At the street food stalls in front of Jihua Hospital, Shen Fangyu was holding a skewer in his left hand and a cold beer in his right, having dinner with some colleagues from his department. When his phone buzzed, he hurriedly set down his beer to check it.
This was practically second nature to every doctor: their phones were on 24/7, never on silent mode, and they checked every single notification right away because you never knew when it might be about a patient.
He opened the chat window with Jiang Xu and froze for a second.
He scrolled up in disbelief, double-checking their entire chat history. It was nothing but file transfers and official work-related messages. There had never been anything even remotely resembling an invitation like this.
But he was certain it was really Jiang Xu. Jiang Xu’s texts always had a tell: every message ended with a little yellow smiley face, the kind that looked borderline mocking, a smile that carried three parts cool detachment and four parts casual indifference.
Because of that, Shen Fangyu often silently complained in his heart that Jiang Xu was an old man who didn’t even know this emoji was basically sarcastic in the eyes of young people.
And yet, today for some reason, inspiration struck him out of nowhere. He suddenly turned to his colleague beside him and asked, “When Jiang Xu texts you guys, does he ever use the smiley emoji?”
“Nope,” his colleagues all looked baffled.
Shen Fangyu didn’t believe it. He showed them his chat window with Jiang Xu. “Look, this little yellow face right here.”
“Seriously, no. If you don’t believe us, check our phones,” one of them offered.
When it was confirmed that Shen Fangyu was the only one who got this “special treatment,” his colleagues exchanged strange looks. “Don’t tell me… he’s mocking you?”
“Impossible.” Shen Fangyu calmly pocketed his phone, completely unfazed. “He only sends that smile to me. That means I’m the only one he’s willing to smile at.”
“…” Sure. Whatever helps you sleep at night.
“But why did he ask you to meet?” one colleague asked curiously. “You guys aren’t going to fight again, are you?”
“Who knows,” Shen Fangyu shrugged. “Ever since that time Brother Wu treated us to dinner and I joked about him being pregnant, he’s completely ignored me.”
He bit into a fried skewer and continued, “Before that, if we bumped into each other in the hallway, he’d at least glare at me. Now he just acts like I don’t exist. The other day I saw him throwing up in the bathroom, so I gave him a pack of tissues out of goodwill, and what happened? He used my tissues, turned around, and left without a word. I asked him if he even knew what basic manners were, and he actually glared at me—”
Shen Fangyu looked genuinely aggrieved. “You guys don’t know what that look was like. He looked at me as if I really got him pregnant and he was ready to tear me apart right there.”
His colleagues burst out laughing. “Sounds like you really ticked him off when you got that conference slot.”
“He’s so petty. Last year, it was his team that went,” Shen Fangyu muttered under his breath.
One colleague pointed at his phone. “So… are you gonna go see him or not?”
Shen Fangyu clicked his tongue. “Why should I? He acts like some kind of queen issuing royal decrees every day. Who does he think he is?” He said this while grabbing another handful of skewers.
His colleagues, used to their constant squabbles, clinked glasses with him and said, “Forget it, drink up.”
The lively dinner went on until almost nine. Only then did Shen Fangyu put down his last empty skewer stick.
He took off his disposable gloves, sanitized his hands, and sipped his beer. After a long pause, he glanced at the time.
“Got a date?” one colleague teased. “You’ve been checking your phone non-stop all evening. And now you’re in such a hurry to leave?”
“Hey, didn’t you and Jiang Xu both used to chase after Zhong Lan? What happened with that?” another chimed in gossiping. “Something new going on?”
“Nothing’s going on,” Shen Fangyu retorted. He didn’t explain further—outing someone wasn’t his style. When pressed over and over, he finally said, “We’re just not compatible.”
Shen Fangyu had always been easygoing and approachable, the kind of person everyone thought they were close to. After wriggling free from their questioning, he checked his phone again and muttered, half to himself and half to the others, “Forget it. I’ll just go. What if it’s actually something serious?”
As he stood up, his colleagues finally realized what was happening. “Wait, oh, so it’s Jiang Xu after all. Weren’t you just saying you weren’t going?” They teased him, “Wow, that’s the fastest U-turn I’ve ever seen.”
Shen Fangyu threw on his coat and sprayed a bit of cologne. “What can I say? I’m too kind for my own good,” he said dramatically. “In this dark, cruel world, I, Shen Fangyu, don’t just refuse to bow to Jiang Xu’s tyranny, I even rush to his aid in his hour of need. Truly, a saint among men.”
Under the collective look of disbelief from his colleagues, Shen Fangyu swaggered back to Jihua Hospital with his hands in his pockets.
He knocked on the office door with exaggerated seriousness. When he pushed it open, Jiang Xu was staring at his computer screen, still in his white coat, he must have just come back from the wards.
At this hour, the office was empty; even the on-duty doctors weren’t around.
Shen Fangyu sat down beside Jiang Xu and saw that he was reading a medical paper. “Hey, why are you suddenly interested in this field—”
“Shen Fangyu.” Jiang Xu suddenly spoke, cutting him off mid-sentence.
He didn’t pick up Shen Fangyu’s words. Instead, he let go of the mouse, turned in his chair, and faced him. Jiang Xu wasn’t wearing a mask, and as he turned, Shen Fangyu once again noticed the small mole beneath his eye.
There was something Shen Fangyu hadn’t dared to tell anyone: ever since he’d noticed that mole, he’d been having dreams about Jiang Xu for several nights in a row, each one bolder and more absurd than the last. Worst of all, they all felt ridiculously real, as if he had actually slept with Jiang Xu.
It even got to the point where his gaze toward Jiang Xu had been a little off for a while. Luckily, Jiang Xu never bothered to look at him long enough to notice anything strange.
Later, when Jiang Xu called him out to “fight,” Shen had thrown a punch, but the moment he caught sight of that mole, his fist inexplicably froze mid-air—only for Jiang Xu to sock him in the stomach.
Utterly bewitched.
Thankfully, with time, that restless heat inside him had finally cooled down. Dr. Shen chalked those back-to-back spring dreams up to the fact that it had simply been too long since he’d… taken care of himself. His body had just been overly keyed up. He didn’t think much of it—until now, when looking at that mole beneath Jiang Xu’s eye made that long-extinguished fire threaten to flare up all over again.
He quickly averted his gaze and said casually, “Why so serious?”
Jiang Xu stared at him deeply but didn’t speak right away.
That was strange. Shen Fangyu knew Jiang Xu was not the type to beat around the bush. Especially with him—Jiang always spoke as if he wanted to cram three sentences into one, talking fast, like even sparing him an extra glance would shave years off his life. For him to just sit there, staring in silence, unsettled Shen Fangyu for no reason he could name.
After a moment, Shen Fangyu asked again, “What’s wrong?”
Jiang Xu took a sip of water, drew back that complicated gaze, and spoke in an official, businesslike tone: “There’s something I need to tell you.”
Today, Jiang Xu wasn’t impatient. He wasn’t glaring or cold, either. Though his eyes were still sharp and unfriendly, at least his voice was calm.
Unusual behavior always meant trouble. Shen Fangyu had a bad feeling that whatever Jiang Xu was about to say wouldn’t be good.
“You need me to cover your shift? Swap operating tables? Or… is this about the conference slot?” Shen Fangyu couldn’t think of anything else that would warrant such a solemn conversation. Honestly, even the things he just listed didn’t seem like enough to make Jiang Xu act this way.
Instead of answering, Jiang Xu picked up a timer from the desk. “I’ll give you one minute to prepare yourself mentally.”
Shen Fangyu blinked. “Wait a second—”
But Jiang Xu didn’t wait. He shot Shen a glance and pressed the start button. No matter how difficult it was to say, once he’d decided to tell him, he wasn’t going to act coy about it.
Shen Fangyu’s heartbeat suddenly quickened. His instincts told him this was bad.
Mental preparation?
What on earth was so serious that he needed mental preparation?
Time ticked away rapidly. Jiang Xu rested his left hand on the desk, idly spinning the timer with his fingers. The crisp white sleeve of his lab coat slid back a little as he bent his arm, revealing a sharply defined wrist.
Shen Fangyu kept wanting to say something, but as he watched the numbers on the timer count down, it felt like being in an exam, staring at the clock as the final seconds ran out while you still had questions left blank. The more he panicked, the less he knew what to do.
He hadn’t even been this nervous during actual exams.
Finally, the timer hit zero with a sharp, piercing alarm. Shen Fangyu’s heart jolted in his chest.
Jiang Xu swiftly pressed the pause button, silencing it before it could ring a second time.
“Don’t—”
“I’m pregnant. The child is yours.”
Jiang Xu lowered his gaze to the timer and spoke softly.
Shen Fangyu, “?”
One minute of mental preparation… might not have been enough.