In my mind, the system's cold electronic voice chimed right on schedule：
【Host mission countdown：12 hours.】
Hearing the prompt, I simply leaned quietly against the headboard,
There are no wasted flowers, really. Only wasted people.
A faint daze settled over me, and oddly enough, it gave way to the calm of something finally laid to rest.
Memories surged up on their own, all those fragments of the past, the days I'd debased myself, forcing my way close to him.
For the mission, even though his cleanliness obsession ran bone-deep, I'd offered my warm face to his cold shoulder.
Our son inherited the same fixation, recoiling because I wasn't clean enough,
yet I never got angry. Every day I still smiled and held him, coaxing him to eat, to sleep.
I bent to his obsession, made room for his favoritism, endured the fact that his heart was forever filled with Felicity Fox,
believing that as long as I held on, one day I'd thaw his heart.
Now I see it for what it was. Nothing but lying to myself.
Just then a nurse came in carrying the pre-op forms, and seeing how pale I was, she couldn't help asking softly：
「Dr. Pruitt, the second major surgery is coming up soon. The risk is very high, and you might……you might not come off the operating table. Are you sure you don't want a family member or friend here with you? Even just someone waiting outside would be better.」
I shook my head, a faint smile curving my lips：
「No need. One person is enough.」
At that moment, a voice message suddenly popped up on my phone, the sender still tagged as Nathan Delgado.
I opened it, but what came through was Felicity Fox's delicate voice, laced with a deliberate little lilt of excitement：
「Sis, today's a big happy day. Remember to look out your window.」
I looked up without thinking, toward the window of my hospital room.
The little garden below had been decorated to the point of pure romance,
a sky full of balloons crowding a red carpet, flowers blanketing the path, the lighting soft and dazzling.
Nathan Delgado stood in a custom-tailored suit, tall and straight, down on one knee,
a brilliant diamond ring cradled in his hands, gazing at Felicity Fox with eyes tender enough to drown in.
Our son, John Delgado, stood off to the side holding flowers,
his face bright with joy, clapping hard, as if he truly blessed them.
A grand proposal, sweeping and extravagant, drawing crowds from all over the hospital to watch and snap photos, a spectacle.
I watched that glaring scene beyond the glass, and not a single ripple stirred in my chest. It only struck me as absurd, laughable.
All these years, I'd suffered beside him, borne his child, day after day bending to his obsession and his favoritism,
and never once a proper confession, let alone a proposal. He wouldn't even give me a marriage license,
brushing it all off with a single line about how the formalities didn't matter.
Yet now he was willing to give Felicity Fox a proposal the whole world could watch,
to give her all his tenderness and every bit of the ceremony.
I slowly drew my gaze back, expressionless, and said nothing in reply. I only murmured to the nurse who had come in：
「I'm ready. Take me to the operating room.」
Before long my phone buzzed again, another long voice message from Nathan, explaining.
His voice carried a trace of panic and a guilt he couldn't quite hide：
「Belinda, don't misunderstand. That proposal just now was an act. Felicity's parents don't have much time left,
and their one dying wish is to see her engagement settled. I was just helping out, playing along, that's all. Don't read too much into it.」
Then another message：「That voice message was just Felicity sending it carelessly. Don't take it to heart.」
Message after message,
until the last one, when he seemed to lose all patience：
「Why aren't you……angry anymore?」
I stared at the words on the screen, my eyes distant, my fingertip hovering above the glass,
