The VIP intensive care unit on the top floor of Sacred Heart International Hospital seems to be forever shrouded in a cold, solemn silence.
The pale ceiling light keeps on shining 24 hours a day, making the mirror-like marble floor look like ice. The strong smell of disinfectant permeates the air, constantly reminding people that this is the front line of the battle with death.
At the end of the corridor, the heavy metal door with the bright red word "ICU" printed on it is like a boundary marker separating yin and yang, cold and heavy.
However, at the edge of this almost frozen silence, on the cold metal bench next to the huge one-way viewing window, a hunched figure seemed to have taken root.
———Sun Guixiang.
She was still wearing the old dark gray cotton jacket that was washed pale and had frayed cuffs, and she was wearing the equally washed pale hospital gown provided by the foundation.
Her gray hair was barely tied behind her head with the most ordinary black hairband, and a few strands of hair were scattered in front of her forehead, making her look even more haggard.
Her skinny body sank deeply into the cold chair, her arms tightly holding a faded blue calico package.
The package was not big, but she always held it tightly, as if there was some rare treasure hidden inside.
Her back was severely hunched, like a bow bent by time and illness. Her cloudy eyes, unblinking and almost greedily, penetrated the huge, cold glass and were fixed on the pale figure lying quietly in the sterile ward.
From the day she saw him through the glass, his body full of tubes and silent, Sun Guixiang stubbornly took root here.
Every morning, before the first ray of light penetrates the tall buildings of the city, nurse Xiao Li would struggle to push her wheelchair and move her out of her own ward, which was also filled with the smell of medicine.
She refused to stay in the ward to "rest" and rejected any form of dissuasion.
The pain in her chest and the stubborn cough were like maggots attached to her bones. Every breath was tearing hard. The hemoptysis had not completely improved, and dark red blood would often stain her washed-out cuffs.
But she seemed to be unaware of it. In her world, the only thing left was the sleeping boy behind the glass window.
Xiao Li placed her on this fixed bench closest to the glass window.
She would carefully unwrap the blue printed cloth package in her arms, revealing an old aluminum lunch box that was also washed bleached but starched clean.
She opened the lid of the lunch box, and inside were neatly stacked several square, soft-colored, light green snacks - mung bean cakes.
She would beg the nurse Xiao Li to buy fresh mung beans before dawn every day. Then, dragging her sick body, enduring coughs and pain, she would use her calloused and cracked hands to wash, steam, and mold them over and over again next to the small sink in the ward to carefully make them.
These mung bean cakes had neither the elaborate carvings found in high-end pastry shops nor expensive fillings; they were as plain as she was.
But they exude the purest, fresh fragrance of mung beans with a hint of the countryside, clean and soothing.
Sun Guixiang would carefully place the lunch box on the bench beside her, open the lid, and let the fragrance of the snacks drift faintly in the cold air.
Then, holding the empty wrapping cloth, she turned her whole body towards the huge glass window again.
The turbid gaze penetrated the cold barrier and fell on Ye Qingliu's pale and quiet face.
Her skinny fingers unconsciously stroked the soft blue print in her arms over and over again, as if trying to draw some strength to support her to persevere.
She just sat there.
I sat from the dawn until the sun set in the west.
I sit here from dusk until the lights fade.
Then it was late at night and everything was silent.
Like a silent, weathered statue.
She didn't speak. She just watched.
Look at the subtle changes in expression on that pale cheek.
See if the shadow cast by thick eyelashes under the eyelids trembles.
See if the wire connected to the chest transmits more stable and powerful ups and downs.
Looking at the numbers and curves jumping on the cold instrument screen - although she couldn't understand a single word, she watched with great concentration.
Occasionally, the violent coughing would force her to bend her body, cover her mouth tightly, and suppress the heart-wrenching coughs until her face turned red and tears and blood foam swirled in her eyes.
Xiao Li would hand her water and tissues with red eyes, but she would just wipe them roughly, take a breath, and her eyes would immediately be firmly fixed on the glass window like a magnet.
It seemed as if that silent gaze was the only companionship and strength she could give.
Her existence has become an incompatible yet extremely stubborn landscape in this cold area.
The bodyguards had long since given up trying to drive her away. Under Hua Jinyue's icy gaze, the withered old man's stubbornness had gained a special kind of "right of passage."
But every time there was a change of shifts, the new bodyguard would glance at the figure sitting there like a fossil with a hint of subtle surprise and curiosity.
Hua Jinyue still appears every day.
She sometimes wore a complicated Lolita dress, her pink ponytails swaying gently with her steps. She always walked straight to the glass window and stood there for a long time.
Those beautiful big eyes stared at the brother inside, their eyes were as complicated as the abyss, burning with deep worry and great fragility.
She never spoke to Sun Guixiang.
Even the exchange of glances was extremely rare.
But Sun Guixiang's existence was like a silent reef, standing quietly on the edge of her surging sea of hatred.
Once, Hua Jinyue stood in front of the glass window for a long time. When he turned around to leave, his eyes inadvertently swept across the open old lunch box beside Sun Guixiang, which exuded the fragrance of mung beans, and the blue print package tightly held in the old man's arms.
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