Chapter 112 p2: Deep Night
“Does it hurt like this?”
Su Yu packed the ice cubes he had gotten from the store into a plastic bag and tied it together. The cold touch brought down the heat from his running.
“N-No, it doesn’t hurt. Wuwu~”
Xia Qian Ge sat silently on the bench. Her injured left foot was bare, her slender ankle as if it would break with a single grasp. She looked down as the boy carefully removed her sock, his movements as cautious as if he were walking on thin ice.
She watched the boy’s careful expression, afraid of hurting her. A ray of sunlight seemed to shine into her dark and desolate heart, blooming with gardenias, the pistils filled with sweet nectar, a hint of sweetness spreading in her heart.
Su Yu held the girl’s ankle, her slender calf trembling slightly in his palm. He heard the girl’s shy whimper in his ear. He knew that her ankle was the most sensitive part of her body. He thought she must be blushing, so he didn’t look up.
He gently applied the ice to the swollen wound, carefully soothing the girl’s pain with the low temperature. The wound looked a bit scary. The originally well-defined, curved instep was now swollen with a large bump, making one’s heart ache.
The girl said it didn’t hurt, but her crystal-clear toes were trembling and curled up. A few delicate bone marks arched on her fair instep, interspersed with a few slightly raised blue veins, as fragile as a snowflake falling in the palm of one’s hand, melting into a pool of spring water.
Su Yu looked up and met the girl’s secretly glancing eyes. She said it didn’t hurt, but the area around her eyes was red. She watched as Su Yu gritted his teeth, not wanting to cry out in pain. But Su Yu’s mind seemed to have stopped for a moment, and he lost control of his strength, pressing on the wound. The whimper the girl had been holding back immediately escaped her lips, as if she were about to cry in the next second.
“S-Sorry.” Su Yu apologized nervously and continued to apply the ice to the bruise on her ankle.
“Yeah, it’s okay.”
Xia Qian Ge said softly, but her eyes were still fixed on the boy, unable to move away. He was like the brilliant, scorching sun. Looking at him for too long was dazzling, and when he was gone, it felt cold.
She really wished that these were not exchanged for her fake tears. She was always worried that these would wither and die in an instant like the bright hibiscus flowers, and everything would become a fleeting illusion, turning into an elusive wind and disappearing.
What would happen if he knew the truth one day?
Xia Qian Ge had never dared to imagine such a consequence. Just the thought of those scenes in her mind was hundreds of times more painful than her heart being squeezed.
Those disgusting, dirty, painful… she could swallow them all without a frown, but she couldn’t stand the boy ignoring her. She couldn’t accept it at all.
She really wanted to hold the boy’s head in her arms and tell him, I love you so much, so please love me always, don’t make me sad anymore. She wasn’t afraid of pain, nor was she afraid of death.
…
“Let’s get some medicine. Be careful with the injured part. Don’t cause a secondary injury. Go back and rest well. It’s nothing serious.”
“Okay, thank you, doctor.”
Su Yu walked out of the room with the prescription from the doctor. The hospital corridor was a bit deserted at night. The wind was howling from somewhere. He looked at the girl’s slender, pale ankle, which was wrapped in a bandage that was out of place. He felt that the clothes the girl was wearing were too thin, and she might be cold.
“Siyi and Zhang Heng are gone?”
Su Yu sat down next to Xia Qian Ge, looking at her sitting alone outside. He felt sorry for her… but he couldn’t say anything to comfort her.
“You’re back?”
Xia Qian Ge looked up at him, her eyes shining with a dazzling light, as if she were full of joy at his arrival. She seemed to be afraid of the cold and leaned closer to Su Yu. The pleasant fragrance of gardenias pushed aside the smell of disinfectant in the hospital. “Siyi said she’s going home with Zhang Heng today. She can’t stay for too long.”
“Home?” Su Yu raised his eyebrows and asked in surprise.
Xia Qian Ge blinked and smiled. “Yeah, probably to meet the parents.”
“Well, let’s go back quickly…”
Su Yu’s words were cut short. He looked down at the time. The school gate was probably already closed. Even if they got in, being injured and returning late, a hundred mouths couldn’t explain it to the dorm auntie. And it was inconvenient for Xia Qian Ge to be injured. It seemed that tonight, they could only…
He wanted to see what Xia Qian Ge thought, but the girl seemed to have reacted even faster than him. She held back her girlish shyness and turned her head away, but her earlobes were exposed outside her hair, flushed red.
Su Yu was silent. No matter how he looked at it, the only way was to rent a guesthouse outside. But he didn’t know how to say it. He fell into a silent stalemate again.
Perhaps it was because the window at the end was not closed. Under the dim light, the night wind blew straight into the long corridor, as if it were getting colder and colder. Su Yu looked at the girl’s trembling, frail body, which was even leaning against his shoulder. Her small nose twitched, and a faint sob was about to escape.
Su Yu’s heart suddenly hardened. Whatever… he didn’t care about this for now. He was about to speak, with the thought of throwing caution to the wind.
But the girl suddenly moved. She didn’t dare to look at Su Yu and let out a low whimper. The sound was thin and soft, as if she were acting spoiled. “Su Yu, I’m cold~”
That voice was particularly soft and delicate in the cold wind. Su Yu felt his brain shut down, his limbs stiff. The comforting words couldn’t help but come out directly. “It won’t be cold soon. Be good… we’ll go back and rest.”
“Mm-hmm.”
Xia Qian Ge nodded, no longer crying or making a fuss. She sat obediently in her seat, her arms open, waiting for Su Yu to help her up.
Su Yu swallowed the saliva between his lips and teeth, his Adam’s apple rolling. He supported the girl’s shoulder and helped her up. The two of them left the hospital, supporting each other. When they were going downstairs, he reminded the girl to watch her step, but the girl couldn’t maintain her balance on one foot and had to lean on his shoulder to maintain her center of gravity.
Their posture was a bit awkward. They were so close that their breaths began to intertwine. Su Yu felt the girl’s sweet and fragrant scent at the tip of his nose grow stronger. The flames of emotion, as if they had met a large pile of dry wood, burned so fiercely that he couldn’t tell which way was up, and his reason was difficult to maintain.
But the girl still looked completely unaware, like a lazy koala hanging on him, basking in the sun. She would occasionally let out a soft and tender grunt from the bumping of going downstairs. Su Yu secretly glanced at the girl. Her clear, black and white eyes were already half-closed, her upper and lower eyelids bumping together as if they were about to fight.
He finally endured this soft and fragrant torment and walked down the long flight of stairs of the hospital. The taxi he had called still needed some time to arrive at the intersection. The two of them sat on the bench at the bus stop, blowing in the cold night wind. But his body temperature was gradually rising, sweat beading on his forehead.
But the drowsy girl seemed to have found a warm bed. She twitched her small, perky nose and snuggled into his arms, as if she were craving his warmth. Those seemingly unconscious small movements seemed to be about to melt his heart.
Su Yu ruthlessly turned his head and stopped looking at the girl. But there was still a small, strange movement in his arms. The girl’s soft and thin voice fell on his ear. “So sleepy… so warm.”
The cold night wind was still howling. The girl buried herself deeper in his arms. She smiled in the darkness of his arms. She was not dreaming, but she was enjoying the warmth that she could only have in her dreams.
