Chapter 1 Ch 1
Chapter 1
I was once known as "The Divine Hand," the youngest Chief of Cardiothoracic Surgery in history.
I didn't just perform surgeries, I invented them. However, after a high-profile operation on my own mentor went tragically wrong, leaving him in a vegetative state, my mother made me swear a blood oath.
“Your hands bring both life and ruin. Never touch a scalpel again, or the guilt will consume you forever.”
I traded my surgical scrubs for a floral apron. I married Lucian, a famous business tycoon my mother had selected.
For five years, I spent my days in the kitchen, meticulously preparing meals that were precisely calibrated medicinal formulas that cured his heart murmur and made him the top-performing executive in the city.
However, on our fifth anniversary, Lucian didn't bring flowers or gifts. Instead, he threw the divorce papers on my face with Leslie, the glamorous "Star Surgeon" of the year, by his side, her hands wrapped around his arms like she owned him.
Lucian sneered, "Lesley operates on kings and CEOs. You? You can't even look at a drop of blood without fainting. You’re a liability to my social standing."
“Sign the papers and I'll give you two hundred dollars every month as your monthly allowance. Considering your lifestyle, that's more than you ever need.” He mocked.
I stared at the divorce papers in my hands. This was what he was paying me for being a wife, a chef, and a healer to him for all these years.
That's what I worthed in his mind.
Two hundred dollars!
I did not cry.
I did not beg.
I did not try to save the marriage.
I simply wiped a smudge of flour from my cheek and smiled—a sharp, cold look Lucian had never seen.
"I’ll sign," I said, "and I’ll let you keep the house and the stocks. But only if Lesley can correctly identify the three hidden toxins I’ve neutralized in your body over the last five years using only the meals you mocked me for cooking.”
“If she’s the 'genius' you claim, surely she can diagnose the man she's sleeping with.”
The room went deathly silent. Leslie’s smug expression faltered, her grip on Lucian’s arm tightening until her knuckles turned white. She let out a forced, shrill laugh that echoed off the high ceilings of the penthouse.
"Toxins? Neutralized through... stew and herbal tea?" Leslie sneered, tossing her highlighted hair. "Lucian, your wife has finally lost her mind. She’s been talking nonsense."
"Nancy, stop this pathetic drama. You’re a housewife, not a chemist. Leslie graduated top of her class at Hawkins. She doesn't have time for your kitchen-witch fantasies."
"Then it should be easy for her," I said, my voice as steady as it had been when I was cutting into heart valves.
I walked over to the mahogany desk and pulled a leather-bound folder from the drawer. "Doctor to doctor, Leslie. Since you’re the 'Star Surgeon' of the year, let’s look at the data."
I flipped the folder open, sliding two medical reports across the desk.
"This," I pointed to the first page, "is Lucian’s cardiac profile from six years ago. Severe mitral valve regurgitation, chronic inflammatory markers, and a toxicity level in the liver that predicted a stroke by age thirty-five. He was a dying man when I met him."
I then tapped the second page, dated from last month. "And this is his current profile. Perfect elasticity of the arterial walls. Liver enzymes of an athlete. A heart murmur that has completely vanished."
I leaned forward, my shadow falling over the divorce papers.
"Now, Leslie, tell me. As a 'genius,' how did a man with a degenerative heart condition and systemic toxicity achieve perfect health without a single prescription or surgery? Tell me the biochemical process that occurred."
Leslie looked at the charts, her eyes darting across the complex lipid panels and EKG readings.
I watched her brain scramble. She knew these numbers were impossible for a man of Lucian’s stress level, but she couldn't see the "how."
She didn't see the subtle traces of Rhodiola rosea or the specific molecular bonds of the rare mushrooms I had spent five hours simmering every Sunday night. She or Lucian could never assume the efforts I had put in their treatment. Thus, they were clueless, staring at the medical reports in amusement.
“So, you can't tell?” I said, my lips curling up into a sarcastic sm
ile, “And you dare call yourself the ‘Star Surgeon’ of the year?”
