Chapter Five: Tomorrow Stolen from the Emergency Ward

With two minutes left, Xiaochuan released the dates and sat beside the courier. Life, no longer forced, gave one weak beat. Xie seized it. Orders, shocks, transfusion, compression—the room became a storm. Twenty minutes later, the monitor stabilized. “Will he live?” Su Li asked. “We did what we could,” Xie said, silver blood still on his palm. “The rest cannot be promised.” By dawn, the seven patients were recovering. Xiaochuan sat beside an old man afraid of surgery and watched the sunrise. He had acquired an ordinary child's face. Before leaving, he told Su Li his truth. “I didn't want tomorrow. I wanted someone to admit that mine never came.” He became a card marked NIGHT COMPANION and fell into her hand.