Chapter 31 Behind the Mist
That afternoon, Song Xuexi came to the hospital and took over shifts with Liao Feng. He had worked hard for a few days, so he was allowed to go home and rest. When Liao Feng returned home, he saw that Ruan Xingfeng's shoes were not in the shoe cabinet, so he threw the keys aside to vent his frustration.
When Ruan Xingfeng returned home, he saw Liao Feng sitting on the sofa with a gloomy face. His heart skipped a beat and he wondered if something had happened between him and Song Xuexi?
"You really haven't looked for me for two days." When Liao Feng heard the door open, he immediately looked towards the door, staring at Ruan Xingfeng. He breathed a sigh of relief when he heard this, after all, it was just because of this matter.
"I'm sorry, I played too much." She took off her shoes and walked to Liao Feng, hugged his shoulders and rubbed them, which made him completely calm down.
"Don't do this next time." He pulled the person into his arms to recharge himself. He had been spending the nights on a cold bench in the hospital for the past two days and couldn't contact Ruan Xingfeng, so he was tired and angry.
Ruan Xingfeng nodded, turned around and hugged his waist, which made him lose his temper.
Two months later, Xu Nuoyan and Ran Yian were able to get out of bed and be discharged from the hospital. This happened to be the day before Wu Yihan and Li Mingyu's wedding.
The wedding scene was also decorated by Liao Feng. He and Song Xuexi did all the big and small things. The two people getting married just chose the rings, took a look at the results, and finally paid the money.
But the two of them were too busy. Li Mingxiao couldn't eat sweet, spicy, sour or salty food because of his body condition. He had to eat in moderation and not too loudly because Li Mingyu had a bad heart.
The three of them had to be best men. Xu Nuoyan was pulled out before he was fully recovered. "I'm discharged from the hospital today. Can you treat me as a human being?" Wu Yihan called more than 30 best men to sit together to discuss. The most prominent ones among them were the only female best man and the sick Xu Nuoyan who had just been discharged from the hospital.
Wu Yihan: "You don't accept it." He handed him a piece of paper, on which were the things he had to do tomorrow. After Xu Nuoyan finished reading it, his face was full of disbelief, and Song Xuexi laughed from ear to ear.
"You'll have a hard day tomorrow. You'll each get 10,000 yuan tonight." After that, Wu Yihan let them leave, and the three of them stayed.
"Xiaoyan, can your boyfriend come over?" He thought for a while before finding a suitable name. Xu Nuoyan was stunned for a moment. He didn't know whether Ran Yian would choose to come. After all, attending the ex's wedding was somewhat uncomfortable.
"I'll ask when I get back." He glanced at the time and saw that it was time for Ran Yian to go home, so he picked up his coat and left.
When Xu Nuoyan got home, Ran Yian also came back. "Brother An, are you going tomorrow?" He took Ran Yian's coat, hung it up and asked.
Ran Yian paused while changing his shoes, lowered his eyes as if thinking about how to answer. Xu Nuoyan was not in a hurry to get an answer. He seemed to be increasingly unable to understand Ran Yian's thoughts.
"No, I have a lecture at the medical school tomorrow." His answer was expected, but Xu Nuoyan still felt a little sad. Ran Yian said he would not go because he must have feelings for Wu Yihan.
"Well, I have to be the best man tomorrow and can't go to listen to your speech." He suppressed his emotions and hugged Ran Yian, who was sitting on the sofa in a bad mood. Ran Yian saw his pretending to be calm, but he chose not to see it now.
At the wedding the next day, their groomsmen all wore gray suits. Li Mingyu stood in the center of the stage in a custom-made white suit. He had a veil on his head and kept his eyes on the door, waiting for the figure to appear.
When Kris Wu entered the venue, all eyes and cameras were directed at him. His face remained calm, but the look he gave Li Mingyu was not calm at all. His eyes were filled with love as surging as the waves.
Li Mingyu was also looking at him. Every step he took reminded her of one thing, from the time he became conscious and Wu Yihan took care of him, to when they were dating and now at their wedding. When Wu Yihan came to him and took his hand, he was already in tears.
Wu Yihan was most reluctant to see Li Mingyu cry. Before the emcee even opened his mouth, he lifted her veil, bent down, and gave Li Mingyu a kiss on the lips.
Liao Feng tilted his head and looked at Ruan Xingfeng in the audience with eyes full of anticipation. He really wanted to marry Ruan Xingfeng home, wanted to see him wearing a white suit, and say "I do" with a smile.
Ruan Xingfeng felt his burning gaze and became extremely shy. He lowered his head and wanted to hide under the table. He felt very uncomfortable with Liao Feng looking at him like this in front of so many people.
"Will you marry me?" The guests' attention was all on the stage, and no one noticed the two people in the main seat holding hands and whispering to each other.
Liao Feng's proposal came suddenly. Although it was not formal, it surprised and delighted Ruan Xingfeng. She didn't know how to respond and just looked at him.
Marriage? He had never thought about it. His parents would never let him marry a man, but if he married Liao Feng, it seemed that everything would be fine. Just like Liao Feng said, Liao Feng would take care of everything, and he didn't need to worry about anything.
The wedding was grand and beautiful, but for Ran Yian it was a sign that everything was broken. The young man who had made vows to him became someone else's legal husband. The young man who loved him dearly and had eyes only for him married someone else.
Ran Yian didn't have any lectures today, he just didn't dare to watch their wedding in person. Now he was lying on the sofa watching the wedding on TV. He felt sour in his heart, as if sour plum juice was flowing through every organ of his body. He felt like being polite was suffocating.
He held out his hand to block the light, his mind replaying the words Wu Yihan had said to him in the hospital that day. Ran Yian's lips curled up, a smile mixed with bitterness and self-mockery. He muttered to himself, "Heh..." A low, hoarse chuckle escaped Ran Yian's throat, filled with endless bitterness. "The fog has cleared... Wu Yihan, what I saw was your wedding scene. Is this what you let me see 'before my eyes'?"
He felt as if his heart was being tightly gripped by an icy hand, and dull pain spread throughout his limbs.
The oxygen in the air became thinner, and every breath was painful like a needle prick, as if someone was really strangling his throat.
He turned off the TV.
In an instant, all the noise and happy scenes came to an abrupt end, and a huge, suffocating silence suddenly poured into the room like a tide, completely drowning him. This silence was even more unbearable for him than the noise just now.
In the darkness, only the scattered light coming in from the window outlined the vague contours of the furniture, and everything seemed strange and depressing.
He curled up and buried his face in his knees, as if this could isolate him from all the happiness in the world and hide his own embarrassment that had nowhere to escape.
The tears finally fell silently, not wailing, but the kind of despair that was suppressed to the extreme and could not even make a sound.
The warm liquid soaked the fabric, bringing a little pitiful warmth, and then turned cold.
He lost. Lost to time, lost to reality, lost to the man he never thought he would compete with, the man he called "little brother".
The promise he had kept for fourteen years became a joke that only he remembered.
After a while, he recovered, packed up his things and left Xu Nuoyan's house. He knew that this was unfair to Xu Nuoyan and would hurt his feelings, but Ran Yian didn't want to delay Xu Nuoyan any longer. He deserved anyone who was better than himself, not a middle-aged man like him who was almost 40 years old.
Before he left, he sent two messages to Xu Nuoyan. The first one was "I'm sorry" and the second one was "Let's break up, it's not suitable." Xu Nuoyan was busy and had no time to look at his phone.
The noise of the wedding had not yet completely dissipated from my ears, and the champagne and false smiles still remained on my face.
Xu Nuoyan dragged his exhausted body and just saw off the last batch of guests. He finally had time to lean back in a chair and rub his swollen temples.
He subconsciously took out his cell phone, the screen lit up, and two cold messages suddenly caught his eyes.
【Angel: I’m sorry.】
[Angel: Let's break up. It's not suitable.]
The time shows that it was sent in the afternoon.
In an instant, the color drained from Xu Nuoyan's face. All the sounds of the world around him seemed to be instantly drained away, leaving only the frantic pounding and suddenly constricting feeling of his own heart in his ears.
"No... Impossible..." He muttered to himself, his fingers trembling so much that he could barely hold the phone, "Brother An..."
He seemed to be trapped in a nightmare. He suddenly sat up and called Ran Yian desperately.
"The user you are dialing has switched off..."
The cold female voice of the system became the last straw that broke the camel's back.
The immense, unbearable pain and despair instantly overwhelmed him like a tsunami.
He felt a sharp pain in his chest and everything in front of him began to spin.
"Ugh..." He uttered a short, painful groan, his fingers loosening powerlessly, and the phone fell to the grass with a "pa" sound. He fell forward like a puppet with its strings pulled out.
“Yanyan!” “Ayan!”
Liao Feng and Song Xuexi exclaimed at the same time. Liao Feng rushed forward and caught the man before he fell to the ground.
Xu Nuoyan's eyes were closed, his face was as pale as paper, his breathing was weak, and he had completely lost consciousness.
"Call an ambulance!" Liao Feng yelled at Song Xuexi, his voice distorted by fear. He knelt on the ground, carefully supporting Xu Nuoyan's head, his heart in turmoil.
The ambulance arrived quickly and sent Xu Nuoyan to the hospital for emergency treatment in the chaos.
After emergency treatment, Xu Nuoyan was out of danger, but he remained in a state of severe mental shock and depression, with very little time to recover.
Most of the time, I just stared at the ceiling with my eyes open, tears flowing silently, and didn't respond to anyone's words, as if my soul had died with those two text messages.
Liao Feng and Song Xuexi took turns guarding him, and they were exhausted.
A few days later, a doctor who claimed to be the head of the hospital's "special medical team" found Liao Feng and Song Xuexi. The doctor looked professional and authoritative, and his tone was solemn and unquestionable.
"Mr. Xu's condition was more complex and serious than anticipated. The initial diagnosis was that the emotional trauma he suffered triggered an acute episode of latent bipolar disorder, accompanied by severe depression and stupor. The ordinary ward environment and conventional treatment had little effect on him and may even have aggravated his condition due to environmental stimulation."
He took out several thick assessment reports and a consent form for transfer to another hospital for treatment.
"Based on our professional assessment, and in order for the patient to receive the most intensive and effective closed-door psychological intervention and drug treatment, we strongly recommend transferring him to the Municipal Mental Health Center for isolated treatment. The environment there is quieter, and the expert team is more specialized in cases of this type of severe mental trauma."
Liao Feng frowned, instinctively feeling that something was wrong: "Transfer to another hospital? Is it necessary to do this? He just suffered a shock..."
"Mr. Liao," the doctor interrupted him, his tone serious, "this isn't just a 'shock.' While his physical indicators are stable, his mental world has completely shut down, leaving him at extremely high risk of self-destruction. We must take the most professional measures to protect him. This is currently the most beneficial option for his recovery. Please trust our professional judgment."
The doctor's words sounded impeccable, and all the documents looked official and compliant.
Looking at Xu Nuoyan lying on the hospital bed like a soulless doll, Liao Feng and Song Xuexi were extremely worried and anxious. Although they felt a little uneasy, they finally signed the transfer consent form for Xu Nuoyan's recovery.
The procedures were handled surprisingly smoothly and quickly. Almost on the afternoon of the day they signed, a transfer vehicle with the Mental Health Center logo arrived.
Several uniformed nurses with indifferent expressions took the unresponsive Xu Nuoyan into the car.
Liao Feng and Song Xuexi wanted to go with them, but were stopped by the doctor: "Please stay. The center has regulations that require comprehensive isolation, evaluation and treatment in the initial stage. Visitors are not allowed for the time being. We will notify you as soon as the situation stabilizes."
The car door closed and drove away quickly with Xu Nuoyan in it.
Liao Feng stood there, looking at the direction where the car disappeared. The cool autumn breeze blew on his face. The feeling of uneasiness in his heart became stronger and stronger, but he couldn't explain why.
Everything seemed to be in accordance with the procedure and was for Xu Nuoyan's benefit, but... why did he always feel that something was wrong?
At this moment, Xu Nuoyan knew nothing about all this. He was immersed in his own broken world and was sent to an unknown "treatment" place that might be full of more dangers.
His fate seemed to have fallen into a quietly woven dark web.
When Liao Feng felt that something was wrong, Xu Nuoyan had been in the mental hospital for a week. He didn't care about the rules of the center, and he and Song Xuexi used their identities to ask them to open the door. No matter how arrogant they were, they were afraid of both of them, especially when they were alone, and even more so when they were together.
When they came in, Xu Nuoyan was sitting quietly on the bed in the ward. The room was neither big nor small, with only a bed and a cabinet. You could see outside through the window, but the environment was not good. Other patients were acting crazy in the yard, and only Xu Nuoyan was excessively quiet.
His position was revoked and he was permanently banned from working in a medical institution. Xu Nuoyan, once known as a genius doctor, is now the quietest and most dangerous patient in the asylum.
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