Chapter 112 You have turned into a cat and taught me the truth!
As a patient, of course, he should rest well. Chang Xile was transferred to a regular single room. She sat on the bed holding His Majesty, occasionally stroking his head.
"I haven't been to Blue Mountain Hospital for a long time." She suddenly sighed.
"It's better to avoid places like hospitals," said Anping.
"But there are people here I care about, too." Chang Xile recalled the injured people being rushed to the hospital downstairs as he walked through the corridor just now. "And there are many other people who care about me."
"Come to think of it, that white kitten that appeared in my hospital room that night, was that you?" Chang Xile asked. That day, she had first entered the underworld and then encountered the Impermanence of Death. Everything was so magical that she briefly thought it was a dream. It wasn't until she saw the lucky sachet next to her pillow that she realized the cat's midnight visit was real.
But at that time she thought it was His Majesty who came.
Anping nodded and said, "I saw you being harassed by that impermanence, so I brought you back. Your soul always likes to wander around, so your aunt wasn't wrong to give you the amulet."
After saying this, he flicked His Majesty's head lightly with his finger: "Bad guy."
His Majesty meowed aggrievedly, huddling in Chang Xile's arms. He meowed for a long time, roughly meaning, "Didn't I just give you two a chance to meet because I saw you were so pathetic and could only wander around the hospital building because of your amulet?! And I finally returned it! At three in the morning, when other cats were asleep, I got up and acted as a cat's apostle. The cat is wronged! The cat is wronged! &@#..."
Chang Xile stroked His Majesty's fur, feeling both amused and embarrassed. Anping watched silently from the sidelines as the man and cat enjoyed their happy moment, and the tension in the air around them dropped even lower.
Fortunately, Chang Xile looked up and immediately noticed the sulking Anping. She raised her hand to ruffle his bangs and said with a smile, "Anping, protect me. Anping is also good!"
Anping let his bangs be messed up, he still didn't say anything, but the upturned corners of his mouth revealed his mood.
Chang Xile looked at His Majesty, who was snoring comfortably in her arms, and the proud human-like lion cat in front of her. She remembered a question Fang Xinai had asked her a long time ago:
"If you were living on your own and had the means, would you choose a cat or a dog?"
Chang Xile, who suffers from decision-making difficulties, thinks this is the most difficult question in the world to answer. When the cat sect and the dog sect are fighting fiercely, she chooses to remain neutral.
Now she has the answer.
With cats like this, what more could one ask for!
"Then you must know why I could understand cat language after that day?" Chang Xile took this opportunity to ask all the questions he had wanted to ask before but hadn't had time to ask—for example, are tortoiseshell and calico cats really that much more beautiful in the eyes of cats? Why do cats always like to push things off the table? Is the bad relationship between cats and dogs really because one purrs to show affection while the other protests? ...
After listening for a while, Ann Encyclopedia Ping suddenly interrupted her: "I never pushed anything off the table."
"Which cat were you talking about? Do you...have another cat?"
Chang Xile watched Anping approaching, and suddenly felt something was wrong. The emperor in her arms also keenly sensed that something was amiss, and he jumped off her lap and slipped away.
"I just really enjoy surfing the internet." Chang Xile pulled out his phone and tried to explain what cyber-raising a cat meant. As for Chang Xile's first question, it went unanswered. It was unclear whether that was intentional or if Anping had forgotten.
This time, Anping was not coaxed into submission. But he was not a cat prone to temper tantrums; at most, he frequently pushed His Majesty onto the bed when he came to play with Chang Xile.
Finally, His Majesty left cursing.
After the designated visiting hours, the nurses would come one by one to remind visitors to go back.
"Can't I be discharged today?" Chang Xile didn't want to stay in the ward, but seeing that the nurse looked a little embarrassed, she gave up.
Anping covered her with a blanket and left. The small ward suddenly seemed empty.
Chang Xile leaned on the bed and sighed, thinking about how lonely she was the last time she lived here.
After another checkup tomorrow, I should be able to be discharged from the hospital, right?
She remembered that when she was a child, she was always sick and hospitalized. Her parents could not stay with her, and she did not dare to sleep alone. She thought that the red and green lights from unknown sources in the corridor were the legendary Ox-Head and Horse-Face coming to take her soul away. She curled up in the quilt and wiped her tears quietly.
Anping was right. It was better not to come to places like the hospital. She didn't like it here.
After a while, there was a creaking sound from the ward door, and before Chang Xile noticed, her quilt was pressed down and had a dent.
"Hmm?" Chang Xile looked up and saw a group of cats quietly huddled beside her quilt.
It had snow-white fur, long and fine hair, and its lake-blue eyes blinked at her.
"Anping!" Chang Xile was so surprised that she almost couldn't stop shouting. She lowered her voice and asked, "Why are you back?"
"I didn't leave in the first place," Anping said. "All visitors who come in have to register, so I need to log in my departure time first."
Chang Xile patted the cat's head and praised it, "Smart!"
After a while, her phone suddenly rang. Chang Xile picked up the phone and called out sweetly, "Mom—Dad—"
"You little brat! You didn't even tell your parents you were in the hospital! If your counselor hadn't contacted us, were you planning to just pretend nothing happened?" Tang Shixin seemed to have just gotten off work. She didn't even put down her bag as she leaned in close to the screen to scrutinize Chang Xile. "Let mommy see. Where do you feel uncomfortable? Are you feeling better now?"
Dad Chang Jing peeked out from behind Tang Shixin and said anxiously, "Hey, let me take a look at my daughter too."
"Oh, I didn't mean to hide it from you." Chang Xile looked at the two anxious faces in front of the camera and scratched her head embarrassedly. She had completely forgotten about it. After all, she wasn't really sick, and it would be difficult to explain to her parents why she was hospitalized. "Anyway, I'm really fine."
"Your father and I are planning to buy plane tickets to Shancheng." Tang Shixin saw that Chang Xile's face was indeed rosy, but what the counselor told her today was really shocking.
"No, no, no! Don't you have to go to work tomorrow and the day after tomorrow?" Chang Xile knew that her mother could really fly here directly on a plane ticket, but her plan was a complete misunderstanding and completely unnecessary. "Isn't my aunt still in Shancheng? Are you worried about her around?"
"She has her own things to do, so how can she take care of you every day?" Tang Shixin sighed and asked, "What did the doctor say? How long will you need to stay in the hospital? You were most afraid of being hospitalized when you were a child, weren't you?"
"Actually, my current physical condition is very healthy," Chang Xile said honestly. "I'm just staying in the hospital for one more day just to be on the safe side. I think I'll be discharged tomorrow."
"Okay... I'll show Mom the test results tomorrow." Tang Shixin and Chang Jing wouldn't arrive until tomorrow even if they took the earliest flight. After hearing what Chang Xile said, they decided to listen to the doctor's opinion first.
"Okay..." Chang Xile dragged out her tone and began to act coquettishly with her mother, "Hey, it really feels like it's been a long time since we last met."
Tang Shixin smiled and said, "You were sick during the Mid-Autumn Festival and didn't go home for National Day... When is the winter vacation?"
Chang Jing listened to the conversation between the mother and daughter, and suggested from time to time, "I'll take you to eat at the restaurant at the south alley entrance..." and "I'll be the driver," playing the role of a supporting role.
Later, after Tang Shixin's advice to "go to bed early" and Chang Jing's advice to "drink more hot water", Chang Xile hung up the phone with a smile.
During this time, Anping lay quietly beside her and answered the phone.
He just didn't understand why Chang Xile, who was chatting happily just now, had a drooping smile. He stood up, walked around Chang Xile, and offered her his tail to touch.
Chang Xile hugged Anping and said in a muffled voice, "It's okay... I just miss home a little."
She has been very busy these past few months and has had little time to think about things. After hearing her mother's count, she realized that she hadn't been home for almost three or four months.
This was the first time in her eighteen years that she had been away from home for such a long time. Normally, fourteen days of studying in her senior year of high school would be enough to make her scream in pain.
Chang Xile's eyes were a little moist, but when she looked at Anping, she felt that a certain void in her heart was filled.
She suddenly buried her face in Anping's white scarf. Anping was a little overwhelmed and uttered "you..." and nothing more.
Chang Xile sighed and told him, "You smell like home."
Anping remained silent.
After a long time, the girl's breathing became even and long, and she fell asleep. Anping wanted to get up and rest on the chair, but the girl's arms were wrapped tightly around him, or perhaps he didn't want to break free.
He blinked, and the lights went out.
The night was long, but a quiet one.
The next day, when Chang Xile woke up, she stretched and found her arms were empty. She sat up and subconsciously looked for Anping, but he was not in the room.
It was strange. The quilt beside her was still warm, so he shouldn't have gone far.
After a while, the door to the room was gently pushed open. Anping pushed it open with his shoulder. He leaned over to look at the bed and saw Chang Xile's wide-open eyes. He was holding the breakfast bag in both hands. Seeing that Chang Xile was awake, he closed the door with his heel.
"Grateful for the gift from Anping--" Chang Xile could smell the aroma of breakfast from a few steps away. She stretched herself and although she was already craving food, she reluctantly decided to get out of bed and wash up.
While brushing her teeth, Chang Xile met Anping's gaze in the mirror - he was leaning against the door waiting for her to finish washing.
"Why are you holding breakfast in your arms? Just put it on the table." Chang Xile still had foam in his mouth and his speech was not very clear, but he couldn't help but ask him.
"The weather is cold, it will get cold if you put it on the table." Anping's reason was simple.
"Oh, that's okay." Although Chang Xile said this, she still smiled foolishly for a while. She rinsed her mouth and spit out all the foam in her mouth, then wiped her face with a disposable towel, and ran to the table impatiently to prepare breakfast.
Anping opened all the bags for her. He bought many kinds of breakfast - steamed buns, lava buns, xiaolongbao, pickled vegetable cakes, milk... It made people wonder if he had robbed all the nearby breakfast shops.
These are common breakfast items, and Chang Xile particularly loved them as a child. But she was still young, eager to try anything delicious she saw, leading to her overly eager eyes and small appetites. She could never finish the large batches she bought.
"You bought so much, I can't finish it." Chang Xile was dazzled by the dazzling array of breakfasts on the table. Although he said it politely, he was already rubbing his hands in his heart and starting to figure out which one to eat first.
"I'll eat what you can't." Anping had witnessed Chang Xile's difficulty making choices when she was little, so she was no longer surprised. However, at that time, little Chang Xile firmly believed that cats should not be fed food with too much salt, so he never shared any food with him.
"That's for your health. Why do you say that as if I'm stingy?" Chang Xile said to Anping as if it was a matter of course. She finally chose to indulge in the pickled vegetable pancake first, began to chew, and then squinted her eyes happily.
"So you don't care about your own health?" An Ping gently pinched her chubby cheeks and asked her with a smile, "When you overeat, who gets a stomachache?"
Chang Xile snorted and ignored him. If she had known that Anping would be a clever kitten by then, she wouldn't have told him so many of her secrets—even though the cat didn't seem very interested in her little friend's secrets at the time.
Chang Xile refused to allow herself to lose the argument, so she simply overturned the chess table and said, "You've become Anping! You used to be so gentle!"
An Ping laughed in anger. He hummed, then lowered his head and asked her, "So what am I like now? Tell me about it."
Although he asked this, he seemed to have no intention of listening to Chang Xile's answer at all, and stretched out his hand with malicious intentions.
"Hahaha... You... You can't tickle me! I'm really mad at Anping!... Hahaha..." Chang Xile was laughing so hard she was out of breath. She failed to stop him, so she had to tickle Anping with her backhand, but it didn't work—Anping wasn't ticklish. Anping was laughing at this moment, purely because of his inexplicable little mischievousness.
He knew Chang Xile too well. He knew which part of her waist and abdomen was ticklish, and he knew how to make her unable to speak complete sentences because of her laughter, but not make her feel too uncomfortable.
"Ahem." A third person's voice came from outside the door.
Anping withdrew his hand and patted Chang Xile on the back to prevent her from laughing to death.
"I hope I'm not disturbing you." Fang Xinai poked her head in from the door. She was holding a bouquet of flowers and came to visit the patient.
"If you don't come here, blood will happen." Chang Xile said seriously. Seeing that only Fang Xinai came in, she asked, "Is Ren Qing in the dormitory?" These two people have always been inseparable. If only Fang Xinai went out this time, Chang Xile would worry that they had not reconciled yet.
"No, she's right behind me." Fang Xinai was about to point at Ren Qing, but when she turned around, she found that there was no one behind her. She walked out and said a few words to the corridor, then entered the ward with a strange expression.
"What's wrong?" Chang Xile asked.
"She said she would just stay in the corridor." Fang Xinai scratched his head and glanced at Anping seemingly unintentionally.
Yes, Chang Xile remembered that when An Ping caught the spiritual creature attached to Sanshuiqing, Ren Qing must have had some misunderstandings about him, and it seemed that the misunderstanding was not shallow.
Chang Xile scratched his head, not knowing how to explain Anping to Ren Qing. Just then, a nurse knocked on the door, signaling that it was time for Chang Xile to go in for a comprehensive physical examination.
"Although your condition yesterday looked grave, judging by the report, there's nothing wrong with your health, and your condition is very good." After the doctor's diagnosis, he finally said, "You can be discharged. Just make sure you eat a balanced diet and maintain a healthy lifestyle."
Chang Xile nodded rapidly, saying that anything would be acceptable as long as she could be discharged from the hospital.
When they were discharged from the hospital, the four of them formed a somewhat special arrangement - Anping, Chang Xile, Fang Xinai, and Ren Qing.
This made it inconvenient for Chang Xile to talk to Ren Qing alone.
They had no choice but to wait until they got back to the dormitory to find another opportunity. Chang Xile looked at the road and saw that they were not heading back to school: "Where are we going now?"
"Hey, didn't I tell you yet that my family is coming to Shancheng to visit me?" Fang Xinai was visibly happy. She winked at Chang Xile and said, "Didn't I say last time that I'd bring you to meet my little cutie if I had the chance?"
"Wow! Did the little cutie come with your family too?" Chang Xile's eyes lit up.
"Yes! We're going on a family road trip, and it'll be sad if we don't take it with us." Fang Xinai said with a smile, "If you have nothing to do this afternoon, why don't we go play together?"
"Okay, okay!" Chang Xile nodded in agreement.
Fang Xinai simply invited everyone present. However, Fang Xinai and Chang Xile were so engrossed in their conversation that neither of them noticed that An Ping and Ren Qing were much calmer and more indifferent.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
