Fiona Bennett was forced to apply to medical school because she faints at the sight of blood. Laura Cooper said, Frederick Bennett, your blood karma is too heavy, and the debt has fallen on your daughter. Frederick Bennett replied, “Nonsense! The first time I saw a bullet blow someone’s brains out, I nearly puked my guts out. But later, even when a head was blown up right next to me and half my face was splattered, I still charged forward. It’s just a matter of not having seen enough, not being toughened up. For me, Frederick Bennett, to have a daughter who faints at the sight of blood—what a joke! It needs to be fixed.” In the army, when you train soldiers, you cure their fears by confronting them. Frederick Bennett applied this method to his daughter.

Before entering medical school, Fiona Bennett thought about everything she would face and felt it would be an unbearably harsh ordeal. But the ordeal was indeed effective. For example, the changes she experienced in anatomy class. Fiona Bennett began to believe that if she kept progressing like this, one day she would become a qualified doctor who could stand on the operating table. But the gap between barely coping with a single cadaver in the anatomy classroom and being surrounded by hundreds of bodies in the cadaver pool was enormous. Fiona Bennett felt destroyed. Now, whenever she thought about things related to Susan Wright or that person, a thorn would appear in her mind, pricking her so much that she had to quickly turn her head away.

The sound of pages turning. This faint noise from the foot of the bed had the power to calm Fiona Bennett.

“You’ve skipped quite a few classes, haven’t you?” Fiona Bennett said.

“It’s not really skipping. I stayed in the hospital for a day too, now I’m just taking a couple more days off. Besides, today is Saturday.” Frank Bishop put down his book, looked at Fiona Bennett, and smiled.

Fiona Bennett rarely initiated conversation like this. In fact, over the past two days, they hadn’t talked much. Even the small talk between Frank Bishop and Laura Cooper was more than what he said to Fiona Bennett. Most of the time, the two of them were silent. But this silence didn’t make Fiona Bennett uncomfortable. It was as if, after being saved by Frank Bishop, there was a certain connection between them. It was a strange feeling Fiona Bennett had never experienced before. She listened to Frank Bishop flipping through his book; there was a warmth in that sound, which, even in this cold weather, seeped into her heart bit by bit.

“Did you have a fight with Selena Adams?” Fiona Bennett finally asked. When their roommate came to visit together, Selena Adams hadn’t hidden her feelings. She acted as if she’d been dragged there, offering lukewarm words of comfort, her face full of reluctance. After that, Selena Adams hadn’t shown up again, leaving Frank Bishop to sit at the foot of the bed reading every day, which was unlike her.

“We broke up,” Frank Bishop said, as expected. “That night in the pavilion, she said if I chased after you, we’d break up or something like that. But I thought what she said to you was really out of line, and I was a bit worried, so I still went after you.”

“That was just talk out of anger. She’s probably still waiting to make up with you, isn’t she?”

Frank Bishop didn’t say anything for a moment. Fiona Bennett twisted the bedsheet under the covers with her hand.

“She’s always thought I kind of liked you, so she said those things targeting you. Since I went after you… I didn’t think about getting back together.”

Fiona Bennett slowly let go of the sheet, but felt a sense of fullness inside.

“You’ll have to stay in the hospital for a while. How about I help you catch up on the classes you’ve missed?” Frank Bishop looked a little nervous.

Fiona Bennett wanted to say it wasn’t necessary, but when the words reached her lips, they turned into a soft “Mm.”

In the afternoon, Fiona Bennett woke from a light sleep to find someone sitting by her bed. In her daze, she thought it was Frank Bishop, wondered why he was skipping class again, and asked a question, only to realize it was Frederick Bennett.

Frederick Bennett stared at his daughter for a while and said, “You don’t even recognize your own father now?”

Fiona Bennett was extremely embarrassed by the question and didn’t know how to answer. Her father always made her habitually nervous, and she couldn’t help but miss the relaxed feeling she had when Frank Bishop was sitting beside her.

Frederick Bennett gave a little laugh and said, “Just one sentence from me and you get nervous. How did you have the guts to go to that cadaver pool?”

Fiona Bennett gave an awkward laugh.

“I’m asking you, how did you end up in that cadaver pool?” Frederick Bennett asked again.

Only then did Fiona Bennett realize what her father was getting at, and for a moment she didn’t know how to answer. Some things she hadn’t said at the start, and now she certainly wouldn’t. But faced with her father’s direct questioning, she didn’t have the ability to make up a lie on the spot.

“Your mom said not to ask you too many questions, but you’ve really been acting out of character lately. Last time on the phone you said you were studying, but I don’t think you’ve been studying seriously at all. What exactly are you up to? Tell me!”

By the end, Frederick Bennett’s tone had become accusatory. The patient in the next bed glanced over, then quickly looked away.

“You’ve always been timid since you were little. Someone says something unclear, and you dare to run to that cadaver pool in the middle of the night? Do you think your mom and I don’t know you?”

“I’m timid, that’s exactly why I need to toughen up.”

As soon as she blurted this out, Fiona Bennett regretted it, but she still mustered her courage and met Frederick Bennett’s gaze. She saw her father’s furrowed brow, his round eyes staring at her, the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes deep as knife cuts. He was like an eagle, looking at his daughter as if she were a chicken.

“You ended up in the hospital just from studying, and you think you’ll be able to save lives in the future? Learn to protect yourself first, toughen up, hmph.” Frederick Bennett’s words sounded harsh but lacked real force. He stood up and pointed to the bananas he’d just bought by the bed.

“Your mom said you have to stay safe.” After saying this, he left the ward, leaving Fiona Bennett stunned for a long time.

The next day, Susan Wright came to see her alone. She first asked with concern about her recovery, then said, that night when you went to the meeting alone, it was really too dangerous. Promise me you’ll never do that again. Fiona Bennett nodded. For most of Susan Wright’s questions, Fiona Bennett just nodded or shook her head, not saying much. This felt natural. Her throat was still recovering, and it always hurt a bit when she spoke, making her voice sound odd. Susan Wright said she completely understood and even told her not to talk too much. But there were frequent awkward silences between them, as if some force was blocking their communication, making Fiona Bennett feel increasingly uneasy.

There was a knock at the door. The door was ajar, and a small, thin policeman wearing a peaked cap pushed it open and walked quickly to Fiona Bennett’s bedside. His eyes swept over Susan Wright and landed on Fiona Bennett.

“Fiona Bennett!” he said loudly.

Fiona Bennett, who had been reclining against the headboard with a pillow, immediately sat up straight.

Susan Wright also quickly stood up and took half a step back.

“Officer Gabriel Adams sends his regards,” the policeman said, then couldn’t help but burst out laughing. “How about this outfit? It’s our school uniform—doesn’t it look like a real police uniform?”

Susan Wright said, your friend is here to see you, so I’ll leave first. Fiona Bennett responded with an “oh,” watched Susan Wright leave the ward, and then began to size up the man in front of her.

Actually, he was still just a boy. There was fuzz on his upper lip, his face was covered in pimples, but his eyes were bright. There was a shallow scar at the corner of his left eye, which gave his not-so-burly frame a bit of a tough look. But Fiona Bennett knew he’d gotten it when he was four or five, running wild in the alley and crashing into an iron frame. Every time she saw it, it reminded Fiona Bennett that he was just a troublemaker who only knew how to act tough, leading a gang of unruly kids to run wild through the neighborhood.

In elementary school, Gabriel Adams would stand in the middle of the road and wave at Fiona Bennett, only dodging away when cars got close, scaring Fiona Bennett to tears. Later, she realized he did it on purpose, always trying to look brave. Back then, Fiona Bennett thought he was brainless, and sure enough, his grades never improved, and he ended up going to police school. When she first heard Gabriel Adams got into police school, Fiona Bennett was shocked—a delinquent was going to become a cop? Since the military and police are closely related, she couldn’t help but wonder if Frederick Bennett had been like this as a kid, since he thought so highly of Gabriel Adams.

“Just kidding, thought you might be bored in the hospital. Uncle said you ended up here because you fell into the cadaver pool. What happened?”

“I slipped in by accident. Thank you for coming to see me,” Fiona Bennett said.

“Come on, it’s been almost a year since we last saw each other, hasn’t it?” Gabriel Adams pulled out a chair and sat down. He noticed the fruit basket by the bed and slapped his thigh.

“Damn, I came empty-handed. Sorry, sorry, I haven’t really visited patients before. Uh, wait a sec, okay?”

He stood up to leave, but Fiona Bennett quickly said it wasn’t necessary, that she already had more fruit than she could eat and it was starting to go bad, so he shouldn’t buy any more. Gabriel Adams said, really? Fiona Bennett said, really, I’m not lying, thinking to herself, How can someone this careless be a cop, how could he ever solve a case?

Gabriel Adams and Fiona Bennett chatted about their school lives, mostly him talking about police school, with the occasional swear word slipping out. Fiona Bennett knew he was trying hard to hold back, but it was like playing whack-a-mole—no matter how fast the hammer, a little head would always pop up.

After a while, Gabriel Adams fell silent and stared straight at Fiona Bennett. Fiona Bennett felt uncomfortable under his gaze and turned her face slightly. Gabriel Adams coughed and said, I’ve learned some self-defense moves, real stuff. Let me show you a few so you can protect yourself from creeps.

He stood up and did a set of vigorous moves. The patient with a stomach bleed, Grace Miller, watched with a grin. So embarrassing, Fiona Bennett thought.

Gabriel Adams finally finished, his face bright red. He then told Fiona Bennett some anecdotes from his martial arts training, then stopped, as if he had nothing more to say. Fiona Bennett was afraid he actually had something he wanted to say, but after a moment, Gabriel Adams asked, You just transferred classes—how are your new classmates? Anyone particularly interesting?

“They’re all pretty nice.” Fiona Bennett wanted to say her upper bunkmate could play the xiao beautifully, but in the end, she just said a few vague words and stopped.