lit the candle. The flame flickered in the breeze from the air conditioner.
“You can’t eat it, but you can make a wish.”
The little girl’s eyes widened. A family member of the neighboring patient recognized Ji Qingyou and joked, “Lucky girl, getting a cake. That’s our Dr. Ji for you.”
Feeling a bit shy, the little girl wiped the remaining tears from her face. Just as she was about to make a wish, Ji Qingyou reminded her,
“Remember to clasp your hands together when you make a wish.”
The moment the candle was blown out, Ji Qingyou felt a flicker of something in her mind, but she silently cleaned up all the trash and helped the little girl distribute the cake to the families in the ward, saving the biggest piece for the little girl’s own family member.
As she left the ward, she touched her bare wrist. She went to the on-call room to get her watch. But in front of her, a cake with a flickering candle appeared. In the dim, warm yellow light, Ji Xiruan’s grinning face was visible.
“Happy Birthday, Dr. Ji. Make a wish. We can’t let the birthday girl go around giving others birthdays without celebrating her own, right?”
Ji Qingyou looked at the few people scattered around the on-call room. They seemed seconds away from bursting into a Happy Birthday song, so she quickly clasped her hands together and closed her eyes.
She intended to open her eyes quickly and blow out the candle, but for some reason, she hesitated.
True to form, the old Happy Birthday song rang out in her ears, a chorus of familiar, booming voices.
Ji Qingyou pursed her lips and counted down in her head.
Three, two, one.
She slowly opened her eyes, a little dazed as she looked at the swaying figures before her—many familiar faces. Her gaze lingered for a long time.
Finally, she blew out the candle, snuffing out the sluggishness and fogginess in her own heart. Calm and rational, she said, “I don’t eat cream, and this has mango on it.”
For a split second, everyone in the room held their breath. They looked at each other, feeling like ants stranded on a sheet of ice.
Quick as a flash, Ji Xiruan scraped the mango pieces off the cake, then grabbed a large plastic bag and made a round of the small room, handing an apple to everyone, muttering,
“Peace and safety, no mangoes here.”
When she got to Ji Qingyou, Ji Qingyou was already wearing her watch. Ji Xiruan glanced at the old, dark green watch on her wrist, pouted, and shook her empty plastic bag.
“None left anyway. You’re definitely not busy tonight. Since you’re heading home, there’s no chance you’ll be coming back to the hospital.”
Ji Qingyou picked up her bag. “I’m leaving.”
Her shift was over. There was no need for her to come back to the hospital tonight.
Stepping out of the hospital again, the snow was falling even harder, blanketing the entire city of Nanwu in a thick, hazy veil.
Ji Qingyou stood on the street corner waiting for the traffic light, feeling as if the cold wind pierced through every gap in her body. She pulled out a mask and put it on. The red light seemed interminably long, and a thin layer of snow began to pile up on her shoulders.
Swirling snowflakes danced in the air. When the number on the traffic light turned to three, she reached out and caught a snowflake. It was bitingly cold.
Her stiff hand fell back down. A bus swooped past, stirring up a gust of wind mixed with snowy dust. It lifted her hair, which she had let down, and the snow-covered hem of her coat.
It was right there.
Through the blurry, fogged-up window, the bright streetlamp illuminated a fleeting glimpse of a clear profile. A captivating tear mole sat at the corner of the eye. Slightly upturned eyelashes drooped low. The lips were slightly pursed, as if smiling.
Or perhaps, this person simply had a naturally cheerful face.
Ji Qingyou only caught that one fleeting glance, but she felt the ground beneath her feet collapse and shake violently. She was frozen, unable to move or react.
The light turned green. The snowflake in her hand had turned into a trickle of starlight in her palm.
Another car roared past. Ji Qingyou clenched her fist, the snow melting. Her gaze darted wildly through the swirling snow, following the direction the taxi had gone.
She wasn’t thinking. She wasn’t planning. She just rushed forward.
It sounded ridiculous—searching for someone in a blizzard, someone she hadn’t seen or heard from in ten years.
If Ji Xiruan ever found out, she’d have to update those rumors about Ji Qingyou being a robot.
Nobody knew how long it had been.
Ji Qingyou’s breathing grew heavy and rapid. Her glasses fogged up, almost completely obscuring her vision. She had to stop, bend over, and pant slightly.
Sweat dripped down her forehead and cheeks. Through her chaotic vision and thoughts, someone called out vaguely,
“Ji Qingyou.”
She slowly straightened up. The voice was familiar, yet not quite so, bearing the subtle marks of time, yet it drifted gently to her ears, telling her:
It’s who you think it is.
For an instant, Ji Qingyou felt as if the pedestrians and car lights in her vision began to shrink infinitely, like an old television malfunctioning, the screen covered in tiny snowy dots.
At times like this, you just had to smack the TV a couple of times to make the picture come back.
Ji Qingyou turned around. When she breathed in, there was an unfamiliar yet languidly sweet scent. The fog on her glasses hadn’t cleared; her vision was still a blur.
The crunching sound of footsteps in the snow came from all directions, distant at first, then growing closer. After a moment, someone seemed to stop slowly behind her. A hand reached out and gently tapped twice on her shoulder.
And then, with a “pop,” the picture lit up.
