Xie Zi Han didn't respond.
"The downside is that you will have to tolerate my grandfather. You won't have much freedom at home. But Zi. The hospitals will be practically under your thumb. You can be the kind of doctor you want and you can make the kind of system you want it to be. Please Zi. I don't have a home back there," his voice trembled. "I cannot return to that place anymore."
He placed his hand on his shoulder, gripping it with his quivering fingers. "But you can. Because you care about medicine. You care about being a doctor more than I ever had. You deserve to be Dr. Yang Cheng that grandpa always wanted me to be."
Xie Zi Han looked into his friend's eyes and for the first time felt a desperate plea in his gaze. He looked like he was all the hope he needed to live the kind of life he wanted to live. The years had forged their friendship like steel but for the first time, that annoying but confident friend of his looked vulnerable and afraid.
