Chapter 1

Ivy was famously known as the "Iron Lady" of the High-Altitude Rescue Team.

With her legendary gift for sound-based localization, she had plucked survivor after survivor from the jaws of disaster during countless pitch-black nights, navigating by the sound of the wind, flowing water, or even the faint flutter of breathing.

Yet, on the second anniversary of her marriage, during a massive explosion, she had dived in to save a child and suffered a ruptured eardrum from the shockwave, leaving her nearly deaf.

Rumors swirled instantly.

Everyone said that a deaf woman was no longer worthy of Ethan, the team’s youngest and most promising captain.

Divorce, they claimed, was only a matter of time.

But no one expected Ethan to start learning sign language.

In front of the entire team, he made a solemn vow: even if Ivy never heard again, he would be her ears for the rest of his life.

Ivy was moved by his devotion.

Not wanting to become a burden, and longing to soar alongside him in the blue skies once more, she kept it a secret from everyone and underwent a clandestine cochlear implant surgery.

It was a path paved with thorns that an ordinary person could hardly imagine—countless allergic reactions, splitting headaches, nausea, and vomiting.

Every time the device was turned on for calibration, the electrical buzzing felt like steel needles piercing her brain.

But she gritted her teeth and pushed through it all.

When she could finally hear the clear roar of helicopter rotors outside her window again, she immediately booked a flight to the overseas joint training base.

She wanted to be the first to tell Ethan the good news—a massive surprise for him.

For the sake of that surprise, she continued to pretend she was still deaf.

But when she arrived at the entrance of the training ground, full of anticipation, she was met with a very different sight.

Her former teammates were gathered around a five- or six-year-old girl with pigtails, fussing over her.

"Little Sierra is so brave! She overcame the trauma of the air crash so quickly. She’s inherited Captain Ethan’s genes perfectly."

"Well, look at who gave birth to her. Selena was our best rescuer back in the day; how could her daughter be anything less?"

Just then, a delicate, feminine voice rang out, laced with a hint of showing off.

"She’s just spoiled by her daddy. Yesterday, she insisted that Ethan take her for a flight, and even I, her mother, couldn't stop her!"

Selena!

The woman who had trained in the same batch as Ivy before retiring due to injury—the woman dubbed the "Most Beautiful Rescuer."

And the little girl named Sierra, surrounded by the crowd, was someone Ivy knew all too well.

She was the sole survivor Ivy had pulled from the fiery wreckage of a forest plane crash two years ago, a mission that had nearly cost Ivy half her life!

A buzz roared in Ivy’s brain. Her newly implanted cochlea captured every single word with chilling clarity.

It was at that exact moment that Ethan spotted her.

The smile on his face froze instantly. A flash of imperceptible panic crossed his eyes, but it was quickly replaced by gentle concern.

He hurried over to her, nervously and fluently using sign language.

[Ivy, why are you here? Why didn't you tell me beforehand so I could have come to pick you up?]

[Do you remember her? That’s the "Most Beautiful Rescuer" from back then, Selena. She got married a few years ago, and she happened to bring her daughter to visit the base this time. Don’t overthink it.]

As he signed, he used those same eyes—filled with a tenderness she had once trusted implicitly—to soothe her.

It was as if Ethan were still that devoted husband who, after she lost her hearing, had traced the words "I will be your ears for the rest of my life" into her palm.

But Ivy’s cochlear implant cruelly funneled every sound into her brain.

She heard Selena say to her daughter in a smug tone, "Look, how much your Daddy Ethan loves you."

She heard the hushed whispers of the teammates around them.

"Captain Ethan is so good to his daughter."

"Consultant Selena and Captain Ethan look so good together. They’re such a perfect match."

She could hear it all, yet she had to play along with his crude deception.

The man who was once her closest soulmate was using the gentleness she knew best to weave a heartbreaking trap.

All his affection was merely a meticulously choreographed performance, and she was the only audience member.

Ivy’s heart felt as if it had been gripped by an invisible hand, gripping so hard she couldn't breathe.

Yet, a smile slowly bloomed on her face.

She raised her hands and signed back to him.

[Okay. I won’t overthink it.]

Chapter 2

Ivy used the excuse of "visiting the team" to settle into the base dormitory.

Ethan seemed relieved and was attentive to her every need, as if trying to make up for something.

But to Ivy, that thoughtfulness was thick with guilt and testing.

That night, the sky was as dark as ink.

A piercing alarm shattered the base's tranquility.

Ethan shoved open Ivy’s bedroom door, his expression more anxious than she had ever seen.

"Something happened!"

He rushed to the bedside, his eyes showing a flicker of hesitation as he saw Ivy leaning weakly against the headboard.

But that hesitation was quickly swallowed by a more intense anxiety.

[Selena slipped and fell off a cliff during a night-time extreme training exercise! The signal is cut, and we can’t locate her exact position!]

He stared at Ivy, his gaze like someone looking at a piece of precision equipment.

[Only your sound-localization can find her. Come with me, now!]

Ivy just looked at him coldly, saying nothing.

Her silence completely ignited Ethan’s desperation. He grabbed her wrist, his force so great it felt like he was about to crush her bones.

[Ivy, put on your gear and come with me. This is an order!]

He used his status as captain to壓 down on her, leaving no room for argument. [As a rescue team member, your duty is to save lives, no matter who the person is!]

Ivy still looked at him with indifference, even curling the corners of her mouth in a sneer.

Slowly, she raised her hands to sign.

[My duty? Captain Ethan, did your attending doctor not tell you about my physical condition?]

[My implant hasn’t fully adjusted yet. Carrying out a high-intensity mission in the dark now is tantamount to self-destruction.]

Ethan’s breath hitched.

He hadn’t expected her to resist so directly.

Watching her icy eyes, his own turned bloodshot. His hands, however, didn’t stop signing, the words feeling like both an explanation and an act of self-hypnosis.

[She saved my life! I owe her!]

Ivy scoffed in her heart.

Saved his life? She didn’t recall Selena ever having such a heroic feat.

Seeing Ivy remained unmoved, Ethan was finally completely enraged.

He yanked her off the bed, his voice laced with desperation as he threw out the most hurtful words imaginable.

[Ivy, I’m begging you!]

[Do it for your father’s sake! Don’t forget that he sacrificed his life to save people; you can’t just stand by and watch someone die!]

[I can’t bear to watch someone who is in danger because of me end up like that again!]

These words exploded in Ivy’s heart.

Her father.

The hero of the previous generation’s rescue team who had sacrificed his life in a catastrophic flood to save civilians.

He was the holiest faith in her heart and her deepest wound.

And now, Ethan—the man she had loved and trusted most—was using her father’s sacrifice as a bargaining chip to force her to save his paramour.

This was not just a kidnapping of her professional ethics; it was a ruthless trampling of her family’s grief.

He was prioritizing his unfounded sense of responsibility toward Selena over the respect he owed her father and the love he owed her.

At that moment, Ivy’s heart truly died.

She was shoved brutally into the helicopter by Ethan.

The roar of the engines transformed into a sharp, stabbing pain through her implant, digging deep into her brain.

But this pain was nothing compared to the viciousness of Ethan’s words.

The agony hit her.

A stream of warm liquid began to seep slowly from the implant site behind her ear, staining her white collar red.

Chapter 3

The helicopter circled above the cliff.

The howling wind and the electrical overload buzzing from her implant wove together like a thousand needles pricking at Ivy’s nerves.

Her face was deathly pale, cold sweat soaking through her training uniform, while Ethan roared anxiously into the communicator nearby.

"Ivy! Hurry! If we don't find her soon, she’ll be out of time!"

Ivy closed her eyes, enduring the splitting headache, concentrating every ounce of her mental strength on her hearing.