Mu Qingli summoned Lin Xuan to the medical library at six in the morning. That was already a threat. Nobody summoned someone to a cold library before dawn to congratulate them.
When he arrived, she sat with three folders, two surgical anatomy books, and a cup of coffee that looked more like a weapon than a drink.
"Sit," she said.
"Good morning."
"That depends on your answers."
The first folder contained recurrent abdominal pain, contradictory imaging, and incomplete family history. The second, trauma with limited resources. The third, a surgical case where the correct decision could look reckless to people who only read protocols.
Lin Xuan soon understood it was not a conversation. It was training.
"You are too in love with your intuition," Mu Qingli said during the second case.
"Intuition can be compressed knowledge."
"It can also be arrogance with good posture."
The sentence irritated him because it was useful.
She did not allow him to answer with brilliance. Whenever he was right, she changed the question. Whenever he hesitated, she forced him to say why. When he tried to skip a rare possibility, she tapped the table with one finger.
"In Jiangnan, you will meet brilliant people who move slowly because of politics and mediocre people who move quickly because of fear. Both kinds can kill."
Lin Xuan closed the folder.
"Why are you doing this?"
Mu Qingli looked toward the window. The light had not fully entered yet.
"Because someone should have done it for me before I learned through blows."
She added nothing else. That was her way of opening a door and closing it before anyone could look too far inside.
Then she pushed one of the books toward him. Its cover was worn and the pages filled with small notes.
"Take it."
"It's yours."
"I did not say it was a gift. If you do not return it, I will go to Jiangnan and humiliate you in front of your new colleagues."
Lin Xuan touched the first page. A sentence was written in black ink: The scalpel should only follow a mind that has already done its work.
"I will return it."
"You'd better."
For a moment neither spoke. Then Mu Qingli lowered her voice.
"Do not let them turn you into someone else's story."
The warning resembled Gu Qingxue's, but its temperature was different. Qingxue's came from the world of power. Mu Qingli's came from having seen other people's talent used, spent, and replaced.
"Everyone seems worried about that," he said.
"Because you have enough talent to be useful and enough pride not to notice when someone is using you."
The system appeared without sound.
[Significant external training recorded.]
[Bias correction: excessive confidence in intuition.]
[Surgical judgment increased.]
Lin Xuan did not argue with the screen. Mu Qingli had said the same thing with less delicacy.
When the library began filling with sleepy interns, she gathered the folders.
"In Jiangnan, do not mention Qingxue's case too much."
"Because of her family?"
"Because of everything. If you say Gu, some will see money. If you say rare disease, others will see prestige. In both cases, they stop seeing the patient."
Lin Xuan nodded.
"I'll remember."
"No. You are learning. There is a difference."
At the door, she called him again.
"Lin Xuan."
He turned.
"If you return as an arrogant idiot, I will deny knowing you."
"And if I return better?"
Mu Qingli looked at him one second longer than necessary.
"Then perhaps I will admit the book was well lent."
There was no hug and no soft words. Only a proud doctor handing part of her path to someone who was leaving. Lin Xuan walked out with the book under his arm and a new certainty: to become the best surgeon in the world, a precise hand was not enough. The mind had to learn not to lie to itself.