A few quick notes before you dive in:

【In novels: “Yandere green-tea male lead? Ugh, I’m obsessed~”】

【In real life: “If he’s a creep, run. Immediately.”】

【In novels: “This patient is so pitiful, I have to heal him~”】

【In real life: “Getting emotionally tangled up with a patient is absolutely not okay!”】

【This book was started when the author had just stepped into clinical training and was interning at a top-tier hospital. Some of the settings come from real life, but they’re also way more dramatic than reality, so please don’t overanalyze, okay? Most of the plot is basically the author’s own bedtime brain-movie used to lull herself to sleep, hehe~~】

【And to every sweet reader who clicked on this book—thank you so, so much. I’m seriously honored~~】

So now then,

the story of Vivienne Hartwell and Elliot Mercer

officially begins...

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First Affiliated Hospital of xx University.

“Tap.”

After hitting the final Enter key, Vivienne Hartwell lifted her hands from the keyboard, rubbed her aching neck and shoulders, then stretched hard enough to make her whole spine loosen up. A smile of pure relief spread across her face, the kind that looked like she’d just crawled out of a battlefield alive.

Finally. She had finally finished sorting out today’s major case files.

Ever since last week, when she ate a mango brought in by a patient’s family, the psychiatry department had not had a single peaceful day.

Patients kept getting admitted one after another, like water pouring through an open gate.

Even she, a lowly resident-in-training, had ended up taking in five patients under her own name.

Seriously, what a messed-up world.

Look at this nightmare of a society—people were getting pushed to the brink.

She worked herself to the bone for that pathetic little paycheck, and in the end, it all went straight back into the hospital.

That patient admitted yesterday evening looked like some big shot too—the son of one of the hospital’s major shareholders.

He came in by helicopter, no less, all the way through the green channel.

A private VIP room. The dean received him in person.

The whole thing was ridiculously over the top.

Vivienne Hartwell rubbed her face, still unable to make sense of it.

What kind of trouble could a rich young master possibly have?

Too much money to spend?

The second she got the notice yesterday, she hadn’t even had time to swallow the food in her mouth before rushing toward the inpatient building.

And the moment she got to the ward—wow, what a scene. The place was packed.

The dean, the vice dean, the head of psychiatry, the director of inpatient services...

There were even several bodyguards at the door, dressed head to toe in black, wearing clear acoustic tube earpieces.

She was the attending resident in charge of the bed, yet she still couldn’t squeeze her way in.

From yesterday up till now, she hadn’t even seen what this noble patient looked like.

Probably some delicate, high-maintenance rich boy.

At the thought, Vivienne let out a quiet sigh.

If she’d known clinical work would be this exhausting, she really should’ve listened to her mentor—get the PhD, stay at the university, and become a proud lecturer.

But then again, she had this grand dream of saving the world.

So what else could she do?

Keep grinding, obviously.

Vivienne yawned, rubbed her sleepy eyes, and looked up at the electronic screen on the wall, glowing with that faint eerie red light.

It was already two in the morning.

No wonder the whole place was so dead quiet. Vivienne Hartwell could even hear the faint rasp of her own white coat brushing against itself.

Click, click.

Creepy as hell.

Still, if she held on for five more hours, the shift change would finally save her.

Vivienne slumped in her chair with zero image to protect, eyes sweeping over the surveillance feeds on the computer while she silently prayed to the medical ancestors in her heart.

Please, Hippocrates, let every patient stay in bed and sleep like an angel.

Please don’t let anything blow up on the night shift.

Just let her get through tonight in peace.

She was so sleepy her soul practically had one foot in the underworld.

The resentment hanging off her right now could probably feed ten evil sword spirits.

She’d been grinding nonstop till now. Couldn’t the universe just let her catch a break?

Very good. Total peace and harmony.

Not a single person in the common area.

Vivienne nodded in satisfaction. After checking the monitors, she was just about to sit down and look over tomorrow’s surgery schedule—

Bang!

A sudden, sharp thud came from outside the door.

“Who’s there?!”

Vivienne, who had only just relaxed, got scared so badly her whole body jolted. She froze for a few long seconds.

Then she snapped back to herself and hurriedly grabbed the mouse, pulling up the surveillance cameras one zone at a time.

No one was at the triage desk.

The pantry was empty.

The hallway too—dead quiet, not a single soul in sight.

Could it have been an auditory hallucination?

Vivienne Hartwell steadied herself, grabbed the flashlight off the desk, and headed for the door.

The patients on this floor might not be critical cases, but they all had psychiatric disorders. If one of them lost it, that was no joke.

What if some patient had sneaked out and was wandering around ready to slash someone for fun?

Or worse, some hitman had slipped into the hospital at night to take out a patient?

She’d heard the nurses joking before that this floor had a few “original residents.”

Usually they didn’t come out to mess around, only showed up now and then during holidays.

So what, had their families burned too little spirit money lately, and now they were broke?

Vivienne’s thoughts took off at warp speed, one wild guess after another flashing through her mind.

She drew in a deep breath, pushed open the duty room door, and instantly felt how absurdly silent it was outside.

In the dim corridor, only thin strips of moonlight drifted across the floor.

Had she really been working too long and started hearing things?

Vivienne frowned a little, clicked on the flashlight, swept the beam around, then called out in a clear, steady voice, half testing, half warning.

“It’s already two in the morning. Everyone should be resting.”

“If there’s any emergency, come to the duty room and find the doctor.”

“And no playing hide-and-seek with the doctor, okay?”

...

One second, two seconds, three seconds.

The only thing answering her was the blinking digits on the electronic clock.

No one.

No ghost either.

Everything looked totally normal.

Vivienne Hartwell finally let out the breath she’d been holding and steadied herself.

With the small flashlight raised in her hand, she checked the rooms one by one.

Good. Everyone was asleep like they were supposed to be.

When she reached the last room, the VIP ward, she stopped and glanced around, a little puzzled.

Weird. Where were the bodyguards?

If anything, nighttime was when they should be guarding the place even harder.

Don’t tell her something had happened.

Vivienne stood outside the door, her hand resting on the handle, lifting and dropping more than once.

She got stuck in a full-on mental tug-of-war.

Before getting off work, Director Bernard Holloway had reminded her again and again not to disturb the patient in the VIP room under any circumstances. He’d even said she could skip the regular night rounds for that room.

If she barged in now and woke up that pampered young master, then tomorrow she might seriously get fired for something ridiculous, like stepping into the department with her left foot first.

But if she didn’t go in and check, what if the young master was having some kind of emergency inside?

Compared to losing her job, making sure the young master was still alive seemed a lot more important.

Vivienne raised her hand and knocked lightly on the door as a warning first. Then she covered most of the flashlight beam with her fingers and gently pressed down on the handle, careful to keep every movement soft, like she was afraid even the air might bother the young master’s sleep.

"Cough. Cough."

Before she could even see what was going on inside, a deliberately suppressed cough suddenly came from the far end of the hallway.

"Oh my God—seriously?!"

Getting scared twice in one night had basically fried Vivienne Hartwell’s nerves. She felt half numb all over.

She pressed a hand to her chest, trying to calm the pounding in there, but the more she thought about it, the more her temper shot up.

"Human or ghost, who even does that in the middle of the night?" she fumed inwardly. "Sneaking out instead of sleeping just to scare people? Do you have zero basic decency?"

"Even if you are a ghost, you should have standards!"

This was a hospital. A hospital had rules.

What kind of lame move was lurking in the dark and creeping people out?

After pulling the VIP room door shut for them, Vivienne turned on her heel and stormed toward the corridor, fire practically crackling off her. She lowered her voice, but her tone was still sharp enough to cut.

"Who’s there?"

Just like she expected, no one answered.

But that stifled coughing was still going.

That was enough. She was sure now—someone was hiding in the stairwell.

And why wasn’t she thinking ghost?

Because... ghosts didn’t cough.

Most likely some patient had snuck off to the stairwell for a secret smoke again.

She was absolutely going to find out which patient had the guts to ignore medical orders.

Catch them first. Tomorrow, when Bernard Holloway did rounds, she’d let him give that person a proper lecture. Honestly, they deserved a formal warning.

Vivienne lightened her steps and quietly made her way toward the stairwell.

The person inside seemed to sense something. The coughing cut off all at once, abrupt and unnatural, like it had been forcibly held back.

Only a faint, shallow breathing sound remained.

"Oh, nice try," she thought, lips tightening. "Still pretending? Too late, babe. I already found you."

Bending slightly, Vivienne crept closer to the stairwell door—

then yanked it open in one swift motion.

Clang.