Chapter 7

Chapter 7

This was the first time Xie Ting had come to the hospital alone, without his wife beside him.

He did not notice that he had been assigned a different psychologist. Like any ordinary patient, he simply began describing his symptoms.

“My wife has been acting very strange.”

“I suspect someone in this world is maliciously manipulating events. They want my wife to leave me.”

Song Xinran lifted her pen from her notes and smiled.

“Sir, could you focus on describing your own symptoms?”

Xie Ting answered with perfect seriousness.

“She hasn’t been herself lately.”

“She no longer orders me around… Step by step, she’s learning how to live without my service. She may leave me. She may not want me anymore.”

Song Xinran asked, “If you don’t mind me asking, where is your wife now?”

Xie Ting looked up warily. “Why are you asking about her?”

Song Xinran fell silent.

She took a deep breath and looked down at the patient’s name in his medical file. Understanding dawned, followed by a quiet laugh.

Leaning back, she said, “I understand exactly how you feel!”

Xie Ting.

The dark, obsessive male lead of this story.

He was nothing more than a fragile, pitiful fool hopelessly in love.

Song Xinran had already learned the truth through the floating comments’ spoilers, but witnessing the vast difference with her own eyes still startled her.

Those who were loved really were different.

She gave her patient several highly useful suggestions.

One: hold nothing back from his wife and place himself entirely in her hands.

Two: believe every word his wife said.

Xie Ting replied without hesitation, “That’s what I’ve always done.”

Song Xinran narrowed her eyes with a smile. “Be patient.”

Then she pulled a copy of *Three Hundred Tang Poems* from her desk.

Three: “Go home and read aloud for two hours every night.”

“In less than half a month–no, a week–your condition will definitely improve.”

Xie Ting frowned at the book in his hands, especially the cartoon illustration identifying it as the children’s edition in the lower-left corner.

He lapsed slowly into thought.

But after hearing his attending psychologist’s advice, he still nodded firmly.

“All right.”

Song Xinran had begun seeing the floating comments shortly after graduating from university.

At first, she thought she was being haunted. The comments did not follow her point of view, but that of someone she had never met.

His name was Xie Ting.

According to the comments, he came from an immensely wealthy family and was practically the crown prince of their social circle.

Unfortunately, he had a physical impairment.

He could not speak. Medicine called it selective mutism.

One day, Xie Ting would come to the hospital for a follow-up appointment, meet her, and recover the instant he saw her.

Only then did Song Xinran realize that she was the heroine of a melodramatic novel about the wealthy elite.

She and Xie Ting were supposedly an ugly duckling and a swan. With his status raising her up, the two of them would endure an earth-shattering romance full of love and hate before she finally married into high society.

Song Xinran laughed when she read it.

What was this, a medical miracle?

Every day she watched these absurd romance-novel scenes while wrestling with difficult patients, grumbling, “This is hilarious. Who falls in love with their own patient? I just earned my professional title, damn it!”

Desperate to escape the plot, she worked herself half to death, collecting one qualification after another until she stood at the very top of her field.

Then, with no way left to avoid him, she met Xie Ting exactly as the story said she would.

Fortunately, she discovered the plot had already changed in secret.

And not only for her.

…

Thanks to the floating comments’ spoilers, Song Xinran enjoyed plenty of gossip from the sidelines.

When the young couple finally resolved their misunderstanding, she applauded with all her heart.

Then one day, Xie Ting came in for his follow-up and said with courteous modesty, “Thank you for your help, Dr. Song.”

“This will be my last appointment.”

Song Xinran winked at Xu You, who stood beside Xie Ting and was stealing curious glances at her.

“Don’t thank me. Congratulate me instead. I was promoted recently.”

“Oh, and may the two of you grow old together.”