The first morning in Ha Nam Capital arrived under a thin veil of autumn mist. Outside Ha Nam Capital University Hospital, people had been streaming in and out since very early. An ambulance screamed its siren as it sped into the emergency department. One doctor hurried by, while a nurse slowly made her way home after her duty shift. When were medical workers ever not busy? There were also patient’s family members rushing along with handbags, some talking on the phone, some carrying lunch containers or takeout boxes as they leisurely took in the sights around them. The smell of coffee from the little shop across from the hospital entrance, the scent of gasoline, and the cigarette smoke trailing from the motorcycle taxi drivers who picked up fares while puffing away all blended into a very particular aroma that belonged to this place.
Trần Tú Linh stood motionless for a few seconds. The blue name tag hanging over her chest swayed gently in the breeze. TRẦN TÚ LINH – MEDICAL INTERN. She tightened her grip on her backpack strap and took a deep breath.
“Finally, this day is here...”
Throughout five years of college, she had imagined her first day stepping into a hospital as an intern doctor more times than she could count. Nervousness, excitement, fear—she felt all of it.
A sudden shout made Tú Linh jump.
“Hey!”
Quân Mập grinned from ear to ear, still holding the bánh mì he was eating as he spoke.
“Why’re you standing there spacing out this early in the morning? Changed your mind and wanna go home? Need me to call you a Green SM ride?”
“You scared the hell out of me, you jerk!”
Tú Linh glared at him.
“How many bánh mì have you eaten already, Fatty Quan?”
Quân shrugged.
“What? Just one. Gotta eat to have the energy for my internship.”
Right then, a bright, sharp voice rang out behind them.
“That mouth of yours can eat that much, but the second someone mentions dieting, you start yapping about how you’re gonna lose weight.”
Mai came running over with a stack of documents in her arms, her high ponytail bouncing with every step.
“Hey, I heard this hospital’s cafeteria is really good.”
“Oh, my God.”
Another voice cut in. “You’re thinking about the cafeteria first thing in the morning, Fatty?”
Khánh walked over, his white coat so neatly pressed that he hardly looked like someone about to start an internship. He adjusted his hair while admiring himself on his phone screen. Mai planted her hands on her hips.
“Khánh, are you here for an internship or an audition?”
Khánh lifted his chin.
“Doctors have to look good too. Pretty, excellent, you know, little sis.”
“Keep showing off. Let them yell at you later and see if you cry.”
“Shh, don’t try to scare me. I’m an excellent student, okay?”
Just as the two of them were about to start arguing, Minh Trang approached from behind.
Unlike the other four, Trang quietly hugged a thick stack of documents to her chest. Every page was covered in colorful sticky notes.
“Hey, you guys...” Trang glanced at her watch. “We’ve got three minutes until gathering.” She sighed. “Could you all act a little more civilized?”
All four of them immediately fell silent. Quân gave an awkward chuckle.
“Okay, class rep.”
The five of them looked at one another, then burst out laughing. They had known each other since freshman year. After making it through grueling anatomy exams, all-night physiology study sessions, and simulation shifts that lasted until morning, they had finally arrived here together.
Their first day entering the hospital. Their first day truly putting on white coats.
Tú Linh was both thrilled and nervous. She knew that, starting today, she was no longer just a student who knew medicine in theory. From this day forward, she would be the one helping bring life back to other people.
The auditorium for the medical interns was on the first floor of the lecture hall inside the university hospital. It was already packed with students from different medical schools. Everyone was adjusting their name tags, white coats, and paperwork. The hum of conversation filled the room. Quân leaned close to Tú Linh’s ear.
“Linh.”
“Hm?”
“If we get assigned to pediatrics, that’d be awesome, huh?”
Mai immediately cut in.
“Hey, I want emergency medicine.”
Khánh shook his head.
“Anywhere’s fine, as long as it’s not oncology.”
“Why?”
Khánh lowered his voice and put on a secretive expression.
“I heard that department’s brutal.”
“How brutal?”
“I heard it from the upperclassmen...”
Before Khánh could finish, the voices of two residents passing behind them drifted over.
“...I heard Deputy Chief An is coming back today.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. Her flight landed last night.”
“Dr. An finished her exchange program in the States, right?”
“Right. I heard she specialized in immunotherapy and cancer treatment.”
“She just landed last night and she’s already coming to work this morning?”
“That’s Dr. An for you. If she weren’t hardworking, who else in this hospital would be?”
The five of them exchanged glances. Mai spoke first.
“Wait, who’s that?”
A nurse walking past heard her and smiled.
“You’re the new internship class?”
Linh answered, “Yes. Um, can I ask who you guys were talking about?”
“Oh, they’re talking about the deputy department head of oncology. She’s incredibly good, but...”
The nurse paused, smiling meaningfully.
“She’s also very strict.”
Quân swallowed.
“How strict are we talking?”
The nurse thought for a few seconds.
“Let me put it this way so it’s easy to understand... Everyone in the department likes her.”
“But I’m pretty sure not a single student wants her to call their name.”
With that, the nurse smiled and walked away. Khánh shuddered.
“I suddenly feel freezing, you guys. Oh, no, somebody save me.”
Mai elbowed him.
“Maybe take studying seriously. If you get unlucky and end up interning in oncology, you’re screwed.”
“I’m being serious, damn it.”
“Then who posted a story until one in the morning instead of studying last night?”
“Oh, wow, look at Mr. Serious over here.”
The whole group burst out laughing. Tú Linh alone remained silent. She didn’t know why, but after just a few brief comments from the people around her, she was already curious about the deputy department head she had never met. Someone who had just returned from studying abroad had to be incredibly capable. The entire hospital respected her. But she also seemed to make everyone wary.
What kind of person was this deputy department head, really?
At that moment, the bell announcing the hour rang throughout the auditorium. The official internship orientation began.
At seven o’clock, nearly a hundred senior students gathered in small groups. Everyone wore a blue name tag that read INTERN DOCTOR or NURSE INTERN. Throughout her five years of college, Tú Linh had imagined this day countless times—the day she would wear her white coat not to attend class, but to enter patient rooms, stand before real people, real cases, and real lives waiting for her. She quietly drew in a breath.
The smell of fresh paper from the information packets, the starch in the white coats, and the faint scent of disinfectant drifting in from the hallway on the air-conditioning formed, by chance, a very distinctive hospital aroma. It wasn’t pleasant, exactly, but it gave people a strangely reassuring feeling.
Sitting beside her, Quân propped his chin on his hand and looked around the auditorium before lightly bumping her shoulder.
“It’s packed.”
Tú Linh looked around too. The rows of seats were almost completely full. Some people were taking the opportunity to review their notebooks, some were looking down at guidelines, and others, like them, were speaking in low voices to chase away the nervousness of their first day.
Khánh gave a quiet whistle.
“I heard there are almost a hundred students this year.”
Mai immediately frowned.
“Don’t say that. I just hope they don’t split us all up into different departments. We need at least one person left to cry with.”
The group laughed. It wasn’t loud, but it was enough to ease the tension in the air a little. Tú Linh looked at the four close friends sitting beside her. They had made it through all five years of college together. They had conquered anatomy exams that had seemed impossible to pass. They had stayed up all night studying internal medicine before every exam. They had eaten instant noodles at two in the morning in the dorms, then still shown up in the lecture hall the next morning.
If they could still stand together today... maybe that alone was a blessing.
Just then, the microphone came on.
“Students, please settle into your seats.”
The warm, deep voice quickly drew everyone’s attention. The soft conversations gradually faded away. A door beside the stage opened, and a silver-haired man slowly stepped onto the podium. He didn’t need much of an introduction. One look at the insignia on his chest and the row of hospital leaders standing in unison to greet him told everyone that he was the director of Ha Nam Capital University Hospital. He looked down at the auditorium with the calm gaze of someone looking at his own students.
“Good morning, everyone.” His voice wasn’t loud, but it carried clearly. “Starting today, you’ll no longer be learning from models or hypothetical patient charts.”
“You’ll learn from the patients themselves.”
The auditorium suddenly fell strangely quiet.
“What your teachers have taught you will help you know what to do.”
“But patients will teach you why we do it.”
He paused for a moment.
“A good doctor needs more than knowledge. They also need a heart that knows how to listen, respect, and take responsibility.”
Tú Linh quietly lowered her gaze to the pen in her hand. Her fingertips tightened around it without her realizing. For the first time, she felt that the white coat on her body was no longer as light as it had been at school. It had suddenly become heavy, as if it carried the trust of all the people who would place their lives in a doctor’s hands.
The orientation ended when the clock was nearing nine. The atmosphere in the auditorium immediately grew lively. The scraping of chairs, people calling out to one another, and the rustling of papers blended into a constant hum. Onstage, the staff from the Training Department quickly switched to the assignment tables, arranging stacks of files neatly by specialty. A female staff member holding a microphone stepped forward.
“Next, we’ll announce the internship groups. When you hear your department called, please gather according to the instructions.”
The entire auditorium seemed to hold its breath. Everyone had told themselves beforehand that they would do their best no matter where they were assigned, but everyone had somewhere they hoped to go—or hoped desperately to avoid.
“Internship Group Seventeen.”
The announcement rang out clearly.
“Oncology.”
Tú Linh lowered her head to look at the list she had just received. Her fingertip slid down the bold printed names.
Trần Tú Linh. Lê Minh Quân. Nguyễn Gia Khánh. Phạm Ngọc Mai. Lê Minh Trang.
She smiled faintly, though it came out a little crooked. So... all five of them were still together. Quân turned his head toward her, looking as if a huge burden had just been lifted from his shoulders.
“Thank goodness.”
Khánh immediately turned to him.
“What the hell are you thanking? Oh, thank God.”
Quân’s eyes crinkled with his grin.
“At least we’ve got each other on the first day. If we get yelled at, we can all get yelled at together.”
Mai snorted.
“Wow, that’s such a positive way to look at it.”
Quân replied without batting an eye, “I think it’s realistic.”
The whole group laughed out loud. It wasn’t a big laugh, but it was enough to chase away some of the tension weighing on everyone since morning.
Just then, a young nurse in a pale blue uniform approached them.
She smiled, her voice gentle but decisive.
“You’re the internship group assigned to oncology, right?”
“Yes.”
“I’m Thu Hà, one of the nurses in the department. From now on, I’ll take you upstairs to complete your intake procedures.”
All five of them stood up almost at once. Tú Linh adjusted the collar of her white coat and smoothed the name tag over her chest. Mai carefully hugged her notebook to herself, while Quân hurriedly stuffed a small sponge cake into his backpack under the group’s helpless stares. Khánh elbowed him.
“Eat any more and people upstairs are gonna think you came to beg for food.”
Quân pouted.
“If I’m gonna get yelled at by patients’ families, I need the energy to take it, don’t I?”
Soft laughter followed in the footsteps of Nurse Thu Hà as the five of them left the auditorium and crossed the hallway connecting to the treatment area. None of them knew that the elevator ride to the eighth floor that day would open an entirely new chapter in their lives.
It was also the day Trần Tú Linh would meet the person fate had chosen for her—the person she would still think of, years later whenever she looked back, as the most beautiful meeting of her youth.
Thu Hà led the group to a conference room. The wooden door was half-closed. Through the clear glass, the scene inside was plainly visible.
The room wasn’t very large, but it was bright and orderly. The oval conference table was nearly full. White coats sat neatly on both sides, from young residents to attending physicians with many years of experience.
The large screen at the back of the room displayed a patient’s chest CT scan. Beside it was a panel of test results with notes highlighted in several different colors.
No one was having a private conversation.
Not a single phone rang.
The only sound was the steady, low report of a resident standing in front of the screen.
“...Female patient, fifty-eight years old. Diagnosis: stage IIIA left breast cancer. After four cycles of neoadjuvant chemotherapy, the tumor has decreased in size by approximately thirty-five percent...”
At the head of the table, a man in his fifties slowly removed his glasses.
His hair was already threaded with gray.
His face was gentle, yet he still radiated the sternness of someone who had devoted nearly his entire life to the hospital.
A small silver nameplate was pinned to his white coat.
Associate Professor, PhD, Specialist Level II Physician Thái Minh Hùng Head of Oncology
He turned another page of the chart.
His eyes remained on the screen for a few seconds before he gave a slight nod.
“We’ll proceed with the treatment plan agreed upon during the consultation.”
“Invite thoracic surgery and radiology to join us this afternoon.”
“If there are no other comments...”
“...then we’ll conclude the conference.”
Everyone in the room nodded in unison.
Just then, someone knocked on the door.
Knock, knock.
A young doctor hurried inside.
There were still beads of sweat on his forehead.
“Sorry, Professor.”
“Patient in Room 806 just got her chemistry results.”
He handed the file to Associate Professor Hùng.
The older man accepted it.
He flipped through several pages.
He said nothing.
He simply tilted his hand slightly and placed the file to his right.
“Thanh An.”
Just two simple words.
No further explanation was needed.
The woman seated to his right set down her pen.
From Tú Linh’s vantage point...
all she could see was the woman’s back.
Her white coat was perfectly pressed, without a single wrinkle. Her black hair fell to her shoulders, the bangs neatly swept to one side, revealing a slender neck and straight shoulders.
She reached out and accepted the file.
The movement was completely natural.
As if she had repeated it countless times before.
The soft rustle of paper echoed through the quiet room.
The woman’s eyes moved across each page of test results.
Complete blood count.
CRP.
Liver function.
Kidney function.
It took less than ten seconds.
She closed the file.
Her voice was clear but composed.
“Postpone chemotherapy.”
No one spoke.
She continued.
“Neutrophil count is down.”
“CRP is elevated.”
“The risk of infection isn’t under control yet.”
“Adjust the antibiotics and reassess in forty-eight hours.”
Her voice wasn’t loud.
She didn’t sound like she was giving an order.
But every sentence was concise, clear, and decisive.
Associate Professor Hùng looked over the test results one more time.
Then he nodded.
“Proceed according to Thanh An’s recommendation.”
“Yes, sir.”
The young doctor immediately took the file back.
No questions.
No objections.
The other doctors also lowered their heads and began taking notes, as if the decision had been obvious from the start.
Tú Linh stood silently outside the door.
She didn’t understand all the medical terminology they had just used.
What surprised her most...
was the atmosphere in that room.
One sentence from that woman had been enough for everyone to agree on the treatment plan.
No debate.
No need to prove anything.
Khánh lightly nudged Quân and whispered so softly that it was almost nothing more than breath.
“Who is she?”
Quân gently shook his head.
“No idea...”
Beside them, Thu Hà smiled faintly, her eyes still fixed on the conference room.
“That’s our department head and deputy department head. Our department actually has two deputy chiefs. One is away on business, and the other just got back from an overseas assignment. I’ll introduce her to you in a little while.”
Mai looked surprised.
“She seems really young, doesn’t she?”
Thu Hà nodded lightly.
“She is. But when it comes to her expertise... aside from Professor Hùng, not many people in this department dare argue with her.”
As soon as she finished speaking, the woman inside the conference room quietly closed the file as well. She stood up. The chair behind her slid neatly into place. Then she slowly turned around.
Early-morning sunlight streamed through the glass window at the back of the room, falling across the shoulder of her white coat at just that moment. Tú Linh instinctively looked up.
For the first time...
she was about to see the face of that deputy department head.