Chapter 16: 16 Chapter 16

◎”Picking up Dr. Ji from work.”◎

Yu Qinjiu was drying Ji Qingyou’s hair with the towel she had just used on her own. The distance between them shortened to almost nothing. Their scents began to mingle.

It was as if they were only a few centimeters apart—a distance that could bind two lives together.

Ji Qingyou’s eyesight was very good. She could clearly see her own reflection in Yu Qinjiu’s light pupils, the slight upward curve of her slightly damp eyelashes, and the shadow cast over the tear mole at the corner of her eye.

She was so quiet, yet when she slightly raised her eyes to look at her, there was a silent seduction in her gaze. It felt like a wooden bridge connecting them, burning and almost breaking.

Even their soft breaths almost intertwined. The drizzling rain outside the floor-to-ceiling window was fully visible. The fine rain seemed to form countless dense threads, binding their sensitive nerve endings.

Ji Qingyou’s slightly lowered eyelashes began to tremble for no reason.

“Yu… Qinjiu.” She finally managed to speak, her throat a little tight.

But she was immediately interrupted by an abrupt phone vibration. Reason returned to her mind. She instinctively created distance, stepping back a little awkwardly, holding the towel.

So her next words became, “Your phone is ringing.”

The ringtone didn’t stop quickly.

Ji Qingyou slightly lowered her head, not looking at Yu Qinjiu. She just repeatedly rubbed her own hair with the towel, but she couldn’t replicate the feeling from just now. Yu Qinjiu’s touch had been too light, soft and gentle, so comfortable that she couldn’t even replicate it herself.

After more than ten seconds, the abrupt ringtone finally stopped.

Yu Qinjiu’s voice finally rang out, sounding very soft against the sound of the drizzling rain. “Mm, okay, I’ll be right there.”

After the call ended, the air was quiet for a few seconds.

Yu Qinjiu looked at her again. Her tone and expression hadn’t changed much. “The locksmith is here.”

The damp towel had turned cold. Ji Qingyou clenched it a little tighter, her eyes slightly lowered. “Okay.”

Yu Qinjiu hummed in acknowledgment, turned around, and opened the door. “I’m going, then.”

Just before she walked out, she added, seemingly offhand, “By the way, what were you about to say just now?”

Ji Qingyou paused for a moment, her fingertips tightening on the towel. “Just wanted to remind you, don’t make the password too complicated. If you can’t remember it, it’s quite troublesome.”

“Oh…” Yu Qinjiu drew out the sound, then laughed, her voice very light. “I see. Thanks for the reminder, Dr. Ji.”

She seemed to be smiling, but her tone carried a hint of feigned distance.

Ji Qingyou couldn’t figure out why Yu Qinjiu’s tone had suddenly changed. She pursed her lips slightly, but still followed her out. “I’ll come with you. It’s too late now, and it’s not convenient for you to be alone.”

Yu Qinjiu didn’t object. She just made a little “hmph” sound, was silent for a moment, then spoke. “You think I can’t remember difficult passwords?”

So that was the reason.

Ji Qingyou breathed a sigh of relief. “No.”

Yu Qinjiu pouted defiantly. “You do.”

Ji Qingyou paused for a moment. “I didn’t explain myself clearly.”

Yu Qinjiu looked up in surprise. “What didn’t you explain clearly?”

Ji Qingyou thought for a few seconds. “If I made you unhappy, then it means I didn’t explain myself clearly.”

“I was just joking.” Yu Qinjiu looked at her again, a little earnestly. “You have too good a temper. You’ll get taken advantage of.”

“I won’t.” Ji Qingyou denied it. She stared at her for a few seconds, then looked away. “Everyone at the hospital just sees me as an emotionally detached colleague. I’m not the one who gets taken advantage of.”

As she spoke, she paused for a moment, then added in a voice almost too low for anyone but herself to hear.

“Only you think I have a good temper.”

Yu Qinjiu still heard her clearly. She paused in her steps, her eyelashes slightly lowered. After a long moment, she nodded gently.

“That’s good too.”

Before the locksmith left, he reminded Yu Qinjiu to set a password that was easy to remember. Yu Qinjiu crouched in front of the password lock, troubled. “I used to use my birthday numbers for all my passwords, and then all my accounts got hacked overnight. This time when I came back, I wanted to use something more difficult, but then I can’t remember them.”

“Q.Q and your email too?” Ji Qingyou suddenly asked.

“Yep.” Yu Qinjiu nodded. “The year I went abroad, they all got hacked. Couldn’t recover them either. It wasn’t like today, where everything is linked to your phone number and ID card…”

As she spoke, she stopped. A slightly wavy strand of hair fell around her neck, hiding most of her expression. Her voice came out with a hint of laughter, as if she were joking.

“You weren’t still trying to reach me back then, were you?”

Ji Qingyou lowered her eyes, staring at the fingers gripping the doorknob. Her voice was a little dry. “I didn’t try. All my accounts were hacked too.”

“Huh?” Yu Qinjiu sounded a little surprised. “Who would be so spiteful? I remember you already had two suns back then. What a shame.”

As she spoke, she softened her voice. “But account hacking wasn’t unusual back then, after all, it was 2012.”

She said, after all, it was 2012.

The magical year 2012. Enough to make trivial matters like “hacked accounts” and “no contact” into lighthearted topics of conversation a decade later. Enough to forcibly peel apart the intertwined lives of Yu Qinjiu and Ji Qingyou, turning them into a relationship that could only gaze at each other from afar for ten whole years.

Ji Qingyou stared at her for a moment, feeling as if she had swallowed a small, fine thorn. A soft, lingering pain nearly engulfed her. She couldn’t guess if Yu Qinjiu was feeling the same emotion at that moment, and couldn’t distinguish whether this pain was merely an aftereffect or a fresh wound.

But she should have known. If they hadn’t separated back then, new wounds would have kept appearing. Until even this relationship of gazing from afar couldn’t be sustained.

She should have known. She couldn’t keep Yu Qinjiu.

Not ten years ago, and not now.

Ji Qingyou emphasized this to herself over and over in her heart. Before leaving, she gently refused Yu Qinjiu’s invitation to come in and sit for a while, steering the conversation back to setting the password.

“You can still use the same set of numbers as your password, but you can add different prefixes before different passwords. That way, you only have to remember the simple prefix. It also makes the passwords not completely identical, reducing the risk of theft.”

Yu Qinjiu didn’t respond to her suggestion. She just leaned against the doorframe, silent for a long time, then suddenly asked her.

“Do you use that method for your passwords too?”

The sound of the electronic lock unlocking and locking sounded abruptly and then stopped. Ji Qingyou stood still for a moment, her finger on the doorknob trembling slightly.

She turned her head and met Yu Qinjiu’s gaze under the corridor light. Finally, convinced by her own heart, she had to admit.

“Some, yes. Some, no.”

Yu Qinjiu leaned back slightly. Her eyes curved into crescents.

“Then I’ll try it too.”

–

Thursday. Ji Xiruan was in an extremely irritable state, probably because of Yu Zhijiu’s surgery the next day. She had always gotten along well with patients, and she found it difficult to control her own emotions and tears. She had suffered for it many times, but she was still unwilling to change.

“Little Jiu has surgery tomorrow.” Ji Xiruan drooped her eyelids and patted Ji Qingyou on the shoulder. “Aren’t you going to see her? What are you doing here?”

Ji Qingyou didn’t look up. “Braiding a string.”

“Braiding a string?” Ji Xiruan wondered if she had heard wrong. She looked at the neatly tied one-handed surgical knot Ji Qingyou was making with red string. “For whom?”

Ji Qingyou didn’t stop working. “Little Jiu.”

Ji Xiruan asked suspiciously. “Which Little Jiu?”

Ji Qingyou glanced at her. “Your Little Jiu.”

Ji Xiruan caught on. “Oh, my Little Jiu. So that means there’s also your Little Jiu?”

Ji Qingyou’s movements paused. She changed the subject. “Little Jiu saw a little boy visiting the patient in the next bed with a lucky bracelet last time. The little boy even came over to show off. She hid under the covers and cried, but didn’t dare let her mother know, afraid her mother would think she was being a brat.”

“Ah?” Ji Xiruan said indignantly. “Which little brat is that? All he does is eat and cause trouble, doesn’t he? Coming here to bully a little girl?”

Ji Qingyou didn’t say anything.

Ji Xiruan looked at her for a while longer, then laughed. “Dr. Ji, I’ve noticed you’ve changed a lot lately. You changed your watch, stopped wearing glasses, and you’ve even started showing some human touch. What’s going on? It’s not for no reason…”

Ji Qingyou tied the last knot, pulled the red string circle off the mineral water bottle, glanced at her, and said, “I’m going to see a patient.”

Ji Xiruan’s words weren’t quite right. Ji Qingyou had never changed anything. After Yu Qinjiu reappeared, she understood many things about herself. She no longer needed to pretend.

She was just acting more like the real Ji Qingyou.

–

After finishing her afternoon work, Ji Qingyou went to see Yu Zhijiu with the bracelet. Before she even walked in, she could hear the laughter coming from the ward. There was Yu Zhijiu’s childish voice, Yu Qinjiu’s soft voice, and Ji Xiruan’s bright, clear voice.

Ji Qingyou stopped at the door of the ward.

She saw the most eye-catching person there: Yu Qinjiu. Her slightly wavy, fluffy tea-brown hair, egg-yellow coat, and wine-red scarf. The oil-painted blue butterfly earrings on her earlobes. Every part of her was the brightest color in the stark white ward.

The hospital bed was by the window. The warm winter sun was shining in brightly, casting a beautiful, hazy golden light on Yu Qinjiu, lifting the corners of her lips full of laughter.

She seemed to have become good friends with Yu Zhijiu.

And, of course, Ji Xiruan.

The lively, sociable Ji Xiruan could naturally chat happily with Yu Qinjiu, making her laugh and call her “Dr. Ji,” and making Yu Zhijiu laugh heartily.

When laughter erupted again in the room.

Ji Xiruan finally got serious. After soothing Yu Zhijiu, she planned to go to other wards, but raised her head and saw Ji Qingyou. “Hey, Dr. Ji is here too?”

Ji Qingyou saw the delicate bracelet already on Yu Zhijiu’s wrist. She nodded lightly without taking out the surgical knot bracelet she had made.

She met Yu Qinjiu’s smiling gaze, dropped her eyes for a second, and then walked in.

“Come to see Little Jiu?”

“No.” Yu Qinjiu’s soft gaze followed her movements. When she stopped in front of the hospital bed, the slight curve at the corner of her lips widened a little.

“Picking up Dr. Ji from work.”

Ji Qingyou looked at her. Her fingertips trembled, but her tone was flat.

“Which Dr. Ji is that?”