It started when a bloody rain was about to fall.

But the most fatal flaw is not these concrete forms of beauty.

Rather, it was the invisible aura surrounding Ye Qingrou—

It is hazy like the thin mist formed by moonlight, clear and cold like the frost at dawn in the deep winter, clean and transparent, untouched by the hustle and bustle of the world.

When she looked up at the audience, her eyes seemed to hold a swirling galaxy deep within them.

Beneath the calm surface lies a profound attraction; a single glance can synchronize the breathing and heartbeats of the thousands in the auditorium, silencing all the clamor.

Ye Qingrou's voice amplified through the top-of-the-line sound system.

The sound is clear and melodious, like the gentle murmur of a mountain stream—not sharp, but mellow, carrying moisture and coolness, capable of washing away all the noise accumulated on the eardrums.

It also possesses the warm, smooth texture of mutton-fat jade striking each other—a sound with warmth, not a cold, impersonal transmission of information, but a living exchange imbued with the speaker's body heat.

"...The path of medicine begins with reverence for life and ends with the protection of life."

Every word was clear and steady, carrying a calm strength beyond his years.

It was as if each syllable left visible ripples in the air—ripples that spread outwards, touching every listener and gently vibrating their heartstrings.

"We stand here today not just for a diploma, but so that in some life-or-death moment in the future, we will have the ability to say 'no' to pain and 'wait' to death."

As soon as Ye Qingrou finished speaking, thunderous applause erupted throughout the auditorium.

The sound almost blew the Baroque dome off the auditorium. The sound waves crashed against the walls and bounced back, creating a deafening echo that lasted for several seconds.

The echo reverberated repeatedly beneath the dome, like waves crashing one after another, refusing to subside for a long time.

The figure at the center of that light was as beautiful as an unattainable dream about "perfection" itself.

A creation that even the gods would envy.

Lin Ye did not applaud.

His hands remained hanging at his sides, his fingertips able to touch the rough stitching at the seam of his pants—the cheapest work pants in the five-dollar store, with crooked and sparse stitches, which would come undone after only a few wears.

Lin Ye simply watched quietly.

He looked at the girl who was in the same grade as him, but seemed to live in another dimension of the universe.

The difference is not a number, not the difference in the number of digits in a bank card balance.

Rather, it's something more fundamental—

She is a star that has been carefully nurtured and cultivated, born to shine.

He was just a speck of dust, drifting in the winds of survival, and even settling down was a luxury that required calculation.

Lin Ye knew everything about her:

Ye Qingrou. The sole heir to the Ye's Medical Group, whose family assets are worth hundreds of billions.

He shocked the academic world during high school with a full scholarship and several papers published in top journals such as Nature Medicine.

Before the start of the semester, her name was already a legend repeatedly mentioned by professors during their leisure time. She was the "treasure" and "face" that Kyoto University School of Medicine had recruited this year.

And he, Lin Ye.

I grew up in the Dawn Orphanage—a place where even the heating was intermittent in winter.

On winter nights, the children have to huddle together to keep warm. The caretaker always sighs and says that the heating fee for this month is not enough again, and everyone should just bear with it a little longer.

He barely managed to get into this world-renowned top university by relying on student loans and working three jobs at the same time.

Lin Ye's world is a sophisticated cage made up of timers, bills, and an ever-insufficient amount of time.

Every decision must be made down to the minute and cent—sleeping an extra ten minutes means missing a bus; spending an extra fifty cents means skipping a meal at the end of the month.

At this moment, they are only fifty meters apart in a straight line.

However, there is a chasm between them: class, wealth, resources, and fate.

The chasm was bottomless, like two beings from different dimensions briefly intersecting in this space called "university".

Then they will inevitably follow their own paths, heading towards a distant place where they will never intersect.

Physical distance can be measured.

Even when the distance of fate is squared, it remains infinite.

---

The bell rang to signal the end of the ceremony.

The lingering echo of the bronze bell reverberated through the inner walls of the auditorium, like an ancient warning or a sacred blessing.

A dense crowd surged toward the twelve oak doors like a tidal wave.

Laughter, shouts, and the buzzing of suitcase wheels on the marble floor blended into a noisy ocean.

The ocean surged and roared, carrying everyone toward the exit, like a great river about to flow out of a canyon.

Lin Ye went against the flow of people.

Like a fish swimming upstream, it turned and disappeared into the quiet, deserted logistics passage on the side.

He needed to pick up his work permit for his work-study program. The logistics department would close late, and he needed the permit to pick up the newspapers for his 6 a.m. delivery work the next morning.

Missing tomorrow morning means missing this week's paycheck; missing this week's paycheck means no money for food next week.

The light in the passageway suddenly dimmed.

Only the energy-saving lamps spaced five meters apart cast cold, white halos of light, like a series of dying moons—

Each aperture barely illuminates a small area, and between the apertures lies thick darkness, requiring one to strain their eyes to discern directions.

The air was filled with the pungent smell of disinfectant mixed with old paper.

It was a hybrid of a hospital and a library, a strange aura emanating from knowledge soaked in disinfectant.

The dust particles spun slowly within the beam of light, like miniature galaxies—with each rotation, they were one step closer to their fall.

Lin Ye's footsteps echoed in the empty corridor.

The worn rubber soles of the sneakers rubbed against the cement ground, making a monotonous rustling sound.

The sound echoed repeatedly in the corridor, like a lonely metronome, striking the only beat for this empty passage.

Right at the third corner—

Lin Ye nearly bumped into someone.

It was Ye Qingrou.

She was crouching down, helping an elderly professor in a wheelchair pick up documents scattered on the floor.

The silhouette is meticulously outlined under the cool white light:

When bending over, the silk fabric of the dress accentuated the perfect curve of her shoulder blades.

The two bones, like folded wings, bulged slightly under the thin fabric, and each movement produced a subtle change.

A small section of her porcelain-white nape was exposed, the skin so delicate that the faint blue veins were visible, like ink spreading on fine Xuan paper.

Those veins, like the outlines of distant mountains, are faintly visible, sometimes visible, sometimes not, requiring extremely close distance and focused gaze to barely make them out.

Her drooping eyelashes, thick like the wings of a dying butterfly, cast an arc of pale gray shadow on her cheeks.

The shadow trembled slightly with the frequency of Ye Qingrou's blinks, each tremor like a butterfly making its final struggle.

Her fingers were long and slender, with fair skin and natural light pink nail polish without any decoration.

The movements of picking up the papers were slow and focused, as if those yellowed documents were fragile, thousand-year-old papyrus scrolls—

Every page deserves to be treated with the utmost gentleness; every crease could ruin some important information.

Lin Ye subconsciously took a half step back.

The soles of the shoes scraped against the ground, making a soft rustling sound. The sound was particularly jarring in the silence, like some unexpected intrusion that shattered the tranquil scene.

"Feel sorry."

Lin Ye's voice was low, with a slight hoarseness that came from long-term taciturnity. It sounded like coarse sandpaper rubbing against wood, like the sound of an old door hinge turning—unpleasant to the ear, but real.