The beginning of breaking the ice with my childhood sweetheart
Amidst the chaotic nightmare fragments, a clear and warm image stubbornly squeezed in, like a faint but firm ray of light penetrating the dark clouds.
That was the night after his first attack. Gu Yansheng lay on a snow-white bed in the children's ward. His small body was still weak, and beneath his skin remained numbness and discomfort after the burning pain. The smell of disinfectant in the ward was so strong that it pungent.
His parents' panicked faces during the day, the doctors' serious conversations, and the feeling of various cold instruments against his body all made him feel an unfamiliar fear. He couldn't sleep, his big eyes wide open in the dim light, staring at the ceiling.
The ward door was pushed open very slightly, making an almost inaudible "creaking" sound, and he immediately closed his eyes.
A small figure slipped in, his movements were cautious and...stiff, which was inconsistent with his age. It was Jiang Lin.
Eight-year-old Jiang Lin, with his thin lips pursed and his brows slightly furrowed, walked to Gu Yansheng's bedside. He didn't speak immediately, but just stood there, like a small, silent statue, looking down at him.
The only lights in the ward were the distant city lights outside the window and the hazy glow of the nightlight by the bed. Gu Yansheng could imagine Jiang Lin's tense jawline and his eyes, which seemed too calm even in the dim light. He keenly sensed something different.
Jiang Lin's hand hung by his side, the hand that was always clean and steady, but now the fingertips were slightly curled up, trembling lightly and imperceptibly.
This subtle "unrest" from Jiang Lin strangely soothed the remaining fear in Gu Yansheng's heart. He suddenly felt less afraid.
Then, he saw Jiang Lin hesitantly and very slowly reach out his hand. That little hand, trembling slightly, cautiously and tentatively touched Gu Yansheng's wrist, which was lying outside the quilt.
Warm skin touching.
That bit of warmth, like a tiny spark, instantly ignited the playful thoughts in Gu Yansheng's heart and dispelled the last bit of gloom. He suddenly grabbed back and tightly grasped Jiang Lin's fingers before he could retract them!
"Hey!" Gu Yansheng grinned, revealing a pale but extremely bright smile, with a gleam of success in his eyes.
Jiang Lin was clearly startled by this sudden movement, his entire body frozen. For the first time, his usually calm eyes clearly reflected surprise, even a hint of embarrassment. He instinctively tried to pull his hand back, but Gu Yansheng held it tightly.
"I knew it was you!" Gu Yansheng's voice still carried the weakness of his illness, yet it was full of energy. He simply sat up, leaned his little face closer to Jiang Lin, and lowered his voice mysteriously, "I was pretending to be asleep! Were you scared during the day?"
Jiang Lin didn't say anything, just looked at him, his brows furrowed even tighter, as if he was assessing whether he was really okay.
Gu Yansheng, however, continued to talk to himself, with the innocence of a child who has a vague concept of death. "You know what? The doctor talked to my parents a lot during the day, saying that I have that... that 'rainy skin hypersensitivity'!"
He tried hard to repeat the difficult-to-pronounce name, "And he said, luckily I was sent here super quickly today! The doctor said, if it was just a little later, just a little bit…" He raised his little finger and gestured, "I might have really become a little angel and flown to heaven!"
When he said this, there was even a hint of naive curiosity on his face about the novel concept of "becoming an angel", and his smile was still innocent.
However, at the moment he said the words "become a little angel", Gu Yansheng clearly felt that Jiang Lin's fingers, which were held in his palm, suddenly trembled violently!
It was no longer the subtle, imperceptible tremor from before, but a sudden and strong vibration like an electric shock.
Gu Yansheng looked up at Jiang Lin's face in confusion.
That little face that always had no expression seemed even paler than before in the dim light.
His lips were pursed tightly, almost forming a pale line. His eyes were fixed on Gu Yansheng, and something was surging violently in the depths of his pupils. Was it fear? Was it fear of the consequences? Or something else?
Seven-year-old Gu Yansheng couldn't comprehend such complexities, but he could clearly feel Jiang Lin's grip on his hand, tighter than ever before, so tight it almost hurt. Those cold, stiff fingers conveyed a silent, immense panic, as if his words had nearly made the person before him vanish.
Gu Yansheng was a bit bewildered, not understanding why Jiang Lin reacted so strongly to him calling him "little angel." He blinked, instinctively wanting to comfort this friend who seemed to need comforting more than he did. He smiled even brighter, his tone earnest and filled with gratitude:
"So, thank you, Brother Jiang Lin! Thank you for saving me the second time!"
Jiang Lin remained silent. He avoided Gu Yansheng's clear gaze, lowered his head, and his long eyelashes drooped, hiding the turmoil in his eyes. He simply gripped Gu Yansheng's hand tighter, as if it were the only anchor that could confirm his existence.
After that night, everything changed.
Gu Yansheng discovered that brother Jiang Lin, who always ignored him and even seemed to dislike his noise, suddenly became "easy to talk to".
She no longer always closed the door to her room, and no longer walked away coldly when he approached. When Gu Yansheng once again stood timidly at the door of Jiang Lin's house with a toy in his arms, Jiang Lin, although still expressionless, would silently make way for him to enter.
He would give up half of his desk, even if Gu Yansheng was just doodling nearby. He even... began to allow Gu Yansheng to sit quietly next to him while he read.
What surprised Gu Yansheng even more was that he started to see Jiang Lin secretly reading some... very strange books and videos. These weren't his favorite cartoons or storybooks, but books with diagrams of the human body, and some adult videos that taught how to give injections and first aid.
Once, he even saw a small training syringe without a needle on Jiang Lin’s desk, and next to it was a small bottle labeled "saline solution".
Little Gu Yansheng was confused and felt that Brother Jiang Lin seemed to have become more powerful and knew a lot of things that he didn't know.
He didn't know how his unintentional words "turn into a little angel" hit Jiang Lin's precocious and calm heart like a bullet, and set off a huge storm.
From that moment on, an almost stubborn sense of responsibility and a panic buried deep in his heart that even he himself was not aware of drove Jiang Lin to start arming himself in the most clumsy and direct way - learning all the methods to keep the person in front of him who always smiled heartlessly but was as fragile as glass.
Those cold medical knowledge and first aid skills became the dam he built for himself to fight against the torrential abyss of loss that might swallow him up again.
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