"They wouldn't open it. Your Party Secretary is a bit of a bully; he insisted on reconciliation rather than separation. He persuaded me to come back." Xu Keke casually leaned forward and took the apple and knife from Lin Munan's hand. She started peeling it herself.

“Secretary Chen was transferred from the military. When I went to the academy today, he was in a meeting,” Du Junsheng explained.

Xu Keke deftly cleaned up the half that Lin Munan hadn't finished peeling, cutting it in half. She handed one half to Lin Munan and the other half to Fang Minghui's girlfriend.

"You don't need to worry about this. I already know how to solve it." Xu Keke said, taking an apple from the fruit basket on the table and peeling it.

"Teacher, are you really going to take on Li Shaojie's mother's surgery?" Fang Minghui asked, noticing his teacher's frown.

"What happened to Li Shaojie's mother?" Xu Keke's right hand held the knife as if it were glued to the apple, while her left hand quickly twirled the apple.

"I fell at home last night and fractured my femoral neck, a comminuted fracture. Without surgery, there is a risk of femoral head necrosis, which could lead to paralysis of my lower limbs."

Xu Keke didn't understand the first few words, but she understood the last four: Lu Cuihua might be paralyzed.

Xu Keke placed the peeled apple pieces onto a plate on the table. Under the astonished gaze of Fang Minghui's girlfriend, Xu Keke deftly sliced ​​the apple in half.

She handed half of it to Du Junsheng, saying, "Who asked you to perform the surgery on her?"

Fang Minghui assumed the remaining half was definitely his and reached out, only to see Xu Keke take a bite. She then deliberately threw the knife back into the plate, indicating she wouldn't cut it anymore.

Fang Minghui reluctantly withdrew his hand, but said to Xu Keke,

"Li Shaojie did come to me, saying he went to the Economics and Management compound to look for you, but was turned away by someone. I didn't quite catch it, but it must have been one of your neighbors."

Xu Keke swallowed the apple in her mouth. "What does he want from me?"

"He wanted the teacher to perform surgery on his mother, right? He came here, and his wife was probably translating for him those few days. No one was home. He came looking for you, since it wasn't there."

Du Junsheng studied Russian, while Lin Munan was an English teacher at the School of Foreign Languages. The scholars visiting for this exchange were from the United States, and after communication between the two schools, the School of Foreign Languages ​​agreed to let Lin Munan act as Du Junsheng's translator. To facilitate their work, the two stayed together at the guesthouse.

Fang Minghui's girlfriend noticed he didn't have an apple. She had just taken a small bite and hesitated before offering it to him. Xu Keke stopped her with a look, and the girl obediently smiled and withdrew her hand.

Fang Minghui was furious with Xu Keke for daring to flirt with his girlfriend right in front of him. If she were a man, he would have hit her already. Fang Minghui grabbed his girlfriend's hand and took a big bite of the apple, instantly reducing it to less than half its original size.

Xu Keke rolled her eyes at him and said disdainfully, "Childish!"

Xu Keke then looked at Du Junsheng, "You still haven't told me, who asked you to perform the surgery on her?"

Seeing that his daughter hadn't been affected by the divorce and had even become more energetic than before, Du Junsheng was genuinely happy. His daughter's independent thinking and assertiveness put him at ease.

"I've almost finished my work here. The hospital gave me the medical records and asked if I could do it. I promised them I'd go see the patient's condition tomorrow."

Seeing his daughter's calm expression and lack of displeasure, Du Junsheng was relieved, but he still added, "Once someone enters the hospital, no matter who they are, they are all patients in my eyes. As a doctor, I have to do my duty."

As they left the Du family home, the moon was bright and the stars were few. Fang Minghui glanced at Xu Keke and said, "I thought you would make a scene and prevent your teacher from having surgery."

Xu Keke stood with her hands behind her back, looking at the cold, bright moon hanging in the sky. "Everyone has their own bottom line and principles for being a person and doing things. As long as it does not infringe on the interests of others, no one should interfere with others for any reason."

Fang Minghui nodded in agreement, and was about to say something more when Xu Keke spoke up.

"If you ever dare to throw away anything I give her again, hmph!" Xu Keke glanced at Fang Minghui, giving him a knowing look.

As the two exchanged glances, Fang Minghui's girlfriend linked her arm with his, her face hidden under his clothes as she chuckled.

A yellow van stopped beside the three of them, and Fang San honked the horn from inside the van.

Seeing Xu Keke say goodbye and open the car door to get in, Fang Minghui below panicked, "Hey, do you know her?"

Xu Keke got into the car, leaned against the window, and said to him with disdain, "Have you forgotten what happened at the hospital last time?"

Fang Minghui then remembered that this was the tall, dark-skinned man, Xu Keke's neighbor in the management compound.

After the car drove away, Fang Minghui turned his head and glared at his girlfriend, pretending to be angry. "Why do you accept things from just anyone? What's so special about those tattered flowers made from broken apple peels? And you're holding them like they're precious treasures."

Thinking of how childishly he'd thrown it in the trash in anger, his girlfriend laughed even harder. It felt like she'd been laughing all night. She could tell that Xu Keke really liked her.

"What are you doing here?" Xu Keke stared intently at Fang San, who was driving seriously.

"It just so happens that we've run into each other. I'm here to take care of something for someone." Fang San knew that Xu Keke was looking at him. His eyes were fixed on the road ahead, his hands were gripping the steering wheel tightly, and his ears were so red that no one but himself could tell.

"You haven't eaten yet, have you?"

Fang San paused for a moment, then remembered Fang Minghui mentioning that someone had stopped Li Shaojie from coming back. Xu Keke immediately understood. No wonder she had been running into Fang San frequently on her way home from get off work these past few days. He was secretly protecting her because he was afraid Li Shaojie would cause trouble for her.

Today, I guess he saw that I didn't go straight back to the compound, so he followed me from the school to the Du family's house and has been waiting outside ever since.

Xu Keke didn't say anything. She just smiled and told Fang San that she wasn't going anywhere tomorrow and would go straight home after get off work.