Lin Sitian's eyes were swollen from crying in front of the operating room and her body was shaking like a sieve.
She buried her head in Zhou Sheng's neck, crying so hard that she couldn't speak. Only occasional broken words could be heard calling out "Grandma".
Zhou Sheng held her in his arms and patted her gently, then looked up at the light in the operating room.
Half an hour ago, Lin Sitian returned home and found her grandmother lying unconscious on the ground. She immediately called Zhou Sheng for help and also dialed the emergency number.
At that time, the only neighbors at home were an old lady in her sixties and a mother who was taking care of a baby. Lin Sitian's hometown was in another city and she had few relatives and friends locally, so she could only follow the ambulance by herself and asked Zhou Sheng to take a taxi to the hospital for help.
In fact, Zhou Sheng would definitely come even if she didn't ask.
Grandma needed emergency treatment, so Lin Sitian made two phone calls, one to her cousin who ran a local building materials business, and one to her father.
No one answered her cousin's call, but a woman answered her father's call and promised Lin Sitian that she would pass the message to him immediately.
So in the end, the only ones running around in the hospital were her, a 17-year-old child, and Zhou Sheng, an outsider. Fortunately, Lin Sitian had plenty of money, so paying the money was not a problem. As for signing, the hospital finally handled it as an emergency.
The windowless corridor in front of the operating room was so cold that it was hard to tell day from night. After more than two hours of surgery, Lin Sitian sat up and patted Zhou Sheng in a daze, "Zhou Sheng, go home quickly. Your parents must be waiting anxiously."
Zhou Sheng shook his head. "It's okay. I told them that something happened at my classmate's home. I need to help, so I will be home late."
"Then you have to go back too. It's almost 9 o'clock now," Lin Sitian glanced at the electronic clock on the wall, "and you haven't eaten yet."
"Are you in the mood to eat now?" Zhou Sheng asked.
Lin Sitian shook her head, "I want to wait for grandma."
"Then I'll accompany you. I'm not hungry."
How could she not be hungry? Lin Sitian herself was feeling extremely hungry, but she really didn't want to eat, and there was no way she could eat here. She had to stay in the operating room so that her grandmother could see her the first time she came out.
"Go back, you have classes tomorrow." Lin Sitian advised him with a tired face.
"I'd better go buy you something to fill your stomach." Zhou Sheng patted her, "Wait here, you still have to eat something, otherwise when grandma comes out of the operation, you will be the one to faint from hunger."
Zhou Sheng stood up without saying anything. The warmth around him suddenly disappeared. Lin Sitian sat alone on the cold chair in front of the operating room. Wearing only a short-sleeved school uniform, she suddenly felt a sense of emptiness and coldness.
She took out her cell phone, only to find it was turned off.
Not long after, she heard footsteps. Lin Sitian turned around and saw a middle-aged man running towards her. He looked tired and had dark skin. There was a little bit of plaster on his light-colored long-sleeved polo shirt. When Lin Sitian saw him, she burst into tears and threw herself into his arms.
"dad!"
Lin Youwei caught his daughter who had thrown herself into his arms, touched her head lovingly, and asked anxiously, "Why are your phones turned off? Where's grandma? How is she?"
"They are still receiving emergency treatment and she hasn't come out yet..." Lin Sitian's tears, which she had just managed to hold back, began to fall like beads from a broken string as soon as she saw her father. "When I got home, I saw grandma fainted on the ground. No matter how hard we called, she wouldn't wake up..."
Lin Youwei hugged his daughter tightly, and his wrinkled and calloused hands comforted her again and again, "It's okay, don't cry, Daddy is back, don't be afraid... Grandma will be fine--"
When Zhou Sheng came back with the plastic bag, he saw the father and daughter hugging each other and crying.
Lin Sitian’s phone call couldn’t be reached before, and she and Zhou Sheng didn’t know that Lin Youwei was rushing back by plane.
Lin Sitian had just told her father what the doctor had told her when she caught a glimpse of Zhou Sheng standing not far away.
"Zhou Sheng." She didn't avoid him. "Dad, this is... my classmate, the monitor of our class."
Lin Youwei turned around and was quite surprised to see a handsome young man with red lips and white teeth in front of him.
"Hello, uncle," Zhou Sheng walked up and nodded slightly in greeting, "My name is Zhou Sheng."
"Ah, hello, classmate. I am Tiantian's father." Lin Youwei secretly wiped away the tears from the corners of his eyes and nodded at him.
Now is definitely not the time to be polite. Zhou Sheng glanced at Lin Sitian who was leaning against her father and handed her the plastic bag. "Since uncle is here, I'll leave first. There are two servings of milk bread here. It's just right for you and uncle to eat together."
At this point Zhou Sheng looked at Lin Youwei again and asked with concern: "Uncle, I think you haven't had your meal yet, right?"
"Uncle is fine. I see you must not have eaten since you came to help. You——"
"I'll eat it when I get back. We don't know how long the operation will take. You and Lin Sitian need to replenish your energy." Zhou Sheng's tone was firm but gentle, and Lin Youwei took the plastic bag unconsciously.
"I hope grandma is safe and sound." Zhou Sheng left a blessing. As a "classmate", there was no reason for him to stay here to take care of her. "Then... I'll leave first."
"Thank you." Lin Youwei said, but it was obvious that his mind was no longer here.
Lin Sitian's eyes stayed on Zhou Sheng, and she slowly lowered her eyes, "Thank you, goodbye."
"Well, bye."
Lin Sitian did not come to school on Thursday.
Friday too.
In two days, the only sentence Lin Sitian sent back to him was -
My grandmother's operation was successful, but the doctor said she had advanced pancreatic cancer.
Zhou Sheng stared at the two lines of text in the chat box. After that, all the messages he sent fell on deaf ears and no one responded.
"Zhou Sheng, how are your preparations for the preliminaries going?" The teacher asked him, holding a thermos cup.
"It's okay." Zhou Sheng was a little absent-minded.
The teacher felt that he was not in the right state. "Where is the preliminary test paper? Did you finish the question I asked you to pay attention to yesterday?"
Zhou Sheng raised his head, "Are you looking for the three points with the same orthocenter?"
The teacher nodded and said, "Tell me your thoughts after you finish it."
"In fact, if we remove the more complicated circumcenter and orthocenter, we can find and complete the midpoint, and derive the median based on the midpoint. Then we can find that the product of the line segments in the question constitutes the circle power theorem, and the six points are in a circle..." Zhou Sheng, who seemed to be out of form ten seconds ago, can clearly explain the thinking behind the Olympiad question he did last night, "...The last part is very simple, which is the conclusion about the vector related to the orthocenter, and we can conclude that the proposition is true. The properties of the orthocenter can be found with a simple calculation."
The last sentence "You can get it by just calculating it casually" is not Zhou Sheng's arrogance, but in his opinion it is indeed "you can get it by just calculating it casually", and there is nothing that needs to be explained specifically.
Some complicated things are very simple to Zhou Sheng, and some simple things are too complicated for him.
The teacher stared at his calm expression, pursed his lips, and nodded approvingly.
"Sure, kid. How long have you been working on this problem?"
"About six or seven minutes."
"You spent six or seven minutes on the final question?" The teacher looked astonished.
He spent more than a minute messaging Lin Sitian. Zhou Sheng didn’t dare to say, “I’ll pay attention to the time next time.”
"No, that's not what the teacher meant... When you are doing the questions, you still have to review them more carefully. And if you have time after you finish, you must check your work, okay?" Some students only worry about not having enough time, but when it comes to Zhou Sheng, the teacher has to emphasize that he should not waste the remaining time.
Zhou Sheng nodded, "Okay."
Just as the teacher was about to leave, Zhou Sheng suddenly called him, "Um... teacher."
The teacher stopped and motioned for him to continue.
"Lin Sitian, how long have you been on leave?"
The old class teacher was stunned, "Didn't she contact you?"
"He only said one sentence, and then there was no reply."
"Her father told me that he had to take a few days off for family matters, but he didn't say when... You don't have to worry too much. I also told her father that she has exams to take, so she should try not to be delayed too long. She will probably be back for class next week."
Zhou Sheng lowered his head, "Thank you, teacher."