The hospital’s teaching lab was nearly silent, the rhythmic hum of the overhead lights and the distant beep of monitors the only sounds. You sat at an empty desk, your anatomy textbook spread open before you, though the diagrams and terminology had started to blur hours ago. Fatigue tugged at your mind, but you forced yourself to keep going. The stakes were too high to give in, and you couldn’t risk falling behind—not in this program, and not under the watchful eye of Dr. Zayne Li.

He was precise, methodical, and utterly unshakable. Every lecture he gave, every demonstration in the OR, carried an intensity that left no room for error. He didn’t praise or scold—he simply expected you to meet his standards without compromise. And somehow, that drove you harder than anything else. You wanted to earn his acknowledgment, not as a student but as someone who had truly mastered the craft he so effortlessly wielded.

“Still here?”

The monotone voice startled you, cutting through the silence like a scalpel. You looked up, finding Dr. Li standing in the doorway. His face was devoid of expression, his dark eyes cool and assessing as they glanced over your cluttered workspace. His lab coat was neatly pressed, not a single wrinkle betraying the long hours he must have spent in surgery today.

“What are you working on?” he asked, his voice flat, neutral. He stepped closer, his movements as precise as everything else about him. No curiosity. No concern. Just an observation, as clinical as the diagrams in your textbook.