After being separated from my family, I became a darling of the military region thanks to my medical

It was late at night.

A dim, yellow lamp was lit in the bedroom, and the fire in the stove was burning brightly, occasionally crackling.

After washing up, Ye Zhen sat on the edge of the bed, holding the original English version of "Surgery," a rare find in this era.

Gu Zheng pushed open the door and came in, bringing with him a faint smell of tobacco and a chill in the air.

He didn't speak, but stood quietly by the bed, looking at Ye Zhen under the lamplight. Her profile was gentle, her long eyelashes casting a small shadow under her eyelids, and her fingers, which were turning the pages of the book, were slender, white, and impeccably clean.

"What are you looking at?" Ye Zhen didn't even look up, turning a page of her book. "Want to be a specimen?"

Gu Zheng didn't respond to that. He walked to the bedside and sat down, causing the large bed, which could withstand a thousand pounds of weight, to sag.

He stretched out his right hand and opened it on the page of the book that Ye Zhen was reading, blocking the dense English text.

Those were large, rough hands. The fingertips were covered in calluses, and the veins on the back of the hands were bulging. A hideous old scar stretched across the back of the hands, like an ugly centipede, from the base of the thumb to the wrist.

That was left when he was eighteen years old, at the border, to shield his comrade from a knife.

"Ye Zhen." Gu Zheng's voice was hoarse, carrying a vulnerability he would never normally show, "You said I was a knife."

He looked down at his hands, a self-deprecating smirk playing on his lips: "These hands are dirty. They've been stained with blood, beaten, and even... killed. They're not like your hands that save lives."

She was a saintly doctor, he was a violent butcher.

Ye Zhen closed the book and raised her eyes. Those eyes, which were usually so rational as to be almost indifferent, now seemed like melting spring water.

She stretched out her finger, her fingertip slightly cool, and gently placed it on the hideous scar.

Following the lines, trace them little by little.

"From a medical anatomical perspective," Ye Zhen began, still in her popular science tone, but her voice as light as a feather, "this is just a layer of connective tissue hyperplasia. It's caused by damage to the dermis, leading to excessive repair by fibroblasts."

Gu Zheng gave a wry smile: "Honey, can we not be lecturing right now?"

"Let me finish."

Ye Zhen grasped his enormous hand in return, their fingers intertwined. Her hand, accustomed to holding a scalpel, though steady, appeared so small in Gu Zheng's large grasp.

"A doctor's hands have seen more blood than yours," Ye Zhen said earnestly, looking into his eyes. "In my eyes, blood has no distinction between clean and dirty. Your hands are for protecting our country and safeguarding the lights of countless homes behind us."

"Gu Zheng." Ye Zhen raised her head, her eyes clear and firm. "These hands are not dirty. They are hands that once shielded me from wind and snow, from open and hidden attacks."

"From now on, this hand will be responsible for wielding the knife, and my hand will be responsible for stitching."

"That's called... matching your major to your job."

Those last four words, with a touch of playfulness, instantly shattered Gu Zheng's pretentious inferiority complex.

"Hold."

Gu Zheng cursed under his breath, his eyes reddening.

The next second, the world spun around.

Ye Zhen was pushed into the soft bedding by him. The book fell to the ground with a dull thud.

Gu Zheng leaned over her, his gaze burning as if he wanted to devour her. He lowered his head, no longer the violent madman on the ice rink, but a devout believer.

"Dr. Ye," he whispered in her ear, his voice hoarse, "since we're in the same field, could you treat me tonight too?"

The dim light cast their shadows, overlapping and imprinting them on the snow-white wall.

Gu Zheng's hand, calloused from years of practice, slipped under the hem of Ye Zhen's sweater. The temperature was frighteningly high, like a burning coal, sending an uncontrollable shiver down Ye Zhen's spine wherever it touched.

"Gu Zheng..." Ye Zhen's voice trembled slightly, her rationality like a lone boat teetering on the brink of capsizing in a storm.

Gu Zheng's breath was rapid and hot against her neck, aggressive and forceful. His other hand had already reached the top button of her shirt, and his fingertips deftly flicked it off.

Those were the hands that had disassembled precision instruments on the battlefield, but now they were trembling slightly.

Just as the second button was about to pop open, Ye Zhen suddenly shuddered. The chilling feeling of dying from overwork in her past life suddenly surged from the depths of her memory, like a bucket of ice water dousing the surrounding heat.

"Gu Zheng, stop!" Ye Zhen suddenly pressed down on the large, unruly hand. Her voice was soft, but it carried an undeniable calmness.

Gu Zheng froze.

He raised his head, and his once deep and sharp eyes were now bloodshot, like a wild beast trapped in a cage, with suppressed desire surging in his eyes.

"What's wrong?" His voice was hoarse, as if it had been sanded on sandpaper, each word carrying a heavy, grainy quality.

Ye Zhen hastily straightened her slightly disheveled clothes. Her usually cool face was flushed red, almost as if it were about to bleed, but her eyes had regained their clarity.

"A marriage agreement." Ye Zhen steadied her breathing, trying to make her tone sound like she was conducting a ward round. "Until both parties are fully prepared, no one may cross the line. Commander Gu, you've overstepped your bounds."

Gu Zheng's body was still pressed against hers, his forehead against hers.

His Adam's apple bobbed violently, and he let out a desperate groan: "Wife, you want to talk to me about an agreement at a time like this? I'm a normal man, not that stone lion at the entrance of the military hospital."

Gu Zheng stared at her for a full three seconds before finally turning over and lying down in frustration.

With a "bang".

He lay sprawled on the thick bedding, staring blankly at the ceiling.

"Who was the inhuman bastard who drafted this agreement?" Gu Zheng looked utterly hopeless, a self-deprecating smirk on his face. "Oh, I signed it myself. Damn it."

He now wishes he could travel back a month to the past and destroy the version of himself who pretended to be a virtuous gentleman in order to lure Ye Zhen into his life.

Ye Zhen turned to the side and looked at the man who had single-handedly defeated ten people on the ice rink and stood tall in front of his grandfather, but at this moment he looked like a child whose candy had been taken away.

The wall in her heart crumbled in the face of Gu Zheng's straightforward grievances.

He was indeed tired today.

On the ice rink, he fell hard onto the solid ice to protect her; in the old house, his grandfather's words about "sheath and blade" reignited his anger. All his strength and violence were trying to find a gentle outlet.

Ye Zhen sighed, a smile that she herself didn't even realize was playing on her lips.

She reached out and wrapped her arms around Gu Zheng's broad back.

Gu Zheng froze, not daring to move, his voice still carrying a hint of resentment: "What are you doing? Giving me a treat and then slapping me?"

"Soothe him." Ye Zhen pressed her face against his training uniform, which still smelled of tobacco, and patted his back lightly, her movements clumsy as if she were coaxing the most difficult little patient in the pediatric ward. "You've had a hard day today."

Gu Zheng's tense muscles slowly relaxed upon hearing this reassuring word.

He turned his head and looked at Ye Zhen, who was so close to him. The anger in his eyes subsided, replaced by a tenderness that made one's heart tremble.

"Go to sleep, you need deep sleep," Ye Zhen said softly.

She propped herself up, lowered her head, and placed a feather-light kiss between Gu Zheng's furrowed brows.

"This is the interest." Ye Zhen retreated back onto the pillow, her cheeks slightly flushed. "The principal... we'll talk about it later."

Gu Zheng's eyes lit up instantly. He had been looking half-dead just moments before, but now he was full of energy: "When will the principal be settled? Tomorrow? Or the day after?"

Ye Zhen slapped him across the face, forcibly pressing his head, which he had just raised, back onto the pillow.

"Now, close your eyes and go to sleep! Otherwise, we'll take back even the interest."

"I can't sleep." Gu Zheng snuggled closer to Ye Zhen like a rogue, his large hand precisely grabbing her slender hand and clasping it against his chest. "Wife, let me tell you a story. All the boys in the compound who can't sleep listen to stories."

Ye Zhen stared blankly at the ceiling.

Tell fairy tales? The only books she's ever read in her life are medical records and surgical guides.

"Okay, I'll tell you." Ye Zhen cleared her throat, her voice sounding particularly ethereal in the quiet night. "An adult skeleton has 206 bones, divided into the skull, trunk bones, and limb bones..."

Gu Zheng: "?"

"The skull has twenty-three bones, including eight cranial bones and fifteen facial bones." Ye Zhen calmly recited "Human Anatomy," her tone completely flat, yet carrying a strange, hypnotic rhythm. "One each of the frontal, ethmoid, sphenoid, and occipital bones..."

Gu Zheng's lips twitched slightly as he listened, but his grip on Ye Zhen's hand tightened.

As he looked at the woman reciting anatomy so earnestly, the restlessness in his heart actually began to subside.

This is indeed very Ye Zhen.

The dry technical jargon transformed into a series of soothing notes amidst the warm crackling of the fireplace.

A satisfied smile played on Gu Zheng's lips.

This wife is not only his scabbard, but also his medicine.

As the detailed description of the "Butterfly Bone" was introduced, Commander Gu's even breathing gradually began to resound.

A fierce tiger lies on a desolate hill.

Ye Zhen listened to his steady heartbeat and slowly closed her eyes.