Chapter Thirty-Five

Early in the morning, Zuo Xutong rushed to the subway station, intending to go to the nursing home to say goodbye to Peng Kun. The subway car was packed with people, and she was squeezed in the middle of the crowd, barely able to breathe. Her phone rang at an inopportune moment. She struggled to pull her arm out, took the phone out of her bag, and held it to her ear.

"Sis, Mom fell down!"

Zuo Xutong's heart sank, and she unconsciously raised her voice: "What happened? Are you badly hurt?"

"I slipped and fell in the bathroom while showering... It hurts so much, I can't get up." Hao Ling's voice trembled; she had never dealt with such an accident on her own before.

"Did you call an ambulance? Where's your dad? Where's Cheng Hao?" Zuo Xutong gripped the handrail tightly and blurted out a series of questions.

"I called, the ambulance's on its way. My dad and Cheng Hao went to the countryside to pick wild vegetables." Before Hao Ling could finish speaking, there was a faint knocking on the door from the other end of the phone. "It's probably the ambulance, I have to hang up!"

The call abruptly ended. At that moment, the train slowly came to a stop, the doors opened, and Zuo Xutong squeezed through the crowd, hurriedly getting off the train regardless of which station it was. Once off the platform, she immediately called Hao Ling back, found out which hospital the ambulance was going to, hailed a taxi, and headed straight for the medical university's emergency room.

When they arrived at the hospital, the ambulance had just come to a stop, and the paramedics were carefully unloading the stretcher. Zuo Xutong immediately spotted Xiao Ping, who was secured to the stretcher with white straps, wrapped in a thin towel, her face sallow, and her eyes closed in pain. Hao Ling stood beside her, helpless, her expression even more pained than the patient's.

Xiao Ping was rushed into the emergency room, where doctors quickly took over and arranged for her to have X-rays taken first. Half an hour later, the doctor made a diagnosis based on the X-rays: L1 vertebral compression fracture, severe vertebral collapse, with more than 1/3 of the vertebral body compressed, and recommended surgery as soon as possible, with a cost of approximately 30,000 yuan.

Zuo Xutong took a deep breath and mentally calculated the costs: surgery, hospitalization, medication, and subsequent rehabilitation. Even after deducting the portion covered by medical insurance, she would still need at least 20,000 to 30,000 yuan, while she only had a few thousand yuan in her bank account. Helpless, she turned to Hao Ling, about to speak, when her sister preemptively asked, "Sister, do you have any money left? Cheng Hao was recently fired from his job and now he can only make ends meet by driving for a ride-hailing service. Mom and Dad's pensions aren't much either; after paying the mortgage each month, there's basically nothing left."

"No... savings?" Zuo Xutong asked, still clinging to a sliver of unrealistic hope, even though she already knew the answer.

“If he had money, my dad wouldn’t be squatting at the farmers’ market selling wild vegetables every day.”

Zuo Xutong was also at a loss. Her patent had not yet entered the approval process. If it were approved, given the current situation, she would sell it without hesitation, not even if it were Zhang Fei reincarnated.

That night, Zuo Xutong stayed at the hospital until after nine o'clock when the two men finally returned, travel-worn from the countryside. Hao Qingshan's face was tanned dark by the sun; he had aged considerably in the years she hadn't seen him, the wrinkles around his eyes deep and etched like knife cuts. If she had bumped into him on the street, she thought she probably wouldn't have recognized him. The burdens of life had clearly overwhelmed this pillar of the family.

The next day, Zuo Xutong arrived at the nursing home. The day before, she had planned to say goodbye to Peng Kun, but fate made the choice for her in this way.

"Can I get an advance on my salary for the next three months?" she asked hesitantly, thinking that if he agreed, she would have no choice but to stay. At that moment, she even secretly hoped that he would refuse her.

However, Peng Kun agreed without saying a word or even asking for a reason.

"Welcome to Huacheng Technology," he said.

Zuo Xutong forced a smile. The surgery fee was settled, but she couldn't feel happy at all.

Peng Kun looked at her, seemingly guessing something, and casually said, "Why don't you move in too? That way you won't have to squeeze onto the subway to get to and from get off work anymore."

Zuo Xutong hesitated for a moment: "How much does a room here cost per month?"

“Food and lodging are free here,” Peng Kun answered readily. Seeing her skepticism, he added, “It’s an employee benefit.”

"Can I move in?" As soon as the words left her mouth, Zuo Xutong's face turned red instantly. She felt as if she were asking, "Can I eat and live in your house for free?"

But the sucker across from me seemed quite happy, smiling and saying, "Of course you can. It'll be convenient for you to commute to work if you live here, and it'll save you a lot of time."

These words sounded like a sarcastic remark to Zuo Xutong. "Convenient for commuting" meant "no transportation costs," and "saving time" meant "reducing living expenses." Her face flushed even more, and she lowered her head in embarrassment, finally managing to say "thank you" after a long pause. To avoid being seen, she chose a room on the north side of the second floor.

After moving to the nursing home, Zuo Xutong was in a low mood and resented losing job opportunities outside the province. Not only did she not go to another province, she also moved into the nursing home that she had once looked down on.

She was unwilling to stay here and planned to resign and leave once the patent was approved. At that time, she would definitely pay back the debt she owed Peng Kun, principal and interest.

Xiao Ping's surgery went smoothly. Although Hao Ling's family didn't pay any money, Hao Ling and her father took turns caring for her at the hospital, saving a lot of money on caregiver fees.

Over the weekend, Zuo Xutong visited Xiao Ping at the hospital. The orthopedic ward was on the 11th floor of Building 5. Zuo Xutong pushed open the door and entered the ward. It was unusually quiet inside; some people were sleeping, and others were scrolling on their phones. There were four beds in the ward, with three patients. Bed number 2 by the window was empty. Xiao Ping was in bed number 3 in the middle. To her left, in bed number 4 against the wall, lay a woman in her fifties with a fractured kneecap, who had hired a caregiver. Opposite them was bed number 1, on the other side of the window, next to the bathroom. In bed lay a man in his sixties with a fracture of the S2 segment of his sacrum, along with nerve damage.

Hearing someone come in, Hao Ling looked up from her phone screen. Seeing it was her sister, she immediately put down her phone and hurriedly said, "Sis, you'll cover for me for half a day. I ordered two meals for patients at noon. You can eat here. I need to go home, take a shower, and change my clothes. I've been smelling terrible these past few days." Before she finished speaking, she grabbed her bag and ran off in a flash.

Zuo Xutong sat down by the bed, took her mother's hand, and asked softly, "How are you? Have you been feeling alright these past few days?"

Xiao Ping knew that her eldest daughter had paid for the surgery, and her attitude towards her changed completely. She nodded, chatted with her daughter for a few minutes, and even started talking about her childhood, as if trying to use those fragmented memories to fill the invisible rift between them.

In the afternoon, after the two ate their hospital meal, they chatted idly about trivial matters. Suddenly, a foul odor wafted into Zuo Xutong's nose. She looked up across the room; the bathroom door was tightly closed, and no one was inside, but the unpleasant smell grew stronger and stronger, quickly spreading and stinging her eyes. Soon, everyone in the ward could smell it.

The caregiver for bed number 4 frowned, hurriedly ran out, and called a nurse. Zuo Xutong then discovered that the man in bed number 1 had lost control of his bladder and bowels, soiling the bed. His face was flushed red, and he gripped the sheets tightly with both hands, as if he wanted to embed himself deep into the bed to escape this embarrassing situation. A moment later, a young nurse dragged in reluctantly. She wore two masks, completely covering her face, but her eyes revealed obvious disgust, and her tone was somewhat scolding: "Don't move! Don't move!"

After saying that, she pulled the curtain shut, isolating bed number 1 from the outside world, thus saving Zhang Weiguo's last bit of face.

After the nurse finished her work and left, Zhang Weiguo lay on the newly changed sheets, staring blankly out the window. Outside stood a bare old tree, its branches trembling slightly in the wind, mirroring his current state of mind. The other patients in the ward always had someone by their bedside to bring them tea and water, offering words of comfort and concern. But his bedside remained always empty.

This fracture has drained all his savings. His monthly pension of two thousand yuan won't arrive until the middle of next month, and now he's struggling to even afford food, let alone hiring a caregiver for over three hundred yuan a day.

A sacral fracture left him unable to walk, and he also lost sensation in his lower body. Nerve damage caused him to lose control of his urination and defecation. Although nurses take turns feeding him and handling his bodily functions every day, the hospital is short-staffed, and he is often "forgotten".

To reduce the frequency of his urination and defecation, he ate only one meal a day. As long as he could survive, he didn't want to cause trouble for others. Even so, he would occasionally become incontinent. Every time the nurses came to clean him up, he would lower his eyelids like a sinner in debt, not daring to look at their expressions. Thinking of this, a tear slid down his cheek and dripped onto the pillow.

Not long after the nurse left, Zuo Xutong heard soft sobbing coming from behind the curtain opposite her. The sound was intermittent, like a sob squeezed from deep in a throat. Zhang Weiguo covered his head with the blanket, not wanting anyone to hear his crying, but the desolate and desperate sound still reached every corner of the ward, even drifting into the corridor through the narrow crack in the door.

The suppressed sobs from bed number 1 hadn't subsided when Hao Ling returned. Zuo Xutong gave a few instructions and got up to leave, but Hao Ling insisted on seeing her to the elevator. She took Zuo Xutong's arm and led her out of the ward. Zuo Xutong was a little surprised. When did her sister become so sensible? Just as she was about to praise her, Hao Ling leaned closer and whispered in her ear, "This isn't the first time for him."

"What?"

"Cry!" Hao Ling's voice was tinged with excitement. She couldn't wait to share the secret of bed number 1: "He was a bachelor, never married, and had no children. Two years ago, his older brother passed away, and he lost his last relative in the world."

After she finished speaking, she glanced at her sister out of the corner of her eye, waiting for a look of surprise or pity on the other's face. But to her great disappointment, Zuo Xutong stared blankly at the numbers flashing on the elevator display screen without saying a word.

Seeing that her sister had no reaction, Hao Ling pursed her lips and sighed helplessly: "Oh, it's really heartbreaking, but people like us can't even take care of ourselves, how can we help him?"

Zuo Xutong returned to the nursing home with a heavy heart. For the first time, she took a good look at the place. Compared with many mid- to high-end nursing homes, Changchun Nursing Home was quite basic, and there weren't many residents. But compared to Uncle Zhang, the elderly here were already very lucky; at least when they became unable to take care of themselves, they still had caregivers to look after them.

Thinking about caregivers, an idea suddenly popped into her head: why not borrow one from the nursing home? However, she wasn't sure if this was feasible. That evening, she found Peng Kun and briefly explained Zhang Weiguo's situation. Before she could even mention borrowing someone, Peng Kun offered, "I'll send a caregiver from the nursing home tomorrow."

Zuo Xutong froze, her nose tingled, and her eyes almost welled up with tears. She quickly lowered her head, composed herself, and said softly, "Then I'll trouble you."