Chapter 98: Xu Junheng and Wen Haijing's Rainy Season Watch
(In the extra chapter, Mr. Xu and Jingjing have a happy ending. Please read with caution if you mind.) January in Vancouver is leaden gray. The sky is like a thick velvet cloth soaked in water, pressing low over the city.
Rain is a common theme here, not a downpour, but a continuous, fine mist, damp and cold, seemingly able to seep into the thickest coat.
The bare branches trembled in the cold wind, and pedestrians hurried along the street, their faces bearing an indifference worn down by the long rainy season.
It all began on that ordinary afternoon. In a warm corner of the library, Wen Haijing was looking at some papers. Suddenly, a violent cough struck without warning, and she hurriedly pulled out a tissue from her pocket to cover her mouth.
Once the churning spasms in her chest subsided, she slowly unfolded her handkerchief. On the snow-white paper, a few streaks of bright red blood appeared. At that moment, her heart sank sharply, as if it were about to crash through the cold floor.
She went to the school hospital's walk-in clinic for a checkup.
Influenza is common in Canada during winter.
The waiting room at the school clinic was packed with students who had caught the flu during the season. Coughs and sniffling filled the air, which was thick with the smell of disinfectant and disease.
After waiting in line for an hour, I finally saw the doctor.
The doctor was a gentle-looking middle-aged woman, her voice soft yet professionally cautious. The cool touch of the stethoscope moved across her back. "Breathe deeply, and hold… Now cough." "I'd like to rule out any serious pulmonary conditions. The X-ray will give us a clearer picture."
After initial questioning and auscultation, the doctor looked somewhat grave. She could not rule out the possibility of lung cancer and suggested taking an X-ray, making an appointment with a family doctor, and that surgery might be necessary.
The specialist appointment was later scheduled for two weeks later.
The nurse's voice came through the phone: "Ms. Wen, the only appointment we can make right now is two weeks from now, unless your condition deteriorates drastically. According to the current triage system, this is not considered an emergency. All non-emergency cases need to wait."
What worries her even more is that unless it's an emergency, if surgery is needed later, there will be a waiting list, which could take a few weeks, a few months, or even longer.
This is quite different from medical care in China.
In Canada, the free public healthcare comes at the cost of time.
Chen Ran, who had dinner with her in the cafeteria that evening, showed obvious worry on his face after learning about her illness. He was the kind of boy who grew up in the sunshine, and his parents had always treated him very well.
"Haijing, should we tell your parents about this?" In his view, it is only natural to seek help from parents as soon as possible when encountering difficulties, especially health problems.
She simply lowered her head further and said softly, "I don't plan to tell my parents for now. I'll handle my own affairs."
Wen Haijing rejected Chen Ran's advances, but Chen Ran liked her very much. Even after being rejected, Chen Ran remained warm and considerate, and even suggested, "Even if you just treat me as a close friend, that's fine."
Wen Haijing had considered whether or not to tell Chen Ran about her family background.
However, after careful consideration, she felt unable and unwilling to reveal the unsightly scars of her family of origin to this boy in the sunlight.
Because inside was mud, darkness, thorns, and a past she herself desperately wanted to break free from and forget.
She didn't want to mention it to Chen Ran, she didn't want to tell anyone, and she wanted to forget it herself.
She hadn't told her cousin, Wen Xueyan, about her illness yet.
The thought of her cousin filled her with guilt. From high school to university, her cousin had helped her so much, being one of the few bright spots in her bleak youth.
Later, she learned from a trending news story in China that at the grand wedding that President Cheng and her cousin Wen Xueyan were holding, her parents had caused trouble again, attempting to extort money, and were eventually taken away by the police. This news made her feel extremely ashamed.
Memories flooded back like a tide, carrying the bitterness of bygone years. Her childhood and adolescence were spent amidst her parents' contempt, suppression, and endless pronouncements such as "You're a girl, you'll belong to someone else's family sooner or later" and "Your brother is the only son in the family." All the family's resources, from the best food to educational opportunities, were prioritized for her spoiled brother.
She was originally an extremely hard-working student with excellent grades, and she pinned all her hopes on the college entrance examination.
However, on the morning of the college entrance examination, her mother flew into a rage because she had "wasted electricity" by studying the night before. She deliberately stomped on her only pencil case, scattered her admission ticket and pens all over the floor, and cursed her with the most vicious language, completely disrupting her mindset.
In the end, she walked into the examination room clutching the only remaining pen refill without the casing, filled with panic.
Because she was stopped after the argument, she almost arrived late for the exam and didn't have time to go to the convenience store to buy a new pen.
She performed terribly in her first exam, but fortunately she made great efforts to adjust and was able to get into a second-tier university.
When she entered university, she was unable to apply for student loans because her parents did not cooperate. Her cousin, Wen Xueyan, still sponsored her tuition fees, even though Wen Xueyan herself was in a difficult situation at the time and was even scolded by her grandmother for this sponsorship.
So many things happened afterward. When she was at her lowest point, it was Xu Junheng... the most complex and unpredictable man in her life, who hurt her, protected her, and even sponsored her to go abroad.
She thought that by traveling across the ocean, she could finally say goodbye to the past and start a new, hopeful life, but she never expected that fate would play another cruel joke on her.
She then carefully checked the medical insurance policy for international students. Learning that student medical insurance could reimburse most, or even all, of the surgery costs relieved her somewhat, but both the surgery and the CT scan required scheduling, and the waiting process itself was agonizing.
Some non-emergency procedures require waiting for several weeks or even longer.
So, will waiting delay treatment?
However, if she didn't want to wait, she inquired about the costs at private hospitals and found that they were incredibly expensive. Moreover, there aren't many private hospitals in Canada, and some surgeries can only be performed in public hospitals.
Furthermore, if postoperative complications occur, even in a public hospital, there may be additional out-of-pocket expenses. The money Xu Junheng gave her was enough for her to comfortably complete her studies in Canada, but medical expenses abroad were staggeringly high, and she dared not think about what might happen…
A sense of confusion and despair crept into her heart, and she even had the thought of giving up treatment. But she was only in her early twenties, and her life had just begun to see a glimmer of hope. How could she be willing to give up?
Unbeknownst to her, news of her several visits to the school clinic had already been relayed back to China through Sun Ting, a boy secretly arranged by Xu Junheng.
Sun Ting comes from an ordinary family and is a simple and honest person. He is Wen Haijing's classmate. Xu Junheng pays Sun Ting a part-time salary every month and asks him to report on what he sees of Wen Haijing. However, he tells him to only show concern and not to follow her. He is only to report when he happens to see her in places such as the classroom or the cafeteria.
Xu Junheng put down the phone and stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling window of his top-floor office, looking down at the bustling city below.
Outside the window was a dry and harsh Chinese winter, but his thoughts drifted far away.
He could almost picture her current state of bewilderment, helplessness, and forced composure. That girl, like a seemingly resilient but actually fragile plant, was always forced to sway in the wind and rain.
After she left, Xu Junheng lost interest in all those ordinary women.
Xu Junheng's memory of everything about Wen Haijing became even clearer.
Xu Junheng remembered the slender and soft touch of her waist under his palm, as if it would break with the slightest force; he remembered the warmth and delicacy of her skin, like the finest silk, yet with a slight tremor.
He still remembered that when she was beneath him, her usually clear eyes were misty with tears as she looked at him, like a little deer lost in the depths of a forest.
At that time, he was driven by a mixture of possessiveness and inexplicable feelings. Although he deliberately made his movements gentle, he still carried an undeniable forcefulness.
Xu Junheng felt that the more fragile she was, the more it highlighted the despicable nature of his past behavior and the torment of his current restraint and waiting.
He even began to feel jealous of himself back then, when he could hold her in his arms as a matter of course, even though that possession began with a dishonorable transaction.
Xu Junheng recalls that when preparing Wen Haijing's student visa application materials, he reviewed the transcript copies compiled by his assistant.
His grades were excellent throughout high school, with outstanding scores in math and English, and the same continued in his freshman year of college. These outstanding results formed a stark contrast with the acceptance letter he received from an ordinary undergraduate university.
During her hospitalization after her miscarriage, Xu Junheng asked her why she had failed her college entrance exam. Wen Haijing slowly recounted her past, and he realized that this girl had once fought so tenaciously against fate. Even so, she still managed to get into university.
Xu Junheng's sense of guilt grew stronger.
Stepping out of his reverie, he calmed down, well aware of the efficiency of Canada's public healthcare system for non-emergency patients. He immediately picked up the phone, utilizing his connections in the United States, and quickly contacted a private hospital in Seattle renowned for its efficiency and top-notch specialists.
The other party promised that as long as the patient arrives, expert consultation and all necessary examinations, including immediate CT scans, can be arranged within 48 hours at the fastest. If surgery is required, it can also be arranged within a week.
For ordinary people, the downside of private hospitals in the United States is that they are very expensive, but Xu Junheng can accept the cost.
With everything arranged, Xu Junheng put the receiver back on the landline and fell into an even deeper silence.
He longed to fly to Vancouver immediately, appear before her, and take her to Seattle with an unquestionable attitude to receive the best and most timely treatment.
He has the ability and the impulse.
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