Su Yingxue, Shanghai’s sharpest scalpel, has saved countless lives, but she cannot save her own heart.
The first time she sees Shen Yuxiu, he lies bleeding in his military uniform in the emergency room. She cuts open his chest and removes the bullet.
“Do doctors know about the calluses you get from holding a gun?” he asks with a smile, brushing the blood from her glove with his fingertip.
She hides the palm burned by her broken engagement letter and turns to sterilize her instruments.
The year the glittering city of Shanghai turned to scorched earth, he grips her white coat in a trench. “Come with me!”
But she is tearing up her marriage contract to stanch a wounded soldier’s bleeding.
The night red plum blossoms fall across the operating table, he asks her one last time: “Su Yingxue, what about your heart?”
She presses her bloodstained stethoscope against his chest. “Listen closely. This heart was promised to this land long ago.”
Years later, while sorting through his belongings, she finds a faded marriage contract bearing her name inside an iron box.
On the back is a letter he never sent: “My dearest, when the land is at peace, I’ll offer you peace as my bride-price...”
Snow drifts past the window as she grips her scalpel and heads toward another wounded patient.
Disinfectant mingles with her tears and seeps into an old scar. In the end, the most painful thing isn’t a bullet. It’s surviving.
