5 He walked into the operating room alone, without company. When he signed the surgical consent, there wasn't a single soul by his side either.

And as he lay on the operating table, beyond the anesthesiologist and the surgeon, no one outside was worried. Perhaps...

she hadn't even noticed his departure. She only loved her younger brother.

He had only become important because of her intense love for that brother, providing him with leverage to bargain with her. If it weren't for that kidney, she wouldn't spare him a second glance, would she?

In that moment. A deep bitterness filled his heart, and the conflict and struggle were driving him to madness.

To coerce her with a kidney—what a despicable act. Yet, it was his only recourse, the sole way to keep her!

But if Yin Cheng learned the truth of it all, wouldn't even this last glimmer of hope be extinguished? When the doctor informed him the surgery had been canceled, he rose silently from the operating table, the loneliness in his heart settling like layers of winter snow.

He thought his heart would gradually grow cold. However, seeing her high fever and unconscious form in the hospital bed, he realized he had vastly overestimated himself.

Loneliness and coldness were bearable; but her pale visage and the tremor of her suffering sliced through his heart like a blade, making him willing to endure a hundred times the isolation and chill rather than watch her in pain. "What did you do to her again?!" Yin Cheng questioned Ou Chen in a low voice.

His face was stark white, his eyes burning with a stubborn, obstinate fire, utterly unlike the usually gentle and compliant Xiao Cheng. It was as if he had firmly made up his mind, and nothing could sway him now.

"..." Ou Chen pressed his lips together, left speechless by the retort. After a long pause, he gazed at her, unconscious and burning with fever in the bed, and said hoarsely, "Even for her sake, you should agree to the surgery." Xiao Cheng was almost everything to her; she would do anything for Xiao Cheng as long as he could live healthy and happy.

It must have been Xiao Cheng's refusal of the operation that shattered her hope, causing her to suddenly collapse. "I will not take your kidney; I won't let her lose the chance for happiness because of that organ." Yin Cheng slowly stood up.

His gaze remained anxiously fixed on Xia Mo, yet he dared not look any longer; every extra second spent observing her ailing appearance felt like a moment of torment on a scorching iron plate. He walked slowly out of the ward.

Yin Cheng stood stock-still in the echoing hospital corridor, his mind wiped clean by the vast emptiness. Sister's health had always been robust; she would recover.

He could not yield to a moment of fear; his sister would soon be well... In the ward, Zhen En, tucked away in the corner, had long been forgotten by everyone.

She stared blankly in the direction Yin Cheng had vanished, then stared blankly at Ou Chen standing by Xia Mo’s bedside. Her eyes were still swollen red, tear tracks freshly visible on her face; the entire picture she presented was utterly distraught.

The events of the past two days had completely scrambled her thoughts. She no longer knew what was right or wrong; it felt as if nothing in the world held any definitive correct or incorrect standing—only the suffocating grief that occasionally forced fresh tears to spill.

For a long time. Ou Chen remained standing in unusual silence.

It was as if in the dead of the dark night, his eyes held no light, his spine rigidly straight, as if he were assuring himself: I did nothing wrong, and I will have no regrets! Yet, her weak, burning fingers trembling slightly in his palm, much like reeds swayed by the river wind, were destroying the last of his stubborn resolve...

Bubble Summer III