Chapter 172: Chapter 172

It was just past six in the morning, and the light in the operating room was still on. A solitary figure in the corridor was elongated by the light.

In his youth, Pei Che was as flamboyant and fearless as other boys. With a privileged background, he explored a wider range of activities — racing, rock climbing, swimming, skydiving — he was good at all. Compared to boys focused solely on studies, he had a stronger physique.

He jumped into the water with all his might to rescue someone, and now, he was completely exhausted. Leaning against the wall, he slid down to the floor, his long legs bent, elbow resting on his knee, burying his whole face into his arms. Even something as simple as breathing felt exhausting.

The passage of time felt incredibly long to him.

A light footstep approached. Pei Che heard it and slowly lifted his head. He knew he looked disheveled now, like a roadside beggar no one would doubt.

His narrowed eyes gradually focused, and he saw who it was — Su Wanhe, who had once saved him. He hadn’t expected her to show up here.

The girl was carrying water and food bought from a convenience store. She squatted beside him, softly consoling, "You should eat something. If you go on , you’ll break down."

She glanced towards the operating room. The light over the closed door was on, and the words "In Operation" were strikingly visible.

She knew the girl inside was the one Pei Che held dear, the one he had loved for many years, and the one he risked his life to save.

Seeing him , she felt truly pained but was helpless.

"Even if you don’t think for yourself, you should think for Shen Jianian. She’ll need someone to care for her when she wakes up, right?" Mentioning Shen Jianian’s name, she saw a glimmer of light in Pei Che’s bleak eyes and continued, "If you collapse, who will take care of her?"

Pei Che moved his stiff and aching body, took the sandwich from her hand, tore open the wrapper, and devoured it. The elegance of a gentleman from a prestigious family was nowhere to be seen.

Seeing him finally eat, the girl exhaled a sigh of relief and then opened a bottle of oolong tea, handing it to him: "Drink some water; your lips are chapped."

Pei Che didn’t refuse, took it, tilted his head back, and gulped it down. Unable to swallow in time, water spilled from the corner of his mouth, trickling down his neck into his collar.

Making his already drenched clothes even wetter.

Seeing this, the girl pulled out a tissue from her pocket, wanting to help him wipe it away, but he turned his head to avoid it.

Pei Che opened his mouth, his voice hoarse: "Thank you, you can go back now."

The girl lowered her lashes, slowly withdrew her hand, clutching the tissue in her palm.

Only when he was injured and unable to move could she get close to him.

Knowing full well he had someone in his heart, she couldn’t help but follow him from Ling City to Beicheng, then from Beicheng to this unfamiliar city, hoping that one day, he might turn around, see her, and realize she’s always been there.

Now it seems, it was always her wishful thinking.

In his heart, there was no room for any woman other than Shen Jianian. Even though Shen Jianian was with someone else, he still masochistically and silently protected her, risking everything to shield her from danger.

Once, when he returned from the theater, his back was covered in bruises. He was trying to apply ointment with difficulty when she suddenly barged in and saw him.

She asked him how it happened, but he didn’t say. She guessed it was for Shen Jianian.

On the night of Shen Jianian’s public performance, he bought the last-row ticket, disguised himself as an ordinary audience member, and watched her shine on stage from within the crowd.

Afterwards, he ordered a bouquet of flowers for her, without leaving a word.

That night, he lingered around the theater, just to catch a few more glimpses of her. Little did he know, what he saw was Shen Jianian happily with another man.

That man took her to a western restaurant for a candlelit dinner. It rained outside, and the man held an umbrella with one hand while draping an arm over her shoulder. The two of them snuggled under the umbrella, perfectly sweet.

While Pei Che stood alone at the street corner, soaked from head to toe by the rain.

When she approached him with an umbrella, he still refused to leave. Though those two figures vanished into the car, he still stubbornly stared at its blurred outline in the rain.

The car lingered without leaving, hard not to suspect they were intimate inside. For adult couples, doing something in a romantic rain would be nothing unusual.

She saw Pei Che’s emaciated face full of sorrow and loneliness, his eyes bloodshot, pale hands pressed against the wall, the knuckles protruding, sharp as blades.

That was the first time he voluntarily mentioned Shen Jianian’s name to her, affectionately calling her "Little Nian." He said, "Little Nian wouldn’t like someone else, right?"

She didn’t know how to answer him.

The scene he witnessed himself, wasn’t that the best answer?

Despite his heart repeatedly hurt and tormented, he never wanted to leave, to live his own life, but instead followed Shen Jianian like a shadow, not too far, not too close.

This is also why he could be the first to rescue Shen Jianian after her car accident, ensuring she received the best treatment in time.

Su Wanhe closed her eyes, turned around, left the corridor, and entered the elevator.

Pei Che turned himself into Shen Jianian’s shadow, and how was it different for Su Wanhe, forever trailing after him, even if he didn’t see her, she still wouldn’t give up.

Soon after Su Wanhe left, the light in the operating room went off.

Pei Che propped himself off the ground, teetering as he stood, his gaze fixed on the closed door.

Not long after, the door slid to the side, and doctors in sterile gowns began coming out, their masked faces not showing fatigue but a lightness of relief.

Pei Che rushed to the lead surgeon, his excitement causing his body to stagger. An anesthesiologist, who had just taken off his gloves, quickly steadied him.

"Don’t worry, the surgery appears to be very successful. The patient has been transferred to the intensive care unit. We will have the best monitoring doctors take turns watching over her 24 hours a day," said the surgical chief who performed the final brain surgery on Shen Jianian. "The wounds on her face number over a dozen, and after treatment, the bleeding has stopped, but about seventy percent of her visage is ruined. In the future, with a skilled cosmetic surgeon, she might recover some..."

But to return to how she once looked is virtually impossible; about eight or nine wounds are particularly deep.

It is said that the collision, with shattered car window glass embedding into her skin, took over an hour just to debride.

The first words Pei Che heard were about the success of the operation, which eased his heart halfway. He didn’t care about her appearance; all he wanted was for Little Nian to survive.

Shen Jianian was moved to the intensive care unit; for the time being, he couldn’t go see her. Exhausted, Pei Che followed the chief surgeon to meet the dean of the First Hospital.

The chief surgeon led Pei Che outside the dean’s office, nodded at him, and didn’t enter for the moment.

Pei Che knocked, and the dean personally opened the door, inviting him inside.

In the middle of the night, as this surgery was still ongoing, the dean rushed from home to the hospital, closely watching the progress. Learning that things went smoothly, he felt the weight lift from his heart.

The Pei Family is nationally renowned in the medical equipment sector, and the First Hospital has long collaborated with them. Last night, the young master of the Pei Family personally called him, so he had to take it seriously.

Seeing Pei Che, the dean, who was over fifty, couldn’t help but be surprised, for he looked utterly haggard, with a weary complexion and weakened body, as if he might collapse at any moment.

Pei Che spoke straightforwardly, without any polite preamble: "Shen Jianian will receive treatment at the First Hospital until she fully recovers and is discharged. I hope there won’t be any leaks about her hospitalization here. Please direct the staff involved in her surgery and subsequent care to ensure confidentiality."

Before the dean could respond, he clarified the terms: "In exchange, I will personally represent the Pei Family to 50 million in medical supplies and expand the hospital’s inpatient building to ease the bed shortage."

The dean immediately stated that protecting patient privacy was already a duty of the hospital and that he would enforce strict confidentiality on this basis.

Pei Che, not entirely reassured, repeatedly emphasized that no unrelated personnel should know about it.

Why Little Nian left Beicheng, he did not know. But during the days he followed her, he once saw her leaving a private restaurant and shortly after, Fu Family’s matriarch, Wei Ronghua, also came out of there.

What they talked about, he had no way of knowing, but he couldn’t naively believe that Little Nian’s departure had nothing to do with the Fu Family.

He didn’t want Little Nian to be disturbed or hurt by anyone during her recovery, and within this "anyone," of course, included Fu Jichen.

In his eyes, Fu Jichen’s failure to protect Little Nian was an unforgivable crime.