Sick
The lights were cold and white, and the air was thick with disinfectant and despair. Several haggard-looking family members sat on blue plastic chairs, their eyes empty.
Cheng Xiaorui looked at the door that separated life and death. His legs went weak and he almost fell to his knees. Lu Ziyi held him up and pressed him onto the chair next to him.
"Wait here, I'll go and ask about the situation." Lu Ziyi's tone left no room for doubt.
Cheng Xiaorui watched him walk towards the nurses' station, and for the first time, he didn't feel the urge to resist. He clasped his hands tightly, digging his nails into his palms, trying to use the pain to suppress the fear that threatened to burst out of his chest.
A few minutes later, Lu Ziyi returned, his face more solemn than ever. He held a bill and a medical diagnosis in his hands.
"Cheng Zhixu, confirmed, he's inside." He paused, as if weighing his words, but ultimately chose to go straight to the point. "Gastric cancer, late stage. Complicated with massive gastric bleeding and multiple organ failure. When he was brought in in the early morning, his condition was very critical."
Every medical term hit Cheng Xiaorui like a hammer. He didn't understand the complex terms, but the word "stomach cancer" was enough to scare him to death.
"Gastric cancer...late-stage?" Cheng Xiaorui muttered repeatedly. These four words pierced his eardrums like an icicle, instantly freezing his blood. "Impossible...she just has occasional stomachaches...she said it's an old problem..." He suddenly grabbed Lu Ziyi's arm, as if grasping at a last vestige of driftwood. "You were lying to me, weren't you?"
Lu Zi also let him hold onto her, unfolding the medical certificate before him. In black and white, the diagnosis was clearly written, along with a startling note: Estimated survival time: approximately three months.
Three months.
Time was like a blunt knife, cutting back and forth at his heart. All his luck collapsed in an instant.
Just then, a nurse came hurriedly over. "Who is Cheng Zhixu's family member? The patient is out of danger for now, but his condition is extremely unstable and requires immediate supportive care and analgesia. The preliminary estimate is 100,000 yuan. This is just the beginning. The family needs to sign and confirm, and pay the fees as soon as possible!"
One hundred thousand.
This figure was like an iceberg, instantly freezing Cheng Xiaorui. All his fears and worries were at that moment overwhelmed by a more realistic, colder despair. Where could he find 100,000 yuan?
Cheng Xiaorui looked at the thin piece of paper, feeling it weigh a thousand pounds. He was her only family member, and only he could sign it. But the words "late stage" and "three months" swirled in his mind like a curse, nearly suffocating him.
Just when Cheng Xiaorui was trembling all over and unable to move, Lu Ziyi suddenly reached out and took the confirmation letter and pen.
The nurse was stunned for a moment: "Who are you?"
"His brother." Lu Ziyi remained calm and signed his name fluently in the family signature column, his handwriting sharp and domineering.
Cheng Xiaorui looked at him in shock, no longer able to think about the absurdity of this title.
Lu Ziyi signed the document, turned to the nurse, and handed over a black bank card. "I'll pay for it. I'll use the best pain relief and supportive care to make her final days less painful."
The nurse seemed to recognize this kind of card. Her eyes changed, and she took the card and left quickly.
Cheng Xiaorui suddenly raised his head, looked at Lu Ziyi with tearful eyes, and said in a hoarse voice: "Why...you can obviously..." He could watch coldly and watch him fall into hell completely.
Lu Zi also turned around, locking eyes with him, a gaze filled with complex emotions Cheng Xiaorui couldn't understand. He grabbed Cheng Xiaorui's cold wrist with his backhand and pulled him closer, their noses almost touching.
"Cheng Xiaorui, listen carefully," he said in a low, cruelly calm voice. "Your mother's life is only a countdown. What I can do is not to save her, but to pay the price - to buy her dignity in the last three months, to buy her less pain."
He leaned forward slightly, his gaze like an invisible net, tightly entangling Cheng Xiaorui.
"This deal is fair. I pay the money, and you," he paused, his fingertips gently stroking Cheng Xiaorui's pale cheek with a hint of cold pity, "will have to pay the price."
Cheng Xiaorui's pupils shrank as he looked at the handsome yet devilish face before him. He finally understood. This wasn't a helping hand; it was a trade. Lu Zi also used money to buy Cheng Xiaorui's mother "comfort" during her final journey.
Lu Zi also let go of his hand, took a half step back, and resumed his aloof attitude.
"Stay here, or do what you want, it's up to you." He glanced at the ICU door, "Don't worry about the money anymore."
After saying that, he turned around and walked to the window at the end of the corridor, standing there silently, leaving Cheng Xiaorui with an indifferent back.
Cheng Xiaorui froze in place, staring at the closed ICU door, then looking in the direction Lu Ziyi had disappeared. His mother's life had been saved, temporarily. But he knew that from the moment Lu Ziyi signed his name and withdrew the money, he had sold himself. Not into slavery, but in a more complete and inescapable way.
He slowly slid down onto the cold chair and buried his face in his trembling hands. This time, even tears couldn't flow, leaving only a boundless sense of loss and a premonition of sinking into the abyss.
His shoulders shook violently and silently, and his suppressed sobs echoed faintly in the empty corridor.
Lu Zi did not explicitly state the price, but they both knew it.
He knew that from this moment on, he was no longer living solely for himself. Every minute and every second of his future would be marked by the three-month countdown and the inescapable shackles placed on him by the person who paid for him.
Time seemed to stand still in the cold hospital corridor. It wasn't until the heavy ICU door opened again and the medical staff pushed the bed out that Cheng Xiaorui suddenly jumped up from the ground as if awakened.
Cheng Zhixu lay on the hospital bed, eyes closed, an oxygen tube inserted into her nose. Her once gentle face was now a deathly pale, as if all the vitality had been drained away. Cheng Xiaorui's tears instantly burst out, and he subconsciously wanted to rush over, his fingertips almost touching the back of his mother's cold hand.
"The patient hasn't woken up yet and needs to be observed. Family members, please wait outside." The doctor stopped him calmly.
The bed was wheeled into the single-person room, and the door gently closed before Cheng Xiaorui, isolating him once again. He slid feebly along the cold wall and sat on the floor, burying his face in his arms. His thin shoulders trembled violently with suppressed sobs. Despair surged over him like a tide, wave after wave, nearly drowning him.
At this moment, "Get up." Lu Ziyi's voice came from above his head, without any warmth, "Now, it's your turn."
Cheng Xiaorui raised his head, his eyes blurry with tears, and saw Lu Ziyi looking down at him. There was no pity in his eyes, only a calmness as if he were examining an object. He hesitated for just a second, then reached out and practically grabbed Cheng Xiaorui's arm, pulling him up from the ground.
Cheng Xiaorui didn't resist. From the moment he signed that invisible "contract," he knew he had lost the right to say "no" to Lu Ziyi.
"Wu... going... where to go?" He choked and wiped the tears from his face with his sleeves.
"Psychiatry." Lu Ziyi glanced at his phone and said calmly, as if he was arranging a daily schedule, "It's your turn for the examination."
"Check...what for?" Cheng Xiaorui opened his eyes blankly, "I'm fine...I have...no money..." The last few words were so soft that they were almost inaudible, with a touch of embarrassing shame.
"You don't need to pay," Lu Ziyi interrupted, his tone full of control. He gripped Cheng Xiaorui's wrist, firm enough to make him feel the pain of restraint, but not enough to actually hurt him.
Cheng Xiaorui shrank back, swallowing the slight cry of pain, and let Lu Ziyi lead him, like a soulless puppet, to the psychiatric department at the other end of the corridor.
The chairs in the waiting area were cold and hard. Cheng Xiaorui lowered his head, his hands clasped tightly together, his fingertips white from the strain. Occasionally, he would glance up at Lu Ziyi, who was whispering with a doctor not far away. The lines of his face were hard and cold, and he would nod occasionally, his expression focused as if he was handling a crucial piece of business.
When Lu Ziyi and the doctor walked towards him, Cheng Xiaorui stood up subconsciously, like a prisoner waiting for sentencing.
"Come in." Lu Ziyi gestured for him to enter the clinic.
The next few minutes were chaotic and long. Endless scales to fill out, cold electrodes pressed against his skin, the doctor's gentle yet pressing questions... Each step stripped away the vulnerability he tried to hide. He was like a piece being disassembled, all his anxieties, fears, and tensions laid bare before the expert gaze, nothing hidden.
Finally, he sat blankly in the clinic, staring at the snow-white wall with empty eyes, as if his soul had been pulled out.
The door to the clinic opened, and the doctor handed Lu Ziyi a report. He took it, quickly scanning the words on it, and his brows suddenly knitted together, forming a deep "chuan" character.
"It seems you had an acute anxiety attack today." Lu Ziyi walked up to Cheng Xiaorui and handed him the report. He pointed at the diagnosis on it with his fingertips, and there was no emotion in his voice. "Generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder..." He paused and uttered the last few words, "Tsk, severe anxiety disorder."
"What..." Cheng Xiaorui muttered, a mixture of absurdity, panic, and inexplicable relief suddenly gripping him. He instinctively wanted to deny it, to say that the machine had made a mistake, that the doctor had misdiagnosed him.
But the symptoms described in black and white - persistent, uncontrollable excessive worry, sudden, near-death panic attacks, heart palpitations, hand tremors, insomnia, difficulty concentrating... were like a key that instantly opened the floodgates of memory that he had deliberately forgotten.
Those symptoms that lasted for nearly three years, the pain that almost tore him apart, the day and night torment that he attributed to "being sentimental" and "thinking too much", had a name.
It's called disease.
It's not that he's not strong enough, he's just... sick.
This realization was like a sledgehammer, shattering his last disguise and bringing a twisted, relieved sense of confirmation.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com