The records room.

I was placing the previous years’ sorted surgical archive files in order according to their numbers when suddenly a deliberately raised, coquettish voice came from outside the door, breaking the dead silence of the records room.

“This is the place. You all need to study carefully. Don’t end up like some people, ruining a perfectly good hand of cards and finally being stuck in a place like this dealing with waste paper.”

My fingers tightened slightly around the medical files, and I lifted my eyes.

Vanessa was wearing a perfectly tailored white coat, a badge reading “Associate Chief Surgeon” pinned to her collar, her long hair coiled into an elegant bun. Behind her stood two interns holding folders, their faces full of flattery. She stepped on thin high heels, walking through the record-packed room as if it belonged to her alone. The sharp tapping of her heels on the floor was piercing and utterly out of place in the heavy quiet of the room.

“Sister Clara,” Vanessa walked to the desk and looked down at me, her eyes filled with undisguised ridicule. “It hasn’t even been that long since I last saw you, and how have you fallen to this point already? You used to be so impressive in the City Hospital’s surgical department, and now you’re buried in this pile of junk every day. What a waste of talent.”

I lowered my eyes and continued sorting the files, unwilling to respond. I knew perfectly well why Vanessa came— merely to flaunt her current status and sprinkle salt on my wounds.

“Hey, Sister Clara, why aren’t you talking?” Vanessa reached out and deliberately brushed the ink bottle on the corner of the desk. With a loud clang, the deep blue ink instantly toppled, spreading across the desk and soaking most of the stack of files I had just finished organizing.

The black stain quickly bled across the paper, blurring the text like layers of ugly scars.

I jerked my head up, a sharp glint flashing through my eyes, my hand gripping the edge of the table so hard my nails nearly embedded themselves into the wood. I had spent the entire morning sorting that stack, checking each page’s numbering carefully— and now it was all ruined.

“Ah, I’m so sorry,” Vanessa covered her mouth, wearing an expression of “innocence,” though her eyes brimmed with triumph. “My hand slipped. But it’s fine. These useless records probably weren’t worth your effort anyway. Ruined is ruined.”

As she spoke, she lifted her silver high heel and viciously ground it onto several pages scattered on the floor. The ink mixed with dust from the sole of her shoe, pressing the papers into unrecognizable messes, the words completely unreadable.

The two interns behind her immediately echoed:

“Dr. Vanessa is right. These old records weren’t very useful anyway. Dr. Clara… you shouldn’t take it so seriously.”

“Exactly, staying in the City Hospital at all should already make you grateful. Who are you to pick and choose.”

Looking at the destroyed records, I took a deep breath and pushed down the wave of anger in my chest. I knew this wasn’t the time to explode. I needed to wait for the right moment— the moment I would make that pair pay the price.

Just then, hurried footsteps sounded in the hallway, and Liam pushed the door open. The faint smell of disinfectant from the operating room still clung to him, clearly showing he had just come down from surgery. As soon as he entered, he went straight to Vanessa’s side, his gaze landing on her “wronged” frown, completely ignoring the mess on the floor.

“Vanessa, what happened?” His tone was urgent, and following Vanessa’s line of sight to me, his expression instantly clouded. “Did she bully you?”

Vanessa immediately clung to Liam’s arm, her voice tinged with tears. “No, Liam, don’t misunderstand. I accidentally spilled the ink. Sister Clara seemed unhappy, I… I didn’t mean to.”

“Unhappy?” Liam let out a cold laugh, his eyes filled with disgust and impatience as he looked at me. “Clara, are you still not giving up? You were transferred here after losing your license, and you still refuse to behave? You’re deliberately making trouble for Vanessa?”

His gaze swept briefly over the ruined files and overturned ink bottle, without even pausing— as if they were worthless garbage.

“What is Vanessa’s status? What is your current situation? Don’t embarrass yourself acting out here!”

I looked at this pair who twisted black and white at will, and the last shred of lingering emotion I had for Liam finally died. I once thought our years together meant something— but I never imagined that in his eyes, I wasn’t even worth those trampled records on the ground.

Suppressing the bitterness and fury in my chest, I suddenly showed a faint, almost numb smile. I didn’t defend myself. Instead, I slowly opened a drawer and took out a divorce agreement I had long prepared, handing it to Liam.

“I’m not unhappy, nor do I have the energy to make trouble for anyone.” My voice was soft, carrying a hint of subtle exhaustion. “Since you think I’m an eyesore here, then I’ll leave. But after all, we are still married. My license is gone, my job is gone, and I may never work in surgery again. You should at least give me some compensation.”

Liam frowned, impatiently taking the papers. “What do you want?”

“The apartment downtown. Put it under my name as compensation.” I lifted my eyes, meeting his gaze calmly. “I don’t want anything else. Sign it, and we’re even.”

Vanessa immediately whined from the side: “Liam, don’t waste time with her. It’s just an apartment. Sign it and let her leave, so she doesn’t ruin the mood here.” As she spoke, she pushed Liam’s arm, urging him to sign.

Already filled with disgust toward me and annoyed by Vanessa’s pestering, Liam didn’t bother reading the document carefully. He skimmed the first line—“Compensation Agreement”—and then picked up the pen, signing his name in bold strokes at the bottom.

He didn’t notice the divorce agreement hidden among the pages. And the name he signed not only transferred the apartment to me, but also ended the five-year marriage between us.

Watching him finish signing, I took the documents back. As my fingers brushed the thin sheet of paper, a complex satisfaction rose within me. I folded the papers neatly and placed them into my bag. Then I bent down, ignoring the destroyed records and spilled ink, and picked up my coat.

“Thank you.” I nodded slightly toward Liam and Vanessa, my tone as flat as discussing the weather.

As I turned, my gaze swept over the black notebook on the corner of the desk, and a glint of icy sharpness flashed in my eyes.

This was only the beginning.

Liam, Vanessa— what you owe me, I will reclaim piece by piece, with interest.

The sound of my heels faded down the corridor, leaving only Vanessa and the interns staring at each other in confusion, and Liam watching my back with a strange, creeping unease rising in his chest.

Just as I held the incubator in my arms, the laboratory door was violently kicked open.

Liam barged in with Vanessa, both of them wearing expressions of undisguised urgency.

“Leave the item behind!” Liam stepped forward and reached out to snatch the incubator. “All research outcomes in the lab belong to the hospital. You have no right to take anything with you now!”

I sidestepped him and shielded the incubator behind me. “This is three years of my work. The formula is handwritten by me, the coagulant was exclusively developed by me, and it has nothing to do with the hospital!”

“What yours and mine?” Vanessa squeezed to the front, her gaze glued tightly to the incubator, her tone sharp. “You’ve already been stripped of your medical license. What’s the point of keeping these? Why not give them to me? I can make them useful— better than letting you waste them!”

As she spoke, she suddenly reached out to grab it, her fingertips nearly touching the case.

I jerked back, watching her warily. “Vanessa, don’t push your luck!”

“I think you just don’t know what’s good for you!”

Enraged, Vanessa suddenly lunged forward, gripping the handle of the incubator with both hands. We began pulling against each other instantly. My strength was steady, and Vanessa failed to grab it for the moment. Pretending her foot slipped, she let her body fall backward while deliberately swinging her arm hard across the nearby lab table.

Crash—

The incubator slipped from our hands and crashed onto the floor. Glass vials shattered instantly, pale blue coagulant splashing out and spreading across the ground. Vanessa, still unsatisfied, deliberately crushed the scattered formula papers under her high heels as she fell, the liquid and shoe prints staining them into filthy fragments, the essential ratios completely blurred.

“Ah!”

Vanessa fell to the ground, her skirt soaked with the spilled reagent. She immediately clutched her knee and cried out, “Liam! Look! Clara pushed me! She destroyed the coagulant and the formula on purpose!”

Liam hadn’t seen anything clearly. He only saw Vanessa on the floor and me standing beside her. He burst with fury instantly.

“Clara! You’re vicious! Vanessa tried to reason with you kindly, and you resorted to violence and sabotaged critical research!”

“I didn’t push her! She fell on purpose!”

My voice was both anxious and furious as I bent down, trying to salvage any remaining legible fragments of the formula. “That was the newest coagulant we developed! Without it, an aortic dissection surgery can’t stop the bleeding at all! You’re going to kill a patient!”

“You still dare argue!”

Liam grabbed my wrist, squeezing so hard it felt like he might crush my bones. “You’re not welcome here. Get out!”

“Liam, wake up!” I struggled, my gaze sharp as a blade. “Can’t you see what Vanessa wants? She wants my formula! If you throw me out now, what you’re destroying is the only chance for countless future patients!”

“Enough!”

Liam refused to listen, dragging me toward the door. “I don’t want to hear another word of your nonsense! You’re just unwilling to accept your transfer and came here to cause trouble!”

He shoved me out of the door.

My back slammed hard against the wall, pain shooting through me as I sucked in a breath. I looked at the disgust and finality in Liam’s eyes, and coldness spread through my chest.

“Liam, you will regret this! What you are destroying with your own hands is your bottom line as a doctor!”

“Regret? The only thing I regret is meeting you!”

Liam slammed the door shut, cutting me off completely. Then he immediately crouched beside Vanessa, lifting her anxiously.

“Vanessa, are you okay? Did you hurt yourself?”

Leaning in his arms, Vanessa secretly lifted her eyes, looking toward me through the crack in the door, a flash of triumphant cruelty flickering in them.

Just then, the hospital broadcast suddenly sounded, a hurried female voice breaking the silence of the corridor:

“Emergency notice! The ER has received a patient with a ruptured aortic dissection. Massive blood loss, condition critical. A top-tier surgeon is urgently needed for immediate consultation! Repeating, a top-tier surgeon is urgently needed!”

The lab door was instantly pulled open.

Liam supported Vanessa as they rushed out, neither of them sparing me even a glance before sprinting toward the emergency department.

I watched their hurried silhouettes, then lowered my head to look at my fingertips, still stained with the spilled reagent.

The corner of my mouth curled into a cold smile.

They didn’t know that what they had just destroyed was the patient’s only hope for survival.

And the opportunity I had been waiting for— the catalyst for my revenge— had quietly arrived at this very moment.

I held onto the sink, my fingertips pinching the pregnancy test showing two red lines, my knuckles turning white. The churning in my stomach had not yet settled, but a cold, firm resolve was already rising in my chest—this was Liam’s child, the result of our last loss of control before the divorce. I looked at my pale face in the mirror, a flash of determination passing through my eyes: I would keep the baby, keep the child but cut off the father. For the rest of my life, the child would be my weakness—yet also the armor I would use to take revenge on Liam and Vanessa.

A news alert on my phone suddenly interrupted my thoughts, the headline glaring:

“Top Surgical Team at City Hospital Fails Operation, Patient Critical! Dr. Vanessa Tearfully Accuses: Key Medication Sabotaged by Former Colleague!”

I opened it.

In the video, Vanessa wore a white coat, her eyes red, speaking to the camera through tears:

“Liam and I tried our best, but the most crucial custom-made coagulant was maliciously shattered by Ms. Clara, and the formula was destroyed as well. Because she was unhappy about being reassigned, she took her anger out on the patient’s life… I really blame myself for not protecting the patient.”

Below the video, the comments were already exploding.

“Clara? The doctor whose license was revoked? How vicious can she be!”

“Playing with a patient’s life—someone like her should be permanently banned!”

“Poor Dr. Vanessa, clearly the victim yet bearing all this pressure!”

Rumors spread like weeds.

My personal information was leaked maliciously, and my phone and messaging apps were bombarded—insults pouring in endlessly. I knew this was Vanessa’s doing, and Liam must have approved it—maybe even pushed it forward. After all, making me take the fall was the easiest way to protect their reputations.

I tried sending Liam a message:

“The coagulant was broken by Vanessa herself, and you know it. Stop spreading lies, or I won’t hesitate to expose everything.”

The message disappeared into the void.

More distorted accusations came instead.

Liam’s indulgence became yet another weight pressing onto me.

Meanwhile, inside the operating room of City Hospital, alarms blared sharply.

The patient from the failed surgery had sudden massive bleeding, blood streaming down the edge of the table onto the floor, staining it red. Liam’s hand holding the hemostat trembled uncontrollably, sweat dripping from his forehead into the open incision as nurses hurried to wipe it away.

“Blood pressure still dropping! 80/50!”

“Standard hemostatic drugs aren’t working! The bleeding is too severe!”

Vanessa’s face was pale, her hands shaking so badly she could barely hold a suture needle, tears welling in her eyes.

“What do we do? Liam! We can’t stop the bleeding at all! If only we still had the coagulant…”

“Shut up!” Liam barked, though his mind was in chaos.

He knew better than anyone that Vanessa accused me only to escape responsibility. But now, he had no choice but to follow the lie to the end. Yet watching the patient’s vital signs fade, a sentence from the lab suddenly flashed in his mind:

“That was the only coagulant! Without it, an aortic dissection surgery can’t stop the bleeding! You’ll kill the patient!”

Panic surged through him like a tidal wave.

He suddenly remembered that I might still have a backup of the formula—someone who valued her research as much as I did would never keep only a single handwritten copy.

At that moment, my phone vibrated.

It was a message from my former colleague, Sharon:

“Clara, the patient is in critical condition. The bleeding won’t stop. Liam and Vanessa are reaching their limit…”

My fingers paused slightly.

In the end, I could not bear to let a living person die.

I replied quickly:

“Tell the patient’s family to contact me immediately if the situation worsens. Also, keep a secret for me—I’m pregnant.”

After sending it, I placed a hand on my abdomen and whispered:

“Baby, I’m going to save this person, and I’m also going to make those who hurt us pay the price.”

Inside the operating room, the patient’s heart rate had dropped to the warning line.

“Heart rate 40! Prepare the defibrillator!”

Watching the flickering monitor, Liam suddenly saw my calm face appear in his mind.

Desperation pushed him into a reckless decision.

He fumbled out his phone, hands shaking, and dialed the number he had long blocked—yet always remembered by heart.

The moment the call connected, he practically roared:

“Clara! Please! Tell me the coagulant formula! The patient is dying!”

There was a moment of silence on my end.

Then my voice came, icy and emotionless:

“Dr. Liam, didn’t you believe Vanessa when she said I destroyed the coagulant? Isn’t it ridiculous that you now come begging me?”

“I was wrong! I was blind!”

Liam’s voice cracked, filled with tears, his dignity shattered.

“I shouldn’t have believed Vanessa’s lies, shouldn’t have allowed her rumors! Please— for the patient’s sake, for… for what we once had—tell me the formula! If you save him, I’ll agree to any condition you name!”

Vanessa stared at him in shock, then screamed:

“Liam! How can you beg her?! She’s a vicious woman! We can think of another way!”

“There is no other way!”

Liam turned and glared at her, bloodshot eyes blazing.

“You think I don’t know? You broke the coagulant yourself! A life is at stake— and you’re still making a scene!”

Vanessa froze, her face turning green and white.

On the phone, I listened to their argument, the corner of my mouth curling into a cold smile.

“Liam, what you owe me—what you owe this patient—cannot be repaid with a single ‘I was wrong.’”

I paused, then my voice cut sharp as a blade:

“Give the phone to Vanessa. I want to hear her say it herself—that she broke the coagulant,that she spread the rumors.”