"What are you looking at." Xie Qingcheng finished washing his hands, took two sheets of tissue to wipe them clean and glanced at He Yu.
Teenager He Yu then asked, "Dr. Xie, on your wrist ......"
Xie Qingcheng's eyes darkened and he looked down to notice that his sleeves were rolled up too high, exposing the upper part of his wrists, and immediately tried to lower them.
But the second half of He Yu's question is already out there, "What is the text?"
"......" Xie Qingcheng paused for a few seconds, sternly loosening his cufflinks and flattening the cuffs, his brow indifferent, "The one who sleeps here is known as Shu on the Water."
"Why text this? Do you like graves?"
Xie Qingcheng rolled his eyes and raised his wrist to re-set the cufflinks, "I like Keats."
He Yu was not talking to Xie Qingcheng much at that time, and although he thought, "You don't need to put his epitaph on your arm even if you like Keats," he didn't ask any more questions when he saw Xie Qingcheng's unhappy face and obviously didn't want to talk to him any more.
Presumably Xie Xue liked his brother's taste for carrying an epitaph on his body.
With this in mind, the teenager went to a tattoo parlour near the school that evening.
He was greeted by a smiling shopkeeper, holding several large, thick atlases for him to look at, and he looked down for a moment at the pages full of gods and goddesses and sprites and puffballs, interrupting the shopkeeper's dense recommendation.
"Is there an epitaph?"
"The most popular is this flying dragon tattoo, look at the finger claws, the - ah? An epitaph?"
Of course the tattoo parlour didn't have any samples of such a bizarre item, but the owner had seen a lot of ghosts and snakes from all over the world, and the customers who came for tattoos had made all sorts of strange requests, so after only a brief moment of surprise, he enthusiastically recommended him: "No epitaphs, but if you like cooler writing, the six-word motto is pretty hot."
He Yu smiled sagely, "I'll find out for myself then."
Advertisement
He concluded by giving the shopkeeper three lines of poetry -
Nothg of hi that doth fade.
But doth suffer a sea-ge.
Into sothg rid strange.
"That long might hurt for a long time, and there are a few more lines of text, so why don't we find something shorter?"
He Yu said, "It's okay, I'll take this one."
There is actually a shorter Latin epitaph on the poet's tomb, but he wanted something exactly like Xie Qingcheng's, a long line that rests on his wrist like a bracelet, so he chose this section of the poem carved on the tombstone.
Nothing about him ever goes away.
Just sinking into the fickle ocean of
Transformed into a prosperous and splendid curiosity.
The shopkeeper rolled up He Yu's sleeve and was shocked: "Oh, you have so many scars here! What's wrong with you, handsome? Did someone bully you at school? Do you look like you have scars?"
He Yu frowned, "Can't you text with a scar?"
"Yes, of course, why don't I text you this on the most obvious scar and still cover it ......"
"No need to cover it, I want the text a little above the wrist." He Yu gestured, "That's it, please."
The verses were well-written, burning hotly on the teenager's wrist, the finely torn flesh glowing red, the slightly tilted words seeping into the skin by a special potion.
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He Yu looked at it, felt satisfied and paid for it and left the small shop.
But he could not have imagined that he would be allergic to the tattoo potion.
I woke up groggy, not only was the writing on my wrist red and blurred, but even my head was burning from an allergic reaction.
He Jiwei and Lv Zhishu were both in Yan Zhou with their second son on the day of his unlucky brother's admission celebration, and even then, Lv Zhishu made seven or eight phone calls asking He Yu to remember to turn on his computer and video his brother.
"You, being an older brother and always being a role model for everyone, always have to wish your younger brother well in school, right?"
He Yu's character is aloof and dignified, what soft words and weak words are not willing to say, plus his own attitude towards his parents is very distant, naturally it is impossible to tell Lv Zhishu that he is sick. So bracing himself, he got up and hugged his laptop, curled up on the sofa, turned on the webcam at the appointed time, covered up his flawless masquerade, very properly sent congratulations to the person on the other side of the video, and ......
"Pop".
No sooner had the communication screen ended than a long, bony hand poked out from behind him and unceremoniously closed the notebook resting on his lap.
He Yu was taken aback and turned his head up to see Xie Qingcheng standing behind the sofa.
Xie Qingcheng's broad-shouldered, long-legged, poker-faced, peach-blossom eyes were downcast as she looked down at him: "Rest when you're sick."
He Yu: "I just got halfway through talking to them."
Xie Qingcheng stood behind the sofa and reached out to touch the forehead of He Yu, who had turned his head to look at him from the sofa.
His hand is slightly cool, and the touch on He Yu's hot skin is indescribably refreshing. He Yu instinctively breathes in, subconsciously squinting his eyes and pressing forward, his head gently arching against Xie Qingcheng's hand, so comfortable that he cannot say the next words for a while.
"Kid, you've got a fever."
After touching his forehead, Xie Qingcheng leaned over and picked up the thin notebook from He Yu's lap, who was sitting cross-legged on the sofa.
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He Yu scuffled halfway back to his senses: "My computer ......"
Xie Qingcheng wasn't going to give him back his computer, but said, "It's just an admission celebration, but you yourself, how come you suddenly had such a high fever and didn't even say a word to anyone."
"It's okay, this is a small matter, you don't have to care so much." He Yu tried to reach the notebook in Xie Qingcheng's hand again.
Xie Qingcheng held the object in his hand higher: "You are my patient, if I don't care about you, who else can I expect to care about you."
"......"
He Yu clutches Xie Qingcheng's arm across the back of the sofa and stares at him, trying several times to say something in retort, but unable to find the right words.
And so the two sit, one sitting, the other standing, he reaching out to tug at him, he looking back at him. The dusk breeze ruffled the snowy curtains, and the heavy oil-painted light streamed in through the edge of the slightly open window.
Perhaps it was because at that time, the sick and lonely boy was so pathetic that Xie Qingcheng's eyes, which were always cold and unfeeling, had the illusion of being somewhat softer.
"He Yu ." He said, "You live too tightly, you can't be perfect in everything."
He Yu: "Dr Xie, you're just a doctor, you don't have to think about these things for me, just give me back my notebook, I have to finish my work."
The two men confronted each other, but finally Xie Qingcheng lifted his laptop and tapped the corner of He Yu's forehead: "Follow the doctor's orders."
Then Xie Qingcheng's eyes dropped and he inadvertently caught a small sliver of skin faintly showing under the corner of his sleeve.
He frowned, "What's wrong with your hand?"
He Yu was struck by electricity and immediately withdrew his hand from Xie Qingcheng's and tried to pull his sleeve back.
But Xie Qingcheng was already one step ahead of him, clutching He Yu's arm with a backhand and then lifting He Yu's long sleeve -
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Xie Qingcheng: "......"
He Yu: "......"
Xie Qingcheng: "Did you get a tattoo?"
He Yu: "No."
"You don't have tattoo potion on this wrist?"
"......"
"Do you have nothing to do? How old are you? Does the school allow you to do that?"
"......" He Yu said nothing, but the invisible dragon's tail flapped violently and anxiously behind him.
Xie Qingcheng's eyes darted back and forth between his wrist and his face, and after a long time, he seemed to understand: "...... He Yu: are you ...... imitating me? "
This really hurts Xiao Long's son.
The boy's face turned white with anger, but he could not say a word, so he looked at Xie Qingcheng with a fierce glare, his face as ugly as if he had eaten a poisonous mushroom.
"Are you taking after me?"
".................." He Yu jumped up from the couch and was about to leave. "It was designed by a tattoo artist, who wants to emulate you, you're not handsome, not good looking at all, I don't like your taste at all ......"
But he may have overestimated his physical condition, and within two steps, his feet felt as if he was stepping on cotton, and then the world spun before his eyes.
The problem was that He Yu was indeed very small at the time, only reaching Xie Qingcheng's knees.
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And now ......
He turned his head almost furiously, not pretending to be a good boy anymore, and squeezed the back of Xie Qingcheng's neck, "You put me down! It's so humiliating ......"
"Don't want me to give you an over-the-shoulder slam, get your little raggedy paws off my neck."
He Yu: "...... You let go of me first! I'm twelve years old!"
"It's not even as old as I am when you read it backwards, and even if you're taller, you're still a kid in junior high."
"Xie Qingcheng !!!"
Xie Qingcheng paused for a moment, still lightly, but with what sounded like a transgressive smile in his voice: " He Yu . I didn't expect you to admire me so much."
"Who worships you now!!!"
"You like Shelley?"
"Not at all! I like graves!"
A lot of noise all the way around.
To this day, He Yu wonders if the light smile that was clearly not part of the doctor-patient relationship was an illusion caused by the fact that he was so badly burned at the time.
Not to mention the fact that so much time has passed that He Yu no longer remembers many details.
What he can still vividly recall is the night when Xie Qingcheng carried him back to his bedroom, gave him an anti-allergy shot and then went to the bedroom terrace for a long phone call with Lv Zhishu.
He Yu was lying on his bed, through the floor-to-ceiling glass door, and could not hear what Xie Qingcheng was saying to Lv Zhishu, but he could see that Xie Qingcheng kept raising his hand and rubbing his brow bone, as if he was suppressing some emotion during the conversation, and towards the end, Xie Qingcheng's words were clearly heated, and he was angry that night.
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Xie Qingcheng stood on the balcony, holding his mobile phone, and spoke heavily to Lv Zhishu, with hostility between his eyebrows -
It's really not necessary.
He Yu thought as he watched him struggle to communicate with his mother between the pillows and blankets.
It really isn't necessary.
What is the point of this begged-for care, this begged-for pity?
Xie Qingcheng pushes the door in, and He Yu turns around and closes his eyes before he enters, pretending to be asleep so as not to upset himself further.
He smelled the light, cold smell of disinfectant on Xie Qingcheng's body, but for some reason, perhaps wrapped in the moonlit chill of the bright night, it was not as unpleasant as before.
Xie Qingcheng sat down next to him and watched him for a while. At that time, Xie Qingcheng also thought He Yu had fallen asleep, so his voice was very soft, but when he spoke, He Yu could still hear that his voice was a little hoarse, the hoarse sound of exhaustion after arguing with Lv Zhishu for a long time, but still to no avail.
"Forget it." The man said faintly.
The moon was clear and crisp, spilling over the bed, and with a forgetfulness that somehow revealed a warmth that had never been seen before.
"Kid ...... you get some rest, I'm fine for a few days, I can keep you company."
"......"
That moment -
It was at that moment that He Yu's heart suddenly felt a sharp, indescribable pain.
It was a taste he had almost never clearly perceived before, as if a rusty knife, already born in one place with his flesh and blood, had been violently awakened by this sentence with a sigh and had begun to twist inside his chest and try to pull it out.
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He was in so much pain that he couldn't breathe, but he had to be quiet so that Xie Qingcheng wouldn't find out he was still awake.
He knew that Xie Qingcheng had failed in his bargaining, a result that did not surprise him, except that he suddenly realised that no one before Xie Qingcheng had ever even made such an effort for him not to be alone.
No one has ever chosen to stand between He Li and himself and ask the parents, who seem to be strangers to each other, a question for themselves.
Why.
He Yu's face is tilted to the side in the dark, his thick eyelashes hanging quietly, and where Xie Qingcheng cannot see, a tear slowly seeps out, down his cheek, and falls silently onto the goose down pillow.
He remained silent and disguised in this strange dull pain in his heart, until at last the false became true and he literally drifted off to sleep.
The next morning, He Yu woke up early with his fever gone.
The morning light shone through the wind-swept curtains, the birds cried outside the window, and his mind was as clear as if it had been washed-
He blinked, adjusted himself, rolled over, and was just about to get up when he saw Xie Qingcheng, pillowed on his arm beside the bed, his forehead hair hanging in a few strands.
That was the first time he had seen Xie Qingcheng sleeping.
It's calm, it's breezy, it's quiet and translucent like a thin soul, like the first rays of morning light falling on the window pane after the night has passed.
His gaze involuntarily moves down to Xie Qingcheng's wrist.
Xie Qingcheng is sleeping on his left arm, the cuff of which is open because one of the buttons has been loosened in his sleep, leaving the skin and bones of his thin wrist exposed, so pale it stings.
He Yu looked at the line on his wrist that he had glimpsed before but had never looked at word for word -
"Here lies one whose na was written water"
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The Long Sleeper of this Place, the Book of Reputation on the Water ......
.
He Yu left the clubhouse, his mind in turmoil, and walked aimlessly.
All along the way, he was thinking about this mess, but - and why was he remembering these past events?
Whatever the past, whatever Xie Qingcheng's feelings at the time, saying to him, "It's okay, kid, I'm here for you," would have been a lie.
Xie Qingcheng was touched at the time, and when he left, he was stabbed deep and hard in the heart.
It's not that He Yu hasn't thought about why Xie Qingcheng had to leave in the quiet of the night over the years.
Is he not doing enough?
Was he not as normal a person as he would have liked to be?
On the day of his junior year, at the age of fourteen, he stood in front of Xie Qingcheng, standing in a hard pestle, not even having the courage to ask that man a question - Xie Qingcheng, tell me, what you said to me that day, the temperature you gave me, did I think wrong?
Did I misunderstand?
It's all about the simple, dry doctor-patient relationship you speak of, isn't it?
Seven years.
Xie Qingcheng, you should see a little bit of affection when you stop by to treat a homeless dog, right?
So why can you separate so clearly, why can you walk away so crisply ...... Why can you be so full of reasoning, talking about employment, contracts, rules - and as if forgetting that you too have occasionally shown me, the one and a half that perhaps should not belong to The doctor's compassion and warmth.
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He felt so humiliated when he was left behind.
His pride was badly hurt and he felt that Xie Qingcheng had slapped him on the cheek with a hot slap.
So much so that He Yu never wanted to think about it later on - it was just his own self-interest anyway.
He has so little that when he gets a little marginal scrap-like affection from someone else, he treasures it ridiculously and thinks he's got a priceless treasure.
How conspicuous and humiliating.
He Yu's pride allows him to snuff out the slightest touch of the past with his own hands and then seal it mercilessly in a coffin.
Until this moment -
He Yu closed his eyes as the coffin of memories was opened, and before his eyes he recalled Xie Qingcheng arguing with his own mother on the terrace without being overbearing, and the sigh that fell on his pillow as he pushed wearily through the door.
Forget it.
Little Ghost.
I'm fine for a few days, I can stay with you.
"......"
Xie Qingcheng gave him faith and companionship, but then Xie Qingcheng left so completely and ruthlessly that he could always be calm and clear, weighing the pros and cons clearly. He would be willing to study psychiatry, but he would also leave the hospital because he didn't want to be the next Qin Ciyan. He would say nice things about treating the mentally ill equally, but at the same time he would say that human life is precious and that the life of a doctor is much more precious than the life of a mental patient.
Xie Qingcheng is too complex and contradictory a person.
He Yu felt that nothing about Xie Qingcheng was real, except for the man who had been literally tortured to the point of powerlessness beneath him last night.
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It's all fake.
It was a kaleidoscope of people and he was too young to see through him.
The teenager walked irritably for a long time with no destination in sight, and when he came back to his senses, he found that he had unwittingly walked near Xie Qingcheng's house.
--
"Get out of the way! I have something at home, I want to go home!"
The words that Xie Qingcheng had left behind when he had argued with him earlier echoed in his ears at the moment.
He Yu stood on this side of the road, hands in his trouser pockets, looking blankly at the chaotic scene at the entrance to Strange Rain Lane on the other side of the road, where there were even many police officers.
He probably knew what was going on in the Xie Qingcheng household.
"What are you looking at." Xie Qingcheng finished washing his hands, took two sheets of tissue to wipe them clean and glanced at He Yu.
Teenager He Yu then asked, "Dr. Xie, on your wrist ......"
Xie Qingcheng's eyes darkened and he looked down to notice that his sleeves were rolled up too high, exposing the upper part of his wrists, and immediately tried to lower them.
But the second half of He Yu's question is already out there, "What is the text?"
"......" Xie Qingcheng paused for a few seconds, sternly loosening his cufflinks and flattening the cuffs, his brow indifferent, "The one who sleeps here is known as Shu on the Water."
"Why text this? Do you like graves?"
Xie Qingcheng rolled his eyes and raised his wrist to re-set the cufflinks, "I like Keats."
He Yu was not talking to Xie Qingcheng much at that time, and although he thought, "You don't need to put his epitaph on your arm even if you like Keats," he didn't ask any more questions when he saw Xie Qingcheng's unhappy face and obviously didn't want to talk to him any more.
Presumably Xie Xue liked his brother's taste for carrying an epitaph on his body.
With this in mind, the teenager went to a tattoo parlour near the school that evening.
He was greeted by a smiling shopkeeper, holding several large, thick atlases for him to look at, and he looked down for a moment at the pages full of gods and goddesses and sprites and puffballs, interrupting the shopkeeper's dense recommendation.
"Is there an epitaph?"
"The most popular is this flying dragon tattoo, look at the finger claws, the - ah? An epitaph?"
Of course the tattoo parlour didn't have any samples of such a bizarre item, but the owner had seen a lot of ghosts and snakes from all over the world, and the customers who came for tattoos had made all sorts of strange requests, so after only a brief moment of surprise, he enthusiastically recommended him: "No epitaphs, but if you like cooler writing, the six-word motto is pretty hot."
He Yu smiled sagely, "I'll find out for myself then."
Advertisement
He concluded by giving the shopkeeper three lines of poetry -
Nothg of hi that doth fade.
But doth suffer a sea-ge.
Into sothg rid strange.
"That long might hurt for a long time, and there are a few more lines of text, so why don't we find something shorter?"
He Yu said, "It's okay, I'll take this one."
There is actually a shorter Latin epitaph on the poet's tomb, but he wanted something exactly like Xie Qingcheng's, a long line that rests on his wrist like a bracelet, so he chose this section of the poem carved on the tombstone.
Nothing about him ever goes away.
Just sinking into the fickle ocean of
Transformed into a prosperous and splendid curiosity.
The shopkeeper rolled up He Yu's sleeve and was shocked: "Oh, you have so many scars here! What's wrong with you, handsome? Did someone bully you at school? Do you look like you have scars?"
He Yu frowned, "Can't you text with a scar?"
"Yes, of course, why don't I text you this on the most obvious scar and still cover it ......"
"No need to cover it, I want the text a little above the wrist." He Yu gestured, "That's it, please."
The verses were well-written, burning hotly on the teenager's wrist, the finely torn flesh glowing red, the slightly tilted words seeping into the skin by a special potion.
Advertisement
He Yu looked at it, felt satisfied and paid for it and left the small shop.
But he could not have imagined that he would be allergic to the tattoo potion.
I woke up groggy, not only was the writing on my wrist red and blurred, but even my head was burning from an allergic reaction.
He Jiwei and Lv Zhishu were both in Yan Zhou with their second son on the day of his unlucky brother's admission celebration, and even then, Lv Zhishu made seven or eight phone calls asking He Yu to remember to turn on his computer and video his brother.
"You, being an older brother and always being a role model for everyone, always have to wish your younger brother well in school, right?"
He Yu's character is aloof and dignified, what soft words and weak words are not willing to say, plus his own attitude towards his parents is very distant, naturally it is impossible to tell Lv Zhishu that he is sick. So bracing himself, he got up and hugged his laptop, curled up on the sofa, turned on the webcam at the appointed time, covered up his flawless masquerade, very properly sent congratulations to the person on the other side of the video, and ......
"Pop".
No sooner had the communication screen ended than a long, bony hand poked out from behind him and unceremoniously closed the notebook resting on his lap.
He Yu was taken aback and turned his head up to see Xie Qingcheng standing behind the sofa.
Xie Qingcheng's broad-shouldered, long-legged, poker-faced, peach-blossom eyes were downcast as she looked down at him: "Rest when you're sick."
He Yu: "I just got halfway through talking to them."
Xie Qingcheng stood behind the sofa and reached out to touch the forehead of He Yu, who had turned his head to look at him from the sofa.
His hand is slightly cool, and the touch on He Yu's hot skin is indescribably refreshing. He Yu instinctively breathes in, subconsciously squinting his eyes and pressing forward, his head gently arching against Xie Qingcheng's hand, so comfortable that he cannot say the next words for a while.
"Kid, you've got a fever."
After touching his forehead, Xie Qingcheng leaned over and picked up the thin notebook from He Yu's lap, who was sitting cross-legged on the sofa.
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He Yu scuffled halfway back to his senses: "My computer ......"
Xie Qingcheng wasn't going to give him back his computer, but said, "It's just an admission celebration, but you yourself, how come you suddenly had such a high fever and didn't even say a word to anyone."
"It's okay, this is a small matter, you don't have to care so much." He Yu tried to reach the notebook in Xie Qingcheng's hand again.
Xie Qingcheng held the object in his hand higher: "You are my patient, if I don't care about you, who else can I expect to care about you."
"......"
He Yu clutches Xie Qingcheng's arm across the back of the sofa and stares at him, trying several times to say something in retort, but unable to find the right words.
And so the two sit, one sitting, the other standing, he reaching out to tug at him, he looking back at him. The dusk breeze ruffled the snowy curtains, and the heavy oil-painted light streamed in through the edge of the slightly open window.
Perhaps it was because at that time, the sick and lonely boy was so pathetic that Xie Qingcheng's eyes, which were always cold and unfeeling, had the illusion of being somewhat softer.
"He Yu ." He said, "You live too tightly, you can't be perfect in everything."
He Yu: "Dr Xie, you're just a doctor, you don't have to think about these things for me, just give me back my notebook, I have to finish my work."
The two men confronted each other, but finally Xie Qingcheng lifted his laptop and tapped the corner of He Yu's forehead: "Follow the doctor's orders."
Then Xie Qingcheng's eyes dropped and he inadvertently caught a small sliver of skin faintly showing under the corner of his sleeve.
He frowned, "What's wrong with your hand?"
He Yu was struck by electricity and immediately withdrew his hand from Xie Qingcheng's and tried to pull his sleeve back.
But Xie Qingcheng was already one step ahead of him, clutching He Yu's arm with a backhand and then lifting He Yu's long sleeve -
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Xie Qingcheng: "......"
He Yu: "......"
Xie Qingcheng: "Did you get a tattoo?"
He Yu: "No."
"You don't have tattoo potion on this wrist?"
"......"
"Do you have nothing to do? How old are you? Does the school allow you to do that?"
"......" He Yu said nothing, but the invisible dragon's tail flapped violently and anxiously behind him.
Xie Qingcheng's eyes darted back and forth between his wrist and his face, and after a long time, he seemed to understand: "...... He Yu: are you ...... imitating me? "
This really hurts Xiao Long's son.
The boy's face turned white with anger, but he could not say a word, so he looked at Xie Qingcheng with a fierce glare, his face as ugly as if he had eaten a poisonous mushroom.
"Are you taking after me?"
".................." He Yu jumped up from the couch and was about to leave. "It was designed by a tattoo artist, who wants to emulate you, you're not handsome, not good looking at all, I don't like your taste at all ......"
But he may have overestimated his physical condition, and within two steps, his feet felt as if he was stepping on cotton, and then the world spun before his eyes.
The problem was that He Yu was indeed very small at the time, only reaching Xie Qingcheng's knees.
Advertisement
And now ......
He turned his head almost furiously, not pretending to be a good boy anymore, and squeezed the back of Xie Qingcheng's neck, "You put me down! It's so humiliating ......"
"Don't want me to give you an over-the-shoulder slam, get your little raggedy paws off my neck."
He Yu: "...... You let go of me first! I'm twelve years old!"
"It's not even as old as I am when you read it backwards, and even if you're taller, you're still a kid in junior high."
"Xie Qingcheng !!!"
Xie Qingcheng paused for a moment, still lightly, but with what sounded like a transgressive smile in his voice: " He Yu . I didn't expect you to admire me so much."
"Who worships you now!!!"
"You like Shelley?"
"Not at all! I like graves!"
A lot of noise all the way around.
To this day, He Yu wonders if the light smile that was clearly not part of the doctor-patient relationship was an illusion caused by the fact that he was so badly burned at the time.
Not to mention the fact that so much time has passed that He Yu no longer remembers many details.
What he can still vividly recall is the night when Xie Qingcheng carried him back to his bedroom, gave him an anti-allergy shot and then went to the bedroom terrace for a long phone call with Lv Zhishu.
He Yu was lying on his bed, through the floor-to-ceiling glass door, and could not hear what Xie Qingcheng was saying to Lv Zhishu, but he could see that Xie Qingcheng kept raising his hand and rubbing his brow bone, as if he was suppressing some emotion during the conversation, and towards the end, Xie Qingcheng's words were clearly heated, and he was angry that night.
Advertisement
Xie Qingcheng stood on the balcony, holding his mobile phone, and spoke heavily to Lv Zhishu, with hostility between his eyebrows -
It's really not necessary.
He Yu thought as he watched him struggle to communicate with his mother between the pillows and blankets.
It really isn't necessary.
What is the point of this begged-for care, this begged-for pity?
Xie Qingcheng pushes the door in, and He Yu turns around and closes his eyes before he enters, pretending to be asleep so as not to upset himself further.
He smelled the light, cold smell of disinfectant on Xie Qingcheng's body, but for some reason, perhaps wrapped in the moonlit chill of the bright night, it was not as unpleasant as before.
Xie Qingcheng sat down next to him and watched him for a while. At that time, Xie Qingcheng also thought He Yu had fallen asleep, so his voice was very soft, but when he spoke, He Yu could still hear that his voice was a little hoarse, the hoarse sound of exhaustion after arguing with Lv Zhishu for a long time, but still to no avail.
"Forget it." The man said faintly.
The moon was clear and crisp, spilling over the bed, and with a forgetfulness that somehow revealed a warmth that had never been seen before.
"Kid ...... you get some rest, I'm fine for a few days, I can keep you company."
"......"
That moment -
It was at that moment that He Yu's heart suddenly felt a sharp, indescribable pain.
It was a taste he had almost never clearly perceived before, as if a rusty knife, already born in one place with his flesh and blood, had been violently awakened by this sentence with a sigh and had begun to twist inside his chest and try to pull it out.
Advertisement
He was in so much pain that he couldn't breathe, but he had to be quiet so that Xie Qingcheng wouldn't find out he was still awake.
He knew that Xie Qingcheng had failed in his bargaining, a result that did not surprise him, except that he suddenly realised that no one before Xie Qingcheng had ever even made such an effort for him not to be alone.
No one has ever chosen to stand between He Li and himself and ask the parents, who seem to be strangers to each other, a question for themselves.
Why.
He Yu's face is tilted to the side in the dark, his thick eyelashes hanging quietly, and where Xie Qingcheng cannot see, a tear slowly seeps out, down his cheek, and falls silently onto the goose down pillow.
He remained silent and disguised in this strange dull pain in his heart, until at last the false became true and he literally drifted off to sleep.
The next morning, He Yu woke up early with his fever gone.
The morning light shone through the wind-swept curtains, the birds cried outside the window, and his mind was as clear as if it had been washed-
He blinked, adjusted himself, rolled over, and was just about to get up when he saw Xie Qingcheng, pillowed on his arm beside the bed, his forehead hair hanging in a few strands.
That was the first time he had seen Xie Qingcheng sleeping.
It's calm, it's breezy, it's quiet and translucent like a thin soul, like the first rays of morning light falling on the window pane after the night has passed.
His gaze involuntarily moves down to Xie Qingcheng's wrist.
Xie Qingcheng is sleeping on his left arm, the cuff of which is open because one of the buttons has been loosened in his sleep, leaving the skin and bones of his thin wrist exposed, so pale it stings.
He Yu looked at the line on his wrist that he had glimpsed before but had never looked at word for word -
"Here lies one whose na was written water"
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The Long Sleeper of this Place, the Book of Reputation on the Water ......
.
He Yu left the clubhouse, his mind in turmoil, and walked aimlessly.
All along the way, he was thinking about this mess, but - and why was he remembering these past events?
Whatever the past, whatever Xie Qingcheng's feelings at the time, saying to him, "It's okay, kid, I'm here for you," would have been a lie.
Xie Qingcheng was touched at the time, and when he left, he was stabbed deep and hard in the heart.
It's not that He Yu hasn't thought about why Xie Qingcheng had to leave in the quiet of the night over the years.
Is he not doing enough?
Was he not as normal a person as he would have liked to be?
On the day of his junior year, at the age of fourteen, he stood in front of Xie Qingcheng, standing in a hard pestle, not even having the courage to ask that man a question - Xie Qingcheng, tell me, what you said to me that day, the temperature you gave me, did I think wrong?
Did I misunderstand?
It's all about the simple, dry doctor-patient relationship you speak of, isn't it?
Seven years.
Xie Qingcheng, you should see a little bit of affection when you stop by to treat a homeless dog, right?
So why can you separate so clearly, why can you walk away so crisply ...... Why can you be so full of reasoning, talking about employment, contracts, rules - and as if forgetting that you too have occasionally shown me, the one and a half that perhaps should not belong to The doctor's compassion and warmth.
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He felt so humiliated when he was left behind.
His pride was badly hurt and he felt that Xie Qingcheng had slapped him on the cheek with a hot slap.
So much so that He Yu never wanted to think about it later on - it was just his own self-interest anyway.
He has so little that when he gets a little marginal scrap-like affection from someone else, he treasures it ridiculously and thinks he's got a priceless treasure.
How conspicuous and humiliating.
He Yu's pride allows him to snuff out the slightest touch of the past with his own hands and then seal it mercilessly in a coffin.
Until this moment -
He Yu closed his eyes as the coffin of memories was opened, and before his eyes he recalled Xie Qingcheng arguing with his own mother on the terrace without being overbearing, and the sigh that fell on his pillow as he pushed wearily through the door.
Forget it.
Little Ghost.
I'm fine for a few days, I can stay with you.
"......"
Xie Qingcheng gave him faith and companionship, but then Xie Qingcheng left so completely and ruthlessly that he could always be calm and clear, weighing the pros and cons clearly. He would be willing to study psychiatry, but he would also leave the hospital because he didn't want to be the next Qin Ciyan. He would say nice things about treating the mentally ill equally, but at the same time he would say that human life is precious and that the life of a doctor is much more precious than the life of a mental patient.
Xie Qingcheng is too complex and contradictory a person.
He Yu felt that nothing about Xie Qingcheng was real, except for the man who had been literally tortured to the point of powerlessness beneath him last night.
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It's all fake.
It was a kaleidoscope of people and he was too young to see through him.
The teenager walked irritably for a long time with no destination in sight, and when he came back to his senses, he found that he had unwittingly walked near Xie Qingcheng's house.
--
"Get out of the way! I have something at home, I want to go home!"
The words that Xie Qingcheng had left behind when he had argued with him earlier echoed in his ears at the moment.
He Yu stood on this side of the road, hands in his trouser pockets, looking blankly at the chaotic scene at the entrance to Strange Rain Lane on the other side of the road, where there were even many police officers.
He probably knew what was going on in the Xie Qingcheng household.
