When the phone screen automatically locked and the light went out.
She realized her previously dull complexion had brightened a little.
Just a little.
Before going to sleep, she saw the calendar on her phone, marking the countdown days until her return to England. Inopportunely, she thought of Salist’s question:
“Does she have any way to keep you here now?”
Just a moment ago, Yu Qinjiu’s answer was “I don’t know.” But actually, she knew very well that Ji Qingyou wouldn’t even try to keep her.
Not ten years ago, and not now.
But what about herself?
Before coming back, she thought she would just secretly meet Ji Qingyou, see if she was doing well, and then leave without a trace. But she couldn’t do it.
Because Ji Qingyou had run after her the second she recognized her.
Because Ji Qingyou looked so tired. Because this first snowfall in Nanwu lasted so long.
Later, she thought she would leave after the snow stopped.
Later, she built a perfect snowman and thought she would leave only after it melted.
But Yu Cheng and Yu Muzhou appeared.
A strange thing happened. When she was with Ji Qingyou, she rarely thought about the negative emotions brought on by Yu Cheng and Yu Muzhou.
It felt like a roasted sweet potato and sugar-roasted chestnuts in winter. Even though faced with the cold, for a moment, it shut off the valve of negative emotions.
But she probably couldn’t try to stay in winter just for a roasted sweet potato and sugar-roasted chestnuts.
Even though the longing had taken root in her mind.
In the end, Yu Qinjiu couldn’t find a clear answer. So she had to take this question to sleep. She arrived at the hospital early the next morning.
Sitting amidst the bustling crowd, she waited in line at the Endoscopy Center. She drank the medicine they gave her and took the small vial of anesthetic the nurse handed her. Li Nanli called her on WeChat.
“Are you really doing the gastroscopy?” Li Nanli asked, then comforted her. “It’s fine. It looks scary, but with the anesthesia, you won’t feel a thing.”
In the noisy crowd, the loudspeaker in front suddenly called a number. Yu Qinjiu glanced at the display screen. It was number 13.
She looked at her own number. It was 15.
Yu Qinjiu bit her lip, turning her gaze back to the phone screen. “I know. I’m not scared.”
“Really?” Li Nanli sounded skeptical. “Your lips are already white from fear. No color at all.”
Yu Qinjiu paused for a few seconds. “That’s because I haven’t eaten breakfast or drunk any water…”
“Oh, I see.” Li Nanli hummed dismissively, but still comforted her. “If I could leave the ward, I’d come keep you company.”
“I’m not a kid. What’s there to keep me company for?” Yu Qinjiu frowned. “Why does everyone think I’m scared?”
“Huh?” Li Nanli was confused. “Don’t you remember? You cried after your last gastroscopy in high school.”
Of course she remembered.
And because she was so scared, she had even tried to pull Ji Qingyou in with her. But generally, hospitals don’t allow that. So Ji Qingyou stood outside the examination room the whole time waiting for her.
When she came out.
Her face was covered in tears and saliva. The relief and uncontrollable grievance made her hug Ji Qingyou and cry for a long time when she saw her waiting outside.
She had always thought it was just an uncontrollable physiological reaction.
But Li Nanli, who saw her refusing to let go of Ji Qingyou’s sleeve, didn’t seem to think so. She often brought this up to make fun of her.
What about Ji Qingyou?
Yu Qinjiu thought about this inopportunely. But under Li Nanli’s gaze on the phone screen, she suppressed this thought.
“It was a physiological reaction. It wasn’t because I was scared.”
She tried to explain, even though she had indeed been a bit scared at the time. But it wasn’t enough to make her cry.
Li Nanli finally seemed convinced by her explanation. She chatted for a bit more before mentioning Ji Qingyou’s situation. “I heard from Dr. Ji that Ji Qingyou went into surgery. It was an emergency appendectomy that just came in. She probably won’t have time to keep you company today…”
Yu Qinjiu paused for a few seconds. She clenched her fingertips, her voice very, very soft. “Mm. I know.”
After the call ended, the number on the display screen was 14.
A nurse came out, reminding her to take the anesthetic.
She did. The numbness in her tongue and throat gradually rose.
It made her fingers involuntarily tighten, clutching her phone. She recalled the feeling from her last gastroscopy. Even with the anesthetic, the nausea and retching were hard to stop.
Remembering that unpleasant feeling,
Yu Qinjiu frowned. Perhaps the anesthetic was taking effect. She was overcome by a wave of unexplained anxiety. Sitting amidst the bustling crowd, she grew restless. She would scroll through her phone, then look up at the number on the screen, which felt like a sentence of death.
Her phone screen was constantly lit. Many messages flooded in. She saw Li Nanli, Lin Yingxiang, Qin Shuangchi, and Brittany, all asking about her.
But of course, Ji Qingyou wasn’t among them.
Because Ji Qingyou was in surgery right now.
But she checked repeatedly. The last message between her and Ji Qingyou was their exchange of “Good night” from the night before. After that, for thirteen entire hours, Ji Qingyou hadn’t sent a single thing. She hadn’t called over WeChat like Li Nanli, worried she was scared. She hadn’t sent a text to check in like Qin Shuangchi did…
Staring at Ji Qingyou’s profile picture for a long time,
Yu Qinjiu wrinkled her nose. With her finger, she tapped on Ji Qingyou’s profile picture, enlarging and shrinking it. The anxiety in her heart began to sink, wrapped in a heavy layer of sluggishness.
Ji Qingyou was busy with the surgical meeting, busy with the surgery. Naturally, the hospital had many things to keep her too busy to even look at her phone. And Yu Qinjiu knew she shouldn’t be having such childish thoughts at a time like this. But she still thought:
If she were Ji Qingyou, maybe she would have sent her another WeChat message this morning.
Saying anything would have been fine.
Even just a period.
But Ji Qingyou didn’t. And she couldn’t blame her for that kind of detail.
When the number on the screen jumped to 15, the loudspeaker called Yu Qinjiu’s name. She took a deep breath, held it, and walked into the examination room.
The room was very quiet. Only one doctor and two nurses were present. But at the same time, the moment she walked in, all three of them looked up and glanced at her.
“Yu Qinjiu?”
The doctor wearing a mask was a young woman. Her glasses were thick. She looked up and down at Yu Qinjiu for a moment, then averted her gaze naturally. “You’ve had the anesthetic, right? Lie on your side over here.”
Yu Qinjiu nodded nervously. She lay down on her side on the examination bed. It wasn’t a comfortable position, especially during the wait before it started.
The numbness in her throat seemed to rise, making her breathing a little difficult. But she couldn’t show her fear in front of a group of strangers.
She could only try her best to hide her reaction.
“It’s okay. We’ll be fast.” The doctor walked over. Her voice had a forced softness, as if it had been specially trained.
The nurse beside her smiled. “Dr. Yang doesn’t usually talk like this. But every time she wants to reassure a patient, she does…”
“Talk like this. To make the patients coming for the exam feel a bit more relaxed.” The nurse mimicked Dr. Yang’s tone, much softer, with a hint of intentional, cutesy falsetto.
This kind of joke was perfect for lightening the atmosphere in the exam room.
Yu Qinjiu’s clenched fingers relaxed a little. She barely curved her eyes into a smile. But as the doctor turned around to get something, she clenched her fingertips again, her heart in her throat, waiting for the ordeal.
But it was different from what she imagined.
The masked doctor was meticulous. She placed an ugly, cute plush toy in front of Yu Qinjiu. Before she could react, her mouth was held open, and a tube was guided in.
“Your Nanwu Sweetheart asked me to, just in case.” The doctor said softly, not stopping her movements.
Yu Qinjiu blinked, surprised that the term “Nanwu Sweetheart” had spread here. She also didn’t understand why the doctor had placed a toy here.
The assisting nurse smiled, explaining. “Dr. Ji brought it over yesterday. She told us to just put it next to you. But she said not to tell you she bought it. She said it was a toy from our exam room to help distract patients.”
“Dr. Yang said no. Because she never lies. And we don’t have any toys like this in our exam room. I also said no. How could we not tell you? This is a very popular stingray plush. Isn’t it cute? Look at the letters on the tag…”
Following the nurse’s words, Yu Qinjiu’s gaze fell upon the letters on the plush toy’s tag. After she recognized them, her eyes widened slightly. She suddenly remembered the two WeChat messages Ji Qingyou had sent her last night.
【Tell them to be gentle with you.】
【Just kidding.】
For a moment, Yu Qinjiu could almost hear the tone Ji Qingyou had used: slow, gentle, with no inflection. But it hadn’t been a joke.
“Nanwu Sweetheart～” The nurse pointed out the meaning of the acronym on the toy’s tag. She chuckled, interrupting Yu Qinjiu’s thoughts. “Of course, Dr. Ji didn’t write that. Dr. Yang wrote it on the tag after hearing about Dr. Ji’s nickname. If Dr. Ji finds out, she’ll probably be mad at Dr. Yang.”
No, she won’t be mad.
She rarely gets mad at anyone.
She has a very good temper.
A feeling of suffocation and nausea hit. Yu Qinjiu refuted in her mind, but couldn’t stop the physiological tears. They blurred her vision and streamed down her face, soaking the tissues underneath.
But her attention was completely diverted.
It stayed on the stingray plush in front of her, on the soft whispers between the doctor and the nurse, on their discussion of “Dr. Ji.”
“But maybe Dr. Ji won’t get mad. I deliberately called her ‘Nanwu Sweetheart’ a few times yesterday, and she didn’t get mad either. Although everyone in general surgery likes to tease her, she doesn’t seem to get angry easily. Even though Dr. Ji seems emotionally flat on the surface, she’s actually very sensitive inside. Look, how cute this stingray plush is.”
Yu Qinjiu blinked, agreeing with the nurse.
Dr. Yang, who was performing the procedure, frowned slightly, as if she didn’t quite agree with that view. But she just quietly told Yu Qinjiu not to swallow, saying nothing to contradict her.
“By the way, Dr. Yang and Dr. Ji have known each other for a long time. You probably didn’t know that. But yesterday was the first time I met Dr. Ji. I heard they were graduate school classmates…”
“We weren’t classmates. We were rivals.”
“Alright, alright. Let’s just say they were loving rivals…”
“No. There’s no love between us. Only fierce competition.”
“Okay, okay. I can never win an argument with you.”
The conversation around her was natural and easy. It continued until the end. Yu Qinjiu’s gaze remained fixed on the toy facing her. She never looked away.
The stingray plush, with the words “Nanwu Sweetheart” written on it, also stayed with her. It silently watched her with two black dots for eyes, a wavy line for a raised mouth, and the letters “NWTX” on its tag for a name. It seemed to be exerting some kind of magical power in the quiet examination room.
A strange, yet incredibly reassuring power.
When she got up from the bed, the nurse handed her tissues to wipe her tears and drool. She patted the ugly-cute stingray plush, making it bounce up and down.
Yu Qinjiu watched her interact with the plush. She couldn’t help but lift the corners of her mouth. This gastroscopy seemed to have ended faster than she expected.
“Here. Your Nanwu Sweetheart. Want to take it?” the nurse asked.
Yu Qinjiu was stunned for a few seconds. She spoke with some difficulty. “Can I?”
“Of course you can!” The nurse’s smile was sweet. “Dr. Ji bought it especially for you!”
“For me?” Yu Qinjiu reached out and took it. The stingray plush felt great, very soft. She couldn’t help but squeeze it a few times. Noticing the nurse’s amused expression, she nervously tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. She glanced at the unsmiling Dr. Yang, then bit her lip lightly. “She didn’t necessarily buy it for me. Besides, I’m not a kid anymore…”
But even as she said this, she didn’t put the toy down. She held it, squeezing and poking it. The actions didn’t stop.
“Ah, it doesn’t matter. It’s got your name on it.” The nurse laughed and pushed her out.
Still in a daze, Yu Qinjiu could only follow the nurse’s words, clutching the stingray plush as she walked out. When she was once again in the bustling crowd outside the exam room,
She looked down at the toy in her hands. She couldn’t help but squeeze it a few more times. She thought about looking at the letters on its tag again. She wanted to take a photo on her phone.
To show Lin Yingxiang. To show Brittany. To show her psychiatrist. To show Li Nanli. To show Yu Zhijiu, who only had a phone watch without a phone…
To tell everyone she knew in the world.
That she now owned a very popular stingray plush.
Just as she was thinking about this, before she could pull out her phone, she bumped into someone as she turned. Her shoulder got hit.
Just as she was about to hit the wall, she heard a hurried breath. A faint scent of disinfectant drifted by. Her wrist was firmly gripped by a strong, reassuring hand.
She turned back. She saw a pale, bony hand holding her wrist.
Meanwhile, the nurse, who had just been giving the next patient the anesthetic, let out a soft exclamation in her ear.
“Oh! The real Nanwu Sweetheart is here!”
