In
Xiacheng, June meant the arrival of the rainy season.
Beneath
the dark, heavy sky, the drizzle fell like a giant loom at work. The raindrops
wove themselves into the earth with a soft rustling sound, and before long, the
once-dry ground had been thoroughly soaked.
Across the
wet pavement, the wheels of a gurney rolled past at high speed, splashing up a
spray of water, accompanied by the anxious shouts of family members and
doctors.
Mu Wan
held an umbrella in one hand and a box of hot porridge in the other as she
walked forward. Steam rose faintly from the paper container, dispelling
some of the eerie chill in the hospital lobby.
“I’m here.
What floor are you on?” Mu Wan asked as she folded up her umbrella and headed
for the elevators through the crowd.
Lin Wei
told her the floor and room numbers over the phone. Mu Wan repeated them, then
looked up. The elevator had just gone up to the twelfth floor—it would be a
while before it came back down.
Outside,
the rain was growing heavier.
Rainy days
often brought more traffic accidents. Several patients had just been brought
in, their injuries obvious and their bodies stained with blood.
The groans
of the injured, the cries of their families, and the urgent voices of doctors
and nurses all mixed together, filling the lobby with a noisy sadness.
Lin Wei
was still on the phone, and Mu Wan responded absently, her gaze following one
of the patients into the nearby, large, chaotic emergency ward.
It was a
spacious room with a heavy iron door left open. People moved
quickly in and out, while doctors in white coats flashed through it
like shooting stars across the sky.
Mu Wan
looked a few times, but the tense atmosphere inside made her
uncomfortable. She was about to withdraw her gaze and continue waiting for the
elevator when she noticed something in one corner.
Amid the
chaos, one place remained strangely quiet.
A man and
a woman, both bandaged, stood next to a hospital bed. A young boy lay on the
bed, covered in blood. His eyes were closed, his complexion ashen and bluish,
utterly devoid of life.
On the
other side of the bed stood a doctor and a nurse.
Neither of
them was treating the boy anymore. The nurse looked down, her eyes
red-rimmed. Beside her, the doctor bent slightly forward and took the boy’s
mud-and-blood-streaked hand into his own.
The doctor
was strikingly handsome.
He had
sharp eyebrows, clear eyes, a straight nose, and thin lips. He was like
rain-washed bamboo leaves hidden deep in a dense grove—quietly restrained, yet
every line of him distinct and clear, refined to an almost translucent
elegance.
There was
something detached about him, something almost otherworldly. In the middle of
all that chaos, he seemed like a still point of focus, or like a distant
mountain standing apart from the turmoil—aloof, untouched by dust, proud and
cold.
He held
the boy’s hand as a few drops of blood stained his white coat. He didn’t seem
to notice. His long fingers covered the boy’s hand, and he looked down with a
calm expression.
The tense
feeling in Mu Wan’s chest eased slightly. Her eyelashes fluttered as she
suddenly remembered something from years ago.
Once, in a
train station waiting area, a passenger had suddenly collapsed and died. A monk
had held the man’s hand in the same way, performing rites for the dead.
Death was
hardly rare in a hospital. But when the doctor finally released the boy’s hand
and pulled the white sheet up over his head, the bandaged man and
woman beside the bed broke into piercing cries of grief. Mu Wan felt a
chill in her heart.
At that
very moment, the doctor seemed to notice her gaze and looked up.
His eyes
were calm
and deep.
The glance skimmed over Mu Wan as lightly as wind passing through a bamboo
grove, yet it brushed straight across her heart. Mu Wan froze for a moment,
then quickly looked away.
With a
ding, the elevator arrived on the first floor.
Mu Wan
lifted her eyes to glance at the three words above the ward—Emergency Room—then
asked Lin Wei, “Do you have an emergency room upstairs too?”
“What
emergency room? Which building are you in?”
“The one
directly in front of the hospital entrance.”
“That’s
the emergency building! I’m in the inpatient ward!”
“...”
When she
finally reached Lin Wei’s room, Mu Wan set her umbrella aside. Lin Wei had
already unfolded the little hospital tray table and was waiting to eat.
Lin Wei
had her appendix removed two days ago and could only eat liquids. While Mu
Wan was still out of town filming, Lin Wei had already been complaining
nonstop about how awful the hospital’s plain congee tasted. So when Mu Wan
returned to Xiacheng from filming, she dropped off her luggage and went
straight to Xu Ji Porridge Shop to buy some for her.
“How are
you feeling? Does it still hurt?” Mu Wan asked as she arranged the bowls and
utensils, then pulled out a chair to sit down.
She had
just come back from Wencheng, where it hadn’t been raining, and the
weather was still quite hot, so she wore a black T-shirt and white shorts.
When she sat, she crossed her long leg, her posture relaxed and languid.
Mu Wan was
a little-known actress, not very famous in the entertainment industry, but her
appearance was undeniably stunning.
She had a
palm-sized oval face, a beautifully straight nose, vivid red lips, a delicate
chin, and large, bright eyes—but not flirtatious. She was one meter seventy
tall, with long legs, a slim waist, full breasts, and shapely hips. She
was slender without being skinny, her frame evenly proportioned, her figure
flawless.
Her beauty
carried an untamed, vivid quality, the glamorous air of a 1980s Hong Kong film
star. But it was not vulgar beauty—it was elegant, distant, the kind that
inspired admiration from afar.
“It only
hurts if I pull at the incision,” Lin Wei said, blowing on the hot porridge
before taking another bite. Then she looked up at Mu Wan, who was staring out
the window, lost in thought.
“What are
you thinking about?” Lin Wei waved her spoon in front of her face.
The rain
outside had slowed. Large drops gathered on the window ledge, then rolled
down the glass in winding trails, reminding Mu Wan of the doctors moving back
and forth through the emergency room.
“When I
was waiting for the elevator just now, I saw a doctor. It looked like he was
performing rites for a little boy who had died.”
Mu Wan
snapped out of her thoughts and told Lin Wei everything she had seen in the
emergency ward.
Doctors
were supposed to save the living, to bring people back from the brink.
Performing rites for the dead belonged to an entirely different world. The two
ideas sitting together sounded contradictory. Yet Lin Wei showed no surprise at
all. Instead, her eyes lit up.
“Was
Doctor Liu handsome?”
“So you
know him? Yeah, he was pretty handsome.” Mu Wan smiled. Thinking back on his
face, it was a very restrained sort of beauty—light, understated, yet
unforgettable, especially that one glance when he had lifted his eyes to meet
hers.
“Doctor
Liu Qianxiu from surgery. His nickname is Daoist Liu. He’s basically the
emotional pillar of every woman in Tang’er Hospital.”
Edited
by Little Kitty on 19/09/20
0 comments:
Post a Comment