Chapter 54 "Dislike Brother?"
Chapter 54
When Shen Yanzhou left, it was already late autumn. Not long after, Lanzhou was hit by a cold front. The change of seasons and the drop in temperature made it easy to get sick, and a fierce cold swept through the campus.
Yu Pan had been feeling unwell for the past two weeks due to poor sleep. When the cold virus struck, he became the first in his class to fall ill. When he got out of school, he only felt a little heavy-headed and his throat was dry, but he didn't pay much attention to it. However, when he got home, his face turned red while he was eating.
Seeing that his complexion was not right, Aunt Zhou touched him and quickly took his temperature. She then took out the medicine that was always on hand and gave it to Yu Pan, and settled him down to rest.
That evening, as usual, Shen Yanzhou called home. When he heard Aunt Zhou's hushed "Mr. Shen" on the receiver, his heart sank.
Sure enough, Aunt Zhou told him that Yu Pan had a fever and was sleeping after taking medicine.
Before they could exchange more than a few words, Shen Yanzhou heard Aunt Zhou's voice of dissuasion coming from the other end of the phone, followed by Yu Pan's hoarse, nasal voice: "Brother..."
Hearing his voice like that, Shen Yanzhou felt a pang of heartache. "Panpan, are you feeling very unwell? Let Aunt Zhou take you to the hospital..."
"I don't want to go to the hospital..." Yu Pan coughed a few times, "I want you..."
"Okay, okay, I'll be right back." Shen Yanzhou softened his voice to coax him, "You should listen to Aunt Zhou first, drink more water, and tell Aunt Zhou if you feel unwell, okay?"
Even though she knew that Shen Yanzhou was probably just trying to comfort her by saying he would be back soon, Yu Pan still hummed in agreement.
This was probably the first time in Yu Pan's life that Shen Yanzhou hadn't been by her side when she was sick. Normally, she could barely ignore the discomfort, but when she was feeling unwell, the pain of Shen Yanzhou's absence was magnified countless times.
Yu Pan's head felt heavy, as if it had been filled with dozens of kilograms of cement. He didn't know how many times Aunt Zhou woke him up that night to get water. Every time he opened his eyes, he subconsciously hoped that the person in front of him was Shen Yanzhou.
The illness was very severe. Yu Pan's temperature fluctuated, and the fever would return within two hours of subsiding. Whenever he closed his eyes, he would have bizarre and fantastical dreams, and he was so uncomfortable that he could hardly distinguish between dreams and reality.
So when he was woken up again and saw Shen Yanzhou looking at him anxiously, Yu Pan felt for a moment that it was just an overly realistic hallucination.
"Panpan," Shen Yanzhou saw him open his eyes and reached out to touch Yu Pan's forehead, which was still burning hot. "How are you feeling? Do you want to eat something to tide you over? We'll go to the hospital later."
Yu Pan's eyes were wide open, but he didn't respond until Shen Yanzhou helped him sit up. Only then did he realize that it really was Shen Yanzhou!
“Brother…” Yu Pan’s nose tingled with emotion, and she couldn’t care about anything else. She reached out and hugged Shen Yanzhou’s neck. “Why did you really come back?”
“You’re sick, of course I had to come back.” Shen Yanzhou hugged him back tenderly, his hand slipping under Yu Pan’s clothes to touch his back; it wasn’t sweaty. He picked up the coat that had been prepared by the bedside. “Come on, let’s get dressed first and go to the hospital for a check-up.”
"Mmm." Yu Pan obediently raised her hand and cooperated in getting dressed, but her eyes, which had become watery due to the fever, kept following Chen Yanzhou's movements.
Shen Yanzhou dressed him, zipped up his clothes, and looked up to see him staring blankly. She smiled and flicked his cheek lightly with her finger. "What are you doing? Why are you staring at me like that?"
"I...I'm just trying to make sure I'm not dreaming again," Yu Pan answered honestly. Then she took Shen Yanzhou's hand, rubbed her fingers against his palm a few times, and frowned. "Your hands...have calluses on them."
Shen Yanzhou bent down and picked him up from the bed, kissing his cheek. "Are you tired of your brother?"
While in Qingyu, Shen Yanzhou was busy and didn't have much time to take care of himself. After learning that Yu Pan was sick, Shen Yanzhou drove all night to the airport to catch a plane back. By now, stubble had already sprouted on his face. When he kissed her, the stubble pricked Yu Pan and made her groan a few times.
Yu Pan gently touched Shen Yanzhou's face a few times with her palm before looking into his eyes and saying earnestly, "I don't mind."
This cold was quite severe, and the hospital was crowded with patients with similar symptoms. Fortunately, Shen Yanzhou had arranged a bed in advance, and they saw a doctor and got their medicine as soon as they arrived. Yu Pan was also taken by a nurse to get an antipyretic injection.
Once her temperature finally came down and her condition stabilized, Shen Yanzhou carried Yu Pan away from the hospital.
Having just received an injection in her butt at the hospital, Yu Pan couldn't help but groan and rub her butt as soon as she got into the car, with no one else around. She muttered, "I feel like that needle went right into my bone."
"I'll put a hot towel on it for you when we get back." Shen Yanzhou started the car and glanced at him.
"Hmm!" Yu Pan responded, her gaze almost glued to Shen Yanzhou's profile as he focused on driving. After a while, she said in a slightly dazed tone, "I thought you were just teasing me when you said you'd be back on the phone."
Shen Yanzhou glanced at him and said helplessly, "When have I ever tried to appease you with something like this?"
Yu Pan leaned back in her seat, carefully recalling the past two weeks.
During the two weeks that Shen Yanzhou was away, apart from not being able to see each other, they called each other every day, it was just a matter of time.
The most frequent calls came at 9:30. The opening line was usually that Shen Yanzhou would ask him if he had finished his homework.
Every time Yu Pan heard this, she felt a little annoyed thinking about the tedious homework.
Then they would chat and share their daily lives. Usually, Yu Pan would chatter on about school and other trivial things in her life. Shen Yanzhou would listen quietly on the other end of the phone, occasionally telling him some interesting stories from the construction site.
Yu Pan didn't dare to say anything too intimate on the phone. Once, he told Shen Yanzhou, "I miss you so much, I want you to kiss me," but just two minutes later, Tan Ming's teasing voice came from the other end: "Who's that over there? Let me guess, is it Panpan?"
Fortunately, Shen Yanzhou later told him that Tan Ming hadn't heard what he said, otherwise Yu Pan would have been terrified.
Their nightly phone calls would last about an hour, until Yu Pan fell asleep before Chen Yanzhou hung up.
After thinking about it, Yu Pan said with certainty, "No."
When Shen Yanzhou returned this time, he only spent two days with Yu Pan. After confirming that Yu Pan's dizziness had subsided, her sore throat had disappeared, and she was in better spirits, he rushed back to Qingyu without stopping.
When Yu Pan saw Shen Yanzhou off at the airport again, he still felt a lump in his throat, but unlike last time, he didn't cry this time!
...
Before we knew it, it was mid-December. On this day, the school organized a motivational speech conference for senior students, and specially invited alumni who had been admitted to prestigious universities in previous years to come back and share their learning experiences.
The moment the notice was posted on the bulletin board on the first floor, a chorus of groans erupted in the classroom.
The school also held a similar event when the students were in their second year of high school. The purpose was to help students clarify their choices between arts and sciences, and to promote the advantages of studying science.
"Again? You'd be better off doing more problems in the classroom with that time," classmate Q complained listlessly, slumped over his desk.
Yu Pan listened and nodded silently in her heart.
"Exactly! It's so cold outside. I just recovered from a cold not long ago, and now you're making us go out in the cold wind again. Can't we just read it in the radio station?" classmate W said reluctantly.
Yu Pan listened and nodded silently to himself; he had only recently recovered from a cold.
However, some students whispered, "It's good to listen... After all, they are all seniors who have been admitted to university, and maybe we can learn some useful methods..."
Yu Pan listened, silently nodding to herself. What he said made sense; learning from the experience of her predecessors was certainly worthwhile…
On the day of the assembly, all the senior high school students brought chairs and sat neatly on the playground, enduring the cold wind for more than an hour.
Twenty-five outstanding graduates gave speeches this time, eight of whom were admitted to Peking University.
After the conference ended, Yu Pan stiffly held the chair and followed the crowd back to the classroom. Her head was still foggy from the wind during the conference, and she had forgotten most of the details of the speech conference. She only remembered the last senior student's speech, "Dreams inspire me to move forward."
After finally catching her breath and warming up, Yu Pan nudged Ling Luo with her elbow and asked earnestly, "Ling Luo, what is your dream?"
He thought Ling Luo would need a long time to think, but to his surprise, she suddenly slammed her hand on the table and said with a burning gaze, "I want to be a fashion designer!"
This kind of conversation naturally went back and forth, and Ling Luo also asked Yu Pan in return, "And you? What is your dream?"
"My..." Yu Pan lowered her eyes and thought for a while, "As things stand, I should get into Peking University."
"Hmm?" Ling Luo asked, pressing him further, "What if we don't follow the current situation?"
"A writer." Yu Pan smiled slightly. "I want to become a writer."
Ling Luo's eyes widened in surprise, and she gave a thumbs up. "What a dream! That's cool! Let's work hard together!"
Speaking of this topic, Yu Pan also recalled how she had been rejected many times when submitting her manuscripts, and casually mentioned it to Ling Luo.
Upon hearing this, Ling Luo was first shocked, then indignant on his behalf: "No, which magazine is that? They have such poor taste!"
In his opinion, Yu Pan's writing was always excellent. After each exam, his essays were displayed in the study corner and on the grade's list of outstanding essays. He also won awards in several essay competitions he participated in.
Upon hearing Ling Luo's indignant words, Yu Pan was taken aback at first, then remembered something particularly amusing and burst out laughing.
Ling Luo asked, puzzled, "What are you laughing at?"
“My brother said the same thing you just said.” Yu Pan recalled that when he first received a rejection letter, Shen Yanzhou hugged him and said in the same tone that they were blind.
“Great minds think alike!” Ling Luo said.
Yu Pan shook her head, her mindset very calm. "It's because I didn't write well back then, but it's all in the past now."
Ling Luo seemed even more concerned than Yu Pan. He stroked his chin thoughtfully and said, "I don't believe it. Did you apply to the wrong place?"
"Did you submit it to the wrong place?" Yu Pan didn't quite understand.
“It’s not that the address is wrong,” Ling Luo rephrased. “What I mean is, does the magazine you submitted to prefer a style that’s… well, light and entertaining? Or does it lean towards a certain type of subject matter?”
He sized up Yu Pan, this earnest little old-fashioned man, and continued, "Then your writing style leans towards realism, the kind that looks very honest, the style doesn't match at all, so of course people won't want you."
After listening to Ling Luo's words, Yu Pan thought about it for a long time. After school, he did his homework but didn't take a shower immediately. Instead, he found the box containing all his rejected manuscripts, took out a few old manuscripts, and read them over and over again.
Then he got up and walked to the bookshelf, taking down the magazines that Chen Yanzhou had ordered for him, as well as the ones he had bought here and there, and spreading them all over the floor.
Yu Pan sat cross-legged on the floor, flipping through the magazines one by one, comparing the writing styles with her own.
After looking through them all, he picked out three magazines with a realistic style that focused on everyday life. He hesitated for a long time, looking at the submission address on the copyright page.
In the end, he took out the envelope and stamps.
He didn't tell Shen Yanzhou about this. Shen Yanzhou had just come back last week, and Yu Pan didn't want Shen Yanzhou to worry about him and make him travel all the way back again because of his rejected manuscript.
He thought that if the manuscript was rejected again this time, he would just tell Shen Yanzhou about it as a joke when Shen Yanzhou came home next time.
Yu Pan didn't pick and choose much. She took three manuscripts, rewrote them, put them in three envelopes, and affixed stamps.
The next day on her way to school, Yu Pan asked the driver to take a longer route to the post office, put the manuscript in the mailbox, and then didn't think about it anymore.
After all, high school seniors have very limited time, and after Shen Yanzhou left, Yu Pan didn't have any expectations for the weekend, so she asked Shen Yanzhou to change the tutoring from one day to two days.
Now, Yu Pan's days at school are filled with review and endless test papers. On weekends, she has full-day tutoring. After school, she has to do a lot of homework. Before going to bed, she has to chat with Shen Yanzhou and be coaxed to sleep by him. She has no time to think about anything else.
He's very busy!
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Author's Note: Panpan: I'm very busy! [Cat emoji]
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