Chapter 16
Waves of excruciating pain assaulted Persian's nerves, the cracking sensation in his left scapula almost causing him to faint. Rain blurred his vision, but he clenched his teeth tightly, the bulging veins on his forehead showing the immense pain he was enduring.
"Go...go quickly..." he forced out the words, giving Lin Xiaotang a difficult push with his right hand. "We can't stay here...there will be...falling rocks..."
His voice was broken and intermittent, yet it carried an undeniable resolve. Even in such a state of injury, his first thought was still for her safety.
Lin Xiaotang looked at his arm hanging at an odd angle and his shoulder quickly stained red with blood, and tears mingled with the rain, streaming down her face. At that moment, all her anger and grievances were thrown to the winds, leaving only a heart full of panic and guilt.
"I'll help you!" she choked out, using all her strength to support Fu Sinian's uninjured right side.
Fu Sinian leaned almost all his weight on her, and with every movement, his left shoulder throbbed with excruciating pain, and cold sweat poured down his back. With his strong willpower, he forced himself to move, and with Lin Xiaotang's support, he walked back step by step, towards the landslide he had just crossed, which was piled with rocks and mud.
The climb was like torture. Fu Sinian was practically enduring the pain with his right hand and knee. Every slight sway of his injured left arm sent shivers down his spine, but he didn't utter a sound, only biting his lower lip tightly. Lin Xiaotang was doing her best to support him, her face blurred by rain and tears. Her feet kept slipping, but she had only one thought in her mind: she couldn't let anything happen to him again.
Finally, the two men, in a very disheveled state, managed to climb over the landslide. Persian's car was parked on the opposite side, its headlights piercing the rain like a beacon of hope.
Lin Xiaotang practically half-carried, half-dragged Bai Sinian into the passenger seat, then rushed into the driver's seat herself, her hands trembling so badly she could barely grip the steering wheel. She took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down, and slammed on the gas pedal, the car speeding down the mountain.
Throughout the journey, Bai Sinian leaned back in his chair, his face as white as paper, his breathing shallow and rapid, his eyes tightly closed, clearly enduring immense pain. Lin Xiaotang glanced at him anxiously every now and then, her heart clenching and racing, hoping only to get to the hospital as quickly as possible.
The emergency room lights were glaring and cold. The doctor cut open Fu Sinian's suit, soaked with blood and rain, revealing his swollen, deformed left shoulder, where even the bone fragments were visible. Lin Xiaotang only glanced at it before turning her head away, a wave of nausea washing over her, and tears welled up again.
The diagnosis came back quickly: a comminuted fracture of the left scapula with slight displacement, requiring immediate surgical fixation.
Watching Fu Sinian being wheeled into the operating room, Lin Xiaotang leaned weakly against the cold wall and slowly slid down to sit on a bench in the corridor. Her soaked clothes clung coldly to her skin, but she felt no cold; her mind was filled with the image of Fu Sinian's terrified eyes and his pale, pained face as he pushed her away.
He wouldn't have been so badly injured if he hadn't been saving her.
Guilt gripped her heart like vines, almost suffocating her.
The surgery lasted a long time. When Persian was wheeled out, he was still under anesthesia. His face was still pale, but the pain between his brows seemed to have eased somewhat. His left shoulder was in a thick cast and bandages, immobilized, and looked particularly vulnerable.
Lin Xiaotang stayed by his bedside all night without sleeping.
For the next few days, Fu Sinian was hospitalized for observation. Lin Xiaotang almost put aside everything at the shop and came to the hospital every day to take care of him. Xiao Wei sensibly took on the responsibility of looking after the shop, allowing her to focus on taking care of her "lifesaver."
At first, Bai Sinian was very embarrassed and kept saying in a hoarse voice, "No need to trouble yourself," "I can do it myself," "The shop can't be empty," but Lin Xiaotang was adamant and didn't give him a chance to refuse.
She helped him adjust the height of his hospital bed, fetched him water and food, and even carefully assisted him to the bathroom in the early stages when he had extremely limited mobility. She remembered every instruction from the doctor, reminded the nurses to change his dressings on time, and prepared a variety of light and nutritious liquid foods and soups for him every day.
From initial embarrassment and resistance, Bai Sinian gradually accepted it silently. His gaze often followed Lin Xiaotang's busy figure, his eyes filled with complex emotions. There was gratitude, guilt, and deep feelings that she couldn't understand, but the intense pain he had felt before, the pain he wanted to escape, seemed to have faded considerably.
The relationship between the two was quietly changing in a silent, tacit understanding.
He would whisper "thank you" when she handed him warm water; she would sit quietly beside him when he couldn't sleep at night because of pain, keeping him company with trivial chatter to distract him; sometimes when she got tired of reading and fell asleep by the bed, he would carefully pick up his coat with his still-functioning right hand and cover her with it.
A subtle and warm current flowed slowly through the ward, diluting the smell of disinfectant and healing some unseen wounds.
Lin Xiaotang still felt guilty, but as she watched Bai Sinian get better day by day, his complexion gradually returned to normal, and he could even crack an awkward joke with her occasionally, that heavy feeling was gradually replaced by an indescribable sense of relief and... concern.
She stopped dwelling on his past abnormalities and pain, focusing instead on caring for him in the present. And it seemed that, under her meticulous care and peaceful companionship, Persian was slowly shedding a hard shell, his eyes softening considerably.
However, both of them tacitly avoided certain deeper topics. The rainstorm, the falling rock, the reason he pushed her away, and the shadow of pain that occasionally flashed in his eyes, which had not been completely smoothed out, were all temporarily buried beneath this seemingly calm and gentle daily life.
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