Chapter One: 12:44 A.M.

The first time I saw the Nocturne Wellness Center, I had been working for thirty-seven hours straight. That night, the emergency department was a stomach that could not be filled. A drunk man with a fractured skull lay beside a feverish child in convulsions, while an old woman had hidden her chest pain until midnight rather than wake her son. As I performed compressions on her, numbness pulsed through my wrists. The monitor drew a merciless line. Behind me, Director He Yuanshan asked, “Su Mian, can you handle this or not?” He headed our department and possessed a rare gift: his white shirts stayed spotless in every resuscitation room. “Another milligram of epinephrine,” I said.