By June, the rainy season had settled over Xiacheng.
Dark clouds pressed low across the sky, heavy and oppressive, while a fine drizzle fell in endless silvery threads, as if some vast loom had been stretched above the city. Before long, the once-dry earth had been thoroughly soaked through.
Across the wet pavement, hospital gurneys rattled past one after another, their wheels slashing through shallow puddles and sending water flying. The cries of anxious family members mixed with the urgent voices of doctors and nurses, turning the hospital entrance into a place of chaos and unrest.
Mu Wan held an umbrella in one hand and a box of hot congee in the other. White steam curled from the paper container, warming a little of the damp chill clinging to the crowded lobby.
“I’m here. What floor are you on?” Mu Wan asked into the phone as she closed her umbrella and made her way toward the elevators through the stream of people.
Lin Wei told her the floor and room number on the other end. Mu Wan repeated them back, 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 always brought more traffic accidents, and several newly arrived patients were covered in blood from visible injuries.
The groans of the wounded, the sobs of their family members, the sharp commands of the medical staff trying to save lives—everything tangled together into a suffocating wave of noise, filling the lobby with a kind of grief that was almost physical.
Lin Wei was still talking on the phone. Mu Wan responded absentmindedly, but her gaze drifted toward the large treatment room beside the lobby.
The metal doors had been pushed wide open. People were rushing in and out without pause, white coats flashing past like streaks of light.
Mu Wan only looked in a few times. The atmosphere inside felt far too stifling, pressing against her chest in a way that made her uncomfortable. She was about to look away and continue waiting for the elevator when, just as her gaze shifted, something in the corner caught her eye.
In the midst of all that chaos, there was one place that was strangely still.
A man and a woman, both wrapped in bandages, stood silently by a hospital bed.
On the bed lay a young boy, his face and body streaked with mud and blood. His eyes were closed. His complexion was pale and lifeless.
There was no breath left in him.
On the other side of the bed stood a doctor and a nurse. Neither of them was trying to save the boy anymore. The nurse’s head was lowered, her eyes red-rimmed with tears. Beside her, the male doctor bent slightly and took the boy’s filthy, bloodstained hand into his own.
He was the kind of man who drew attention the moment he appeared.
Broad forehead. Clear eyes. Straight nose. Thin lips pressed lightly together.
There was something about him like bamboo leaves after the rain—half-hidden in shadow, yet clean and distinct in every detail. His features were refined, his bearing distant. In all the noise and confusion, he seemed like the only calm spot, as if he were a remote mountain, untouched by mortal dust—cold, detached, impossibly far away.
A few flecks of bloodied water soaked into the cuff of his white coat, slowly spreading outward.
He didn’t seem to notice.
His fingers were long and elegant as they wrapped around the child’s hand. His lashes lowered, expression calm and quiet.
The tightness in Mu Wan’s chest eased a little.
Then, for some reason, she was reminded of something from years ago.
Back then, in the waiting hall of a train station, a passenger had died suddenly. She had seen a monk hold the dead man’s hand in almost the exact same way, murmuring prayers to guide his spirit onward.
Death was nothing unusual in a hospital.
And yet, when the doctor finally released the boy’s hand and gently pulled the white sheet over his face, while the man and woman beside the bed broke into hoarse, heart-wrenching sobs, a chill still ran through Mu Wan’s body.
At that exact moment, the doctor seemed to sense her gaze and looked up.
His eyes were deep and still.
That glance swept over her lightly, like wind moving through a bamboo forest, brushing across her heart without warning.
Mu Wan froze for the briefest instant before quickly looking away.
Just then, the elevator gave a soft ding and arrived on the first floor.
She glanced up at the sign above the room she had been staring at.
Emergency Room.
Then she asked into the phone, “You have an ER on your floor too?”
Lin Wei sounded confused. “What ER? Which building are you in?”
“The one straight ahead after you enter the hospital gate.”
“That’s the emergency building! I’m in an inpatient ward!”
“...”
By the time Mu Wan finally reached Lin Wei’s room, she had already set her umbrella aside, and Lin Wei had unfolded the little hospital meal table and was waiting eagerly to eat.
She had undergone an appendectomy two days ago and could only eat liquid food. While Mu Wan was away filming in Wencheng, Lin Wei called several times to complain about the hospital’s bland congee. As soon as Mu Wan got back to Xiacheng, she dropped off her luggage and headed straight to Xu’s Congee Shop before coming to the hospital.
“How are you feeling? Does it still hurt?” Mu Wan placed the bowl and spoon in front of her, then pulled a chair over and sat down.
She had just come back from Wencheng. It hadn’t rained there, and the weather had still been hot, so she was wearing only a black T-shirt and white shorts. When she sat, she crossed her long legs casually, her posture relaxed and a little lazy.
Mu Wan was an actress with little fame, but her looks were enough to make people stop and stare.
Her face was small and delicate, about the size of a palm, with an elegant nose, bright red lips, a pointed chin, and dark eyes that drew people in without being overtly flirtatious. She stood at one meter seventy, with long legs, a slim waist, and full curves.Her figure was slim but strong, and every part of her seemed well-proportioned.
Her beauty carried a faint wildness—a glamorous, sensual charm reminiscent of old Hong Kong actresses from the 1980s.
Yet that glamour never felt vulgar.
Instead, it gave her an air of pride and distance, as if she were something untouchable.
“As long as I don’t move too much, it doesn’t hurt,” Lin Wei said, blowing on the congee before taking a bite. She still burned her mouth a little from the heat. After eating a few mouthfuls, she looked up and noticed Mu Wan staring out the window, clearly distracted.
“What are you thinking about?” Lin Wei waved her spoon in front of her face.
Outside, the rain had already begun to ease.
Large droplets gathered along the window ledge before sliding slowly down the glass, leaving behind twisting tracks that somehow reminded Mu Wan of the doctors hurrying through the emergency room downstairs.
“When I was waiting for the elevator just now, I saw a doctor,” Mu Wan said, coming back to herself. “He looked like he was performing rites for a little boy who had just died.”
She briefly recounted what she had seen in the ER.
Doctors are expected to save lives. Rituals for the dead are for those who can no longer be saved. Put together, the combination felt oddly contradictory.
But Lin Wei showed no surprise at all.
On the contrary, her eyes lit up immediately.
“Was Dr. Liu super handsome?”
“So you know him?” Mu Wan laughed softly. “He was pretty handsome, actually.”
As she said it, the image of that doctor’s face surfaced again in her mind. There had been something restrained and understated about him, and yet it was that very restraint that left the deepest impression—especially the moment he had raised his eyes and looked at her.
“Dr. Liu Qianxiu from surgery,” Lin Wei said. “Nickname: Daoist Liu. Spiritual support for every woman in Tang’er Hospital.”
Edited by Little Kitty on 19/09/20
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