Incurable Chapter 6 Part 1

Liu Qianxiu drove Mu Wan and Zhong Fen to the pet hospital.

The moment they arrived, Mu Wan explained the kitten’s condition to the veterinarian. The doctor took Zhong Fen away for examination, while Liu Qianxiu and Mu Wan were shown into a waiting room to rest.

The waiting room consisted of small cubicles separated by glass. Inside each was a round table and two chairs. Through the glass door, they could see the veterinarian examining Zhong Fen.

After Mu Wan returned home from filming, she had a mixed formula and fed all three kittens. Da Tou and Er Tong had eaten well, but Zhong Fen’s appetite had been poor. It took only a little milk, and then he vomited it all up.

Not only that, it was clearly listless. While the other two rolled and crawled all over the cat bed, Zhong Fen had buried its head into the corner of the nest, only its little bottom sticking up. Mu Wan tried feeding it two more times after that, and each time it threw everything up again. That was when she really began to panic.

Newborn kittens without their mother’s milk had almost no immunity. If one was not careful, they could die in an instant. Zhong Fen was vomiting milk and looked as though it was already fading fast. Mu Wan had changed clothes, scooped it into her arms, and was just about to take it to the pet hospital when she ran into Liu Qianxiu.

From the moment they entered the waiting room, the two of them sat on opposite sides of the round table, both with their eyes fixed on the veterinarian in the examination room. Neither spoke.

The waiting room was very quiet.

Mu Wan was the first to break the silence.

“How did you find my home?”

Her voice suddenly sounded in the still room. Liu Qianxiu turned his head. The woman had both hands clasped together on the tabletop and was looking straight at him. When he looked back, she smiled, the line of her lips curving upward.

“Emergency patients brought in by ambulance have address records,” Liu Qianxiu said.

“Oh.” Understanding dawned on Mu Wan. Her eyes lowered briefly as she pressed her fingers together, and when she looked up again, there was already an expression of negotiation on her face. “I asked you at the hospital before, and you said that cat wasn’t yours.”

So you have no right to take the kittens back.
That was the meaning beneath her words.

“Mm.” Liu Qianxiu heard it clearly. His expression remained as calm as ever as he said, “But you can’t raise them well.”

It was such a light reply, yet it struck straight at the point.

Mu Wan lightly moistened her lower lip. She turned her head toward the examination room. The veterinarian was still checking Zhong Fen over. Its tiny paws were kicking wildly. The glass door blocked the sound, but from the movement of its body alone, Mu Wan knew it was crying.

“It’s my first time raising cats. I’ll do my best.”

“The kittens are too small. It’s very easy for them to die.”

Once again, Mu Wan had nothing to say, because he was right.

She had not been sleeping well these past few days. The kittens stayed by her bed, and every night she woke several times to check on them, afraid that if she was careless for even a moment, one of them might die. She was not a particularly soft-hearted person, nor had she ever wanted to keep pets. These three kittens were small, difficult to raise, and ordinary village cats like them could be found anywhere in the streets. She could easily return them to Liu Qianxiu and go buy herself a pedigreed cat instead—better-looking and easier to care for.

But it was not the same.

These three had already spent several days with her. They had begun to merge into the empty spaces of her life. She called herself their “stepmother,” but really, she felt more like their actual mother. They had lost their mother as soon as they were born and had become deeply dependent on her. That dependence brought Mu Wan an unexpected sense of fulfillment. Every morning, she woke to their little meows. Those soft, milky cries were even more comforting than the first ray of sunlight.

Feelings were easy to cultivate, but hard to detach from.

Mu Wan wanted to keep these three.

She searched for some way to argue, but found none. After a moment, she calmed herself and redirected her thoughts to Liu Qianxiu.

She could not quite understand why he had gone all the way to her home to ask for the kittens. He had only fed the calico occasionally, so why was he so unwilling to let go of these three? The calico had never formally entrusted its children to him. And weren’t Taoists supposed to be detached from worldly matters, free of desire and uninvolved?

When she failed to reason it out, she gave up trying. A small line formed between her brows, like snow pressed into a crease.

“So what do you want to do?” she asked.

Liu Qianxiu met her eyes. In her beautiful gaze, there was now a sharp glint, all the original politeness gone. He did not seem to mind. His voice stayed as calm as ever.

“I’ll keep them first. When they’re older, you can take them back. If you’re worried, you can come to my home and see them anytime.”

The air-conditioning in the waiting room was turned up high. The man sat there with cool, pale skin, refined features, and a long, elegant frame. He always seemed almost expressionless, like a distant immortal in a mist-covered celestial hall—silent, ethereal, untouched by ordinary life.

Mu Wan propped one arm on the table and leaned toward him.

She stopped only when there was still the width of a fist between them.

“Doctor Liu, did you know me before this?”

The question floated out softly, like a ribbon trailing over the surface of water and stirring only the faintest ripples.

Resting on both elbows, she held herself there. Beneath the dark green halter top, her skin was white as snow. Her delicate collarbones were faintly visible, her shoulders were straight and beautifully shaped, and her dark eyes were clear and bright, reflecting Liu Qianxiu’s face.

She was studying him.

Her gaze traced his brows and eyes with quiet deliberation, like a green snake newly emerged from the mountains, curious as it coiled itself on a rock in the water and tilted its head to observe a meditating monk. There was something both lofty and entangling in the sweep of her long eyes—pure as mountain streams, yet lingering as mist—contradictory qualities somehow perfectly united.

Liu Qianxiu lowered his gaze. A faint feminine fragrance drifted toward him. Looking at the slight redness at the corners of her eyes and the watery brightness in them, he spoke in a low voice, like spring water striking stone.

“Why would you say that?”

Mu Wan leaned back again and lightly tapped a finger against the table.

Lin Wei had said that Liu Qianxiu was distant by nature and rarely entangled himself with others. But from the moment she entered the emergency, to him noticing her birthmark, to running into him at the dinner, and then, later, him personally going to her home for the kittens… taken together, it made Mu Wan feel that he was not actually that cold. Or at least, not particularly cold toward her.

And yet every one of those actions could also be explained.

He might have mistaken the birthmark for part of the wound. At the dinner, he had taken Mu Wan back to the hospital because she was his patient. He had come to her house because, over the phone at noon, she refused to give the kittens back.

He had not come because he especially wanted the cats.

He simply did not want her to raise the calico’s kittens to death.

Mu Wan did not answer his question. She only said, “You still haven’t answered mine.”

“I didn’t know you,” Liu Qianxiu said. “I only want them to survive.”

Mu Wan withdrew her arm from the table, widening the distance between them again. Then she smiled, soft and radiant.

“All right. Then thank you.”

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