Incurable Chapter 26 Part 1

Chapter 26 (1/2)

“Can I really go?”

After lunch, Liu Qianxiu stood by the sink, listening to the woman beside him ask for confirmation yet again.

She looked like a child who had not finished her homework over the school break but had somehow still been given permission by her parents to go out and play—delighted, yet not quite able to believe it.

“Mm.” Liu Qianxiu washed one bowl clean.

Having gotten confirmation, she smiled at once. Leaning against the kitchen counter, she tilted her head and asked, “Is the Taoist temple far?”

“Far.”

“Then are we taking the train?”

“We’re driving.”

“A road trip?” She drew out the last words, her voice full of happiness. “Will there be lots of fellow Taoists there?”

“No. Shifu is away. Only my senior brother is at the temple.”

“Ah?”

Mu Wan looked startled for a moment.

But after the surprise passed, she understood. Liu Qianxiu preferred to be quiet when he went into retreat. He would never like one of those large temples crowded with incense and worshippers. The temple he chose had to be remote and secluded.

While she was thinking about that, Liu Qianxiu finished washing the last bowl. He turned off the tap, pulled out a paper towel, and dried his hands. Then he glanced at the time and asked, “You don’t have filming today?”

Mu Wan’s curious look faded. Once the topic shifted back to herself, she braced both hands on the counter and looked out the window.

“I don’t have any scenes today. Or tomorrow. Or the day after. Actually, I don’t have any this whole week.”

Looked at that way, maybe she should thank Mu Qing for getting her scenes cut. Otherwise, she would not even have had the time to go to the temple with Liu Qianxiu.

A blessing in disguise.

As she spoke, Liu Qianxiu kept looking at her. When Mu Wan turned back and met his eyes, she rubbed her nose.

“It’s not that I’m slacking off. I was supposed to have scenes these next few days, but they got—”

She stopped halfway through and smiled instead.

There was no point saying any of that to Liu Qianxiu. All she wanted was to be happy about going to the temple with him this week.

The light came back into her eyes, scattering the shadow that sentence had brought with it. Lifting the corners of her eyes, cautious and pleased all at once, she asked,

“Why are you taking me to the temple?”

Her voice was sweet and clear, like dew resting on lotus leaves before dawn after rain.

Liu Qianxiu looked at her and asked, “Are you happy?”

“I am.” The answer came fast and certain.

The man said nothing more.

That seemed to be the answer.

He checked the time again and said, “I’m going to work.”

After Liu Qianxiu left for work, Mu Wan went home to pack.

They were leaving on Thursday and staying until the following Monday. Four days in all.

Summer clothes were light, but Mu Wan still found packing extraordinarily difficult.

Her entire wardrobe ended up strewn across the bed. The cool air from the AC lifted the corner of a gauzy dress now and then. Looking at the little mountain of clothes, Mu Wan only managed to pick out two pieces to actually put into the suitcase.

In the end, she stopped choosing altogether and flopped face-first onto the bed.

Her soft body sank into the pile of clothes. After a moment, quiet laughter drifted out from within it.

She rolled over onto her back, the smile still on her face, lifted her phone in front of her eyes, and called Lin Wei.

Lin Wei was in the middle of drawing up a design plan. When she saw Mu Wan’s name, she called out, “Mu Wan?” and then took her coffee into the pantry to answer. She had been up late finishing drafts and still had not delivered the final work. She was tired.

Lin Wei might be a rich second-generation girl who played hard and loved freely, but her professional ability and standards were beyond question. She genuinely loved interior design. Staying up late was normal for her.

“Did you stay up all night?” Mu Wan could hear the fatigue in her voice.

“Mm.”

After taking a life-saving gulp of bitter coffee, Lin Wei winced.

“Why didn’t you go film today?”

At that, the smile on Mu Wan’s face paused. She sat up from the pile of clothes and crossed her legs.

“I don’t have any scenes this week. Mu Qing did it. She wants me to go beg her.”

“Don’t.”

Mu Wan laughed as soon as she heard that.

“Of course not. Anyway, even if I don’t have acting work, I won’t starve if I hang around you.”

That was her confidence.

It was something Lin Wei had given her. The two of them had known each other too long, and the depth of that friendship went without saying.

Mu Wan was still smiling as she spoke. Clearly, that smile was not only for the joke she had just made. Lin Wei narrowed her eyes.

“You’re awfully happy. What happened?”

Nothing stayed hidden from her.

Mu Wan dropped backward onto the bed again. Her black, thick hair spilled out across the colorful heap of clothes like scattered black gemstones, still gleaming.

“I’m going to a Taoist temple.”

Lin Wei nearly sprayed out her coffee.

“You’re going to a Taoist temple for what? Are you taking this ‘love the house, love the crow’ thing all the way into religious cultivation now?”

“I’m going with Taoist Liu.”

There was laughter in Mu Wan’s voice.

“Holy shit?”

Lin Wei yanked the phone away to stare at it. “He asked you to go with him? What exactly are you two now?”

“Still what we were before,” Mu Wan said.

She pressed the back of her neck into the pile of clothes, the coolness of fabric brushing against her skin with a fine, dry texture. Then she added, certain of only this much, “But I can feel that I’m different to him.”

She could not yet say exactly how she was different.

But it had already begun to show.

Liu Qianxiu was a man apart. Qingyuan Temple was the place where he went for quiet cultivation. The fact that he was willing to share that place with her meant she had already stepped closer to him.

From the day Mu Wan had first said she wanted to pursue Liu Qianxiu to now, when there had finally been real progress, Lin Wei felt like she had spent years grinding through a game and had finally reached the clear screen ending.

“So are you going to confess?” Lin Wei asked.

Looking up at the ceiling, Mu Wan thought about it for a moment.

“I’m going to try something small first.”

If it failed, she would cut her losses and go back to the warm-water method of slowly boiling the frog.

If it worked, then she would just go all the way and claim him.

After hanging up, Mu Wan kept packing.

By the time her small suitcase was full, she looked at the clock and saw it was already five. Sitting beside the luggage, she called Liu Qianxiu.

“Liu Qianxiu, what time do you get off today?”

Mu Wan took a taxi to Tang’er Hospital.

Liu Qianxiu had a meeting today and said he would be getting off later than usual. He had told her to go directly to his place later instead. But staying home by herself would have been boring anyway, so she decided to go wait for him at the hospital.

After arriving, she went straight to his office.

Evening was still hot and humid, but inside the hospital, it was always cool and airy, with that faint smell of disinfectant drifting everywhere. Slipping past the crowds, Mu Wan took the elevator up to Liu Qianxiu’s floor.

When she stepped out, the slanting sunset was spilling into the corridor.

With the eyes of several nurses following her and their whispers rising softly behind her, Mu Wan walked to Liu Qianxiu’s office door.

Before she even reached it, she heard voices.

And footsteps.

The door opened.

A bespectacled male doctor came out first. His eyes lit up when he saw her, and he smiled as he asked, “Who are you here for?”

There were several doctors at the doorway, men and women both. Some Mu Wan recognized, some she did not. Looking past them, she fixed her eyes on the tallest one.

Liu Qianxiu said mildly, “For me.”

The doctors all looked from one to another. Someone even glanced at Xiao Yun beside them. Since she was clearly here for Liu Qianxiu, it would be awkward for them to keep blocking the way.

The group left the office, and Liu Qianxiu stepped out as well.

“Are you going to your meeting?” Mu Wan asked, watching the doctors in white coats continue discussing something as they walked away. A few of the male doctors still glanced back at her, expressions mixed with surprise and admiration.

“Mm.” Liu Qianxiu still had a surgical report in hand.

“Then go.” Mu Wan smiled and pointed into the office. “I’ll wait for you here.”

“Okay.”

Liu Qianxiu answered and started walking toward the others.

But before fully turning away, he went back into his office.

Mu Wan assumed he had forgotten something and followed him in. Liu Qianxiu opened the desk drawer and took something out. Before she could make out what it was, he had already held it out toward her.

A carton of strawberry milk.

“ It may take a while,” he said. “If you get hungry, drink this first.”

The pink packaging looked oddly mismatched with the cool doctor aura around him. He probably had not bought it for himself.

Mu Wan’s heart first softened, then gave a tiny sour twist as she remembered seeing Xiao Yun outside just now.

“Where did this come from?” she asked, looking up at him without taking it.

Holding the milk carton, the man’s dark eyes stayed calm and patient.

“I bought it.”

The sour little fog in her chest vanished.

Mu Wan parted her lips, looked away, and felt heat rise at the tips of her ears. She took the carton, tore open the straw, and stuck it in, trying to sound casual.

“So you like this flavor too? I like it too.”

Through the clear straw, pale pink liquid rose slowly. She sipped at it in little mouthfuls, and it really did seem to suit her taste. Even the corners of her eyes lit with delight.

Liu Qianxiu’s lashes shifted very slightly.

Without lingering, he turned and left the office.

This meeting really did take a while.

After finishing the strawberry milk, Mu Wan played two rounds of a mobile game. The big WeChat group for supporting actors at the film base kept buzzing nonstop. IP adaptations were booming lately, and one production after another was coming out. There were so many actors, yet most people still managed to get work every week.

She could take it easy this week.

But if her roles were still being cut next week, she planned to go find Mu Qing. The bit about living off Lin Wei had only been a joke. She had trained as an actress and only knew how to be an actress. She was not about to let Mu Qing knock her out of her own profession with just a few petty tricks.

Besides, her mother’s death anniversary was coming soon.

At that thought, Mu Wan lifted her eyes toward the window.

It was six in the evening. The summer sun still hung high, though no longer with the harsh blaze of noon. Looking at that gentler light, Mu Wan pressed her lips together.

The tenth anniversary of her mother’s death.

Also, the tenth year since she had become truly fatherless and motherless.

Liu Qianxiu stood in the doorway watching her, his gaze lowered.

Only after she had smoothed the gloom out of her expression and lowered her head again to play her game did he push the door open and walk inside.

Mu Wan turned at the sound. Something in her eyes jumped. She set down her phone and looked at him.

“You’re done?”

“Mm.”

Liu Qianxiu came in, set down the papers in his hand, and shrugged off his white coat. Without it, the fitted clothes underneath made him look even more striking than the sunset outside—lean, cool, and painfully bright.

Mu Wan stared without meaning to. By the time Liu Qianxiu came to stand in front of her, she had only just pulled herself back together.

She rose from her chair.

“We need to take the cats to my friend’s place first,” Liu Qianxiu said. “I have surgery tomorrow, so I won’t have time to go then.”

“The same friend as last time?” Mu Wan thought of Xu Xingkong—that gentle woman who felt like lavender and soft wind.

“Mm.”

“Do you have another strawberry milk?”

Mu Wan asked.

Liu Qianxiu did not answer.

He simply went to the office drawer, took out another carton, and handed it to her.

“Don’t drink too much on an empty stomach.”

She shook the pink carton lightly. The sweet milky liquid bumped softly against the sides, and Mu Wan smiled.

“It’s not for me.”

She wanted to give it to Xu Xingkong.

Last time, Xu Xingkong had given her a plum—sweet enough to leave a memory.

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