He didn't care about that anymore.
Only Ziyang mattered.
Only this.
…
Chang Xiao hadn't slept in nearly forty-eight hours.
Dark circles clung under his eyes like bruises, and the stubble on his chin was more shadow than scruff. The hum of computer fans and the harsh blue glow of screen after screen surrounded him like a warzone command post, each monitor showing a different data stream, message thread, or decrypted file. His fingers moved with steady precision, navigating encrypted databases, rerouting IP traces, and bypassing firewalls so old and neglected, they crumbled at his touch.
He'd pulled every string he had left from his military days—called in favors from retired officers, bribed two archivists from the Central Medical Board, and even contacted a man he swore never to speak to again. He made phone calls in back alleys, posed as a journalist in forgotten forums, and bought someone's silence with a small fortune in crypto.
It had taken time. Patience. An iron stomach.
But he found it.
A scanned, yellowed medical log hidden in a restricted military file. Buried under layers of sealed judiciary protocol and "non-malicious procedural error" forms. It wasn't much at first—just the clinical language of a failed operation on a child.
But deeper still, behind the procedural paperwork, was the truth: MiaoWenxun, the father of Miao Ruiming, had operated on a six-year-old rural boy suffering from a rare stomach obstruction. It should have been routine. But a surgical clamp was left inside the child's abdomen.
By the time infection spread and the mistake was discovered, Miao Wenxun—drunk, unreachable, and reportedly found unconscious at a mahjong parlor—was in no condition to return and correct it. The child died that night.
The family was compensated generously. The records sealed, rewritten, and buried.
From that day on, Miao Wenxun never drank again. Never operated without triple-checking every instrument. And the world eventually came to know him as a flawless, disciplined surgeon. Truly living up to their family's legacy.
But Chang Xiao now had the truth.
He leaned back in his chair, every bone in his spine screaming, and exhaled. Then, without hesitation, he sent a message to Dong Yingming.
Chang Xiao: [I've found it.]
A second later.
Dong Yingming: [Come.]
…
Dong Yingming hadn't left the smaller, dimmer office in two days.
He'd refused sleep, ignored the meals Chang Xiao brought him, and hadn't even changed his bloodstained shirt. His eyes were sunken, rimmed red from exhaustion, and his lips had a faint crack from where he kept biting them in thought. But when Chang Xiao entered and handed him the tablet, he looked up sharply, a glint of desperate purpose in his cold blue gaze.
He scanned the report in silence.
When he got to the final line—the cause of death, the unremoved instrument, the drunken disappearance—his thumb pressed so hard against the screen it nearly cracked.
"This is enough."
He said quietly.
"More than enough…"
Chang Xiao replied.
"The Miao family's entire reputation is built on the perfection of their medical prowess as their legacy. If this goes public…"
"I'm not making it public..."
Dong Yingming's voice was hoarse but resolute.
"I'm using it."
He stood abruptly, the chair groaning under the sudden release.
"Draft the message. Contact the Miao family. Tell them exactly what we found. Make it clear we don't want money or favors. Just him."
"Yao Ziyang's getting better…"
Chang Xiao said cautiously.
"Dr. Zhang says he's stabilizing. Isn't it enough to keep him alive?"
"That's not enough."
Dong Yingming's voice cracked—soft but raw.
"Stabilizing isn't cured. Not when it comes to him."
Chang Xiao watched as the boss walked to the window, silhouetted against the faint light outside. He took note his question went both answered and unanswered.
"I thought I could protect him by keeping my distance…"
Dong Yingming said.
"But every time I leave, he suffers. And every time I come back, he gets worse."
His hand clenched against the glass.
"It's like I'm cursed. Like I'm the one poisoning him."
"Boss…"
"If that's true…"
Dong Yingming whispered,
"Then I have to fix him. No matter what it costs. I don't care if it kills me. I don't care if he hates me in the end. I need to see him whole."
There was a moment of silence before he added, voice steel again:
"I will tear down empires. I'll make devils kneel. But I will not let him die because of me."
Chang Xiao didn't argue.
Dong Yingming turned back around, gaze burning through the haze of sleeplessness.
"When Dr. Miao comes…"
He said.
"I'll make sure he cures him. And once Xiao Yao is well… we can discuss the revenge plan later."
Dong Yingming's face cracked into something halfway between grief and hope.
"Understood."
Chang Xiao nodded once and turned to leave, but Dong Yingming didn't move from the shadows of the office.
The door clicked shut.
Alone, finally, Dong Yingming let his hands slide through his hair, gripping the back of his skull until his knuckles turned white. His thoughts spiraled.
Yao Ziyang was never supposed to matter.
He had been a pawn. A means to an end. The forgotten nephew of a powerful man—the very same uncle who had laughed while Dong Yingming was thrown to the wolves in prison all those years ago. Bringing Yao Ziyang into his grasp, protecting him, even nurturing him through this prison's web of loyalties—it had all been a calculated move. To mold the delicate boy into something he could use, something he could turn against that family with quiet precision.
Take over the company. Strip the uncle of everything he held dear. Win, utterly.
And yet…
Dong Yingming's chest ached.
That plan—so sharp, so clear—had started to blur the moment Yao Ziyang looked at him with those wide, confused eyes, fever-flushed and full of trust. It had shattered the first time Yao Ziyang reached out in his delirium and whispered his name.
And now, seeing him pale and unconscious, barely breathing as blood trickled from his nose—
He couldn't pretend anymore.
What he felt wasn't strategy. It wasn't hunger for revenge. It was real. Raw. Messy. Love. Or something darker and deeper.
And that realization carved guilt into his bones.
He had brought Yao Ziyang here. As soon as word spread that a man with the surname 'Yao' was being sent to prison, he had manipulated strings to get him into this prison, into his block. It was risky, he wasn't entirely sure the man would be the right Yao or if he would even be able to make him want to ask for a favor. But everything aligned perfectly…
And now the boy was sick—unraveling in ways no one could explain, burning with fevers, collapsing from mysterious symptoms that no other of his past bedwarmers shared.
Dong Yingming pressed a hand to his face, jaw clenched hard.
'What if I am the cause of this? What if I poisoned him just by using him?'
A bitter, self-loathing laugh caught in his throat.
But even now—even buried in guilt—he couldn't let go.
He was too selfish. He wanted Yao Ziyang still. Not as a tool. Not as leverage. But as his.
His to protect. His to hold. His to love, even if it was undeserved.
He sat back down heavily in his chair, finally letting his hands shake. The screen on his desk still glowing with the details of Miao Wenxun's sin. The weight of guilt, desperation, and love pressed down on him like a mountain.
But still—he would carry it.
He had to.
Because even if Yao Ziyang was something otherworldly, alone in a world of ordinary people…
Dong Yingming would burn every law of nature to be the one who stood beside him.
"I'll fix him."
He whispered to the empty room, voice trembling with quiet, savage devotion.
"Even if it means destroying everything else. I'll make him well. And then…"
He trailed off, jaw tight.
"…then maybe he'll forgive me."
But deep down, he knew it might not matter.
Because Dong Yingming could never undo what he'd set in motion.
And yet, he still wanted him.
Even if it made him a monster.
No–especially if it made him a monster…
…
The Miao Family Estate – Private Study
In the quiet of a sprawling ancestral estate nestled between mist-veiled mountains, the soft ding of an encrypted message shattered the calm.
Miao Wenxun, once one of the nation's most respected surgeons, now a gray-haired patriarch in quiet retirement, sat in his study surrounded by scrolls, aged medicine jars, and family heirlooms. His hands trembled slightly as he opened the message on the black secured tablet Chang Xiao had provided. He read every word in silence, his mouth tightening into a thin, bloodless line.
The stillness in the room became unbearable. The room was quiet save for the rhythmic ticking of the old grandfather clock, its echo a sharp contrast to the dread tightening in Miao Wenxun's chest.
The scandal had been buried for decades. Forgotten even by him, or so he thought. But the moment his eyes fell on that file, it all came back with crushing clarity: the boy, the clamp, the drunken haze, and the body that had turned cold before dawn.
He had spent the rest of his life atoning. Not with words, but with discipline, excellence, restraint. He'd passed that lesson onto his son—his youngest son, his most gifted one.
And now that past threatened everything.
Slowly, Miao Wenxun stood and pressed the call button on the antique intercom beside the bookshelf.
"Summon Xiao Ruiming."
He said.
Moments later, footsteps echoed in the hall, purposeful and light.
Miao Ruiming, at thirty-seven, stood tall and composed, his long physician's coat pristine over a subtle gray linen tunic. Sharp grey eyes—bright and discerning—rested beneath dark brows, and his black hair was tied loosely at the nape of his neck. He radiated dignity without effort, the type of man others instinctively trusted. His very presence felt clean, as though no dishonesty could stick to him—he carried himself like a scholar, but the steely glint in his eyes spoke of unmatched discipline.
He was the youngest of the Miao sons, the heir apparent to both the household and the Miao medical legacy. A doctor known across the continent for his brilliance in both modern and traditional medicine—gifted, kind, and unshakably principled.
"Father…"
Miao Ruiming said, bowing lightly.
"You called?"
Miao Wenxun gestured for him to sit.
"I need to ask something of you."
Miao Ruiming complied with a slight frown, sensing the weight in his father's tone.
"What is it?"
"There's a patient…"
Miao Wenxun began.
"In First Prison. A… special case. You must go there. Immediately."
"First Prison?"
Miao Ruiming's brows drew together.
"What sort of patient?"
Miao Wenxun hesitated.
"Someone with rare symptoms. I don't have full details. But it's urgent. Life-threatening. And someone very powerful is demanding your expertise."
"I don't treat heinous criminals…"
Miao Ruiming said gently but firmly.
"You know my rule, Father. My medicine is for those with kind hearts. If this person—"
"He's not that kind of criminal…"
Miao Wenxun snapped, sharper than intended.
"He's there because of overcrowding, nothing more."
Miao Ruiming's expression didn't waver.
"Even so, you're being vague. Who is this person? Why the urgency?"
Miao Wenxun stood up and walked around the desk, leaning on it with his backside. His voice dropped low.
"They're using something against me. A… part of my past."
Miao Ruiming stood as well.
"What are they threatening you with?"
Miao Wenxun turned, shoulders stiff. He looked at his son—so brilliant, so untainted—and felt the shame coil in his gut.
In the end, he held out the tablet wordlessly.
"Read this."
Miao Ruiming stepped forward, scanning the document. At first his expression remained neutral—but then his brows furrowed, and his lips parted slightly as he reached the end. The blackmail was direct and cold: Come to First Prison. Treat a patient. Or the world will know what happened to that boy.
He looked up, disturbed.
"What is this?"
Miao Wenxun let out a breath that seemed to deflate decades of pride. His voice was quiet.
"It's true."
Miao Ruiming froze.
Miao Wenxun turned his back to his son, walking slowly toward the large window overlooking their garden.
"It was early in my career. I made a mistake… a careless, arrogant one. I left a clamp inside a child. When the infection came, I was unreachable. Drunk. The boy died."
Miao Ruiming said nothing. His hands had gone cold.
"I never drank again…"
Miao Wenxun continued.
"Never let it happen again. But I buried it. Paid off the family. Paid off the records. I thought the secret would stay dead."
He turned back around, and his eyes—aged but sharp—locked onto his son's.
"But someone found it. A man in prison. A very dangerous man. And they're using it to get to you. They'll expose it…"
Miao Wenxun whispered.
"Unless you go treat this person."
"To treat who?"
Miao Ruiming asked, brows furrowing.
"The message didn't name the patient."
Miao Wenxun said.
"The man who found the blackmail, his lover, is the one who's sick. They say the prison doctor can't make sense of the symptoms. You're the only one they want."
Miao Wenxun's face twisted into a frown.
"The man in question—he isn't a monster. He's not a murderer or some drug lord. Third Prison, the one he was supposed to be in, is overcrowded. He wasn't sent to First Prison for anything heinous."
Miao Ruiming turned away, processing everything.
His life had been guided by precision, clarity, purpose. He lived by the virtue of compassion, of clean hands and unwavering discipline. Now his father—his guiding star—was stained by the very failure Miao Ruiming feared most: negligence. Death. And it had come back like a ghost demanding payment.
He didn't want to go.
But if the story was true—if this sick patient had done nothing beyond reprehensible, and was truly suffering—
"I'll go…"
Miao Ruiming said quietly.
"At least to examine the patient."
Miao Wenxun's breath released in a sharp, grateful sigh.
"Xiao Ruiming…"
His voice cracked.
"I won't forgive the blackmail…"
Miao Ruiming said.
"But I won't let someone die because of your mistake either. If this man's lover truly is suffering… I won't turn my back.""
"I know..."
Miao Wenxun's voice dropped.
"But if the truth gets out… the stain will be on you, Xiao Ruiming. You'll never escape my shadow."
There was silence. Then:
"I'm not worried about that…"
Miao Ruiming said gently.
"But I am worried about why someone would go this far. To call in such favors. To dig through sealed archives. All just to force a Miao into the prison."
He looked down at the screen again.
"This man…"
He said.
"Wants someone healed badly enough to threaten a dynasty."
"Desperately enough…"
Miao Wenxun said bitterly.
"To use someone else's greatest shame."
Miao Ruiming was quiet for a moment.
Then, finally, he nodded. His grey eyes locked on to his father with resolve.
"I'll go see the patient. I'll determine if I can help."
Miao Wenxun's shoulders slumped in relief. His voice cracked, softened.
"Thank you, Xiao Ruiming."
Miao Ruiming's gaze returned to the tablet.
Miao Wenxun closed his eyes, a heavy weight lifting from his chest.
"I don't want the world to know what I did. But if something good can come from it… maybe it won't have been in vain."
Miao Ruiming bowed slightly, resolute.
"My schedule happens to be clear at the moment. I'll leave by morning."
And just like that, the quiet storm of the past was set into motion again—one that would soon bring Miao Ruiming face-to-face with the strange, fevered boy no one could explain.