Chapter 1

As the string quartet outside the manor adjusted to the softest E-flat major, I stood in the shadows backstage, adjusting my tie in the full-length mirror of the dressing room.

The skin on my chest felt a persistent, subtle itch from the ECG monitor patches I’d been wearing for days. The thin sensor felt like an invisible judge, constantly monitoring me; should my heart rate skip a beat, it would signal an alert via Bluetooth vibration. I pressed my shirt down calmly, smoothing out the slight protrusion.

"Noah, don't be nervous," the makeup artist said, her tone as gentle as if she were handling a fragile piece of art. "The bride will be walking down the aisle in three minutes. She looks breathtaking today."

I smiled, though my facial muscles felt stiff. This was the ritual of a wedding. Even as a heart surgeon who walked the razor’s edge between life and death every day, I couldn't help but feel that nervous tension—the kind that belongs to the living, known as "happiness."

The celebrant's voice drifted through the heavy walnut doors, filled with that habitual, manipulative sense of solemnity: "Three minutes remaining. Please be prepared to welcome the bride, Emma Watson."

The wait felt like an extended standby time before surgery. The three-minute dial turned slowly in my vision, but as the needle hit zero, the wedding march that should have sounded behind the doors was nowhere to be heard.

The anticipated applause never came. An unsettling silence permeated the air.

I pushed the door open, only to run into Kate, the maid of honor, stumbling toward me. Her layered silk evening gown was a mess of wrinkles, and her face was as white as crumpled paper. "Noah..." she gasped, her makeup smudging from panic, "Emma is gone."

My heart rhythm stalled for a fraction of a second. I glanced down at the monitor on my watch; the heartbeat line flickered, as if capturing the wavering of some part of my soul.

"Is she touching up her makeup, or…?"

"She’s not anywhere," Kate grabbed my arm, her nails digging into my sleeve. "The dressing room is empty. I just went in to grab the bouquet, and when I came back… the door was wide open."

I didn't answer her. I strode across the long corridor covered in deep crimson carpet. Every step caused the sensor on my chest to emit a faint, rapid vibration, as if whispering a warning, but I had no time to spare.

The dressing room door was ajar.

I pushed it open, hit by a wave of Emma's perfume, mixed with the scent of cold air. The room was shambolic. The priceless wedding gown Emma had spent a month selecting lay discarded on the velvet chair like a hollow carcass. Her custom pearl shoes were tossed haphazardly, as if they were excess baggage in a hurried evacuation.

A crystal lipstick on the vanity mirror was open, the vibrant red color exposed to the light, looking tragically sharp.

"Emma?" I called out. The sound hit the walls of the empty room and bounced back, cold and hollow.

I lunged toward the side door. It wasn't locked; it was slightly ajar, letting in thin slivers of cold air and fine snow. Outside in the small garden, snow covered the gravel path, revealing a clear, chaotic set of tire tracks leading toward the south exit—tracks that did not belong to the wedding motorcade.

I pushed the door open and stepped out. The freezing wind cut through my face like a knife. I sprinted toward the fence boundary, and at the edge of the snow-covered trees, I saw a moving pinprick of red light—the taillights of a dark SUV, appearing ethereal and distant in the heavy snowstorm, vanishing instantly down a winding path to the highway.

I stood there, letting the freezing blizzard land on my tuxedo.

My mind went blank. As a surgeon, my logic was tight and rigid, but at that moment, this logical system began spontaneously defending her: perhaps she had a sudden emergency, maybe there was a straight path through the side gate, maybe she was handling some crisis she couldn't disclose…

No, this was absurd.

I felt a sharp, piercing pain in my chest. It wasn't from the old scar of my surgery; it was a sensation of being pierced by something sharp and cold. For the first time, I felt the true meaning of that phrase—"running out on a wedding."

It wasn't a sudden impulse from a romance novel, nor was it a dramatic exit from fiction; it was a cold, calculated, premeditated departure—one where she didn't even care to take the wedding dress with her.

"Mr. Noah?" The butler’s voice echoed behind me. He held an umbrella, looking at me with a complex expression.

I straightened my back, feeling the increasingly rapid vibration of the sensor on my chest. Maintaining order was my instinct. I turned around and offered the butler a smile that, to an outsider, probably looked decent enough.

"It's fine," I heard my voice rasping. "It must be… some sudden, serious situation. She wouldn't leave everything behind without a reason."

"But the guests..."

"The guests need someone to host the show." I straightened my tie, hiding my trembling hand in my suit pocket, gripping the sweat in my palm.

I strode back to the ceremonial hall. The moment the doors swung open, all eyes turned to me. The expensive silk, the shimmering diamonds, the merrymaking of clinking glasses—all of it felt like mockery now.

I walked onto the stage, stood before the microphone, and felt the light in the hall dimming. The HR monitor under my shirt vibrated wildly; every beat reminded me that this was real to the point of cruelty.

"Ladies and gentlemen," I said into the mic, each word as precise as performing CPR, "the bride has had a small hiccup. Please, continue to enjoy the champagne. The wedding… is just slightly delayed."

I smiled, my heart feeling as though it had fallen into an abyss.