“I’m not dead yet.”
Cui Qijin said it weakly, biting her lip lightly as cold sweat beaded on her forehead. Rain pattered against the windows, and the wiper swooshed across the windshield, revealing the wet neon glow outside. The air inside the ambulance hung heavy with dampness.
The on-call doctor wiped water from his face. Hearing her words, he paused in his work, his tone laced with suspicion. “Huh?”
He tugged at his mask, clearly dissatisfied. “I’m just sittin’ right here, little missy. What kinda talk is that?”
Just then, the ambulance jolted as if it had hit a speed bump. The narrow stretcher rocked with it, and Cui Qijin’s waist twisted sharply. She sucked in a gasp of cold air from the pain.
A trembling, panicked female voice immediately sounded from the foot of the bed.
“Cui Muhuo, are you okay?”
After saying that, the woman sniffled pitifully.
Cui Qijin was in too much pain to respond right away. She just gritted her teeth and exhaled shakily.
“She says she ain’t dead yet,” the doctor said bluntly on her behalf. He gently pressed around her waist over her clothes. “Does it hurt here?”
Cui Qijin forced herself to ignore the pain elsewhere and shook her head with effort.
The woman over there breathed along with her for a few moments. Then a soft whimper escaped her lips, her nasal tone even heavier now with tension as she anxiously told the doctor,
“She says it doesn’t hurt here.”
“What about here?” The doctor shifted his hand to a different spot.
“The doctor’s asking if it hurts here?” Chi Buyu echoed.
“…Here.” Cui Qijin parted her dry lips. “A little, maybe.”
“She says it hurts a little here,” Chi Buyu relayed quickly.
“Mm-hmm.” The doctor nodded. “Looks like acute lumbar strain. You got any old injuries in your lower back? If so, this might’ve triggered ’em.”
“The doctor’s asking if you had any old back injuries before?” Chi Buyu had suddenly turned into a human message relay. It was as if, without passing words between them, she wouldn’t know what to do with herself right now.
And yet she was the one farthest from the patient.
Before? Cui Qijin suddenly couldn’t recall the past. Had Chi Buyu ever turned into a message relay like this before?
“Before…”
Before she could answer, Chi Buyu seemed to remember something and jumped in first. “Right, she had a back injury before. Back in college, she twisted it playing volleyball in PE and had to stay in bed for a week. I remember Chen Wenran was the one bringing her meals and attending classes for her that whole time…”
She trailed off, sounding a bit unsure, and sought confirmation. “Right?”
“You even remember that?”
Cui Qijin pried her eyelids open wearily, trying to peer toward the figure at the foot of the bed.
The ambulance was cramped. It came standard with one doctor and one nurse, both needed close by for treatment and questions. With a back injury requiring her to lie prone, Chi Buyu had squeezed into the farthest corner.
Her glasses were fogged with rain. From Cui Qijin’s view, everything was hazy. She could barely make out a dark silhouette—
Chi Buyu huddled there, clutching her bag and umbrella, curled into a little ball. Her two buns had drooped in the chaos, with damp strands sticking out wetly. Water beaded on her hair. Her face was a blur, as if her makeup had run—red around the nose, a mix of red and black around the eyes, blending into splotches of color. She looked like…
A snowman, drenched and not very pretty at all.
“My memory’s always been pretty good.”
Chi Buyu wiped at the smudges on her right cheek, which looked half-melted. She said it to Cui Qijin, then turned back to the doctor.
“So yeah, that’s how it is. She’s got an old injury, and the last one was pretty bad too—a whole week in bed. Now that she’s twisted it again, could there be some serious long-term effects…?”
“We’ll need to get an X-ray at the hospital to check, little missy. Don’t worry.”
Chi Buyu nodded vigorously. “Mm-hmm, I’m not worried.”
She paused for two seconds, then leaned eagerly toward the nurse.
“So we’re going straight to the ER, right? Can the ER do ortho X-rays? And she doesn’t have her ID—can we still register? Should I get off and go back for it? Do we need anything else?”
She was like a frog spitting out a stream of question bubbles.
The nurse answered each one patiently. Cui Qijin lowered her sweat-slicked head. There was no way to give her emergency pain relief in the ambulance, and the ache in her waist hadn’t let up. Her head buzzed with the pain.
Vaguely, she heard the doctor chuckling nearby. “This girl’s got personality. When she called, she was bawlin’ her eyes out. It’s just two kilometers, but she called four or five times to hurry us, cryin’ and naggin’ the whole time. Even asked if we couldn’t make it, should she call the cops first.”
“To be honest, I thought someone was dyin’ if we were even a bit late. We blew through a buncha red lights. Good thing you’re okay. Otherwise, your friend’d be cryin’ a river.”
In Cui Qijin’s memory, Chi Buyu’s emotions were always full throttle. She loved to laugh, to get mad, and to cry. Once she started crying, it was hard to stop. Sometimes her mouth would just quiver, her lashes droop, and tears would come pouring out. Her tears took many forms—sometimes with hiccupping breaths, sometimes whimpering, sometimes sobbing, sometimes outright wailing. And most times, the next day she’d stare in the mirror at her puffy eyes and regret it all—regret having so many tears, regret not being able to hold them back.
Cui Qijin had never liked crybabies. To her, crying was always a sign of weakness.
Fate had a twisted sense of humor.
Of all people, Chi Buyu had to cry in front of her—painful cries, heartbroken ones, weak ones, angry ones, heartbroken-for-others ones. Sometimes even over a snowfall or a rainstorm.
Cui Qijin couldn’t understand how one person could produce so many tears.
—Not very pretty tears.
But…
“She doesn’t mean to.”
Cui Qijin spoke up. “She’s just… not great at handling stuff like this.”
A bead of sweat trickled slowly from her brow bone to her lips. She tasted the salt and grimaced, pursing her mouth in distaste.
“What?”
The doctor beside her hadn’t caught it and leaned in to ask.
Cui Qijin fell silent.
The doctor touched her forehead, frowning. He muttered softly, “Little missy, looks like you’ve got a low fever too.”
Rain continued to patter outside. Over there, Chi Buyu’s voice mumbled on fuzzily, asking things like how much farther it was, if they could give her painkillers first…
The nurse answered in fits and starts.
The ambulance rounded a corner. Cui Qijin suddenly forced her eyes open, drenched in cold sweat. “Do you have any tissues, Doctor?”
She had barely any strength left; her voice was faint. Even the nearest doctor had to strain to hear. “Tissues?”
After confirming, he rummaged around in the ambulance. There was a rustle, and then something was held toward her face.
“Sweatin’ a lot, huh? Want me to wipe it for ya?”
“Trouble you…”
Her face was covered in sweat. She didn’t open her eyes, but she could sense they were nearing the hospital—the noise outside was growing chaotic. It was the fifth day of the New Year, and the ER was still packed. Before the doctor could wipe her face, she murmured groggily,
“Give it to her. Thanks.”
Chi Buyu still had so many tears to shed—so many not-very-pretty tears.
But… Cui Qijin didn’t want anyone else thinking that.
–
It seemed most people weren’t having an ordinary Valentine’s Day. The nighttime ER brimmed with the frail remnants of romance. Cui Qijin was wheeled into the hospital on a stretcher, shuffled around the emergency area in a haze. She saw a woman with a split-open scalp bellowing, “We knew each other first!” A man headbutted the wall, growling low, “I didn’t mean it, I didn’t mean it.” Every now and then, a bouquet of delicate fresh flowers sat abandoned on a blue waiting chair…
Chaos, human drama in all its forms. She was pushed into a brightly lit exam room, followed by frantic, aimless footsteps—pacing, leaving, returning, laced with voices…
“Registered yet?”
“Yeah, we’re registered. Can you give her painkillers first?”
“Take her for a CT scan in the ER first, check for bone damage. You take the form and pay, then…”
“Okay, okay. After paying, can you give her painkillers first?”
Then came hurried, chaotic footsteps. A tense breath hovered right by her. She was wheeled out into the clamor.
That breath hurried away in panic, only to rush back soon after.
Now they were pushing her into another room. Several people lifted her; she gasped sharply in pain. That taut breath hitched instantly, bursting out in a flurry,
“Doctors, go slow! Can you give her painkillers before the checkup?”
“Stay here and wait. Don’t go in.”
The frantic footsteps vanished. She was wheeled in, then out again—this time toward the ER ward. Someone among them said,
“Results in half an hour. She’s got a low fever; I’ll prescribe some meds to bring it down first. Take the form, pay, get the drugs from the first-floor pharmacy. Bring ’em back, there’s hot water at the end of the ER ward hall—have her drink some. When time’s up, check results at the ER CT self-service printer. Remember, not the main lobby one—the dedicated ER machine…”
It all sounded so complicated. Could Chi Buyu handle it?
Cui Qijin struggled to open her eyes but was spun away before she could see her. Faintly, she heard someone calling anxiously from afar, “Wait, Doctor—can you give her painkillers first?”
The doctors pushed her along; one of them shouted back over his shoulder, “The fever meds I just prescribed have pain relief!”
It came out almost like a yell.
Cui Qijin frowned faintly. In her daze, she twisted her head toward Chi Buyu. Her vision was still blurry—
The world was a whirlwind of chaos and jostling crowds. Chi Buyu stood in the thick of it, her lips pressed tightly together. When she heard those words, it was as if a switch flipped inside her. She whipped her head around, her hair flying wildly, like some daring bird bursting from the underbrush.
She pushed against the surging throng, a heroine charging into the fray, leaving only the view of her hurried, serious back.
In that moment, Cui Qijin realized with a start that Chi Buyu had somehow become an adult.
Before Cui Qijin could dwell on it, she was wheeled into an emergency room and hoisted onto a bed that reeked of heavy disinfectant.
A few doctors scattered, rushing off to tend to other patients. The ER wasn’t crowded. Those admitted to the rooms weren’t critical cases: one girl clutched her stomach and retched while her friend, hair disheveled, patted her back; a child lay listlessly with an IV in his arm as a white-haired elder spooned eight-treasure porridge into his mouth nearby…
Cui Qijin’s vision blurred for a moment. Her eyelids grew heavier and heavier, as if weighed down by something wet and sticky.
She had no choice but to close her eyes. Just as that heaviness was suffocating her, a flurry of chaotic footsteps echoed into the room, accompanied by rapid breaths. They stopped right in front of her, followed by a tentative call.
“Cui Muhuo?”
Cui Qijin couldn’t open her eyes. She managed only a faint, “Hm?”
Chi Buyu let out a long breath. “The doctor’s coming to give you your shot soon.”
She seemed drenched through, like a damp, misty cloud hovering anxiously before her—cautious, ethereal.
Cui Qijin lacked the strength to speak.
“You scared?”
“…” Cui Qijin struggled to lift her eyelid. A bead of sweat trickled down from it. “Hm?”
Chi Buyu stood right there by the bed, gripping the railing so tightly that blue veins stood out on the back of her hand.
“I’m not scared,” Cui Qijin said.
“Oh, oh, good then.”
Amid a rustle of sounds, Chi Buyu exhaled in relief. Someone was there to administer Cui Qijin’s shot.
“I figured you might be.”
Someone lifted Cui Qijin’s arm, wiped it down, and gave it a few gentle pats.
“I’m terrified of shots. When I was little, I’d always turn my head away—couldn’t bear to watch. And I’d have nightmares after, always the same one: getting chased by a wild boar along the ridges by Grandma’s fields…”
Chi Buyu really could talk. Someone swabbed Cui Qijin’s arm with something icy cold.
“Maybe don’t look. I’ll cover your eyes for you, huh? Just in case you have a nightmare. Oh, and I checked—your CT results aren’t out yet. How come? Did they mess up the scan or something?”
The needle pierced her skin. Someone taped gauze over the back of her hand.
Cui Qijin opened her eyes. Three IV bags hung from the stand above, their contents dripping steadily one drop at a time. Chi Buyu stood at her bedside, gazing worriedly at the puncture wound.
“The doctor said the fever meds have painkillers in them. Does it still hurt?”
A nurse tidying up nearby paused. “Won’t kick in that fast, hon.”
Chi Buyu obediently stepped aside for her. “Right, right, I know.”
Then she carefully tucked Cui Qijin’s exposed hand under the blanket, met her eyes, and urged, “Don’t worry. It won’t work that quick.”
“…” Cui Qijin fell silent for a moment. “I’m not in that much of a hurry.”
Chi Buyu nodded and picked up the cup of water she’d fetched earlier, holding it to Cui Qijin’s lips to help her drink. “Does it still hurt as bad as before?”
Cui Qijin took a sip. The water was just the right temperature, soothing as it slid down her throat. She looked up and noticed how dry Chi Buyu’s lips were.
“It won’t be that fast,” Cui Qijin murmured, staring at the cup she’d just drunk from.
Chi Buyu fed her the water with utmost care.
“Oh, yeah, that’s right. But a whole minute’s passed already—why hasn’t it kicked in yet?”
“…A little better than before, maybe.”
“Already working that quick?”
Listen to yourself—what logic is there in that? Cui Qijin nearly said it aloud. But the last time she’d snapped like that, they’d been fighting.
They weren’t fighting now. Chi Buyu had braved the rain to save her. Cui Qijin took in Chi Buyu’s state—makeup streaked, hair a mess, the tip of her nose and corners of her eyes reddened, clothes soaked through. Utterly disheveled after a frantic rainy night.
All because of her.
“You should drink some water too,” Cui Qijin said simply. “Running around like that—you’re not thirsty?”
