Dream
After returning from the hike, the long-accumulated emotional excitement and the chilly mountain air, like an enemy force joining forces from both inside and outside, completely broke through Jiang Yile's psychological defenses, which were trying to pretend to be calm but had long been overwhelmed.
She developed a severe fever, her temperature soared to the brink of danger, her lips became chapped, and her consciousness became blurred. She had to stay in the hospital for another whole week.
This time, the words on the diagnosis were more glaring and heavy than ever before—
"Acute complications caused by severe immunodeficiency", "signs of stress-induced weakness in myocardial function", "organ function needs to be closely monitored and the risk of failure should be alerted".
In the ward, the smell of disinfectant was so strong that it was nauseating. Various monitoring instruments were wrapped around the bed like cold vines, making regular and panic-inducing dripping sounds, like a cold second hand, silently and firmly counting down for her life.
Her parents' eyes were always red and swollen like ripe peaches, but in front of her they had to try their best to appear relaxed, even with a slightly exaggerated smile.
That smile was more heartbreaking than crying, and every forced wrinkle was engraved with worry and fear.
Her mother's hands trembled slightly and uncontrollably as she fed her porridge.
My father's silent back stood in front of the window, as if his spine had been pulled out overnight. He became much more hunched, and his shoulders were so heavy that they almost collapsed.
Jiang Yile was lying on a raised hospital bed, with a thick indwelling needle embedded in the back of her hand. Transparent, milky white, and light yellow liquid medicine flowed into her dried-up blood vessels drop by drop through different tubes, slowly and stubbornly, as if forcibly maintaining the flame of life that was about to run out.
She looked at the ceiling, her eyes blank and unfocused.
The weakness and pain in the body are real. It feels like there is a ball of wet, heavy cotton blocking my chest. Every breath is accompanied by a difficult pulling feeling, like a worn-out bellows.
But what made her feel even more powerless and desperate was the feeling of being completely out of control of her destiny, and the unspeakable emotions deep in her heart, a mixture of anger at being deceived, doubts about past feelings, fear of the future, and a vortex of sadness and confusion that penetrated deep into her bones.
Those cold and cruel words in the hospital corridor echoed in her mind day and night like an automatically playing tape. Every word was like a poisoned dagger, repeatedly torturing her already broken nerves.
She knows her body.
This time, the illness was not just due to the fatigue of hiking and catching a cold in the mountains.
It is more like a long-term repression caused by the fear of disease, uncertainty about the future, tolerance of unfair fate, and... the complex and unspeakable love and hate towards Gu Nanxiao.
The fragile dam built by emotions that have now been crushed by the truth has completely and irreversibly collapsed after finding a fragile breakthrough point.
Those emotions that were forcibly suppressed roared like a flood and destroyed the calmness she had barely maintained.
Does she hate it?
She hated the driver who hit her and her mother on a rainy night, and hated the "accident" that took away her health, made her life full of thorns from the very beginning, and made every step she took be like walking on thin ice.
When she first learned that Gu Nanxiao might be inextricably linked to the accident, the anger of being deceived, blinded, and teased by fate almost burned out all her sanity, making her want to scream and question why the world was so unfair.
She even thought maliciously and uncontrollably whether his seemingly casual care was for the purpose of atonement.
Was that kiss on the forehead that made her heart beat also mixed with compensation for guilt?
When she thought of this, she felt nauseous and her heart seemed to be tightly gripped by an invisible hand. She curled up in pain and broke out in a cold sweat.
”
But what can hatred change?
I wish I could turn back time, that accident on that rainy night had never happened, that her body could not recover, that she could not run and laugh carefree like other children of her age, and look forward to a long future full of infinite possibilities.
Hatred was like a raging fire, and the first thing it burned was her own already broken soul and body.
Moreover, the boy's equally painful and desperate eyes were engraved in her heart like a brand, causing her to feel an absurd and inappropriate compassion in the midst of her surging hatred.
And Gu Nanxiao... the boy whose life trajectory was also changed by that accident, and perhaps also living in pain and shackles.
He carried a heavy burden of guilt that she could not imagine, and his life was no easier than hers.
His desperate eyes, his cautious approach, his hasty escape, his instinctively extended hand... all of these made it impossible for her to hate him purely and completely.
Especially when she was lying on the hospital bed at this moment, feeling the fragility of life, she seemed to be able to understand more deeply a sense of powerlessness towards fate that transcended personal grudges.
This contradiction, this tearing, this despair with no way out, made her far more exhausted than a high fever, and was more like a chronic torture.
She seemed to be trapped in a transparent, cold glass cover, watching the normal world outside, the sunshine, laughter, youth... everything was so close, yet so far away.
She could not fit in, nor could she break free, and could only watch the flame of her life fade away little by little inside the shield.
Gu Nanxiao didn't come to see her.
Maybe he didn't know she was so seriously ill, or maybe he didn't dare to come.
After that night, what stood between the two was no longer a simple misunderstanding or embarrassment, but an unfathomable and unbridgeable gap built of blood, pain and long years.
He might feel that even getting close to her would be a disturbance, a sin, and a greater harm to her.
That's fine.
Jiang Yile thought, she didn't know how to face him.
Should I question him?
Hysterically accusing their family of causing her pain?
Or should I continue to pretend that I know nothing and maintain that sad calm?
Either choice left her feeling exhausted and she just wanted to close her eyes and escape from it all.
During the few days of recuperation in the hospital, it was another rainy night, as if by fate's deliberate arrangement.
The rain was hitting the windows frantically, making a crackling sound like dense drumbeats, as if it was going to drown and swallow the entire city.
It was so similar to the rainy night when she forgot to bring an umbrella when Gu Nanxiao first transferred to the new school; it also echoed the rainy night when he kissed her forehead but was ruthlessly interrupted, as if it was a strange and inescapable cycle.
This rain seemed to be a symbol of all the tangled karma and karma between them. It was cold and long, with the illusion of washing away everything, but it only left behind a deeper dampness and coldness.
She took medication that contained a sedative that helped her sleep, but it also made her head feel unusually heavy.
The extreme fatigue of her body made her fall into a deep sleep quickly, but her mind was extremely restless and she had many chaotic dreams.
In the dream, I was in my childhood, holding my mother’s warm and dry hand, running in the bright sunshine, her laughter as clear as a silver bell, carefree.
There were dazzling headlights and sharp brake sounds, and a woman's scream pierced the night sky.
Sometimes it was Gu Nanxiao's quiet, gentle profile with focused eyes as he was adjusting colors in the studio.
Then there was his father's cold, scrutinizing gaze, as if he were looking at a dead person.
Finally, all the images shattered into the doctor's sighing, sympathetic face in the hospital corridor, and Gu Nanxiao's desperate back as he fled in panic...
All the images were fragmented and bizarre, interweaving into a huge, suffocating invisible web that tightly entangled her and made it impossible for her to break free.
I don’t know how long I slept, maybe it was already late at night.
She was in a daze, in a chaotic state of half sleep and half wakefulness.
The senses seemed to block out most of the sounds from the outside world, leaving only the never-ending sound of rain outside the window, like an eternal elegy, monotonous and depressing.
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