Chapter 77 The most embarrassing moment
"Jiang Ranxu..."
In his dream, Jiang Ranxu was a lost animal, filthy, lost, cold and hungry, struggling to find his way home. The night was thick, and he felt like he was trapped in an old inkwell, the ink long since solidified, blocking his vision. He only vaguely remembered that to get home, he had to cross a frozen lake. He was afraid of the water, but he had nowhere else to go and had to step onto the fragile ice.
Crack, crack. Cracks spread across the ice. A faint voice, calling out to the dead, could be heard again from the other side of the lake:
"Jiang Ran's preface."
Is he almost home?
He took a step and ran. He was getting closer and closer to the other side of the lake, but the ice broke again.
Jiang Ranxu suddenly woke up.
Hospitals typically feature blue, green, and white as their primary colors, and veterinary hospitals are no exception. The sky-blue ceiling gradually dispelled the darkness from his dream, but Jiang Ranxu still couldn't find peace. He coughed and gasped, his body still reacting to the lack of oxygen. His head was swollen, his vision flickering, and at one point, he felt close to a near-death experience.
He heard a rustling sound at his trouser legs. He looked down and saw a Shiba Inu waiting for its vaccination had somehow clung to him, its small front paws resting on his knees, its tongue hanging in the air, its saliva about to flow.
Jiang Ranxu twisted his body to the other side and immediately rushed to the bathroom to wash his trouser legs.
The person who had called out to him in his dream grasped his shoulder at this moment: "Jiang Ranxu! You just had another nightmare. Are you feeling okay?"
Jiang Ranxu raised his head with difficulty, finally seeing the man's face clearly through the messy hair. Every inch of this face had been explored by his lips, and every flaw was familiar to him. Even if there were two tired dark circles under the man's eyes, and his cheeks and nose were cracked with frostbite, he still recognized him.
The inside of his mouth tasted bloody. Jiang Ranxu kept repeating in his mind: Be calm, be composed, just like all the normal people around you. Yes, just like a normal person. Puppies are cute, they don't have germs, don't be afraid of them.
Meng Weishen ignored the Shiba Inu's aggrieved look and pushed it aside, taking the seat next to Jiang Ranxu. He then extended his arm towards Jiang Ranxu and put his arm around his shoulders.
Jiang Ranxu rested his forehead against Meng Weishen's neck, greedily absorbing the familiar scent and warmth of his body. The survivors of the apocalypse had found his temporary refuge, and the world had sunk into a brief period of peace.
"I'm fine. I was just too sleepy and fell asleep while sitting." Jiang Ranxu stayed in his original position. "How is Qin Shi Huang?"
Meng Weishen's chest rose and fell, and he sighed slowly, "That dead dog is going to die from falling in love. He ate too much dirt and fake grass while digging, and it ripped his upper digestive tract."
A few strands of light brown hair suddenly sprouted from his dark trouser legs, clearly from the overly enthusiastic Shiba Inu. Jiang Ranxu's heart skipped a beat, and he quickly shook off the dog hair.
The entrance to the operating room was a high-pressure area, especially with Qin Shi Huang still lying inside with no news. Meng Weishen looked equally distraught, chatting with him intermittently: "Thank goodness you got him to the veterinary hospital in time; he's already had his stomach pumped. I don't think he'll die, and he'll be spared a vaccination. He's lucky."
Was the dog hair cleaned up? Would there be any left? Jiang Ranxu was extremely worried and began to check his calf again. Sure enough, he found a few remaining hairs and quickly reached out to brush them off.
Meng Weishen was still muttering, "I'll have to keep him in the hospital for IV drips for the next few days. My pet health insurance is finally working, but I don't know how much it will cover..."
All sorts of catastrophic thoughts about pollution filled Jiang Ranxu's mind. He couldn't focus on what the other person was saying, his gaze fixed on his own white cuffs. A faint brown mark ran across the button, so faint that it seemed only his imagination.
No, calm down. He had clearly changed all his clothes and washed his hands countless times. There was no way he was still covered in Qin Shi Huang's vomit.
He rubbed his cuffs nervously, but the mark was deliberately teasing him, appearing and disappearing in his sight, sometimes shallow, sometimes deep.
The veins on Jiang Ranxu's forehead throbbed violently, and half of his head felt like it was being stabbed with needles. He immediately stood up and interrupted Meng Weishen's words:
"Excuse me."
"Wait." Meng Weishen held his arm, turning into a piece of White Rabbit candy stuck in his mouth, quite sticky. "Wherever you're going, I have to go with you."
"No, don't come with me."
Jiang Ranxu refused bluntly. A mental breakdown wasn't a glorious thing; he had to hide.
But Meng Weishen refused to let him go and dragged him back to his original position. "You're so sleepy that your eyelids are drooping. Why are you still running around alone? Don't go anywhere. After Qin Shihuang finishes washing his stomach, I'll take you home to catch up on some sleep."
Jiang Ranxu was truly utterly sleepy. Once he touched the back of the chair, he was reduced to a shattered corpse. Unable to regain his human form, he allowed those morbid thoughts to continue invading his mind, bit by bit devouring the last of his sanity.
After a while, the nurse informed them to go to the infusion room to pick up the dog. Jiang Ranxu half woke up, got up in a daze, and followed Meng Weishen through a sea of wailing and barking, finding the unconscious Qin Shi Huang between two isolation barriers.
Qin Shi Huang's stomach had been cleaned, but he hadn't woken up from the anesthesia yet, and he had been a quiet little dog for a while. His eyes were slits, his big ears and tongue were drooping on the nursing pad, and an IV needle was stuck in his front paw, looking both funny and pitiful.
Meng Weishen pulled out stuffed toys, canned dog food, a thermal blanket, and even a fabric doghouse from his backpack, filling the small cubicle to the brim. Qin Shi Huang could still be emperor even while hospitalized. The old lady next door could only envy her ugly Teddy Bear.
Meng Weishen lifted Qin Shi Huang's ears. Even though the dog hadn't woken up yet, he was already worried. "Doctor, it used to be a lab dog, and it's not in good health. Will it die?"
The doctor waved his hand and said, "Your dog is well-fed and strong. How could it die so easily? He's vomited out all the debris in his stomach. There are a few small bleeding spots in his esophagus and stomach. Stay in the hospital for observation for three days. Then go home and take a few days of anti-inflammatory medicine and he'll be fine."
"Then why hasn't it woken up yet? Is it allergic to the anesthesia?"
"No, it's nothing. You see, it'll wake up soon. But you really have to watch it carefully next time and don't let it stuff anything into its mouth..."
As soon as the doctor finished speaking, Qin Shihuang kicked his hind legs vigorously a few times and slowly raised his head.
Meng Weishen was extremely surprised and even praised the doctor's magical powers. He touched Qin Shi Huang's heaving abdomen. Qin Shi Huang hummed softly a few times, twisted his mouth, and vomited again.
There should only be saline solution and gastric acid left in the dog's stomach, and the vomitus should be clean and almost transparent.
Meng Weishen was startled: "Doctor, why is it vomiting again..."
Jiang Ranxu couldn't bear to listen any longer. The sour smell of vomit ignited his mind, and he completely lost the ability to think. He fell uncontrollably out of the infusion room and fled to the stairs leading to the second floor.
The veterinary hospital was clearly divided: the first floor was for dogs, the second for cats. Compared to the bustle of the first floor, the second floor was as quiet as a cemetery, with only the occasional cry of a cat, like a baby's cry. But there were no cats in the room, only rows of iron cages covered with blackout cloth, like tombstones.
Several pairs of green cat eyes peeked out from the bottom of the cage, witnessing his loss of composure.
Jiang Ranxu successfully found the bathroom, but failed to lock the door. Meng Weishen caught up with him, grabbed the door lock, and squeezed sideways through the gap, squeezing into the same narrow space with him.
He couldn't care less about Meng Weishen. If he didn't clean himself up, he would die.
Under Meng Weishen's burning gaze, Jiang Ranxu rushed to the washbasin, turned the faucet to the highest level, and repeatedly tortured the skin of his hands in the biting ice water.
An invisible cage, covered in thick black cloth, also trapped Jiang Ranxu tightly. Meng Weishen was isolated from the outside world. No matter how he pulled at his arms or how he tried to talk to him, he felt nothing real.
Strands of glaring blood stained the clear water. The more he tried to clean it, the thicker it became. He grew frantic, forcing his broken wound into the stream. His flesh turned pale, yet the blood continued to flow.
Meng Weishen pushed him away and turned off the faucet. The world returned to a hazy silence. Jiang Ranxu could finally hear what he was saying: "Jiang Ranxu, stop washing! You've hurt yourself. Don't you feel any pain?"
The limbs below the forearm were already numb from the cold. Jiang Ranxu said numbly, "It doesn't hurt."
"You can't wash anymore, come downstairs with me."
Meng Weishen frowned and dragged him out of the bathroom, not allowing him to get close to any faucet.
Jiang Ranxu seemed to be floating in mid-air, with no idea where his legs were standing, and his direction of movement was entirely dependent on Meng Weishen's guidance.
They walked through rows of black iron cages, went down the stairwell, bypassed the vaccination room, and returned to the small cubicle where Qin Shihuang was receiving an infusion.
The first floor was much busier than the second. The barking of dogs formed a makeshift symphony, and the air was filled with the smell of puppy, like stewed glutinous rice.
Qin Shi Huang had stopped vomiting and was in good spirits. Doctors had ordered a 24-hour fast, so he gnawed on the stuffed toys Meng Weishen had brought him, occasionally turning his head to survey them with his gleaming black eyes.
Meng Weishen threatened the dog: "What are you looking at? You are only three years old. You are not allowed to learn bad habits and fall in love, especially not with a long-haired boy. You know you are wrong now."
Even dogs don't like to hear this. Qin Shi Huang flicked his ears and turned his dog face away.
...Did he survive? Jiang Ranxu hesitated, his body slowly warming up in the warm breeze. His skin, fresh from the cold water, was tingling with a faint tingle. He might develop frostbite in a few days.
Meng Weishen asked the pet hospital for a new bottle of iodine, dipped a cotton swab in the solution, and rolled it over several cracked wounds on the back of his hand.
…He survived. Jiang Ranxu felt the stinging pain on the back of his hand again, making his temples throb. Pain meant life.
The terrifying memory of the attack still clung to his mind. Jiang Ranxu knew he was in as much of a mess as he could be. He had thought that if Meng Weishen saw through him, everything would be over, but the other party sat beside him, helping him apply iodine, as calm as if nothing had happened.
He stared at the back of his hand, where several wounds, flesh turned inside out, intertwined. The skin was pale from blood loss, and then covered with yellowing iodine. It was horrible.
Jiang Ranxu pulled his arm back: "I'm sorry. You saw it all, mental illness is so terrible."
Meng Weishen paused with the cotton swab in his hand and pulled his hand back: "Yes, I saw it. But there's nothing to be afraid of. You won't kill or burn people when you get sick. You will only hurt yourself."
"You saw it all, why are you still pestering me? Are you really that stupid?"
Meng Weishen answered as if it was a matter of course: "Because you need me. And I like you so much, of course I have to stick with you."
"Don't you feel dirty?"
"You're not dirty at all." Meng Weishen held his wrist tightly. "You only feel dirty when you're sick. You need to go to the hospital for treatment like Qin Shi Huang did."
Jiang Ranxu struggled in vain: "Meng Weishen, I actually lied to you before. I don't have any obsession with marriage and family. I don't care about these things at all. Even if you want to break up with me, don't feel any psychological burden."
"Jiang Ranxu, I know you very well now. You are obviously a very good person, you are not allowed to imagine yourself to be so bad." Meng Weishen's eyes were clear, "If you hadn't helped me find the dog, Qin Shihuang might have died in the neighbor's house today. Not only today, you have helped me many times before, right? Anyway, no matter if you are sick or lied to me, I still like you."
Jiang Ranxu's mind buzzed, and his entire defense collapsed. Wasn't he a jerk who was good at deceiving and evading others? Why did Meng Weishen still think he was so good after seeing him at his most embarrassing? Was Meng Weishen lying to him?
But Meng Weishen was not good at lying, and he knew that what the other party said at this moment was the truth.
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