Chapter Sixteen: Getting an Injection

The walk from the study room to the dormitory was only a few hundred meters. Chen Guang draped his coat over Lin Yu's head and pulled her into the rain. But the rain intensified halfway there, and the drizzle soaked her through.

When Lin Yu returned to her dorm room, her hair was still dripping wet, and her thin jeans clung to her legs, soaking wet. She quickly took a hot shower and, without even drying her hair, dove into bed.

He slept soundly for a long time, and when he opened his eyes again, it was already dark outside the window, and the rain had stopped sometime earlier. The dormitory was so quiet that he could only hear his own disordered heartbeat. Lin Yu tried to sit up, but his arms were as limp as overcooked noodles, his temples were throbbing, and all he could see were tiny snowflakes.

She calmed herself down, pulled back the bed curtains, and found the dormitory empty. Yao Fangfang had gone on a date with Qu Lei early in the morning, and Qian Zan and Zhang Yimeng were probably still in the study room working on their crucial design project.

The stray hairs on my forehead were already soaked with sweat and stuck to my skin. My forehead was burning hot, and my throat was unbearably dry and itchy; every swallow was accompanied by a tearing, stinging pain.

Lin Yu barely managed to move to the edge of the bed, using the ladder for support as she stepped down. Her knees buckled, and she almost collapsed to the ground. She steadied herself, rummaged through the drawer, and found a thermometer, tucking it under her arm.

While waiting, she leaned against the table with her eyes closed, breathing heavily, feeling as if even her breath could spark. A "beep" sounded, and Lin Yu pulled out the thermometer and looked down: "39!"

......

The hospital was filled with a faint smell of disinfectant. Lin Yu, feeling dizzy and disoriented, leaned against the cold stainless steel chair, staring blankly at the wall of the injection room. The incandescent light bulbs on the ceiling emitted a monotonous humming sound from time to time.

It was approaching nine o'clock, and the injection hall wasn't crowded. Next to Lin Yu sat an elderly woman nearing seventy, dozing with her eyes closed. On the other side was a young woman of Lin Yu's age, wearing a mask and scrolling through her phone with her head down.

At this moment, she felt weak all over. The medicine flowed through her veins, down the back of her left hand, and into her body. Every now and then, a cold, stinging sensation would come from it, as if it were working hard inside her feverish body. Lin Yu frowned and turned to look at the pale forearm with the IV drip attached to the armrest. His gaze followed the needle upwards, and the medicine in the bottle was empty.

The nurse on duty at the nurses' station had to leave temporarily. Her palms were sweating, and she could feel the veins under her skin throbbing slightly. She got up and pushed the IV stand toward a room in the corner of the injection room, hoping to find a doctor on duty to remove the needle.

Lin Yu stood outside the ward and gently knocked on the door, but there was no answer. Only intermittent voices could be heard through the crack in the door. She had a fever of thirty-nine degrees Celsius, her body burning hot like a boiled shrimp, even her breathing was frighteningly hot. Her mind was hazy as she picked up the doorknob, and without thinking, pushed the door open.

In an instant, his gaze was fixed on something incredible, unable to look away even for a moment, and he didn't even notice the blood returning to the back of his hand.

Chen Guang, lying face down on the hospital bed in the corner of the room, clutched the sheet with one hand and tugged at his pants with the other, letting out a startled scream in the eerie atmosphere. The doctor beside him instinctively pulled the bed curtains shut, cutting off Lin Yu's blatant and unabashed gaze.

"Oh dear, the blood is flowing back in." The doctor threw the IV needle pillow into the trash can and turned to look at Lin Yu.

She obediently allowed herself to be led aside to have the needle removed and the bleeding stopped, but all she could think about was Chen Guang's white buttocks. Her feverish brain was working in a chaotic manner, and for a moment she even had the strange thought that his buttocks were white and perky and had never been exposed to the sun.

"Lin Yu, you son of a bitch!" Chen Guang was still howling at the top of his lungs.

"Stop yelling. It's not like a grown man will lose a piece of flesh just because someone looks at him." The doctor walked past Lin Yu and joked as he approached Chen Guang. "Dr. Chen is leaving now. He'll let you go straight home after your injection."

"Thank you, Director Zhang." The weak Chen Guang showed an unusual submissiveness in front of the doctor, and reluctantly pulled up his pants through the curtain.

Lin Yu could hear the metallic clanging of the belt and trouser buttons, and he randomly imagined Chen Guang putting on his trousers.

When the curtain was lifted, she couldn't help but look over again, and at this moment, apart from his flushed face, Chen Guang showed no signs of anything unusual.

He took the prescribed medicine, thanked the doctor again, and pushed Lin Yu out of the injection room.

"Do you know that doctor from earlier?" Lin Yu asked Chen Guang, looking at him with a puzzled expression, while holding the cotton on the back of his hand.

“My grandfather used to work here.” Chen Guang’s eyes flickered, seemingly unwilling to continue the topic. “Why did you burn like a Double Happiness ping-pong paddle?”

"Likewise!" Lin Yu touched his burning cheeks, the effects of the IV drip began to take effect, and he regained a sliver of clarity.

"Where's Yao Fangfang? Aren't you two like conjoined twins? Why are you here alone to see the doctor?"

"They all have things to do this afternoon." Lin Yu paused, then said sarcastically, "What? Did your roommates bring you here on a palanquin and then leave?"

"Look at you, I'm just concerned about you." Chen Guang chuckled awkwardly, then after a brief moment of hesitation, bent down and whispered to Lin Yu, "Don't tell anyone about what happened tonight." He followed closely beside Lin Yu, and the two walked together toward the hospital entrance.

Lin Yu's fever had subsided somewhat, but he was still weak and too lazy to deal with the burly man who still had the strength to howl. He mocked, "What's there to publicize? Why don't you show me both sides and let me judge whether it's worth publicizing?"

"Are you even a girl? You're so arrogant." Chen Guang couldn't help but think of what happened in the study room, and his blood boiled instantly. "It's only because I'm easy to bully that I can talk like that in front of others."

"I've never encountered anything like this with anyone else, only you are my nemesis. You gave me a high fever and a sty." Lin Yu glared at Chen Guang.

"What? My butt..."

Chen Guang suddenly raised his voice, as if eager to defend his physique, but after meeting the strange looks from passersby, he guiltily lowered his voice. "You're really a wild boar that can't eat fine chaff."

Chen Guang changed the subject and began to recount his experience to Lin Yu. "I thought the rain wasn't too heavy and the dorm wasn't far away, so instead of waiting for your roommate to bring me an umbrella, it would be faster to run back. Who would have thought that your legs are barely two inches longer than a Corgi's, and you made me sick."

Lin Yu didn't bother arguing with Chen Guang's attempt to shift the blame. After all, before running back, Chen Guang had lent him his only jacket to keep him dry; otherwise, given Chen Guang's health, he probably wouldn't have gotten so sick that he needed to come to the hospital for an injection. Thinking of the jacket he hadn't had time to wash and return to Chen Guang, Lin Yu's tone softened unconsciously.

"Are you very sick? You have a fever too?" She must have been so feverish that her brain went blank, because she inexplicably wanted to touch Chen Guang's forehead. Chen Guang was startled by this sudden intimate contact and took two steps back, clutching his chest.

He had been troubled by Lin Yu's affairs for the past two days, and the rain and insomnia caused him to develop a rare low-grade fever. Before he could even sort things out, Lin Yu had inexplicably seen his bare buttocks, and now she was trying to touch him inappropriately.

This series of unexpected events caught Chen Guang off guard, and his instinctive reaction was to jump up and dodge. "Hey, what are you doing? Just talk, don't get physical!"

Lin Yu had no idea what Chen Guang was thinking, but his two steps back felt like two blows to the head, striking her fragile pride squarely. She reluctantly withdrew her hand, withdrawing even the last vestige of guilt she felt towards Chen Guang.

"You cunning strategist, don't follow me." He said this and turned to leave.

Chen Guang's parents were busy with work, so he was sent to live with his grandparents when he was young. As the only boy in the family, he got whatever he wanted. Growing up in such a family environment, he gradually developed a spoiled and willful personality.

But he was kind-hearted, lively, and cheerful, always the center of attention wherever he went, never lacking friends, and never receiving a bad attitude from anyone. Unlike Lin Yu, who treated him like the weather in June, sometimes hot and sometimes cold, sometimes close and sometimes distant, making his heart flutter with uncertainty.

This feeling of being manipulated made him extremely uncomfortable, and his spoiled, arrogant temper immediately resurfaced. "Do you think I care? Anyone who wants to study with you again is a dog!"

Chen Guang's illness was considered a strange occurrence by those around him.

He has always been in amazing physical condition and has outstanding athletic talent. He can learn all kinds of sports very quickly. He rarely even catches a cold. The last time he was sick and coughed was back in junior high school.

But whenever anyone asked about the cause of his illness, Chen Guang refused to utter a single word, like a sawed-off gourd. According to his usual way of thinking, there was really nothing to hide; he should at least confide in Zheng Qi.

If Zheng Qi hadn't insisted on taking his girlfriend back to school that day, how could he and Lin Yu have ended up studying alone together? If Zheng Qi had been there, and he had been sitting next to Lin Yu, then Lin Yu would have been lying down...

Thinking of this, Chen Guang felt a strange, secret sense of relief welling up inside him. He forcibly suppressed this thought and continued his deduction. If it weren't for his upbringing, which had led him to drape his coat over Lin Yu's dog's head, Lin Yu would have been the one who got sick from the rain.

Lin Yu, Lin Yu—what a fitting name. He looks frail, but his mouth is like it's been poisoned; his words are foul and harsh. When he gets back to the dorm, he'll definitely embellish Lin Yu's despicable behavior and tell a whole story.

However, when Chen Guang, soaking wet, pushed open the dormitory door and bumped into Zheng Qi, who had just returned from dropping off his girlfriend, the accusations he had been rehearsing in his mind suddenly caught in his throat. He remained unusually silent, as if subconsciously hoping that this absurd farce could become a secret between him and Lin Yu.

The secret between them was like shifting sands in the desert, piling up one on top of another, gradually forming towering dunes. The sharp edges of the dunes occasionally grazed Chen Guang's heart. At first, it was just a slight sting.

But he didn't realize that secrets are like a cunning black cat, always lurking in the shadows, and the shadows are everywhere. They silently erode reason, making it impossible to guard against.

He couldn't help but think of Lin Yu. How could there be such a shameless girl who stares at a man's butt without blinking, and even goes so far as to want to see his A-side?

I wonder if her fever has subsided. If it has, shouldn't she return the coat? Does she even know that this coat is a limited edition?

These thoughts churned in his mind, a mixture of shame, indignation, and anger. He secretly vowed that from now on, he would completely kick Lin Yu out of his social circle.