Chapter 28: The Hospital

“Ding.”

Early in the morning, the elevator doors opened to reveal a tall, slender woman inside—white coat unbuttoned, a cup of coffee in hand, expression flat as she strode out.

“Good morning, Doctor Sang.”

An early-shift nurse passed her with a small nod.

“Morning.”

“Good morning, Doctor Sang.”

“Morning.”

The hem of Sang Ling’s white coat fluttered as she walked, wind at her heels.

After greeting a whole procession of staff, she reached the station, set down her coffee, and sat.

She flipped through the previous night’s medical records. “Bed six stopped breathing yesterday, blood pressure spiked…”

After days of hard study, she could now half-follow these treatment notes.

She put the records back, picked up her work badge, and opened Li Zhi’s door. Standing beside the bed, she produced a penlight from her coat, peeled back Li Zhi’s eyelids, and examined her pupils carefully.

Putting the light away, she checked every device connected to Li Zhi, confirming they were all working.

The last step was checking that the window was still locked; only then did she leave and lock the door behind her.

Only after all that did she sit down and finally take her first sip of coffee—double espresso, so bitter it made her grimace.

She opened yesterday’s textbook and discovered that the problem she hadn’t understood yesterday remained incomprehensible after a night’s sleep. Doctor Cheng was away on business today and couldn’t answer her questions.

After racking her brains, she flung her pen lightly onto the desk and, in surrender, asked the light brain.

“How many interactive relationships exist between an Alpha’s gland and the spinal nerves?”

She hadn’t used the wake word for the light brain’s assistant and hadn’t expected an answer—but moments later, an electronic female voice came through.

“Three.”

Sang Ling, her attention long since elsewhere, flinched, her fist clenching instinctively to strike before she realized it was the light brain answering.

The voice was very familiar.

“Medical AI? Is that you?”

Back during the Zerg attack, when Sang Ling had tried to save Lin Jinxu, it was this AI that had blocked her—seeming to take particular offense at the idea of Sang Ling saving an Omega, and shocking her several times for it.

“It is I, Alpha citizen Sang Ling. We meet again.”

Sang Ling couldn’t claim to like the AI, but she wasn’t about to lose her temper with a machine, either.

Following up on the answer, she asked, “Was what you just said true?”

“I am the Alliance’s newest-generation Medical AI. You may trust my authority. I can help you rapidly master the medical knowledge you require.”

Sang Ling’s brow arched. “Then which three relationships, specifically?”

The Medical AI seemed to give a soft scoff—Sang Ling couldn’t quite hear it, but she had the distinct feeling the AI was laughing at her.

“The first: in Alphas, the gland and the spinal nerves both participate in a neurotransmitter cycle unique to Alphas…”

To her surprise, the AI’s answers were not only detailed but easy to understand—frankly better suited to being a teacher than Doctor Cheng.

Operating on the principle that free learning was learning nonetheless, Sang Ling used the AI as her private tutor from then on.

Apart from a bad temper, a certain arrogance, and a habit of mocking her questions as childish, the AI’s answers were virtually flawless—and remarkably patient.

Sang Ling took notes. “The neurotransmitters’ enhancing effect on Alpha adrenaline…”

“Tap, tap, tap.”

The rhythmic, forceful sound of high heels on the corridor floor.

As the sound drew closer, Sang Ling looked up—and there, sure enough, was Su Qingyue.

Compared to the formal attire of their previous two meetings, CEO Su was dressed far more casually today.

Black fully-enclosed heeled shoes; a pair of washed light-blue jeans stretched long and straight by her legs; and on top, only a black mock-neck sweater of vicuña wool. A diamond necklace of classic cut and astonishing carat weight lay glittering against the black knit.

Seeing Sang Ling, she raised the paper bag in her hand. “Cake, and coffee brewed from beans that just came to market. It smells wonderful.”

Without waiting for Sang Ling’s consent, she sat down beside the Alpha, set out the cake and coffee, and nudged them toward her hand.

Sang Ling looked down at the two items. “What exactly is our relationship, that you’re bringing me things like this?”

Su Qingyue pulled over a chair and sat—not upright this time, but leaning back against it. “What do you think our relationship is?”

“I’m the body double of your beloved Dating AI. Going by how the body-double trope works, you should be confessing you can’t extricate yourself from me while simultaneously warning me never to dream of replacing your dear Chu Zhou.”

Sang Ling tilted her head. “And if we were sleeping together, you’d be passionate in bed, telling me I don’t smile like her, and frost itself under the sheets—because I’ve stained your love for Chu Zhou.”

Su Qingyue poured herself a coffee, took a sip, and laughed. “I can see you’ve read your share of melodramatic body-double novels.”

Sang Ling curled her lip.

Su Qingyue went on: “I don’t know if you’ll believe this, but I think of you as a friend.”

Sang Ling said nothing, only stared at Su Qingyue with her eyes, reminding her that not long ago this same woman had tried to keep her with a contract.

Some friend.

Su Qingyue clearly remembered it too, and rubbed her nose, a little awkward. “Back then I didn’t know what you were like.”

Like what?

It was only that the Sang Ling of that time had seemed naive and weak. Now that Sang Ling had shown her temper and her potential, Su Qingyue had naturally abandoned any thought of keeping her.

Su Qingyue’s eyes curved. “Miss Sang, believe me: anyone who can be your friend would never choose to be your enemy.”

“I’d like us to be friends outside of date nights. That’s the kind of relationship that’s stable. Sustainable.”

“Miss Sang, you can treat me as a friend too. I’m friendly enough, loyal enough, and I hold enormous resources. I’d make an excellent friend.”

“It’s just that this excellent friend occasionally needs you to take her out on a romantic date. That’s all.”

Sang Ling wrinkled her nose, and the handsome Alpha looked almost cute for it. “You are genuinely two-faced and bizarre.”

Su Qingyue was noncommittal.

Her gaze fell on the textbook on the desk. “What’s this? Already preparing for our date?”

“The nervous system? How about I play a patient with a neurological deficit, and you’re my attending physician?”

“One day at clinic, the nurse has been sent out to fetch medication, and you’re standing behind me. You lift the hem of my gown, and your hand slides up from the small of my back…”

“Your hands will be so cold, moving over my skin like a jolt of icy electricity…”

Sang Ling’s reflexes were faster than thought. She grabbed two sheets of A4 paper, rolled them into a tube, and smack—cracked it across Su Qingyue’s head.

“Confronted with such pure medical knowledge, can you please wash the filth out of your brain?”

She mercilessly shattered Su Qingyue’s fantasy. “I am studying.“

“Fine, fine. My Alpha is so industrious.”

Before Sang Ling could object to being called her Alpha, Su Qingyue added, “I’ve looked at your duty roster. You’re off this Sunday. Let’s have our date then.”

Sang Ling said, “You’re paying for the outfits and the wardrobe changes. You’re finding the stylist.”

“Naturally. I’ll cover every expense.”

“But I expect you to play Chu Zhou completely that day. Don’t break my immersion.”

Sang Ling gave a disdainful click of her tongue. “I’ve read the actor’s craft cover to cover. Come Sunday, I’ll show you what a gold-medal performer looks like.”

They were about to say more when the light brain, which had lain silent on the desk all this while, suddenly spoke again.

The Medical AI’s familiar electronic voice sounded. “Question: how many essential differences exist between an Alpha’s gland and an Omega’s?”

Sang Ling turned, startled. “This thing asks questions now?”

The electronic voice continued, unhurried. “Detecting citizen Sang Ling’s intent to study medical knowledge. Tutorial mode enabled.”

“Please answer my question: how many essential differences exist between an Alpha’s gland and an Omega’s?”

Sang Ling flipped frantically through the book, hunting for the answer.

While she floundered, Su Qingyue, quiet at her side, suddenly spoke up, ever so politely. “May I answer?”

Sang Ling’s page-turning stopped. “You know this?”

Su Qingyue’s lips curved. “There are seven essential differences between an Alpha’s gland and an Omega’s. On the Alpha chromosome, four pairs of genes have mutated…”

She spoke fluently, at length—and Sang Ling’s grip loosened, the pages slipping from her fingers.

When Su Qingyue finished, the light brain grudgingly pronounced the answer correct, then issued a warning: “Citizen Sang Ling will answer the next question herself.”

Sang Ling paid the Medical AI no mind. Instead her eyes widened slightly as she turned to Su Qingyue. “How do you know all this?”

Su Qingyue tilted her head, her expression anything but solemn—and said something Sang Ling never expected.

“When I was fourteen, I wanted to enlist. Combat medic had the lowest physical requirements in the military, and I thought that maybe, through that, I could make my way into the army.”

“Back then I studied ten hours a day, memorized the textbooks over and over, practiced wound suturing countless times. If I’d kept training, I could have become one of the best surgeons in the world—a combat medic who only needs emergency knowledge would have been trivial.”

Her expression turned distant with memory. “You know how it ended, of course. The military is, in the end, the Alphas’ world.”

“After I failed to enlist, I cried my eyes out, put away every medical book I owned, inherited the family business, and started donating to the military instead.”

She lowered her voice. “Here’s a secret: every time the army sends someone to brief me and ask for funding, I gloat a little inside. I couldn’t be a soldier—but I became the army’s sugar mommy.”

Sang Ling felt something was off. For a relationship as distant as theirs, this confession ran far too deep.

But since Su Qingyue herself saw nothing strange in it, she had to let the thought go.

Cake eaten, coffee finished, Sang Ling assumed that a president with ten thousand affairs a day would surely leave now.

But the woman sat immovable behind the station, as if lounging in her own villa.

Several nurses who came to the station for supplies were frightened off by her.

“Have you considered that, as a big boss, wandering around the staff’s work area is deeply unethical and damaging to employee morale?”

“I have,” Su Qingyue said mildly. “But that’s one of an evil capitalist’s chief pleasures in life.”

Sang Ling paused two seconds, then said, mildly but solemnly: “I despise you.”

“You’ll despise me even more presently.” Su Qingyue laughed. “You’re half my employee now, you know.”

Sang Ling drew a highlighter mark under a point in her book. “So? Are you going to pay me, then?”

Su Qingyue said smugly, “No. I’m going to make you sleep with the boss.”

Sang Ling was so stunned by the sheer shamelessness that, for a moment, she had no reply at all.

A soft but firm female voice rang out.

“I’m calling the police.”

Yes. She was calling the police.

Sang Ling nodded in agreement—and only then realized the words hadn’t been her own.

A shadow fell across the desk before her.

She looked up and found a familiar Omega standing at the station, holding up her light brain, the dial screen glowing.

Lin Jinxu was dressed beautifully today: a deep-violet dress, a waterfall of long curls, a lustrous white pearl necklace resting against her smooth collarbones.

With all her glory and beauty drawn out by that outfit, Lin Jinxu now frowned at Su Qingyue, disapproval written across her face.

At this moment, she looked more like Sang Ling’s sister-in-law than she ever had.

“Miss Su, I’ve read about you online. Twenty-eight years old, with commercial ability like yours—truly accomplished for your age.”

“But my little sister here is only nineteen this year. Don’t you think, for her, your age is a little… senior?”

As her words fell, Sang Ling slowly turned her head toward Su Qingyue.

The CEO who had been relaxed all morning, trading endless jokes, suddenly went cold, her expression dark and stormy.

Sang Ling looked back at Lin Jinxu. In the beautiful Omega’s eyes there was nothing but sharp, aggressive edge, the depths of them rimed with ice.

Sang Ling trembled, her hands beginning to shake.

She wanted nothing so much as to run.