As the spring sun bathed the campus in golden light, Muyang and Jiang Lingxi's fledgling romance flourished like wisteria climbing a trellis—each tendril of affection coiling tighter around the other until their hearts seemed irrevocably bound.
Their laughter echoed through tree-lined paths where cherry blossoms drifted like confetti, while stolen glances beneath classroom doorways held promises sweeter than honeydew.
Yet destiny, ever the mischievous playwright, chose this tender moment to introduce a new character. Enter Lin Yunhe, the enigmatic transfer student whose arrival was as subtle as moonlit mist rolling over a lake.
With his silken jet-black hair that caught the sunlight like raven's wings and eyes that held secrets older than the ancient oaks on campus, he carried an air of mystery that intrigued everyone—especially Jiang Lingxi.
Where Muyang's warmth was like a crackling hearth, Lin Yunhe radiated the cool allure of a midnight forest. His quiet observations and cryptic remarks planted seeds of curiosity in Jiang Lingxi's mind, while his unexpected kindness toward stray cats and elderly librarians hinted at depths beneath his aloof exterior.
Unbeknownst to the unsuspecting couple, this new presence would soon become a stormfront—bringing with it not just romantic tension, but shadows from the past that threatened to unravel their fragile happiness.
As Lin Yunhe traversed the corridor of the anatomy lab, the hem of his white coat swept upward in elegant arcs, reminiscent of snow-laden cedar branches unfurling under moonlight. His 190cm frame created a striking visual rhythm between the specimen display cabinets, each step causing the muscles beneath his shoulder blades to ripple like dragons gliding beneath silk. The tendons along his wrists protruded like vines awakening in early spring, their delicate blue-green veins mapping a topography of latent strength.
When he leaned over to examine a pathological slide, dark locks tumbled forward in a sinuous cascade, revealing the graceful curve of his nape. Just below the collarbone, a gilded down of baby hair shimmered like the first ferns unfurling in dawn mist—soft yet resilient, a testament to life emerging from dormancy.
The scalpel spun fluidly between his well-defined knuckles, its 3.2-millimeter blade edge slicing through fascial planes with surgical precision. Legends about him circulated through the medical school halls: during human anatomy exams, he could distinguish subtle differences in the 26 carpal bones by touch alone;
in emergency simulation drills, his chest compressions always matched the defibrillator's beeps in perfect resonance. This precision extended to life's minutiae—the second button of his lab coat always aligned precisely with the sternal angle, and the ink strokes in his experiment logs varied by less than 0.1 millimeters in depth.
"Senior Lin's fingers are literal works of art," whispered nursing students during breaks. Those fingertips, whitened from antiseptic exposure, could detect 0.04-second ST segment deviations on ECG paper yet also gently peel away thymus membranes as delicate as butterfly wings during spring anatomy lessons.
When he leaned in to correct a junior's technique, laboratory lights cast fan-shaped shadows across his eyelashes, and students he'd instructed often claimed to catch a faint, lingering scent of pinewood from his sleeves.
During his internship in neurosurgery at the affiliated hospital, he created his own "tactile memory method": wrapping his fingers with bandages of different materials to simulate the tactile sensation of different diseased tissues. This almost paranoid training made him 97.3 percent accurate at determining tumor boundaries, and the professor called his hands "like an olive branch growing in the skull."And when he taps a CT with a long knuckle in his duty room late at night, the sleeping lesions wake up into strange coral reefs on the fluorescent screen.
The teenager, known as the "god of anatomy", " has surprising delicacy in private. He would plant medicinal plants on the windowsill and observe the pores of each leaves with a microscope.
When the junior shakes in the lab with faint blood, he unlocks the buttons at the top of his shirt, revealing the pale blue blood vessels in the collarbone: " Look here, beating as regularly as the aorta in the specimen. This comfort, almost to anatomy, left the girls strangely calm.
At the centennial celebration of the medical school, he played the cello solo in a white coat. When "Aria on the G String" flows through the fingers, the spotlight in the audience just happens to illuminate the calluses of his right ring finger —— that is the mark of holding a scalpel and holding a piano bow.
At this moment, Lin Yunhe, like a tree tree growing to the sky and the earth at the same time, perfectly integrates medical rigor and artistic sensibility, and casts a breathless shadow in the ivory tower.
Unbeknownst to Jiang Lingxi, Lin Yunhe's attention had begun trailing her like a shadow long before either realized. The first time he noticed her was on a late autumn afternoon, where sunlight filtered through the library's east-facing glass panes to dapple the wooden floors with shifting tree patterns.
As she crossed the study area clutching a stack of medical texts, her hair grazed trailing ivy vines, leaving a faint trail of gardenia scent in its wake. She favored pastel knits—ash gray, ivory, primrose yellow—that swathed her form like lingering spring mist, casting an aura of detached gentleness amid bustling crowds.
Their fateful encounter occurred at the window of the rare books restoration room. He found himself moving toward her involuntarily as she stretched to retrieve a volume on folklore, her cotton skirt billowing to reveal a delicate silver anklet.
Their hands brushed reaching for the same book, and the sudden jolt of contact sent her earlobes flushing crimson—brighter than the fiery maple leaves outside.
From that day, coincidences began clustering like constellations. He "happened" to walk the same library routes, always offering to carry her books. When academic challenges furrowed her brow, his sharp mind provided solutions wrapped in quiet encouragement.
Though Jiang Lingxi's heart remained steadfastly Muyang's, the meticulous doctor-in-training had begun weaving himself into the fabric of her life. Muyang noticed the subtle shifts—a stolen glance here, a lingering smile there—but chose to trust in their bond, quietly standing guard like a sentinel awaiting storm warnings.
During a cultural exchange event, the room buzzed with laughter as participants sat cross-legged on cushions. Lin Yunhe took the spot beside her, his right hand idly tracing the coffee cup's rim until condensation formed a damp ring on the oak table.
When she recounted children in a mountain village gifting her wild berry necklaces during a school reconstruction trip, his pupils constricted sharply—like bioluminescent jellyfish beneath reefs suddenly unfurling their tentacles.
Even as a neighboring student knocked over a sugar jar, shattering glass, his gaze remained fixed on her upturned mouth where a dimple flickered like mother-of-pearl under warm lighting.
As she gestured to mimic winding mountain paths, his eyes followed the silk scarf sliding down her wrist—a lavender mulberry silk piece embroidered with tiny gingko leaves brushing his hand.
His Adam's apple bobbed as fingers curled inward, measuring the agonizing proximity like an astronomer observing Orion's Nebula: close enough to see stardust swirling in gravitational dance, yet forever beyond reach.
Leaning suddenly closer, his suit collar grazed her falling hair. Candlelight fractured across his gold-rimmed glasses, failing to mask the turbulent depths beneath. "I later learned you donated your entire scholarship to buy stationery for those children," he murmured, voice deliberately lowered until the words vibrated with barely suppressed emotion.
She stirred her latte, eyelashes casting fan-shaped shadows. Taking advantage of the moment, he tucked a loose strand behind her ear—a gesture as natural as willow catkins brushing water.
The instant his fingertips brushed her heated skin, he withdrew sharply, yet beneath the tablecloth, he pressed his thumb repeatedly against that fleeting warmth—a temperature gentler than moonlight, like a rose encased in liquid nitrogen, freezing the touch into eternal memory.
Muyang had been engaged in conversation across the room until Lingxi's name pierced the air like a tuning fork. From his diagonal seat, he witnessed the entire tableau. Lin Yunhe's pupils dilated then contracted as Jiang Lingxi lowered her head—like a pulsar eclipsed by cosmic dust, only to erupt with searing X-rays the moment she looked up. The oscillating rhythm of light and shadow mirrored the erratic thumping of Muyang's heart. He watched Lin Yunhe retrieve a fountain pen from his suit pocket, sketching the layout of the rural school on a napkin. The nib grazed Jiang Lingxi's hand with deliberate casualness, much like an archaeologist brushing away millennia-old patina from a bronze artifact, reverent yet invasive.
"Plant cherry blossom trees here," Lin Yunhe said, sliding the napkin toward her. The pen glinted cobalt under the chandelier. As Jiang Lingxi leaned in, he studied the baby hairs curling at her crown, suddenly recalling Marquez's line: Love, above all, is a visceral instinct. Swiftly, he added two stick figures beneath the sketched trees—one holding a toolbox, the other a paper crane. The scratch of nib on paper echoed his accelerating pulse, like a centrifuge spinning at dangerous speeds, test tubes trembling on the verge of shattering.
By the time Jiang Lingxi noticed the doodles, Lin Yunhe had capped the pen with a metallic click. "Didn't your origami tutorial say cranes need partners to carry meaning?" he smiled. Muyang watched the blush spread from her ears to her collarbone, realizing with a jolt that what he'd mistaken for subtlety was actually a barrage of surgical strikes—each gesture a scalpel's incision, precise and ruthless.
Attempting nonchalance, Muyang forced himself to keep chatting, but his eyes betrayed him, darting repeatedly toward their corner. His fingers clenched the fabric of his shirt until knuckles whitened, jealousy sprouting like wildfire in the fertile soil of uncertainty.