197: Chapter 197 Su Qingxue, are you crazy?

"What he wrote was: From the day you choose this profession, you owe your life to the entire world."

No one spoke in the cave.

"Down below were two hundred freshmen; some laughed, some didn't take it seriously, and some took a picture with their phones and posted it on WeChat Moments with the caption: My first college class."

Xu Zhixia's voice had no ups and downs.

"That old man stood on the podium and waited for five minutes until everyone quieted down. Then he said: You will encounter a situation in the future. A patient is lying in front of you, you have something in your hand that can save them, but there are risks on the way to get that thing."

"If you go, you might die. If you don't go, they will definitely die."

"At this time, no one is forcing you, no one is evaluating you, and no institutional rules require you to go. You can find a hundred reasons to stay put. No one will blame you."

"But you will blame yourself."

"You will think of that face every single day afterward. You will think of it when eating, when sleeping, and when prescribing medicine to other patients. You will wonder if that person would still be alive if you had gone back then."

"The old man said: This kind of thing is called the doctor's disease. Once you get it, it cannot be cured. If you are afraid of getting this disease, it's still not too late to drop out now."

After Xu Zhixia finished speaking, she was silent for two seconds.

"After that class ended, a dozen people actually dropped out."

She turned her head back to the front.

"I didn't drop out."

Liu Feifei leaned against the stone wall, her hands still covering her face. The corners of her mouth moved slightly, wanting to say something, but in the end, nothing came out.

Zhou Kai raised his head from the ground, staring at Xu Zhixia's back.

His legs hurt terribly, but his mind suddenly became clear.

Song Ya's nose felt a bit sour; she lowered her head to look at her hands, then looked at the grayish sky outside the slope.

Xu Zhixia walked to the cave entrance and glanced at Zhou Kai lying inside the cave.

"Saving people is not shooting a movie."

"There is no director yelling cut, no one calling a halt, and certainly no retakes."

"Missing it means missing it. Once a person is gone, they are gone. There is no second chance, nor is there a do-over."

Lin Fan did not speak immediately.

Xu Zhixia was going to go down to get medicine.

This matter made sense logically.

Looked at from the perspective of risk, it also made sense.

In this Karst Cave right now, he was the least suitable person to go down.

As long as he left the cave entrance, Wang Laoliu would have the opportunity to rearrange his layout.

Xu Zhixia was Yang Ningcong's person, at least in name.

Wang Laoliu would not make a move against her immediately. She went down to get medicine with a reason, an identity, and value.

Lin Fan turned around and walked to the supplies area, rummaged through the rattan baskets beside him, and pulled out a pair of sneakers from inside.

The shoes had been salvaged from the cruise ship wreckage earlier, and he threw them to Xu Zhixia's feet.

"Put them on."

Xu Zhixia looked down.

She had walked up from the beach barefoot, her soles stained with mud and tiny flecks of blood.

The stones on the slope had cut a few gashes, but she hadn't mentioned a word about it when treating Zhou Kai's wounds just now.

She bent down to put on the shoes.

Watching Xu Zhixia tie her shoelaces, Lin Fan spoke: "When you go down, say the medicine is fetched for Yang Ningcong; Wang Laoliu will most likely not make things difficult for you."

Xu Zhixia raised her head, "I know my limits."

As Xu Zhixia brushed past him, Lin Fan said in a low voice: "Thanks, Dr. Xu."

Xu Zhixia's footsteps paused.

She looked at him for two seconds and smiled slightly.

It wasn't the kind of ingratiating smile, nor was it polite pleasantries. It was very brief and light, like a bit of human warmth leaking out from between tense bones.

"Save it," she said. "Thank me after the person is saved."

After saying that, she went down the slope.

Hugging the rock wall, half of Lin Fan's body was hidden in the shadow of the cave entrance, his gaze following her.

When Xu Zhixia walked to the middle section of the slope, Yang Ningcong suddenly raised his head from the stone.

He had been huddled next to Song Ya, the blood scab on his neck tightened as it dried, and that patch of his pants was half-dry from the wind.

He looked both disheveled and aggrieved, but when he saw Su Qingxue standing by the partition, his eyes suddenly lit up.

"Qingxue!"

No one paid attention to him.

He shouted again: "Qingxue, it's me!"

Su Qingxue stood by the stone wall without walking closer.

Yang Ningcong grew anxious, his voice floating upwards: "Qingxue, I went out to sea specifically for you!"

The cave fell silent for a moment.

Song Ya glanced at Yang Ningcong, her expression somewhat complicated.

If these words were said on a cruise ship, accompanied by champagne, dinner, and deck lights, they might still fool a few young girls.

Now that he was saying these words with blood on his neck, stains on his crotch, and his feet tied up,

all romance was gone.

Only awkwardness remained.

Yang Ningcong didn't care about these things.

Right now, he would grab onto any rope that could save his life and pull it for dear life.

"Qingxue, I went through nine deaths and a lifetime to get here all for you."

Yang Ningcong's speech was exceptionally fluent right now, completely unlike the person who was crying and howling for his parents on the beach just moments ago.

"This trip I made to sea wasn't for anything else, but just to find you."

"The day you disappeared, I had people check the shipping routes. I paid out of my own pocket for satellite maps, used my connections, hired a ship, and swept all the way south from Manila."

"Two months."

"For two months I haven't returned home once, and I wouldn't even answer my mom's phone calls."

Standing on the side, Song Ya listened in a daze.

She had heard some gossip at the company before, saying that the young master of the Yang Family was pursuing President Su very fiercely, sending flowers and cars every other day. But no one had ever told her that this young master would actually sail a ship into the Devils Triangle for a woman.

Su Qingxue did not respond.

Her back was against the stone wall, her coat draped loosely over her shoulders, and her face was still pale.

Yang Ningcong grew anxious, his knees shuffling forward, and the rope tightened, causing another sharp pain in his ankles.

"Qingxue, don't stay silent."

"Qingxue, look at the situation now." He glanced toward Lin Fan, then quickly pulled back his gaze, afraid of being caught by the other party, "I'll go down, send the signal, press the PLB, and the rescue team will arrive within twelve hours."

"You go back to the villa, I'll go back to the villa, everyone goes back."

"Tell him to untie the rope. I can suppress that bunch of people on the ship, Laoliu listens to me, and the bodyguards listen to me even more..."

"If I send out the signal earlier, everyone can be saved sooner..."

Su Qingxue did not look at Yang Ningcong.

She looked at Lin Fan, and in her gaze there was no command, no pressure, but rather as if she were asking a question—what do you think of this matter?

Yang Ningcong's face, which had still been wearing a smile, stiffened.

He stared at Su Qingxue, then turned to look at Lin Fan, and then back at Su Qingxue, "Qingxue."

His voice changed tone, "Why are you looking at him?"

Su Qingxue did not answer.

Yang Ningcong kneeled forward half a step, the rope pulled taut.

"Since when do you need to look at an intern's expression?"

He almost roared these words out.

Not because of anger, but because of disbelief.

In his past twenty-something years of life, interns at Shengtang even had to turn sideways when entering the conference room to pour water.

Between these two types of people, what separated them wasn't just a floor, but dozens of classes.

Now Su Qingxue needed to look at an intern's expression?

Yang Ningcong's brain had completely short-circuited, "Su Qingxue, have you gone mad?"

"Did this brat drug you? Or are you scared out of your mind?"