22 Nougat
Yang Xiao was torn between two things, so she decided to make lotus leaf porridge and lotus root dumplings. She had just put the lotus root dumplings in the bubbling oil and was about to take them out when she heard Zhou Qi's voice from behind: "Let me do it." Yang Xiao turned around and her high ponytail brushed Zhou Qi's face, making him feel itchy and a little fragrant.
"Zhou Qi, why are you walking so quietly? You scared me to death." Yang Xiao put her hands on her chest and smoothed them. Zhou Qi took the colander from her hand and said, "Okay, okay, I'll come over next time. Go take a rest, I'll call you when I'm ready." Yang Xiao thought to herself, that's great, someone will help with the work, and she took a bowl of cooled lotus leaf porridge and left the kitchen.
Seeing Zhou Daye sitting under a yellow orchid tree, fanning himself with a palm-leaf fan, she walked over and placed her bowl on the stone table. "Uncle Zhou, come and try my cooking. This lotus leaf porridge is both heat-clearing and relieving. It's just cooled, and it's more effective than this fan." Zhou Daye, upon hearing this, truly put down his fan, picked up the lotus leaf porridge, and took a long sip. "Delicious...delicious."
Yang Xiao showed a smug expression and pretended to wave her hand: "There is still a pot in the kitchen, enough for us. I'll go see if Zhou Qi's fried lotus root sandwiches are ready." Just as she turned to leave, she saw the lotus leaf porridge Zhou Daye was holding flowing from the corner of his mouth, and the soft and sticky rice grains hung on his chin.
She pulled out a tissue from her pocket and reached out to wipe Zhou Daye's face. Before her hand even touched his face, Yang Xiao shouted, "Zhou... Zhou Qi, come here!" The porcelain bowl Zhou Daye was holding fell to the ground, shattering into pieces. Zhou Qi, not even having time to take off his apron, ran out at the sound.
Zhou Daye's left mouth drooped, a few grains of rice still lingering, and his body was about to fall uncontrollably toward the tree. Zhou Qi held Zhou Daye firmly and raised his voice, "Dad! Dad! Can you hear me? If you can, nod your head. Yes, blinking is fine. Yang Xiao, call 120!"
While waiting for the ambulance, Yang Xiao stood there, bewildered, watching Zhou Qi unbutton Zhou Daye's collar and tilt his head to one side. She thought that after experiencing Yang Quezi's death, she would be extremely calm and strong in the face of everything in the future, but she couldn't help but tremble all over, sweating, and her ears would ring from time to time.
It wasn't until she was sitting outside the emergency room and Zhou Qi handed her a tissue that she realized she was already in tears. She no longer cared about the ideals and ambitions she had once longed for, as long as Zhou Daye was fine.
Zhou Qi leaned against the cold corridor, his mind racing through stroke cases, both successful and unsuccessful. Over and over again, they echoed the symptoms Zhou Daye had experienced when he collapsed. Amidst this confusion, he remembered why he had chosen medicine.
It was Zhou Dashe who took him to buy nougat. The kind mixed with crushed peanuts. To celebrate his recovery from a serious illness.
Back then, conditions in town were poor, and Zhou Daye had just taken him in. As a result, he had just found a home when he started having a fever. He had a fever for several days, and even going to the clinic for intravenous drips didn't help. Zhou Daye gritted his teeth and took him to the city. He had once been a lonely man, and any spare money he had would have been spent on cigarettes and alcohol. But he spent almost all of his family's savings on Zhou Qi's medical treatment. He brought him back from the city in good health, and told him that as long as he was obedient and took his medicine on time, he would take him to buy nougat.
Zhou Dashe, never one to break his promise, brought a pumpkin and dragged him to buy it. After a lot of negotiation with the shop owner, he traded the pumpkin for three nougats, which he put in Zhou Qi's pocket, not taking any for himself.
On the way back, a dog rushed out of the cornfield, startling Zhou Qi and causing him to drop the nougat he had just taken out. Seeing the dog about to sniff the nougat, Zhou Qi rushed over without a second thought, trying to chase it away. The frightened dog turned and tried to bite Zhou Qi, but Zhou Daye grabbed him and, before he could throw the stone intimidatingly, he was bitten hard on the leg, drawing blood.
Zhou Qi burst into tears. The dog had run away, but the nougat was still lying on the ground, intact. Zhou Daye picked it up and said to him with a smile, "Don't cry, the candy is still there, wrapped in plastic. It's not dirty. Let me blow away the dust for you."
At night, Zhou Daye coaxed him to sleep, then got up to pour wine on the wound, gasping for air in pain. Actually, Zhou Qi hadn't fallen asleep at all at that moment, and was crying quietly under the covers. He remembered that when he first got home, the old man next door told Zhou Daye that he needed an injection because he'd been bitten by a dog. Zhou Daye waved his hand, saying he didn't have the money to go to the hospital.
Even though Zhou Qi was old enough to remember, he didn't know what rabies was. He only knew that night, he was terrified of waking up and finding himself without his family. So, after each nightmare, he would touch Zhou Daye's arm.
The next morning, Zhou Qi asked Zhou Daye, "Can't I go to the doctor without money?" Zhou Daye, still smiling, touched his head and said, "Yes, but as a doctor, you can treat people and make money at the same time." After hearing this, Zhou Qi took Zhou Daye's hand and said, "Then I want to be a doctor in the future and treat Dad's leg wound."
Zhou Daye laughed and said, by the time you become a doctor, Dad’s leg would have been healed long ago.
As he grew older, he slowly realized that his almost instinctive childhood fear wasn't entirely unfounded. Back then, they were gambling their poverty, betting that the dog didn't have rabies. Fortunately, fate wasn't so cruel, and they won. And Zhou Qi, on the other hand, was making progress on his path to fulfilling his promise to become a doctor.
...
The emergency room door opened, and the doctor told Zhou Qi that they needed to transfer her to another hospital. It was a massive cerebral infarction, and they would contact the Third Municipal Hospital, but they recommended that Zhou Qi contact them in advance. Zhou Qi nodded, understanding, and then he pulled Yang Xiao back into the ambulance to the city. Along the way, Yang Xiao's mind was in a state of confusion, and her right eyelid twitched constantly.
Zhou Qi was on the phone in the car, calling the teacher over and over again, then using some completely unfamiliar terms. She held Zhou Daye's hand and gently wiped the rice grains stuck on his clothes. Her voice was hoarse, "Uncle Zhou, get well soon. You haven't tried the lotus root dumplings I made yet."
When they arrived at the Third Municipal Hospital, they were already waiting. Zhou Daye was wheeled away in an ambulance as soon as he stepped out. Zhou Qi followed behind, occasionally providing the doctor who took over with his details. Yang Xiao was sweating profusely from running. Afterward, Zhou Daye was rushed to the operating room, and they began another round of waiting.
Before any results came out, Miao Yue arrived first.
To be precise, she saw Zhou Qi jump out of the ambulance in the lobby and then made a phone call. As she approached, she bought two bottles of water from the vending machine and handed them to Zhou Qi and Yang Xiao. She admitted that she, Miao Yue, wasn't a good person, and she'd rarely done anything to make things better, but this time, she wanted to try her hand at helping someone in need.
She gestured for Zhou Qi to step aside and talk. Yang Xiao looked over and met Miao Yue's gaze. It turned out that the person on the phone last time was her. Yang Xiao nodded and said thank you. Miao Yue smiled, waved, and walked out with Zhou Qi.
"Do you want me to arrange a specialist consultation for Uncle? I heard his condition isn't very good." Miao Yue leaned against the railing. The wind seemed to favor her, adding a touch of charm to her. "What are the conditions?" Zhou Qi didn't want to beat around the bush with her anymore and looked at her calmly.
"You'll know when you come tonight. Hmm... a large-scale cerebral infarction, suspected to be in the left middle cerebral artery? That's really confusing. It's hard to say what the sequelae will be now, but the further treatment plan depends on you." Zhou Qi was not surprised by the answer given by Miao Yue, but he was also wondering how true her words would be.
"Zhou Qi, don't look at me like that. Do you have any choice now?" Miao Yue smiled again, her flamboyant and charming expression. Unwilling to continue some movie-like melodrama with him, she shoved a room card into his hand and left without a backward glance, leaving behind the monotonous scent of perfume. Zhou Qi's head was splitting.
When he returned, Yang Xiao was standing at the door, looking in the direction he had left. Seeing him, she walked towards him quickly with bright eyes: "Zhou Qi, is she going to help us?" Zhou Qi did not answer her. Yang Xiao saw that he looked unhappy, turned around and got him a cup of warm water, so that he could drink something hot.
Given Zhou Daye's current condition, even if the thrombolysis was successful, there was a high probability of residual complications. He had no choice about the subsequent treatment plan; agreeing to the appointment was the best option. But he remained steadfast and made another phone call.
"Teacher, I'm Zhou Qi. Sorry to bother you, my father is in critical condition. You..." Before Zhou Qi could finish his words, the other end replied, "Hey, it's Zhou Qi. Your father's name is Zhou Yigang, right? I heard from Dean Miao that they've already made arrangements. Okay, I'll leave this matter to Dean Miao, so you can rest assured."
Zhou Qi was completely blocked from saying anything else. He experienced the wisdom of a wise man, the art of self-preservation, in that moment. And he, too, was like the saying, "A dumb person swallows bitter herbs, unable to express his pain." The room card in his pocket was slightly warm.
Zhou Daye was wheeled out again, tubes inserted, and he fell into a coma. Zhou Qi followed behind, remembering the moment Zhou Daye lay in the ambulance, and the wisp of white hair he'd accidentally glimpsed. When had that hair grown? How come he'd never noticed it before? At this moment, he couldn't tell which was more powerful: regret, guilt, or apology; he felt like he was about to collapse.
It wasn't until Yang Xiao touched him with her cold hand that he seemed to calm down again. A little later, Fang Qiu arrived, and Zhou Qi asked him to take Yang Xiao to buy some daily necessities.
After they left, he walked out of the hospital holding the room card.
As if to deliberately humiliate him, after leaving the hospital and turning a few corners, he could see the magnificently decorated hotel lobby. When he reached the door, someone even helped him open the glass door, so he effortlessly found the place on the room card.
After swiping my card and entering, I found that the huge room was empty.
That's right, what's the difference between him now and someone who comes to your door? His time is even worthless.
He stood by the window, watching the night fall. The tall buildings in the distance began to light up, and the cars on the viaduct became a string of red taillights. The area, which should have been bustling, was now separated by this bright wall of glass, and the room was filled with silence.
I don't know how long it took, but the door opened.
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