Cao Yong carried two cups of freshly brewed black tea and walked out of the kitchen into the living room. He saw her sitting on the sofa, her head down, flipping through a book. Her long hair cascaded over her slender shoulders, her face buried low enough to reveal only her smooth forehead.

Gently placing the teacup on the coffee table in front of her, Cao Yong said, "Take a break. You don’t need to be so tense all the time."

Noticing that her senior had seen through her nervousness, Xie Wanying put down the book and brushed her hair aside, "Thank you, Senior Cao. You’ve taken good care of my mom and my younger brother during this time, it’s a lot of work."

Hearing her words, Cao Yong reached out and gently patted her shoulder: telling you to relax a bit, why are you thanking me?

Understanding the meaning behind Senior Cao’s gesture, Xie Wanying smiled sheepishly.

Retracting his hand, Cao Yong urged her to drink tea, joining her to soothe his throat as well. After much chatting on the phone, his mouth was dry and parched, "In the field of medicine, looking out for each other is a given. Essentially, we’re a team. Whenever things like this come up, everyone helps out."

The medical profession has many good people, which is one of the reasons she chose to be a doctor again after being reborn.

Cao Yong thought of the secret she kept in her heart.

With her mother visiting, on one hand, he certainly wanted to take good care of her; on the other hand, like everyone else, he wondered if he could glean any information from her mother.

Yet after these days, it seemed her mom knew nothing of her secret. This left him and others feeling bewildered.

For instance, asking Sun Rongfang if she knew why her daughter chose to pursue medicine.

No need to think, Sun Rongfang would answer: because her daughter loves it.

Her mom differed greatly in being talkative, straightforward, and open. This made it hard for anyone not to have a favorable impression of Mother Xie.

Sun Rongfang, similar to Wu Lixuan, had good interpersonal relationships and many friends in her circle — she knew how to get along with people.

Xie Wanying was really unlike her mother in these aspects. As Yin Fengchun said: sometimes it seemed that his girlfriend, Wu Lixuan, was more like Sun Rongfang’s biological daughter.

Perhaps it was the starkly different personality traits between the mother and daughter, Sun Rongfang had no doubt that her daughter’s pursuit of medicine harbored no hidden agenda. Back then, believing in wholeheartedly wanting to study medicine, she trusted her daughter was no different.

Faced with the pure and lovable Mother Xie, Cao Yong and the other teachers could not, without any evidence, tell Sun Rongfang: We suspect your daughter has a secret agenda for studying medicine.

Sun Rongfang was far away in her hometown, unlike these seniors and teachers, who, in the clinic, had witnessed firsthand the somewhat peculiar style of behavior that led to such speculation.

Putting down the teacup in his hand, Cao Yong’s eyes were tinged with seriousness as he gently grasped her hand resting on the sofa.

Senior Cao suddenly grasped her hand as if trying to instill her with a surge of energy. Xie Wanying was perplexed, lifting her head. Across from her, Senior Cao’s handsome features seemed etched a bit deeper, like the pitch-black night outside, making her inexplicably tense once more: his gaze was too penetrating.

"Do what you love."

When Senior Cao said this sentence, she thought she might have misheard until she saw the earnest look in his eyes proving otherwise.

The night was deep.

Came back reading with the book borrowed from Senior Cao. Remembering the time to sleep, Xie Wanying checked the clock and found it was already one o’clock.

Going out to the bathroom, everyone else in her room was already asleep.

Just then, her phone rang. Afraid of disturbing others, Xie Wanying picked up the phone, went into the kitchen, and closed the glass door to listen.