Linsey was baffled by the middle-aged woman's reaction. Did the woman recognize her? Before she had a chance to speak, the woman abruptly turned and dashed off, disappearing into the hospital corridor with startling speed.

"Ma'am, are you alright?" A nurse approached Linsey with a look of concern. "Did you get hurt in the collision?"

Linsey shook her head, her gaze fixed on the path the woman had taken, her brow furrowed in confusion. "Who was that woman? It was as though she'd seen a ghost when she looked at me."

That feeling was unmistakable. The more Linsey reflected on the incident, the more bewildering it seemed. She had no connection to this stranger. Could she have been mistaken for someone the woman deeply feared?

The nurse considered for a moment and then offered gently, "Maybe it's the stress of her condition. She’s a patient in the oncology ward, and sometimes the heavy burden of illness can make people act unpredictably. Ma'am, it's okay. Try not to dwell on it."

Linsey nodded, her understanding deepening. A surge of compassion stirred within her for the frail, terrified woman.

Meanwhile, Alexa Sanderson—the woman who had run into Linsey—was fleeing as if her life depended on it. She halted in a deserted stairwell, out of breath, her complexion a ghostly, sickly pale. Clinging to the railing, she replayed the encounter in her mind, her heart hammering against her ribs.

"How can they look so similar?" she murmured, her lips parched. Seeing Linsey's face had catapulted her thoughts back over twenty years to a fateful day she had tried to bury.

"You're Alexa Sanderson, right?" her former employer’s voice echoed in her memory. "I'm entrusting my daughter to your care. Be very careful. Her safety is your primary responsibility."

Back then, Alexa had been a young nurse, meek and quiet. But looking at the infant in the opulent crib, a dark seed of envy had taken root. In a moment of desperate greed, Alexa had made a choice that changed everything. She had swapped her own biological daughter with her employer's child.

The newborns were indistinguishable to most. Alexa had dressed her own daughter in the employer's expensive garments, securing her a life of privilege. As for the other child—the true heiress—Alexa had left her near a secluded area on the city's outskirts, hoping she would simply vanish from her life.

Jolted back to the present, Alexa pressed a hand to her throbbing head. For a terrifying second, she thought Linsey was the employer’s family come back to exact revenge. But reflecting on it, over two decades had passed. Her biological daughter was living a life of immense affluence, unsuspected all this while.

It seemed impossible for the past to resurface now.

Alexa allowed herself a moment of shaky relief, a faint, trembling smile breaking through her fear. She glanced at the medical record in her hand. Facing her own mortality now, she was driven by a final, selfish desire: to see her biological daughter, the one living the high life, one last time before she passed away.

With renewed, desperate purpose, Alexa set off once more.

At the same time, Linsey arrived at Dominic Larson's office.

"Dr. Larson, am I interrupting?" Linsey inquired softly as she pushed the door open.

Dominic looked up from his charts, smiled, and gestured for her to sit, offering her a glass of water. "Not at all, Linsey. I was just finishing up. How can I assist you today? Are you feeling alright?"