My sister, whom I raised, has turned evil after faking her death for three years.

The intensive care unit ward is located on the top floor of the inpatient building.

The corridor here is quieter than any of the floors below. There is a faint smell of disinfectant in the air. The call bell at the nurses' station rings occasionally, but is quickly turned off.

Most of the patients staying here have reached the palliative care stage. All the necessary treatments have been completed, and all that remains is to try to make their final days less unbearable.

Yin Wan stayed in the single room at the end of the room.

Her body could no longer withstand any aggressive treatment. Targeted therapy was stopped, chemotherapy was stopped, and even the monitoring equipment was removed. The doctor talked to Wu Yue and said that it was time. Putting her back on the machine would only increase the patient's suffering. It would be better to let her pass away peacefully.

So there was no monitor by her bedside, no beeping alarm, only a small nightlight and the occasional chirping of birds outside the window.

As usual, Xiao Zhou, the nurse on the night shift, pushed her ward round cart through the corridor, checking on the patients in each ward one by one.

Everything was peaceful tonight, just like every other night shift.

She pushed open the door to the private room at the end of the corridor and glanced at the bed in the light streaming in from the corridor. The patient was lying on his side with his back to the door, the blanket pulled up to his shoulders, quiet and peaceful, as if he were asleep.

She was about to gently close the door as usual when she suddenly felt something was wrong.

The moonlight was bright tonight, shining through the half-drawn curtains and falling on the white sheets.

The color of that bed sheet is a bit off.

It's not white.

It's red.

Xiao Zhou's hand froze in mid-air. For a moment, her mind went blank. Then she pushed the door open and rushed in, pulling off the blanket.

Under the blanket, blood stained most of the mattress, seeping out from Yin Wan's wrist, dripping along the edge of the sheet and onto the floor, forming a small pool of dark red blood.

There was a deep cut on her left wrist, and she was still holding a fruit knife in her right hand, her fingers loosened, and the blade was covered with semi-solidified dark red.

The thin mattress pad was soaked with blood, and under the moonlight, it gleamed with a suffocating dark red sheen.

  

Xiao Zhou has worked on this floor for several years and has seen too many patients whose lives are coming to an end.

On her first day transferred to the oncology department, the head nurse told her that working on this floor didn't require highly skilled nursing techniques; what was needed more here was companionship and comfort.

This was the quietest night she had ever experienced, and the most silent farewell.

But at this moment, she was still so frightened by the scene before her that she was trembling all over.

While shouting "Help! Someone come quick!" towards the corridor, she rushed to the bedside, snatched the fruit knife from Yin Wan's hand, grabbed a pillowcase and pressed it hard against Yin Wan's still bleeding wound, and with her other hand trembling, pressed the call button on the bedside table.

When the on-duty doctor rushed in with several nurses, Xiao Zhou was still kneeling by the bed, with a large bloodstain on the sleeve of his white coat.

The doctor examined Yin Wan's pupils by lifting her eyelids, then checked her carotid artery. Turning to the nurse beside him, he quickly ordered, "She still has vital signs! Move her to the operating room immediately! Notify her family!"

The sound of hurried footsteps and the wheels of a shopping cart rolling over the floor tiles echoed in the corridor.

One after another, the stark white fluorescent lights swept overhead, the operating room door opened and closed, and the red "Operating" indicator light lit up.

Xiao Zhou leaned against the counter at the nurses' station. The bloodstains on her white coat sleeves had dried to a dark brown color. She held her phone and dialed the same number over and over again.

All that came through the receiver was that cold, mechanical female voice—"The number you dialed is currently switched off."

Not long ago, in a teahouse on the other side of the northern city, Wu Yue was sitting in a corner booth. The teacup in front of him had been refilled three times, and the tea leaves had turned white. The person opposite him showed no sign of leaving.

Cui Jiayi sat opposite him, her exquisitely made-up face bearing a polite smile that she had practiced repeatedly in the coffee shop, but beneath her eyes lay an increasingly barely suppressed urgency.

She's been talking for almost an hour now, from how she's been reflecting on herself recently, to her sisterly bond with Cui Ying, and then to how Uncle Wu is an old man who watched the Jiang family's children grow up, so his words carry the most weight.

Her tone was sometimes earnest, sometimes affectionate, and sometimes carried a hint of threat, like a silk scarf wrapped around her neck, tightening more and more.

"Uncle Wu, please go and talk to Jiang Mingyuan for me. I really want what's best for my sister. Look how sick she is now, she needs family members to take care of her. If I don't go, who will?"

Cui Jiayi picked up her teacup and took a sip; the fine lines at the corners of her eyes were particularly pronounced under the dim light of the tea room.

Her patience was almost exhausted, but she suppressed her agitation and adopted a gentle demeanor, even softening her tone. "You know, my sister listens to you the most. One word from you is more effective than ten from me. You can't just watch me not be able to go home, can you?"

Wu Yue sat opposite her, holding a teacup in both hands, his gaze fixed on the now-cold tea.

His phone was on the table with the screen facing up. He would occasionally glance at it while Cui Jiayi was speaking, as if he was waiting for some message.

But then Cui Jiayi started rambling on about who in her circle had bought a new bag and who had changed to a new car. His brows furrowed more and more, and finally, when she looked down at her bag to find her phone, he reached under the table and quietly pressed the power button on the side of the phone.

The phone screen went dark.

He flipped his phone face down on the table, then nodded to Cui Jiayi, his tone calm and brief: "Okay, I'll talk to them."

Cui Jiayi's smile, which had been maintained with patience and pretense for over an hour, finally blossomed into a smile of accomplishment.

She stood up, picked up her bag, patted Wu Yue on the shoulder, and said, "I knew Uncle Wu was the most reliable person." Then, she walked away in her high heels.

Wu Yue remained seated, listening to her footsteps gradually fade into the distance until they completely disappeared outside the tea room.

He picked up the glass of cold tea, gulped it down in one go, then leaned back in his chair and stared out the window at the deep night, remaining motionless for a very long time.

He thought a lot during this time. He thought about when he first entered the Jiang family, Jiang Mingyuan patted him on the shoulder and said that he would be family from now on. He thought about how his wife would bring him and Awan a gift every time she came back from a business trip. He thought about how his young master used to ride on his shoulders to pick persimmons in the yard when he was a child. He thought about Awan the most.

He remembered her saying in the hospital room that he always treated her well according to his own ideas, never asking her what she really wanted.

He recalled her asking him in a voice so cold it didn't sound like her: "Everything you do is for my own good, but have you ever thought about whether I actually want this kind of good?"

He sat in the tea room for a long time, and suddenly felt that no matter how long his life was, there were only a few days left, and Awan's illness did not give him any more time to hesitate.

He decided to go back and apologize to Awan first, and then tell her that he would confess everything.

No matter what the consequences, he couldn't let her lie in a hospital bed with this unresolved issue, and he certainly shouldn't let her leave with this regret...

It was completely dark when he drove back to the hospital.

He stopped at the fruit shop near the hospital entrance and bought two Huaniu apples, the kind that Awan said she wanted to eat.

This apple felt heavy in his hand, bigger and with a thicker skin than a Fuji apple. He had never bought one before because he always felt that apples should be crisp and sweet, just as he always felt that all the decisions he made for her were right.