Chapter 1 Wishful Thinking

In the quiet and empty corridor of the hospital, the cracked floor tiles shone under the dazzling ceiling light.

The silence was broken by the door being pushed open. Urgent footsteps came from the half-opened door with a gust of cold wind, which seemed to make the rows of pale lights sway.

Sweat trickled down Lily Gu's forehead. She was out of breath. As her hand supporting the gurney slipped, she fell heavily to the ground.

Her toes were bloody as she didn't realize when the shoe on one of her feet had disappeared. Her wounds were caked in mud. She had endured the pain for so long that she had become numb.

A nurse came running towards her and helped her up. "Are you all right, Dr. Lily?" Lily Gu pushed her away fiercely!

Her eyes were as red as a manic rabbit. Biting her lower lip, she looked at the nurse and yelled, "Forget about me! Take my father to the emergency room. Hurry up!"

The nurse nodded in panic. After hesitating for a while, she pushed the gurney away, leaving Lily Gu behind her.

With her hands on her knees, Lily Gu lowered her head and her hair fell over her face, concealing her expression. The only sign of her distress was her quivering shoulders, which, in turn, made her hair shake as well.

"Dad…,"

she murmured. Her nose twitched. The tears that she had been imprisoned in her eyes for a long time finally poured out like a flood.

She thought she was a very terrible daughter.

It was true.

Her father did not understand her and forced her to take over the family business, but that was no reason for her to say those vicious words to him.

Absolutely not.

He was her father, after all! They depended on each other.

Lily Gu didn't come to her senses until the nurse came back to her.

"Dr. Lily? Oh my God! Why are you still sitting on the ground! Get up. Mr. Jacob has been taken to the operating room. He will be fine!" With her help, Lily Gu slowly sat on the chair in the corridor.

Her face was as pale as the light above her.

She moved her lips and said hoarsely, "My father… Will he be okay?"

"Of course! Mr. Jacob has such an excellent doctor as her daughter. God will bless him! Dr. Lily, you have hold on for him right now, okay?"

Lily Gu nodded and suddenly felt a lump in her throat.

'An excellent doctor?' she thought to herself.

Yes, she was very good at her profession. Many patients' families specially asked for her to perform operations as she had a reputation for pulling back dying patients from the clutches of death. That sense of accomplishment was incomparable to anything.

However, her father never shared their opinion nor did he feel proud of having a daughter who was a doctor.

For him, she was born to take over the huge YS Group in the future and she had no say in the matter.

Leaning against the back of the chair, Lily Gu gently rubbed her eyebrows with her fingers, but the wrinkles on her forehead could not be smoothed.

She was very tired.

She knew very well that she had to make a choice between the hospital and the company. This caused a lot of conflict between the father and daughter. If it went on like this, she would end up sending her father to his grave with the stress.

The nurse held her hand and kept her company.

By the time the operation ended, Lily Gu had fallen asleep on the nurse's shoulder. Suddenly, she felt something warm wrapped around her and then opened her eyes in a trance.

"Dr. Joe..." rubbing her sore eyes, she murmured to the man, who was bent over, about to drape a coat over her frail figure.

Joe Zhou stood up awkwardly and coughed self-consciously. "You can sleep in my duty room. It's cold out here. If you catch a cold, I will have to treat you."

Seeing him, the nurse smiled knowingly and sneaked away.

Lily Gu casually lifted his coat, stood up gingerly with the help of a chair, and handed it back to Joe Zhou. "Come on. Are you so kind as to treat me? You have been teasing me all day long. Do you still care about me?"

Hearing this, Joe Zhou frowned and said in an aggrieved tone, "Lily, do you have any conscience? We are both pitiful people who share the same problem. When did I tease you? Anyway, I won't quarrel with you. What happened to Mr. Jacob? Did you piss him off?"

Lily Gu rolled her eyes at him and said nothing.

"Oh, you really did piss him off?" Joe Zhou was just pulling her leg. He didn't expect his guess to hit the mark. Lowering his head, he said, "Actually, I admire you very much. When I told my father that I wanted to be a doctor and wouldn't take over the company, he didn't argue with me at all and went straight to the duster. Well, well, Lily. You are something."

She was at a loss for words so she punched him lightly on the shoulder.

"Don't talk nonsense. Don't you see how anxious I am?"

Joe Zhou patted her on the back and said, "It's okay. Don't worry. I just went to the operating room to check. It's not a big deal."

Hearing this, Lily Gu breathed a sigh of relief. She put one hand on her forehead and closed her swollen eyes, offering a silent prayer of thanks.

Just then, a figure stormed into the hospital like a whirlwind and before anybody could react, a light flashed in Lily Gu's eyes.

Crack!

Lily Gu staggered from the force of the slap. If it hadn't been for Joe Zhou's quick response and agile actions, she would have fallen on the ground.

Holding her in his arms, he looked at the woman in front of him angrily. "What the hell are you doing?" How could she hit a doctor in a hospital? The mystery figure laughed sardonically and stared at Lily with venom dripping from her eyes.

Gritting her teeth, the woman screamed, "You shameless bastard! You have caused so much stress to your father that you sent him to the hospital and now here you are flirting with this man! Aren't you afraid that your father won't get up from the bed?" Red-hot rage coursed through Joe Zhou's body at this accusation.

He stepped forward to put this nasty figure in place but was stopped by Lily.

Covering the half of her face, which had been slapped red, she clenched her fist. Narrowing her eyes, she remarked snidely, "You have finally shown your true colors, haven't you? Don't think that I don't know what you are planning. You want to steal my father's property, don't you? If there is such easy money to be made, why would anybody need to work hard? Do you agree, Mom?"