ITF Chapter73

Lin Qian ran over while panting heavily and walked the last few steps.

“It really is you!”

She would never mistake the face in front of her. Surprised and overjoyed, her eyes filled with excitement, “Why are you here?” Seeing Jiang Han’s face full of confusion, she hastily added an introduction, “I used to attend your anatomy lectures at the medical school. Back then, to pass as a boy, I kept my hair cut short.” She raised her hand and gestured at the level of her ears, “Only this short.”

Jiang Han stood up from the beach. He rarely interacted with students at the medical school, let alone actively remembered their appearances, so he could only smile and nod at her.

A hint of regret appeared on Lin Qian’s delicate face. “Later, I differentiated into an Omega, and pretending to be a boy was no longer useful, so I had to drop out of school.” But the trace of regret vanished almost instantly, and her bright eyes blinked with liveliness. “However, I studied all those textbooks you wrote very carefully.”

Although he didn’t recall Lin Qian’s face, Jiang Han remembered something else—Bei Chengzhou had once asked him to organize the content of several courses into text. He hadn’t explained the purpose at the time, but Jiang Han had guessed a bit of it. To make it easier to understand, he had also personally drawn many illustrations of medicinal materials and human structures.

Having passed the initial peak of excitement from meeting her idol, Lin Qian only now belatedly noticed the wooden boards and cloth strips wrapped around his wrist. She took a few steps closer and asked with concern, “What happened to your hand?”

Jiang Han didn’t answer, but Bai Heting answered for him, “Why don’t you ask your own people.”

He was still sitting on the beach without getting up. Lin Qian glanced at him reluctantly and asked Jiang Han in a low voice, “Why are you with him?” After speaking, she looked back at the wooden house behind her and said in surprise, “You are the other person who was brought here together?”

Jiang Han gave her an affirmative answer with a polite and gentle smile.

It took Lin Qian some effort to suppress the turbulent and complex emotions in her chest. The person standing before her was the medical school’s chief surgeon, as well as its most distinguished lecturer in anatomy and pharmacology. He had suddenly disappeared three years ago, and there had been no news of him since. Not until this moment did Lin Qian connect his disappearance with Bai Heting’s “death.”

The timing of the two was very close.

She also instantly figured out why Luo Congye had come to this place today for no apparent reason.

“Luo Congye!” She turned her head with her brows lifting into a sharp, icy glare. “Did you people injure his hand? How could you possibly hurt these hands? Do you even realize how valuable they are?”

Luo Congye had never approached them. Standing a few meters away from the three of them, he looked off to the side and replied absentmindedly, “I don’t even know him.”

Lin Qian’s voice raised a bit higher, “Did you do that to his hand?”

Luo Congye said, “Bei Yang did it.”

“That idiot,” Lin Qian cursed under her breath. “If anything goes wrong with these hands, he couldn’t pay it back even with his life.” Then her expression changed in a second, and she turned back to persuade Jiang Han softly, “Senior, come to my place. Let me examine it carefully for you and re-bandage it.”

“No need to trouble yourself,” Jiang Han politely declined. “It’s not a serious injury. It’ll be fine with some rest.”

“No way,” Lin Qian said decisively, brooking no refusal. “You can’t keep living in this broken place. I’ll arrange a new residence for you.”

Luo Congye scoffed coldly, “Isn’t this residence exactly what you arranged?”

Lin Qian was so choked up by his words that she shouted back in embarrassment and frustration, “If you had told me earlier that it was Senior Jiang, would I have prepared such a crude place for him?””

“I already said it,” Luo Congye reiterated, “I don’t know him.”

Annoyed by their bickering, Bai Heting interrupted this meaningless conversation, “Go ahead and have it examined thoroughly so there won’t be any lingering issues.” He stood up and gestured toward the distance with his eyes, signaling Jiang Han to look toward the carriage. “You have a hand injury, so riding a horse is inconvenient. Take that carriage.”

Jiang Han looked at Luo Congye, then at Bai Heting. The atmosphere between the two was ice-cold, showing not a hint of the romance of a long-awaited reunion at all, but rather resembling a pair of enemies crossing paths. He hesitated, caught between staying and leaving, his tone uncertain as he asked, “Then you…”

Bai Heting shook his head and comforted him, “Don’t worry.”

*

The carriage rumbled off into the distance. Once the vehicle disappeared at the end of his vision, Bai Heting withdrew his gaze and took a few steps back onto the beach.

The slowly rising tide was about to submerge the spot where he had originally stood. He turned his face to look at Luo Congye, who was standing quietly a short distance away. Luo Congye’s boots were already in the water. He kicked at a rising white wave and, before Bai Heting could respond, asked first, “You gave the carriage to someone else, so how are you going back? Walking?”

Bai Heting seemed to have prepared his answer long ago, replying without a second thought, “Arrange a boat for me.”

His expression was serious with no hint of jest. It took Luo Congye a few seconds to react before he understood where he intended to return to.

“I want to leave this island.” Bai Heting explained again as if afraid he wouldn’t understand.

Luo Congye did not speak but stared at him unblinkingly. His gaze was as sharp as a knife blade, yet it failed to pierce the calmness on Bai Heting’s face.

“As soon as possible.” Bai Heting added.

With the metallic tang of blood still in his mouth, Luo Congye lowered his head, pressed two fingers to his lips, and let out a sharp whistle. At the sound, a sleek black stallion trotted over, its polished coat gleaming, leaving two deep hoofprints in the fine white sand.

Luo Congye led the horse a few steps toward him and said coldly, “Get on.”

Bai Heting hesitated briefly, but still reached out to take the reins, placed his foot in the stirrup, and swung himself onto the horse. Before he could fully settle into the saddle, Luo Congye’s firm chest pressed against his back.

The Alpha’s scorching breath felt as if it could burn the back of his neck. Bai Heting tilted his head to avoid it and shifted his body a bit forward.

Suddenly, his hands went empty as Luo Congye snatched the reins back from him. Luo Congye forcefully pulled the person back into his embrace while wrapping his other arm around Bai Heting’s waist.

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