"Li Zhou?"
The sound made Li Zhou shudder. He squinted his rain-blurred eyes and saw a pair of shiny Oxford shoes parked half a meter away—not a single drop of rain on the uppers.
His eyes moved up along the straight trousers, and Zhou Hui was leaning over him, his black umbrella motionless in the heavy rain.
"Mr. Zhou?" Li Zhou's voice was hoarse and uncharacteristically his. He tried to stand up, but found his legs were numb from the cold.
Zhou Hui frowned even more tightly.
"Don't move." Zhou Hui suddenly knelt on one knee and wrapped his warm coat around Li Zhou's neck. The coat soaked with rainwater, making a subtle sound like a sigh.
"Oh my god, you're shaking."
Li Zhou wanted to say he was fine, but his teeth chattered uncontrollably. When Zhou Hui's palm touched his forehead, it was incredibly hot.
"At least 39 degrees." Zhou Hui's voice dropped, and he suddenly unbuttoned his coat. "Put your hand in."
Before Li Zhou could react, he was dragged into a room filled with the scent of sandalwood. Zhou Hui's coat wrapped around him like wings, and through his soaked shirt, he could clearly feel the warmth of his chest.
This overly intimate posture made his ears feel hot, but his weak body shamefully craved this warmth.
"Can we go?" Zhou Hui's voice vibrated above his head.
Li Zhou shook his head, then closed his eyes due to the dizziness brought on by the movement. The next second, he felt a pair of hands pass through his knees, and he suddenly flew into the air.
"Excuse me."
Zhou Hui's voice was close to his ears, and his warm breath brushed against Li Zhou's dripping temples.
Li Zhou vaguely wondered how ridiculous this posture would look to others—like a scene from a bad romance movie, if one ignored the twenty-year age difference between them.
The raindrops beat like dense drumbeats on the umbrella. Looking over Zhou Hui's shoulder, Li Zhou saw a murky puddle where he had just squatted, reflecting the streetlights, distorted by the rain and fog.
Something slipped from his pocket, and the muffled sound of the velvet jewelry box falling into a puddle was drowned out by the sound of rain.
"Wait...my..."
"Never mind." Zhou Hui tightened his arms and walked towards the car lights. "You need a doctor."
The limousine's doorman was already waiting with an umbrella. Li Zhou was carefully placed in the back seat, the leather seat like ice against his soaking wet back. Zhou Hui quickly gave his address and then took a bottle of brandy from the mini-bar.
"Drink a little." He pressed the rim of the cup against Li Zhou's cracked lips. "It will warm you up."
The pain from the alcohol burning his throat made Li Zhou choke and cry. He saw Zhou Hui wiping his fingers with a towel, his movements as meticulous as if he were handling a precious collection.
Outside the car window, the city in the rainstorm turned into flowing blocks of color, and the neon lights spread out in the rain.
"Why..." Li Zhou's voice was so soft that it was almost inaudible, "why are you here?"
Zhou Hui paused in his wiping motion. The light from inside the car cast a shadow on his sharply defined profile, making his expression at that moment unreadable.
"I saw it," he said suddenly.
Li Zhou blinked in confusion.
"Coffee shop." Zhou Hui brushed his thumb across Li Zhou's burning eyelids. "I wanted to say hello, but I saw you were talking about something."
A cold feeling crept up Li Zhou's spine. He remembered Senior Chen's hand on the back of Lin Xiaoman's chair, and the way they leaned over each other, looking at their phones.
How much did Zhou Hui see? When did he start watching?
"Young girls are always..." Zhou Hui chose his words, his fingertips unconsciously playing with the soaked scarf, "Easily attracted to bright and shiny things."
Li Zhou suddenly started coughing violently. Whether it was the alcohol or the high fever, black noise began to appear at the edge of his vision. Through his hazy vision, he felt Zhou Hui unbutton his shirt, and a warm towel brushed against his collarbone, causing a shudder.
"Go to sleep." Zhou Hui's voice gradually faded away. "I'll call you when we get there."
The car entered the tunnel, darkness swallowing up the last bit of light. When Li Zhou slid down the back seat of the car, the leather seat felt like a piece of melting ice.
He heard Zhou Hui calling his name, but the voice seemed to be through a thick layer of frosted glass. Tiny spots of light danced on his retina, and every blink felt like sandpaper rubbing against the inside of his eyeball.
"cold......"
The syllable trembled as it was squeezed out of his teeth. Li Zhou watched the white mist he exhaled twist and dissipate in the warm air inside the car, but the blood beneath his skin seemed to be mixed with crushed ice, clinking in his veins.
"Hold on for another ten minutes." Zhou Hui placed his palm against his forehead, the platinum ring on his ring finger like a piece of ice. "The doctor is waiting."
Li Zhou wanted to nod, but found that his cervical vertebrae had lost the strength to support his head. His gaze slanted downwards, landing on Zhou Hui's rain-soaked cuffs.
The dark water stains were spreading between the fabric fibers, just like the high fever spreading in his body at this moment - from his temples to behind his ears, from his throat to his chest, some invisible flame was eroding all the boundaries of his consciousness.
The neon lights outside the car window began to distort. Advertising signs melted into colorful wax in the rain and slowly slid down the glass.
Li Zhou vaguely saw Lin Xiaoman's face appear on a light box. Her lips moved as if she was saying something, but her words were cut short by the sudden ringing of the phone.
"Yes, the white blood cell count is abnormal... intravenous ceftriaxone..."
Zhou Hui's voice drifted closer and farther. Li Zhou felt fingers unbuttoning the third button of his shirt and a cold stethoscope pressed against his chest.
He trembled violently, because the touch of metal reminded him of the reflection of Senior Chen's watch in the coffee shop - equally cold and condescending.
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