It was the peak of school dismissal, and many parents had arrived in their cars to pick up their children from No. 1 Middle School, clogging the area with a multitude of vehicles.
Frowning, Nathalie Quinlan pulled out her earphones from her bag and put them on, ready to return City Hospital’s phone call as she navigated through the crowd.
Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a black Phaeton parked unobtrusively in a corner across the street.
Amadeus Yancey was leaning lazily against the car, the streetlight casting a hazy glow on his strikingly handso face. The man’s deep-set eyes and thin, brightly colored lips held a cigarette, while his black shirt sleeves were rolled up, revealing crimson Buddhist beads around his wrist bone.
Despite parking far away, he stood out like a crane amongst chickens, quite eye-catching.
Nathalie no longer felt like walking over to him.
However, the man by the car seed to sense her presence and looked up in her direction, locking eyes with her just as she glanced his way.
Nathalie: ...
Amadeus Yancey hadn’t expected her to co out so soon and to catch him smoking. He frowned, tossed away the cigarette he had just lit, stomped it out with the tip of his shoe, and turned to say to Alfred Garland in the car, "Didn’t you say the seniors were having exams and it would take at least half an hour before they got out?"
"It’s supposed to take half an hour, yes."
"Then how co Nathalie is out? And she saw smoking to boot."
Pinching the angle of his jaw, Amadeus Yancey didn’t bother with a reply. Instead, he raised his hand and motioned for the person across the street to co over.
*
The road was only so wide, and it took Nathalie just a few steps to reach him.
As soon as she stopped, she heard the man’s deep, enticing voice fall over her, "Uncle Cagwin had an accident."
Nathalie’s heart skipped a beat, her face color slightly changed, pulling out her ear microphone. Her dark eyes looked at him, both cold and severe, like a wolf that had its last line crossed.
"What happened?" her throat sounded terribly hoarse.
Seeing her shoulders and back nearly tense into right angles, Amadeus Yancey knew that she was far from as calm as she appeared on the surface. He turned, opened the car door and beckoned her in, "We’ll talk on the way. Get in the car first."
*
On the way, Amadeus Yancey quickly explained Uncle Cagwin’s condition to her.
Actually, it was simple: Uncle Cagwin suddenly felt nauseous and vomited in the afternoon and at one point passed out. The doctors perford an ergency examination and found a tumor in his brain, requiring imdiate surgery.
However, this type of craniotomy requires a high level of skill from the surgeon, and McKinney is just a small place with dical standards far below those of Beijing.
It was almost insurmountable to find a specialist to perform the craniotomy for Uncle Cagwin on such short notice.
Before the car arrived at City Hospital, Amadeus Yancey’s gaze fell on her pale face. His fingers quickly rotated the Buddhist beads around his wrist and he whispered reassurances, "I’ve already contacted specialists from the Beijing People’s Hospital. They will be here soon. You don’t need to worry."
She had always known that Uncle Cagwin, who had been bedridden for years, was in poor health, so she made sure a doctor gave him a comprehensive health check every month. She never expected that even so, he would end up with a brain tumor!
Nathalie’s face turned pale as she leaned back, closed her eyes, and her raven-black eyelashes stood out distinctly, her lips pressed into a straight line. Her hands clenched into fists and rested by her side without a word.
But it was the first ti Amadeus Yancey saw such a vulnerable and uncollected side of her. Fearing she might dig into her own palm till it bled, he laid his hand over her knuckles.
Comforting her like a child, he coaxed in a low voice, "Nathalie, be good. Trust , Uncle Cagwin will be fine."
The car quickly arrived at City Hospital, and Nathalie nearly ran all the way up to the 6th floor.
From afar, she could hear Aunt Cagwin’s restrained weeping and the voices of doctors gathered in discussion.
"The patient has fallen into a deep coma, what do we do? We can’t wait for the specialist from Beijing to arrive. Should we transfer him to a superior hospital?"
"No, his condition isn’t suitable for further transfer. We need to operate as soon as possible."
"But who will perform the surgery?"
A deathly silence hung over the scene.
All the neurosurgeons from McKinney City Hospital were present, yet no one dared to volunteer, confident they could handle the surgery. Under normal circumstances, with a common patient, they might not have felt such pressure—they would have simply proceeded, as surgery can succeed or fail. However, although this patient appeared ordinary, he seed to have influential connections behind him, and no one wanted to take on such responsibility...
After a full minute in which Aunt Cagwin saw no doctor volunteering to perform the surgery, her heart was sinking. Just as she was losing hope, she heard a familiar voice from the end of the corridor.
"I’ll do it!"
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