In a fast-food restaurant about to close for the night, three doctors happened to be having a late-night snack together.
Li Sheng and Zhang Cheng watched as Shen Fangyu answered a phone call, then froze like a wax statue, standing motionless with his phone in hand.
“What’s wrong?” Li Sheng asked.
Shen Fangyu snapped back to his senses, glanced at the call that had already been hung up from the other end, then at the time on his phone. “I swear…” he muttered under his breath, “What the hell is wrong with Jiang Xu? Look at the time, does he have some kind of internal stopwatch or something?”
“Jiang Xu called you?” Last time Jiang Xu had summoned Shen Fangyu away with just a single text, Zhang Cheng had been with him eating skewers. Now, with the scene repeating itself, he couldn’t help but joke, “So what’s Her Majesty the Queen ordering you to do this time?”
Shen Fangyu didn’t answer. He stood up, draped his coat over his arm, picked up his phone, and went to pay the bill. “You two keep eating,” he said with a nod to them. “Something’s come up, I have to go.”
As he spoke, he patted Li Sheng, who was sitting closest, on the shoulder, then reached out to flag down a taxi that happened to be passing by.
“Something at the hospital?” Li Sheng didn’t know what had happened last time. “And what’s this about ‘Her Majesty the Queen’? Is that a new nickname you guys came up with for Dr. Jiang? Does Dr. Jiang know?”
Li Sheng was from another hospital, doing standardized residency training in Shen Fangyu’s group. Unlike Zhang Cheng, an attending in the OB-GYN department, who’d been classmates with both Jiang Xu and Shen Fangyu and was an old friend of Shen’s, Li Sheng wasn’t quite as casual when he spoke and still carried a trace of formality.
Zhang Cheng was also puzzled. Once could be a coincidence, but now Shen Fangyu was leaving in a hurry again. Given Jiang Xu’s relationship with him, there was no way this kind of urgency could be over something personal. So he agreed with Li Sheng’s guess. “Probably,” he said.
“Her Majesty the Queen?” Li Sheng still wanted to ask more.
“Eat, eat,” Zhang Cheng cut him off before he could continue, giving a quiet warning. “Just make sure Dr. Jiang never hears you say that.”
Yet at that very moment, the man who in his colleagues’ eyes was surely rushing to the hospital, and who would never, under any circumstances, hurry over something personal was in fact haggling with a taxi driver over something personal.
“Please, sir, just wait here for five minutes. I’ll be right back after I buy it.” Shen Fangyu glanced at the bozai gao shop owner, who was about to close the rolling shutter, and felt sweat bead in his palms from anxiety.
It was hard to get a taxi in this area, so he wanted the driver to wait while he bought the cakes and then take him straight home. Otherwise, if he had to fuss with getting another ride, he might miss Jiang Xu’s deadline altogether.
“You know how many rides I can take in five minutes? And besides, you don’t have much farther to go. I won’t be making much money off this, so I might as well take another passenger for the base fare instead.” As the driver spoke, he started trying to shoo him out.
Shen Fangyu immediately pulled a 100 yuan bill from his wallet and handed it over. “Please, sir, I’m really in a hurry.”
The driver’s expression, which had been full of impatience, lit up instantly. Without so much as a blink, he slipped the red bill into his pocket and, like a Sichuan opera face-change master, switched at lightning speed to a kindly smile.
These days, suckers were rare, might as well make a bit of easy money while he could.
He beamed at Shen Fangyu. “No problem. Your uncle here’s a kindhearted man, never in a rush.”
“…” It was the first time Shen Fangyu had met someone whose shamelessness rivaled his own, and for a moment he was speechless.
The driver smiled with benevolent warmth. “Don’t just sit there, go on.”
Shen Fangyu pushed the door open and jogged to the bozai gao shop. From a distance, the shop owner called out, “We’re closed! Come back tomorrow.”
Imitating his earlier tactic, Shen Fangyu laid a red bill on the counter. “Please, I’m really in a rush to buy this.”
He hadn’t expected this man to be a true man of principle who wouldn’t bend for five pecks of rice. The owner waved him off. “No, closed means closed. I’ve already put everything away in the back kitchen, and I still need to get home to coax my kid to sleep.”
Men of principle were often vulnerable to emotional appeals.
“Boss,” Shen Fangyu’s expression instantly shifted to somber, his eyes faintly reddening at just the right degree. He pointed toward the tall buildings of Jihua Hospital in the distance. “I have a frail, helpless lover who’s already at death’s door. The doctors say he won’t survive past tonight. Before he goes, he told me… the only thing he wants is one last taste of your bozai gao.”
The boss looked at this heartbroken young man with some caution, clearly doubtful. “You telling the truth?”
Shen Fangyu nodded heavily, his eyes filled with pleading. “Just take it as doing a good deed. My lover will bless you from above,” he lowered his voice to a faint, eerie tone, “otherwise, he won’t be able to rest even as a ghost… and his spirit will haunt your shop day and night—”
“Enough, enough.” The burly, muscle-bound boss shivered, rubbing his arms in the autumn wind as if the ghost was already drifting by.
“Please, brother!” Shen Fangyu instantly dropped the fabricated ghost-story voice and replaced it with a look of pure sincerity, gazing at the shop owner with eager expectation, as though the one making threats a second ago had been someone else entirely.
The big guy turned his head, coughed twice, and sighed. “Fine, fine. Guess I’m just a man of loyalty.”
The principled boss let go of the shutter handle, went into the back to open the fridge, and called out gruffly, “What flavor does your wife like?”
“Red bean!”
Someone’s change of tone was faster than flipping a page, and he had no time to quibble over the incorrect form of address.
“Got it!” The big guy didn’t hesitate, didn’t even ask how many he wanted, he just packed up all the red bean ones left in the fridge and handed them over.
“That’s too much…”
“It’s fine, no charge,” the boss said generously. “You called it a good deed, so take it.” While speaking, he shut the shop door. “I really need to go, or my kid will get antsy.”
Even with skin as thick as city walls, Shen Fangyu couldn’t bring himself to take advantage like that. After several refusals and the boss’s continued insistence, he pulled a parking card from his bag. “This is for Jihua Hospital’s parking lot, 200 hours. Please, take it.”
The big guy froze, then waved his hands. “Parking at the hospital is expensive. We never even drive when we go there, it must’ve cost you a lot.”
Doctors and nurses spent all day at the hospital; if they had to pay the same rates as the public, their salaries wouldn’t even cover parking.
The hospital staff got an internal price, and just recently there had been a “buy five, get one free” and “buy ten, get two free” promotion. To prevent reselling, there was a purchase limit per employee, at most, they’d have one or two extra to gift to friends or relatives.
Shen Fangyu had bought the maximum and stocked up enough to last until the next promotion.
When it came down to it, the cost of one card was about the same as the bozai gao’s value. But to keep up the lie, he couldn’t reveal he was a doctor. So he stayed in character, voice low and mournful. “He’s gone now, so I won’t need it anymore. Please, brother, keep it, and stay healthy from now on.”
The boss immediately felt as if the parking card in his hand weighed a thousand pounds. Hearing that, he nodded solemnly to Shen Fangyu.
After sending him off, Shen Fangyu strolled back to the taxi with a heavy bag of bozai gao. On a whim, he gave half to the driver.
He was quite sure that if he showed up at Jiang Xu’s with that much bozai gao, he’d be met with an eye-roll and a “glutton” label.
The driver, now with both cash and a late-night snack, was in high spirits. He joked casually, “Heading off to see your girlfriend?”
Shen Fangyu lit up his phone screen, checking the pressing time, and seriously assessed Jiang Xu’s status: “Not a girlfriend, a little ancestor.”
At 10:29, after a death-defying race against time, Shen Fangyu finally stood at Jiang the Ancestor’s door with his suitcase in hand.
Jiang Xu glanced at the clock, opened the door, and looked at the slightly breathless Shen Fangyu. After a moment’s pause, he said, “You’re late.”
“Impossible,” Shen Fangyu replied, reaching for his phone, but Jiang Xu pointed toward the clock in the dining room. “In my house, we go by my house’s time.”
“Hey now, Jiang Xu, that’s not fair,” Shen Fangyu said, stepping inside and closing the door, dropping his suitcase by the entrance. “You don’t get to decide I’m late, either way, I’m coming in tonight.”
Jiang Xu took the bozai gao from him and pointed at the striped slippers on the floor. “Put those on.”
“And I wasn’t even in your house just now, so why should your clock count? My phone’s synced with Jihua Hospital’s time, there’s no way—”
Shen Fangyu had just rolled up his sleeves, ready to argue his point with Jiang Xu, not immediately catching the meaning behind Jiang Xu’s words. Mid-sentence, he suddenly stopped.
“What did you just say?”
Jiang Xu glanced at him and carried the bowl cakes toward the kitchen.
The slow-to-react lightbulb in Shen Fangyu’s brain finally switched on, and from where he was left standing at the door, he shouted, “Are you telling me to change my shoes before coming in?!”
Jiang Xu took one from the bag and bit into it.
The taste was better than he’d expected, soft, translucent, and delicately sweet, the glutinous cake blended perfectly with the tender, fragrant red beans, just the right amount of chewiness lingering on his tongue.
His craving was suddenly and fully satisfied. Looking at the remaining cakes, he even felt a little happy.
At the same time, he decided the overly helpful “delivery man” Mr. Shen, who had completed his mission, was now a bit redundant.
So, holding the remaining half of the cake, he stepped back to the door and said, “If you ask again, you’re leaving.”
Shen Fangyu obediently shut his mouth and changed into the striped slippers Jiang Xu had pointed out.
“Good?” he asked, casually picking up the bottle of hand sanitizer from the entryway to clean his hands.
Jiang Xu nodded and handed him the bag.
“You eat them,” Shen Fangyu said. “I don’t like sweets.”
Jiang Xu looked at him, not taking back his hand.
After a brief stare-down, Shen Fangyu caved, grabbed one, and swallowed it whole. Jiang Xu was still watching him.
Thinking for a moment, Shen Fangyu studied Jiang Xu’s expression and tested the waters: “Pretty good.”
There was a hint of warmth in Jiang Xu’s gaze.
Understanding, Shen Fangyu switched to an over-the-top tone, using every word of praise he could think of to extol the cakes, finally earning a satisfied glance away from Jiang Xu.
However, when he watched Jiang Xu effortlessly finish the entire massive bag of cakes one by one, then turn to ask if there were more, Shen Fangyu realized, he still didn’t understand Jiang Xu well enough.
Should’ve known better than to give so many to the driver.
When Shen Fangyu fell silent, Jiang Xu guessed that was all there was. He went to wash his hands, feeling a bit full, and leaned against the doorway to digest.
“Why did you only buy red bean?”
“Isn’t that your favorite flavor?”
Jiang Xu paused briefly, then couldn’t help asking, “How do you know?”
“Every time we passed that shop before, you’d stare at the red bean picture for ages. I’m not blind,” Shen Fangyu said casually. “If I didn’t have at least that much observation skill, I’d be a pretty lousy doctor.”
Jiang Xu’s feelings turned unexpectedly complicated.
“Man, I’m exhausted. You really know how to run someone ragged,” Shen Fangyu stretched. From the hospital to the cake shop, then home to pack, then driving over here, he’d been rushing the whole way, his bones practically coming apart.
Good thing he still had a car at home; otherwise, he might not have been able to get a ride this late.
He stood and grabbed his suitcase. “Which one’s your bedroom? I’ll put this in there.”
Jiang Xu calmly blocked him, pointing at the sofa. “You’re sleeping here.” Then he handed Shen Fangyu a bottle of alcohol. “Wipe down your suitcase first, especially the wheels.”
“…If you won’t let me sleep in your room, how am I supposed to take care of you? What if you get a cramp in the middle of the night and I don’t even know?”
Jiang Xu gave him a sidelong look, his tone lifting slightly. “Then make a bed on the floor in my room.”
“You really won’t let me sleep in the bed?” Shen Fangyu started spinning half-serious nonsense. “You’re too cruel, I’ve got neck and back problems, you know.”
Jiang Xu’s expression grew a bit unreadable. “Mainly because you…”
He trailed off after four words, but Shen Fangyu somehow understood anyway. “Hey, no… Jiang Xu, that was an accident. I’m not that kind of person… I don’t have any improper thoughts about you… I was just drunk… I—”
The more he spoke, the more he stammered, until he couldn’t bear Jiang Xu’s gaze anymore. He raised his hands in surrender. “Fine, I’ll sleep on the floor.”
After all, he hadn’t forgotten why he’d come. It was reasonable for Jiang Xu not to trust him, and no matter how much he saw himself as a straight man, he couldn’t deny one fact—
The first time he shared a bed with Jiang Xu, he’d slept with him, and even ended up with a child from it.
That was enough to get anyone called a scumbag.
Jiang Xu nodded and pointed to a nearby door. “Bathroom’s here. There’s a mop next to it. After you shower, dry the floor. I don’t like water on the ground.”
“This is a bathroom!” Shen Fangyu looked shocked. “Do you even know the ‘bath’ in ‘bathroom’ has three water radicals? If there’s no water on the floor, does it even deserve to be called a bathroom?”
Jiang Xu spread his hands, clearly unwilling to debate Chinese etymology, and walked back to his room with his tablet.
Fine.
Shen Fangyu told himself that he was here out of responsibility.
Since he was here to take care of Jiang Xu and make up for his mistake, there was no need to fuss over this now, he’d just endure a few days of hardship and talk about the rest once Jiang Xu’s health improved.
Jiang Xu’s home was about what Shen Fangyu had imagined: like the man himself, a cool-toned Nordic style in gray and white, spotless and meticulously organized, distant and impersonal, cold and without warmth.
It was clearly a one-person household. The bathroom shelf held only the simplest toiletries, obviously rarely touched by outsiders.
Following Jiang Xu’s instructions, Shen Fangyu moved his suitcase into the bathroom, wiped it thoroughly with alcohol and tissues, then took a shower. Changed into loungewear, he strolled lazily to Jiang Xu’s door and pushed it open.
Dr. Jiang was half-naked, the cream-colored loungewear top just pulled over his head, revealing the red mole on his chest, stark against his cool, pale skin.
Shen Fangyu froze, watching Jiang Xu quickly yank the hem down and glare at him with anger. “No one ever taught you to knock before entering someone’s bedroom?”
Shen Fangyu really wanted to explain that they were both men, so there was nothing to be embarrassed about, or question why Jiang Xu, who had clearly already showered and changed into sleepwear was now changing clothes again.
But his body reacted before his brain could—
Jiang Xu watched, wide-eyed, as Shen Fangyu’s Adam’s apple bobbed. The change in the man’s body was impossible to hide beneath the thin, soft pajama pants, and it was all laid bare before his eyes.
In an instant, Jiang Xu’s gaze shifted from irritation to incredulous shock, then to a flush of anger rising from deep within. Finally, he grabbed a pillow and slammed it straight into Shen Fangyu’s face.
“Get out!”
“Listen to me, I can expla—”
Hugging the pillow, Shen Fangyu froze for a moment, but Jiang Xu was already off the bed, shoving him out in a few quick steps. The door slammed shut with a loud bang, and Jiang Xu was still fuming.
The bedding on the floor was what he had just laid out. The quilt was a bit big, and he’d worked up a light sweat putting the cover on it, so he’d thought to change into another set of pajamas, only for Shen Fangyu to barge right in.
Forgetting to knock was one thing, but getting that kind of reaction while looking at him, what was that supposed to mean?
Jiang Xu had nearly convinced himself to forget about that absurd night, but this whole scene from Shen Fangyu had lodged a weight in his chest that refused to go away.
He immediately grabbed his phone, furiously tapping at the screen, ready to kick this wolf—whom he’d foolishly let into his home, right back out. But after only two characters, a sharp, stabbing pain suddenly shot through his abdomen, climbing up along his spine like an electric current, yanking at his nerves until it felt like his whole body was being torn apart.
It was as if the pain had drained every ounce of strength from him in an instant. His hand slipped with a loud thunk as the phone fell to the floor, and he didn’t even have the strength to catch it.
Bracing himself against the edge of the bed, he collapsed onto the bedding he’d just laid out for Shen Fangyu, curling up tightly with his arms wrapped around his abdomen.
A fine sheen of sweat formed across his pale forehead. He took slow, deep breaths, forcing himself to adapt to the sudden pain, while reaching for his phone.
The surface was shattered beyond recognition, he couldn’t tell if it was just the screen protector or the screen itself. Jiang Xu’s hand trembled as he tried to unlock it, but the phone had gone black.
“Damn it.” He tossed the phone aside.
Still lingering outside the door, Shen Fangyu hadn’t gone far when he heard the noise inside. He’d been about to text Jiang Xu to apologize, but now he didn’t bother, he knocked hard on the door. “Jiang Xu, what’s wrong?”
Jiang Xu opened his mouth to speak, but the pain made it difficult to get any words out.
The continued silence inside only made Shen Fangyu more tense, and even that uncooperative bodily reaction from earlier faded away.
He tried the door, but found that Jiang Xu had locked it when pushing him out. Looking at the firmly shut lock, Shen Fangyu steeled himself and kicked the door hard.
With a loud bang and the destruction of the lock, the door flew open. Jiang Xu was sitting on the floor directly facing the doorway. Seeing Shen Fangyu barge in, his face was filled with disbelief.
“You…” He caught his breath, too exasperated to continue. The key to the bedroom door was sitting right by the entryway, if Shen Fangyu had just looked around, he wouldn’t have had to break the lock.
“What happened?” Shen Fangyu showed no guilt over the damage. He knelt beside Jiang Xu and placed his hand over Jiang Xu’s, pressing down gently but firmly in a soothing massage. His hands were warm, the heat from his palm seeping through the skin, and Jiang Xu’s complexion improved slightly.
“Lower abdomen pain?” Shen Fangyu murmured to himself. “Could it be our daughter’s way of making me stay?”
Jiang Xu shot him a dark, withering glare.
“Call 120?” Shen Fangyu asked.
Jiang Xu tightened his jaw, slowly exhaled, and said, “Let’s wait and see.”
The pain had come on swiftly and without warning, but now there were faint signs of relief. Keeping himself bent forward with his knees drawn up helped suppress it somewhat, whereas moving suddenly or changing position could easily trigger a worse reaction.
Besides, with that inexplicable child in his belly, the thought of going to any hospital now made him uneasy. All the hospitals in this area had his classmates working there. Granted, it wasn’t certain they’d be on the night shift, but if they were, Jiang Xu felt he might as well say goodbye to this world.
Shen Fangyu quickly understood his concern and didn’t press the matter further. Jiang Xu let him keep pressing on his abdomen, his brow slightly furrowed.
“Colicky pain?” Shen Fangyu asked.
Jiang Xu nodded.
Shen Fangyu’s expression turned serious. “Intestinal spasm?”
“Seems like it.” Jiang Xu didn’t have the strength for more than one word.
“Something wrong with the bozai cake?” Shen Fangyu muttered to himself as if diagnosing, then added, “Definitely because you ate too much.”
Jiang Xu: “…”
“You really have no sense of moderation,” Shen Fangyu nagged as he massaged Jiang Xu’s stomach, sounding exactly like he was lecturing a patient. “That stuff’s hard to digest to begin with, and you’re always eating and drinking carelessly, your stomach’s probably a mess… Hey, Jiang Xu,” he said, suddenly remembering something, “do you often skip breakfast?”
Jiang Xu pretended not to hear, but Shen Fangyu was relentless, like the Tang Monk reciting sutras after catching Sun Wukong killing the White Bone Demon in disguise. “What’s wrong with you? And you call yourself a doctor, you don’t even know how to take care of yourself. Never mind damaging your stomach, do you even know that skipping breakfast makes you more likely to get gallstones?”
“There’s no literature proving that…”
Jiang Xu really didn’t have the energy to argue with Shen Fangyu now. Once he was better, he was determined to slap him in the face with the research and tell him there was no evidence linking gallstones to skipping breakfast. A professional doctor’s most important virtue was to neither believe nor spread unverified claims.
“Forget the literature,” Shen Fangyu said. “I’m telling you, skipping breakfast has tons of downsides. For example—”
Jiang Xu lifted a hand, weakly making a “shh” gesture at his lips. He pointed at his abdomen, then covered both ears. “Hurts.”
Shen Fangyu’s words cut off instantly. He glanced at Jiang Xu, hesitated, then clicked his tongue in frustration, but in the end, he quietly shut his mouth.
Next to Jiang Xu’s bedroom was a bay window, the moonlight streaming through the glass.
Being on a high floor, the view was excellent.
The two doctors, who would normally be at each other’s throats whenever they met during the day, now sat silently side by side at the edge of the bed. Silence spread between them, one with furrowed brows, the other professionally kneading his abdomen, leaving only the faint rustle of fabric.
A rare moment of peace.
No one knew how much time passed before the pain in Jiang Xu’s body finally disappeared completely. He licked his somewhat dry lips just as Shen Fangyu made a move to speak.
Jiang Xu, still on edge, stared at him, only to hear Shen Fangyu say, “Want me to get you a glass of water?”
Jiang Xu let out a breath of relief, feeling a twinge of guilt for having suspected Shen Fangyu of ill intent. He pointed to the nightstand. “The cup’s there.”
Shen Fangyu followed the direction of his finger and instantly froze.
Both times he had rushed into Jiang Xu’s bedroom earlier, he had been in such a hurry that he hadn’t taken in his surroundings at all. Now, he realized the room was completely different from the rest of the house.
If Jiang Xu weren’t lying there in person, he would never have believed this was his room.
The nightstand was piled with miscellaneous clutter, stacked in several layers. The bedding was a mess, pillows strewn everywhere, the small sofa beside the bed buried under a heap of clothes, and a scarf draped over the ironing board.
The most ridiculous thing was the sheer number of plush toys. They transformed what would have been just messy into something resembling a dog’s den.
“Why does a grown man have so many stuffed animals in his bedroom?” Shen Fangyu grumbled as he wrestled a cup out from beside a teddy bear, only to spot a pink rabbit with absurdly long ears on the bed.
“Don’t tell me you actually sleep hugging that thing.” His eyes were full of disdain.
Jiang Xu lazily beckoned to him. “Give me the rabbit.”
The rabbit looked worn, likely many years old. Shen Fangyu handed it over, watching as Jiang Xu leaned against the wall and hugged it to his chest.
“This isn’t just a toy, it was my first surgery subject.”
“My mom said I loved plush toys when I was little, especially cutting them open and sewing them back up. They figured I’d definitely become a doctor one day. To encourage my hobby, they bought me a ton of them.”
The earlier pain had left Jiang Xu looking weaker than usual; even his voice was lighter and more ethereal, floating in the air. Combined with his words, the whole scene was straight out of a horror movie.
Shen Fangyu: “…”
He glanced around at the dolls again, and suddenly the once-cute toys seemed faintly sinister, dozens of dark, glassy eyes smiling at him. Out of nowhere, a chill ran down his spine.
Jiang Xu caught his expression and, for once, revealed a rare, sly smile of satisfaction at having spooked him.
Before Shen Fangyu could realize the story was made up, Jiang Xu schooled his features back to calm and, stroking the rabbit’s ear, reminded him, “Water.”
“Oh, almost forgot!”
Shen Fangyu left with the cup, filled it with water, and tested the temperature. Maybe it was the heat of the water grounding his thoughts, but by the time he reentered the bedroom, the chill on his back had faded. He handed the cup to Jiang Xu, who took two sips before setting it back down amid the “wreckage.”
“I really can’t imagine the impeccably dressed Dr. Jiang, whose shirts are never wrinkled, whose buttons are always done up, crawling out of this dog’s nest every morning.”
Jiang Xu gave him a puzzled look. “Then what do you think my bedroom should look like?”
Shen Fangyu thought for a moment. “Quilt folded like a tofu block, sheets perfectly smooth, nightstand spotless, atmosphere cold and severe… basically, like no one lives there.”
“That’s not a bedroom,” Jiang Xu shot him a sideways glance, “that’s a morgue.”
“…Fair point.”
“Get the spare phone from the drawer,” Jiang Xu said. “Put my SIM card in it first.”
Shen Fangyu gave him a knowing look. He understood, Jiang Xu was worried about getting called into the hospital at night. Even if it wasn’t his shift, the more skilled you were, the greater your responsibility. In an emergency requiring major surgery, the on-duty doctors would still reach out to them.
He swapped the SIM card and set the phone by Jiang Xu’s pillow. “If the hospital calls for you tonight, I’ll go instead. You just rest.”
Jiang Xu stretched a little, the discomfort in his body now mostly gone. He checked that the spare phone could make calls, then said to Shen Fangyu, “Didn’t someone say he wouldn’t cover my night shifts?”
Shen Fangyu didn’t bat an eye. “Who would be that rude?”
Jiang Xu gave him a long, slow look before climbing into bed, rabbit in tow, under the light gray quilt.
“Lights off.”
Shen Fangyu blinked, almost in disbelief. “So… I’m sleeping here?”
Jiang Xu turned over without answering. After a long moment, once Shen Fangyu had switched off the lights and lay down, he finally murmured a faint “Mm.”
“Then…” Shen Fangyu said, “if you need anything in the night, or if you’re not feeling well,” he pointed at the pink rabbit, “hit me with that, I’ll definitely wake up.”
There was a brief pause before Jiang Xu, still facing away, said, “Okay.”
The moonlight was perfect, and the now-quiet room was deeply conducive to sleep. The bedding beneath him was soft, and Shen Fangyu drifted off quickly, his mind already foggy within moments.
Perhaps it was the exhaustion from the night’s events, or maybe it was the fact that his sleeping position allowed him to see all the plush toys in the room, but as he hovered in that half-dreaming state, he suddenly saw a small child sitting at the head of the bed.
In the darkness, he couldn’t make out the child’s face, only the vague outline of his movements.
In his hand was a sharp pair of scissors, gleaming white under the moonlight. Shen Fangyu’s heart lurched as he saw the boy snipping open the belly of a rag doll, while letting out a strange, eerie laugh.
Soon, all the plush toys in the room began to move, laughing along with the first one. Laughing as they walked, they slowly closed in on Shen Fangyu.
“Holy sh*t!”
Shen Fangyu shouted in fright and jolted awake from the dream. The plush toys by the bed, still shrouded in the darkness of night, retained a faintly unsettling air. He instinctively turned to look at Jiang Xu on the bed.
Jiang Xu was sound asleep, probably having rolled over in his dreams, and was now facing him.
With his eyes closed, his whole face was framed by the fluffy quilt, his fringe falling forward to half-cover his brows, making him look soft and gentle, nothing like the creepy dolls in the dream.
Shen Fangyu stared at him for a while, and the rapid, pounding heartbeat in his chest gradually slowed, his restless thoughts settling down with it.
He had no idea how long he kept watching until Jiang Xu suddenly mumbled something in his sleep. Shen Fangyu didn’t catch it, and instinctively asked, “What did you say?”
He leaned forward, resting a hand on the bed as he moved closer, tilting his ear toward Jiang Xu’s lips. After waiting for a long moment, all he got was a couple of indistinct murmurs.
Shen Fangyu couldn’t help chuckling to himself. “What am I doing talking to someone who’s asleep?”
He was just about to lie back down and go in for a second round of sleep when there was a sudden rustle in front of him, and something warm brushed the back of his hand.
Shen Fangyu glanced over instinctively, and by the moonlight, he saw that Jiang Xu was hugging that old rabbit to his chest, but one hand had slipped out from under the quilt to rest on Shen Fangyu’s, which was placed by the bed.
Shen Fangyu’s heart skipped a beat.
Then the drowsy Jiang Xu clearly enunciated the words Shen Fangyu had missed earlier: “Shen Fangyu, dumbass.”
“…” Shen Fangyu wordlessly pulled his hand back and burrowed into his blanket.
Better not to have heard it at all.
Early the next morning, when Jiang Xu got up, he saw milk and breakfast laid out on the dining table and his poor phone, which had taken quite a beating.
After washing up, he sat at the table, towel-dried his still-damp hair, and glanced at the phone. The cracks were gone, most likely Shen Fangyu had taken it to get fixed while picking up breakfast.
He pressed the lock screen, and sure enough, the phone lit up immediately. The SIM card had been put back, and the screen was still on his chat with Shen Fangyu. Jiang Xu silently deleted the message he had originally intended to send, just as a new one from Shen Fangyu popped up: I went to the hospital first.
Jiang Xu blinked. Just as he put the phone down, it pinged again.
It was still Shen Fangyu: Remember to eat breakfast. After you finish, take a picture for me. I want to check.
Jiang Xu: “…”
Even someone waving around a chicken feather as if it were an official arrow still needed an actual chicken feather. Where did Shen Fangyu get the confidence to “check” on him?
He clicked his tongue and ignored the message, but his gaze slid to the breakfast on the table.
In the clear glass sat milk at the perfect temperature; a golden fried egg gleamed brightly in the morning sun. Perhaps worried he might get sick of it, there was also a small bowl of fresh vegetable salad on the side, its greens vivid and crisp.
Rather artistic, actually.
Jiang Xu looked at his phone, then at the breakfast.
One bite… just one bite.
So he picked up the chopsticks, keeping his eyes lowered in a studiously indifferent manner.
Of course, even if he finished eating, he absolutely would not send Shen Fangyu a photo.