Chapter 4

"Lina, I always thought you were a rational person."

Derek's voice was calm.

"I can understand you being emotional because of the miscarriage."

"Derek, look carefully—I'm the one who got burned!"

I was red-eyed, pointing at the horrific red patches on my legs, my voice shaking as I confronted him.

"She let go of that bowl on purpose!"

Derek let out a cold laugh, his logic flawlessly airtight:

"A bowl of seventy-degree soup—if she'd let go on purpose, why is there not a drop on her, but all on you?"

"Lina, physics dictates trajectory. Do you really think you can cover up your violence with such a cheap lie?"

"I told you—she threw it!"

I gritted my teeth, hatred nearly spilling from my eyes.

"Enough!"

Derek cut me off impatiently.

"Even if it was an accident that the soup spilled—why did you push her?"

"The soup spilled, but you knocked her down—that's a fact!"

"Chloe has a scar-prone constitution. What if that scraped elbow leaves a permanent mark?"

"She brought you soup out of goodwill. Even if you didn't appreciate it, you had no right to push her!"

"Lina, you've been too extreme these past few days. You need to cool off completely."

Looking at his face, so utterly convinced of his own righteousness, I suddenly couldn't help but laugh.

This was the man I'd loved for five years.

As a top surgeon, he couldn't even see how severe my second-degree burns were—

yet he worried about a scraped elbow.

I didn't bother explaining how the soup had really spilled.

I looked up and met his cold eyes.

"Fine, Derek. I'll cool off completely."

On the fifth day after surgery—the morning I was headed to the airport—I packed all my clothes, documents, and essentials into a suitcase.

When Derek saw me dragging the suitcase out, he frowned slightly.

But he didn't stop me.

Instead, he let out a mocking scoff:

"Playing the runaway game again?"

"Lina, how old are you? Still using such childish tactics?"

I ignored him and walked to the cabinet where my postpartum supplements were kept, wanting to take the last few items.

Just as my hand was about to reach the hardest-to-find imported iron-boosting oral solution—

Derek unceremoniously snatched it from me and handed it to Chloe on the sofa.

"Derek, that's Sister's recovery supplement—I can't take it..."

Chloe put up a token refusal.

"Take it."

Derek shoved it into her hand, then turned to me with his final, utterly justified act of favoritism:

"Lina, I've seen your blood test results from the past few days."

"Your hemoglobin has returned to normal threshold, and all your vitals are steadily improving."

"But Chloe has been grieving over her dog, hasn't eaten well for days, and was diagnosed with severe anemia yesterday."

"Medicine is about allocation based on need. Right now, she needs blood-building supplements more than you do."

"You've always had a strong constitution. Skipping one box won't affect you."

"Since you're already dragging a suitcase out to get some air, don't be so petty about it."

I stood there, looking at this man who, because someone else lost a dog,

took away the life-saving supplements from his fiancée who'd just had an induced labor.

The last lingering bitterness in my chest vanished completely in that moment.

This was the man I'd wasted five years of youth and half my life loving.

"You know so many medical indicators—but you don't know how to be a decent human being."

"You're right. Give it to her. After all... I won't need it anymore."

Derek glanced at me, perhaps a little unsettled by my unusual calm.

But he didn't dwell on it.

He grabbed his car keys and helped Chloe up:

"I'm taking Chloe to the hospital for a follow-up on her anemia. You take a couple of days to calm down."

The door closed.

I walked to the coffee table and pulled the engagement ring I'd worn for three years out of my pocket, setting it right in the center.

Underneath the ring, I left a note and the medical record from the miscarriage hemorrhage.

【Dr. Foster, you were right—survival of the fittest. The dead embryo was. And so are you.】

With that, I dragged my suitcase out the door and got into the car waiting downstairs.

I disappeared completely from this city—and from this man's world.