Chapter 73
TLC: Lilies
Editing: Mashiro
The woman asked as quietly as she could, to the point her voice sounded raspy, repeating his name twice like a broken record.
“Shen Yan… Shen Yan?”
No one heard it—besides him.
No one else knew who the person before him was—besides him.
Shen Yan was unable to look away.
The woman’s gaze was no longer as sharp as years ago; the course of time dulled it by a lot, but her gaze was still full of terrible obsession. Under the watchful stare of those eyes, his body tensed all over, making him unable to budge.
Even if he didn’t answer, his appearance and his expression had already betrayed him.
The woman suddenly moved up her other hand to grab him firmly by his arm and took another step toward him, “It’s… you, isn’t it?”
Shen Yan’s breath suddenly quickened. However, her stare made him feel as if something was strangling him by the throat, making him unable to breath, not to mention speaking. He knew he could simply shake his head, but doing so would do nothing other than embarrassing him even more, so he abandoned the thought of denying.
“Qi Jing…”
He called subconsciously
The first time he called his voice was low, so low it couldn’t even be considered making sound—it was more like a hurried gasp released when he opened his mouth.
Only when he didn’t get any response did he realise that his voice cords couldn’t even muster any strength, and that the sound got trapped in throat.
At that time, the woman before him was almost pressing on him with all of her body, her fingers clutched the cloth of his sleeve, stretching it taut, even moving her hold higher and higher as if wanting to urgently pull him over.
“Qi Jing—”
The second time he finally properly called out; even though his voice was still very low, it was enough to bring Qi Jing’s attention.
“Hmm?”
Qi Jing had been looking at the place he used to walk when he was hospitalised in the car accident all this while; it wasn’t until Shen Yan called him that he turned back his head. What he saw was Shen Yan supporting a middle-aged woman, what’s more, that woman was leaning over to Shen Yan so much it seemed she was about to fall toward him. Seeing this, he quickly walked over to help her.
“Aiya, auntie, are you alright?” He asked with concern.
The woman trembled—she didn’t expect that Shen Yan would have a friend with him right now, so she flinched away slightly along with a light jerk of her shoulders.
Qi Jing didn’t notice her reaction; he carefully supported her other hand and asked gently, “Auntie, do you feel unwell? Do you want me to call for a nurse?”
The woman quickly looked over at him.
Then, she looked down awkwardly and shook her head. Without saying a thing, her hand that was clutching onto Shen Yan’s sleeve slowly released its hold.
Huh? Is she unwilling to be helped by a stranger?Qi Jing took note of that, so after making sure the other was steady on her feet, he slowly withdrew his hand. He observed the woman’s simple and plain clothing—she didn’t seem like someone from the city, but a patient transferred from the county hospital to the provincial one. He thought she felt at loss in an unfamiliar place and asked with a warm smile, “Auntie, do you have trouble finding someplace? Maybe you want to register? We were heading to the counter over at the outpatient, so maybe we could show you the way?”
The woman listened in silence, only pursing her lips as she kept shaking her head.
Without waiting for Qi Jing to continue, she took a step back first, her eyes still lingering on Shen Yan for a short while before she looked away and slowly walked down the corridor in a daze to sit on the edge of a bench with a disturbed expression.
“Is she a patient? It’s so worrying to see that she doesn’t have anyone accompanying her by her side&#k2026;”
Qi Jing was a bit worried and debated a little whether he should go and ask a nurse to come over.
Shen Yan looked deathly pale. He blinked vacantly&#k2014;even though he stood with his back towards the woman on a bench, yet it was as if he could see her lonely figure in front of him.
“Shen Yan?”
When Qi Jing noticed that something was not right, he unwittingly reached out and when his fingers touched the back of Shen Yan’s hand, he was shocked to find out that it was ice-cold, immediately making him anxious.
“Shen Yan, what’s wrong?” Qi Jing frowned, worried that Shen Yan might have worn too little and got cold when they were outside.
“I’m fine.” It took a long time for Shen Yan’s eyes to get back in focus, but instead of focusing on Qi Jing, he looked down at the ground for a long time, only keeping his head down for quite a while as he stared at the floor. “… You have a check-up today, so let’s not delay. Let’s go.”
As Qi Jing was about to nod, a choked sob came over from that bench behind them.
It was that woman.
That woman was crying.
For some unknown reason, she hid her face in her hands and started sobbing all by herself. She cried miserably, making the passersby throw her sympathetic glances as they thought maybe someone close to her was diagnosed with some terminal illness.
“I better go see if she’s alright again…” Qi Jing couldn’t bear hearing it, and was about to go back and ask her more about what happened, but Shen Yan still stopped him gently.
“You go ahead and register, I’ll accompany her.” Shen Yan’s voice was hoarse and choked as if he did his best to force those words out and struggled to link them together. He kept his head down during all that time, the faintest hint of pain appeared on his face—unfortunately, that pain was hard to perceive. “If anything happens, give me a call… I’ll go upstairs to look for you.”
“Okay,” Hearing that he was willing to stay, Qi Jing felt a lot more relieved and said with a smile, “Either way I can register by myself without any problem, so you stay and accompany that auntie for a while.”
Then he paused and sighed with a faint smile.
“Truth is, when I first stayed in the hospital by myself, I also felt really down, so I thought that… maybe that auntie has experienced something sad. If that’s the case, then I’d ask you to make sure to console her. After all, having someone to talk to at a time like that really helps with getting better.”
One would always have some empathy for someone with the same difficult experience.
Shen Yan listened without saying a word, then nodded after a long while, “… Mhm, understood. You go ahead.”
After he said so, Qi Jing walked some twenty odd metres down the corridor before looking back to find that Shen Yan was still standing there, watching him go. He smiled and waved at him, signaling him to not worry and urging him to go.
Shen Yan kept looking at him for a while, then finally turned away and walked to the woman sitting on the bench.
Feeling relieved, Qi Jing entered the outpatient department building and went to the floor he was first sent to after the accident. After registering, he sat by himself in the waiting area to quietly wait for his name to appear on the announcement screen.
The waiting area was furnished with several large and clear glass windows, so he could see thick, heavy layers of clouds slowly sucking out the light from the skylines from his seat. What had been a clear sky in the early morning was now gone without a trace, the dark grey making it seem as if the winter had already come ahead of time—it was bound to be a cloudy day.
… I hope it’ll stay just cloudy, and not rainy.
He thought.
Neither of them had thought of bringing the umbrella, as both of them didn’t expect that there would be such unexpected changes in the weather. It’d be bad if it rained…
A chilly wind blew by; it was cold, indeed, but it still showed no sign of the possible rain.
With the sky this dark, it was far from the atmosphere of a reunion.
Shen Yan closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then slowly walked towards that woman’s side to take a seat. He sat particularly rigid.
She seemed to have sensed his presence—her spasmodic sobs gradually calmed down and she finally opened the fingers covering her face, revealing those sad yet resentful eyes from between her fingers.
“Shen Yan…”
She called that name once again.
It was her who came up with that name—even though it was passed down from that man she both loved and resented the most, it still belonged to her, so she would never forget it in her lifetime.
With a shiver, he clasped together his hands that were resting on his knees, then said that word with utmost difficulty, “… Mom.”
Hearing that word, the woman lifted her head up with a jolt.
“DON’T CALL ME THIS OUTSIDE!!”
The harsh, shrill from the fright voice was no different from the past. How could he possibly forget it… He shouldn’t have forgotten it.
“I’m sorry…” After a long while, he managed to say his second sentence; then, there was only silence.
His ability to form any words seemed to have been eroded by that silence, disappearing into the depths of his throat. His whole person was suddenly caught in a daze, but his hands subconsciously curled into fists as he could feel the phantom bites of pain. His palms seemed to have a better memory than his brain—they still remembered the feeling of getting struck with a ruler.
So, what am I supposed to call her?
Ah, that’s right—when he was young, the woman taught him what to say whenever they took a walk on the streets together.
“… Auntie.” He called in a soft voice. He called her the same as Qi Jing, like a complete stranger, as only this way he would be able to continue this conversation, “Are you alright?”
Hearing him call her so, the woman froze, her breathing suddenly urgent.
She exhaled hurriedly, taking a good couple of breaths before she managed to stop herself from crying once again; yet she still couldn’t prevent her eyes from growing teary, “I’m not alright, I’m not alright at all.”
Not alright—
It was just two words, but they still made his heart drop heavily, making him forget to breathe.
The two of them sat side by side, but he didn’t take another look at her, only looking down on his hands that had turned white from clutching too tightly. He asked stiffly, “Why?”
After getting out of touch with no news of her to be heard, he thought that the woman was at least leading a happy and blissful life.
After all, her biggest burden was already gone.
Yet the reality that the woman revealed to him was not at all what he had hoped for, “Why… You’re asking me why? Just look at me, I’m already like that, but there’s still no one who would find the time to accompany me to the provincial hospital to visit a doctor. My family can’t bother with me, after all, my dad has long since passed, and my mom has been bedridden for years already, unable to even care for herself. The rest of my relatives told me they don’t have time to accompany me, even my husband was the same, but I know that they just think it a chore…”
At this point, her voice was already choking with sobs, “Now I don’t even know what to do after seeing the examination results; I don’t even dare tell anyone about it… How can I be alright…”
The woman once again began to sob.
Only now Shen Yan realised that he was holding his breath for all that time, the strong feeling of asphyxiation making his head start to spin, so he had to take a few low pants, his chest struck with a dull pain. “Examination results.”
He couldn’t bring himself to ask directly.
Under the circumstances where he didn’t know the answer, he couldn’t ask the question, so he could only repeat the key word dully, repeat like a broken record. “Examination results…”
“Examination results… I got them yesterday.” The woman finally continued after him. Because of her crying, she sounded older than she really was, more haggard. “They said there’s a tumour developing in my brain—it’s still unknown if it’s malignant or not… The doctor asked me to stay in the hospital for an observation to decide if there’s a need to operate on it.”
Shen Yan felt as if he had resurfaced from the depths of the ocean—after being immersed in the dark and cold water for too long, a strong shiver ran through his body the moment he got fished up.
The sheer opening of his lips made him taste the salty and bitter seawater, “A brain tumour…”
He saw flashes of white before his eyes, making him feel like he was soon going to lose sight of everything around him, so he shut his eyes quickly and shook his head with difficulty. The only thing he managed to shake away was his fear from meeting the woman once again—but the fears remaining were of a completely different kind, one he had never expected to experience.
“The pathology report… when will it be out?”
“The doctor told me by tomorrow.”
PET-CT scan could only provide the initial recognition of a tumour, to determine whether it was malicious, the pathology report needed to be done as well.
Shen Yan tried to regain control over his reason, attempting to simply sort out some of his medical knowledge to find even a trace of an information that could remotely console him—but he discovered that thinking already became a difficult task, much less rational thinking.
“If, in case you have to undergo an operation… Will anyone come to take care of you?” He asked.
The woman stared fixedly at him, her eyes bloodshot as she scoffed, “Who knows. I don’t even know if I can have surgery. And even if I need surgery, I’m afraid I won’t be able to afford the medical fees. These years, my husband is so addicted to gambling that he lost almost all of our family fortune to it, so there’s no way he would pay this money.”
After hearing this, Shen Yan had finally regained some of his clarity of mind.
With his knees still a bit weak and it took him some time to slowly stand up from the bench. He said, “… Please wait here for a bit, I’ll be back in a moment.”
For the convenience of the patients, the hospital provided banking services at several points located around the hospital grounds—there was one located just five minutes away, near the inpatient building.
There was a twenty thousand yuan limit for withdrawing money at an ATM, so Shen Yan went directly to the counter to withdraw his money. He withdrew forty thousand from the savings he worked for every day and packed it in an envelope, sealing it tightly. Then, he silently went back to the bench, and put the envelope in the dumbfounded woman’s hands without saying a word.
“Please save this money for emergency use. Operating a brain tumour should cost about this much, so… hopefully it can get you through this.”
Usually, a brain tumour surgery would require a matching postoperative care, so the medical fees at the time would far exceed this amount, and could even get to double or triple this price.
But he had limited financial means, so he could only do his best to cushion the woman’s expenses, focusing on the woman’s current situation.
“Shen Yan…” Woman’s hands grabbing the envelope kept trembling as she stared at him wide-eyed, but he only sighed softly, not saying anything more. However, after falling into a short daze, the woman suddenly shoved the money back at him as if she thought of something, gasping as she yelled agitatedly, “No! No! Is this money your father gave you… I don’t need it, I don’t need his money!”
Shen Yan was taken aback, then he frowned, the tone of his voice fell when he realised what she was saying. “No, I never took any money from him. I earned this money all by myself, not a single penny of it is from him.”
The woman took two tottering steps back, backing away from him, then quietly scrutinised his appearance.
No matter what, there was no way of denying—that man’s blood was flowing in his body, there’s just no denying that… The fact that that man was his true, biological father.
“Shen Yan,” She suddenly snickered at herself, mumbling, “You’re right. He never wanted you.”
A/N:
Mama Shen… No, Auntie Shen, can you just let me adopt Dr Shen… 〒▽〒
T/N:
Lucilla: *in the middle of printing the adoption documents* It’s fine. It’s fine.
It do be fine, we can still adopt our fluffy goose QAQ
Mashiro: ughh, I want to squish his cheeks so hard that he would forget his pain for a moment…..he is such a good son and such a good boyfriend!!!