7 Chapter 7

◎Even her name was full of emotion◎

Ji Qingyou was momentarily stunned.

It seemed there was only one Yu Qinjiu in this world.

At least in the nearly thirty years of her life, among the countless people who had come and gone, Ji Qingyou had yet to find anyone who could replace the role Yu Qinjiu played in her life.

Even if she wanted to find someone else, the difficulty would probably be like trying to find the real Ultraman Tiga in a world that had stopped believing in light.

Similarly, in her long life, the person Yu Qinjiu, or even just the individual characters that made up the name “Yu Qinjiu”…

…were all very difficult for her.

But occasionally, she couldn’t help wanting to poke through that thick layer of glass and get closer to her.

“Yu Qinjiu.”

As Ji Qingyou spoke, she smelled the scent of the already melted snow in the air. She gently closed her eyelids and said, “Could you… come with me to see someone?”

Obviously, this request was a bit unreasonable.

Yu Qinjiu was silent for a moment. The white steam she exhaled rolled in the air, wave after wave, before she finally spoke, smiling. “Who is it? Don’t tell me there really is a second person who knows you this well?”

Her voice sounded so light it seemed like it could be ground to dust in this already melted snow and completely disappear in the next second.

“No.” Ji Qingyou shook her head, looking up at Yu Qinjiu, giving a definite answer. “The answers haven’t changed. And the person who knows the answers hasn’t changed either.”

“That’s good then.” Yu Qinjiu breathed out a sigh of relief. She stepped closer, pressing her shoulder against Ji Qingyou’s, and lightly punched her. Her tone was a soft, complaining one. “For a second there, I thought you’d actually met someone new and forgotten all about me.”

A slow, dense, dull pain spread from her shoulder. It reminded Ji Qingyou of something strange: it seemed her sense of pain was different from others’. Ordinary bumps and knocks barely registered.

But when Yu Qinjiu hit her, bit her…

It really hurt.

“It’s a patient from the department. A child, only seven years old. She said her mom has to go home to cook for her little sister between eight and ten every night, and the aunt and uncle in her room have been discharged. So she gets really scared at that time. I promised her earlier today that I’d come see her tonight.” Ji Qingyou explained.

Yu Qinjiu was stunned for a few seconds, then her eyes curved into a smile. “I knew it.”

Ji Qingyou didn’t understand. “Knew what?”

Yu Qinjiu’s voice was very soft. “I knew you would be a good doctor.”

She had known from the very beginning. Ji Qingyou wasn’t as devoid of emotion as others perceived her to be. She just hid her feelings deeper than anyone else when facing the world.

And she, by chance, had held the key to Ji Qingyou’s inner world for a very long time.

“Yu Zhijiu.”

“Hmm? What?” Yu Qinjiu’s slightly wandering thoughts were reined in.

“The little girl’s name is Yu Zhijiu. It’s very similar to your name.”

As Ji Qingyou spoke, she happened to be passing a supermarket on the street. She hurriedly pushed the door open and went in, leaving Yu Qinjiu standing there, stunned.

Yu Qinjiu snapped out of it. Through the transparent glass door, she saw Ji Qingyou frowning as she selected an item from the dazzling array of goods. She suddenly understood:

So that unique key was still in her hand.

But she couldn’t use it as freely as she used to.

In the end, Ji Qingyou chose an Ultraman watch that could transform. She even pulled the curtain around the hospital bed, showing Yu Zhijiu the magic function that could project Ultraman onto the wall.

Yu Zhijiu happily threw away the leaky Ultraman water gun she had been holding all along, playing obsessively with the transforming watch. When she heard that Yu Qinjiu’s name was very similar to hers, her eyes widened slightly, and she called her “Little Jiu.”

Having lived abroad for ten years, Yu Qinjiu didn’t mind a seven-year-old calling her “Little Jiu” at all. She smiled and patted Yu Zhijiu’s head. “Little Jiu, get better soon, and I’ll take you out to play.”

Yu Zhijiu nodded solemnly. “Doctor Sister, you come too.”

Ji Qingyou checked her vitals and data. “If I have time, I will.”

Yu Zhijiu pouted, about to speak again.

Yu Qinjiu pulled the blanket up for her, coaxing the child in a light tone. “Alright, Doctor Sister is very busy. But if she has a day off, we’ll all go together.”

“What about you, Little Jiu? Aren’t you busy?” Yu Zhijiu blinked.

Ji Qingyou’s movements paused. She also wanted to know why Yu Qinjiu always seemed to appear out of nowhere, dropping from the sky.

Like an extraterrestrial visitor, appearing on her birthday.

“I’m not busy…” Yu Qinjiu laughed. It was unclear if she was just telling a child a comforting lie or telling the truth. “I don’t have a job. I’m very free. If you want to play with me, I’m available anytime these days.”

Yu Zhijiu wrinkled her face. “I don’t believe you. You’re just tricking a kid.”

Yu Qinjiu spread her hands. “Okay, okay. Actually, I’m an architectural designer.”

Yu Zhijiu asked, “What’s an architectural designer?”

“Hmm…” Yu Qinjiu pondered for a moment. “You can think of it as someone who draws houses.”

“Someone who draws houses?” Yu Zhijiu’s eyes widened. “So, are all these houses drawn by Little Jiu?”

“No.” Yu Qinjiu racked her brains. “But I’ve drawn other houses. After I draw them, someone else helps build them.”

Yu Zhijiu was amazed. “Wow, Little Jiu is so amazing.”

Yu Qinjiu gently touched her head. “When you grow up, you’ll be even more amazing than me.”

Yu Zhijiu clutched the corner of her blanket, a bit sad. “But I’m sick.”

Ji Qingyou was silent for a long time. She was about to speak when she heard Yu Qinjiu’s soft voice beside her ear. “Who says sick people aren’t amazing? Let me tell you, your Doctor Sister was sick a lot when she was little too. But even then, she was amazing. She wasn’t picky about food or addicted to play. She loved to study and exercise. And she could always find all sorts of strange and wonderful houses…”

“Now she’s even more amazing. She’s a doctor, and she’s saved a lot, a lot, a lot of people.”

Yu Zhijiu was stunned by her coaxing.

Ji Qingyou retracted all the words of comfort she had planned to say. She knew she was no match for Yu Qinjiu when it came to dealing with people and offering comfort.

In comforting Yu Zhijiu, Yu Qinjiu had managed to praise her as well.

Finally, Yu Qinjiu gently pinched Yu Zhijiu’s little finger and said softly, “So, when you get better, you must stop being a picky eater, study hard, and exercise well, so you can become even more amazing than us.”

When the parents arrived, Yu Zhijiu was almost asleep. But she forced herself to stay awake long enough to whisper something in Yu Qinjiu’s ear.

No one else in the room heard what she said.

But Ji Qingyou saw it.

She saw the surprise that flashed in Yu Qinjiu’s light-colored pupils when she heard the words, and then the faint flicker of watery light. The emotion was so vivid that for a moment, Ji Qingyou even thought she could hear the sound of shells shaking and colliding in her eyes.

They parted at a bustling intersection near the hospital. Before they separated, Yu Qinjiu asked her, seemingly casually, “If this little girl wasn’t named Yu Zhijiu, would you still have come tonight?”

This wasn’t a difficult question.

Ji Qingyou thought for a moment, her speech a little slow. “Probably.”

“That’s good. Doctor Ji didn’t disappoint me.” Yu Qinjiu breathed a sigh of relief. The cold wind gently lifted the hem of her coat. She lowered her head to adjust her scarf. A carefree light fell on her long eyelashes.

“Do you want to know what Little Jiu just told me?”

The red light entered its final thirty-second countdown. Ji Qingyou looked at her. “What did she say?”

“She said, when you make a wish, you have to remember to put your hands together and count down three seconds, and then your birthday wish will come true.” Yu Qinjiu was backlit by the red light across the street. The hazy red glow illuminated her full, soft smile. Ji Qingyou heard her say, softly, “So you really do remember, Ji Qingyou.”

–

Ji Qingyou’s first birthday was when she was five.

She had just been taken into the Qin family. Everyone and everything was strange to her. She didn’t even know that you were supposed to make a wish before blowing out the candles on a birthday cake.

Before that, she had only ever tasted a small bite of birthday cake, and even that was just the sponge base. She had never had the delicate, pretty cream on top.

But this cake was hers. All of it.

After the candles were lit, a child who looked as if she had been born soaking in a sugar jar descended from the heavens on her fifth birthday, sincerely telling her:

Fairy tales do exist in this world.

As long as you put your hands together when you make a wish.

Then the fairy tale will come true, and your birthday wish will be granted.

She didn’t say anything at the time, but she did as she was told.

Later, she ate the cream on the cake. It wasn’t as good as she had imagined. It was soft and dense, but a bit greasy. It even sent her to the hospital.

She couldn’t breathe. The moment her consciousness faded, she felt herself being frantically picked up by an adult. A child followed with quick, stumbling steps, like a little duck waddling and quacking, sobbing loudly beside her as if she were dying.

When she woke up, her first words to that child were, “Yu Qinjiu, stop crying.”

Yu Qinjiu was crying really ugly at the time. She wiped her tears and accused her, aggrieved, “Ji Qingyou, you’re so annoying.”

That was the first time they addressed each other.

Later, somehow, it became their habit to call each other by their full names. In their first year of elementary school, Ji Qingyou accidentally sucked ink from a pen cartridge, getting blue ink sprayed all over her face, and was laughed at. Yu Qinjiu immediately sucked the remaining half of the ink from her own cartridge, also spraying her face. Then, also becoming a little blue person, Yu Qinjiu grinned and said to her, “Ji Qingyou, you look so ugly.”

At seven, Ji Qingyou was bullied and cried secretly. Yu Qinjiu rushed back from her grandmother’s house, hands on her hips, scolding Ji Qingyou and fiercely driving those people away. Then she pinched her nose and said, “Ji Qingyou, you make it so I can’t even go to Grandma’s house in peace.”

At twelve, Yu Qinjiu got into a fight for Ji Qingyou. Her pretty face was bruised and swollen. When she came back, she lifted her chin and told Ji Qingyou to apply medicine to her wounds, saying viciously, “Ji Qingyou, no one will dare bully you anymore.”

At thirteen, Yu Qinjiu was in so much pain from her period that she was rolling on the floor. Ji Qingyou stayed with her all night, changing her hot water bottle. But Yu Qinjiu bit her, and it hurt so much that the mark on her forearm still hasn’t faded. The next day, Yu Qinjiu asked her with red eyes if it hurt. Ji Qingyou said, “Yu Qinjiu, it doesn’t hurt at all.”

In her first year of high school, Ji Qingyou often skipped PE class. But she would watch Yu Qinjiu play volleyball from the window. When she saw Yu Qinjiu start standing by the second net on the volleyball court sidelines, rubbing her wrist, she would grab water and ointment and go downstairs. While applying the ointment, Yu Qinjiu would whine and complain about the pain, telling her to be gentle. She would be gentler, but still say nonchalantly, “Yu Qinjiu, you deserve it.”

In her second year of high school, Ji Qingyou was troubled because Yu Qinjiu was skipping class again. Yu Qinjiu wrote many sticky notes and pasted them outside the window of her room, one after another, a whole row full. They all said: “Ji Qingyou, I won’t skip class anymore, okay?”

At eighteen and a half, Yu Qinjiu came to find Ji Qingyou before going abroad and told her: “Ji Qingyou, remember to put your hands together when you make a wish.”

For the next ten years, Ji Qingyou never said the name “Yu Qinjiu” again. The most common way she heard others address her was “Doctor Ji.” Very few people ever called her by her full name anymore.

It almost made her forget.

That the name “Ji Qingyou” could actually carry so much emotion.

–

Twenty-nine years old.

Her thoughts drifted away and back in those brief thirty seconds. Ji Qingyou quietly looked at Yu Qinjiu, who was so close. “Of course, I remember.”

Yu Qinjiu was still facing the traffic light, which hadn’t yet turned green. She stared into Ji Qingyou’s eyes and smiled. A faint, barely visible watery sheen appeared in her eyes. “That’s good.”

It looked like burning, moving water light.

It made Ji Qingyou’s fingertips tremble involuntarily. But in the next second, Yu Qinjiu slowly closed her eyes, hiding the watery sheen within. In the last three seconds of the red light countdown, she put her hands together.

She looked like she was making a wish.

Her posture was so devout, her eyelashes like resting butterflies.

Ji Qingyou was stunned.

“Even though it’s not my birthday today, I couldn’t help making a wish when I saw the countdown…”

Yu Qinjiu opened her eyes just as the light turned green, speaking slowly.

People streamed past them, brushing by their shoulders.

The air thick with particles flowed around Yu Qinjiu’s cheeks. Ji Qingyou saw her eyes curve into a smile. “Ji Qingyou, you need to thank me.”

With that, Yu Qinjiu turned around, waved goodbye to Ji Qingyou, and disappeared into the noisy, bustling crowd. But Ji Qingyou could still hear her soft voice, still floating in the air.

“Because the wish I just made was that the other half of your birthday wish will come true soon.”