I’ve been saving up my feelings little by little, super carefully, like I’m afraid to spill even a drop. One day, I’ll have saved enough. And when that day comes, I’ll tell you this: you never really did anything to me, not even once, and yet I ended up missing you through an entire stretch of time.
…………………………
Iris Whitmore had never, not even in her wildest imagination, thought they would meet like this.
So sudden it left her completely thrown off.
Like the heat in July—fierce, rushing, impossible to ignore.
"Is there a doctor here? Someone fainted!" A panicked voice cut through the air, sharp and hurried, making Iris, who had been standing at the bus stop waiting for her bus, turn around at once. People quickly started gathering where the shouting came from.
She didn’t even stop to think before she ran over.
By the time she squeezed through the crowd, she saw an elderly woman, around fifty or sixty, collapsed on the ground in the middle of the cluster of people. Iris immediately pushed the people around her back a little. "Don’t all crowd around her. Give her some air."
As she spoke, she set what she was holding to one side, dropped to her knees on the pavement, loosened the old woman’s collar and waistband, then quickly checked her breathing and heartbeat. A second later, she turned her head and said, "Please call 120."
Someone answered right away. A call had already gone through. "Yes, at Bus 107 stop, near Guangming platform!"
Iris bent over and pressed her ear close to the woman’s chest. The heartbeat was weak, the breathing rough and heavy. It was very likely coronary heart disease, or maybe an acute myocardial infarction. After making a quick judgment, she clenched her fist and struck the area in front of the woman’s chest with force, two or three times in a row, then immediately began CPR.
"Miss, are you even qualified? Maybe just wait for the ambulance. Don’t go treating people randomly," someone in the crowd muttered.
"Exactly. And she’s an old lady too. This kind of thing is such a hassle."
"The city hospital is close by anyway. The ambulance should be here any second."
The noise around her buzzed nonstop, voices layered over each other, messy and annoying, but Iris didn’t pause for even a second.
Just then, a black sedan stopped in front of them.
The car door opened. From the back seat, a tall, lean figure stepped out.
Iris looked up and saw him walking over.
It was him?
He was wearing a white shirt. Before she could even fully react, he had already rolled up his sleeves in one smooth motion. His tall figure passed before her eyes, then he crouched down and glanced at her. "What happened?"
"She fainted." Iris paused, lips pressing together. All her nerves and uncertainty finally shrank into those two simple words.
He turned the elderly woman slightly to one side and swiftly checked her body, but didn’t find anything useful. Then he stood, walked a few steps away, spotted a grocery basket nearby, rummaged through it, and found a bottle of medicine.
The man quickly put the medicine into the old woman’s mouth. About five minutes later, her breathing finally began to settle. Her eyes cracked open a little, though she still hadn’t fully regained consciousness.
Only then did Iris quietly let out the breath she had been holding.
She lifted her chin slightly and looked straight at the man in front of her.
This version of him—calm, composed, steady—looked like the kind of person who had everything under control, no matter what happened.
Soon, the sound of the ambulance came rushing over. The medical staff hurried up, and Iris helped steady the stretcher as they lifted the elderly woman onto it.
She followed the stretcher all the way to the ambulance and stopped outside the open door. Then, in one quick motion, the man vaulted up beside her into the ambulance. "I’m a cardiac surgeon," he told the medical staff next to him.
He turned back.
A strand of sunlight fell cleanly across Iris’s face. He didn’t even get the chance to see her clearly before the ambulance doors slammed shut with a bang.
The siren faded into the noisy stream of traffic.
The crowd slowly dispersed. Iris kept staring after the ambulance, then suddenly smiled.
She really hadn’t expected that this would be how she met him.
Then someone behind her called out, "Miss, you dropped your things!"
She snapped out of it at once. Right—she almost forgot what she had been doing. She hurried over, dusted off the two large bags of Chinese medicine, picked them up again, and walked back to the bus stop to keep waiting for the bus she was supposed to catch.
