Christmas Bonus Chapter: December 24, 2023
"Merry Christmas"
When I opened the door for Aqing, she practically shoved the little Christmas tree she was holding right into my arms, grinning from ear to ear with a carefree, bright, and exuberant smile.
Those deep brown eyes, which I had to look up to see, then thoughtfully lowered to a height where I could look at them effortlessly, following her owner's squatting down: "Up so early today? Are you feeling better?"
As I gazed into those clear, gentle eyes, I drifted into thinking of Jane, the nurse from the other side of the world, who had told me last year when I was confined to my hospital bed, oblivious to the passage of time, "Today is Christmas Eve."
She has eyes that look very much like A-Qing's.
That day, I stared into Jane's eyes for a long time, until she finally touched her nose, confused, and asked me apologetically if there was something stuck on her face. Only then did I realize how rude I had been and apologized to her.
"Gu Wanlin? Gu Wanlin?" Seeing that I was lost in thought, Aqing's voice sounded a little anxious. I belatedly realized that she was holding my hand and rubbing my wrist before I could even register it.
"Why are your hands so cold? Are you feeling dizzy, or is something hurting?"
After the injury, I did have a lot of trouble concentrating and often drifted off. The reasons were nothing more than the two questions A-Qing asked, or perhaps the medication that suppressed the spasms and nerve pain made my brain much slower. I felt like a prisoner locked in a glass cage, having to try even harder to think.
"No, today is fine."
It was chilly outside, and this idiot had her coat open, revealing the Christmas sweater she was wearing underneath, and her cashmere scarf was loosely tied around her neck—the same one I gave her six years ago. I rocked her wheelchair back a few steps to let her come in quickly, so she wouldn't get a stomachache from the cold wind.
I glanced casually at the full-length mirror in the entryway and found myself unconsciously smiling.
Well, there's nothing wrong with admitting it. I was very happy that she came.
As soon as the weather gets cold, my uncooperative body aches and hurts in various places, sometimes feeling cold and sometimes hot. When I sit up, I either feel short of breath or dizzy, which drags me to bed for quite some time.
On this special day, my body has finally adapted to the damp, cold, and gloomy winter of this city and is no longer working against me. It's something to be happy about that I can sit here and spend the day with her like this.
Happy, happy.
Since my injury, happiness has become the rarest emotion I experience. In the past year of feeling lost and confused, every happy day has become a joyous milestone, worthy of being deeply etched in my mind.
On the day I said goodbye to my parents, I was absolutely certain that I would never be happy again.
But it's okay, I don't need to be happy in this heavy body. Soon when the three of us are reunited in another world, my happiness will be lighter and freer.
So at that farewell ceremony, I didn't tell anyone around me that I felt I might not make it through.
The flush on my cheeks wasn't from the excessive heating in the funeral home, but from a prolonged high fever; the heaving, erratic chest wasn't from the stuffiness of the crowd, but from my lungs almost running out of oxygen. If my parents were still alive, I probably wouldn't be able to fool them, but they're gone, and no one will care about my broken body like they did.
I vaguely sensed that my body was nearing its limit, yet a strange and absurd excitement welled up within me. This gave me several times more energy and stamina than usual, allowing me to firmly anchor myself to the wheelchair. The longer I could hold on, the longer I could drag it out, the more likely I was to achieve my goal.
Wouldn't you feel resentful if it ended like this?
certainly.
But I surrender. Resentment takes strength, and I have none left. If this is fate's arrangement for me, I won't ask why. If I can quickly gain my final freedom, what's wrong with that?
Anyway, I've kept my promise to Mom, haven't I? She left me first, so it doesn't mean I went back on my word.
Six months after the injury, people stopped trying to comfort me by saying that if I kept exercising, I would be able to stand up again. Instead, they encouraged me, saying that if I kept exercising, I could still take care of myself. A complete injury to the sixth and seventh cervical vertebrae—I knew what that meant the day I could pick up a phone again.
I'm not so desperate as to lose my mind and actually expect some medical miracle.
Since then, I've thought for a long time about how to deceive everyone and give myself a way out.
The conclusion is that, like many things, I couldn't have done this on my own without the help of others.
So when my mother rushed out the door barefoot in a panic that day, and grabbed me in the stairwell as I was about to drive my wheelchair to the edge of the stairs, asking me what I was doing with tears in her eyes, I couldn't answer.
I tilted my head in confusion, opened my mouth but couldn't say anything, because I really didn't know what I was doing.
I didn't have a detailed plan, nor a firm resolve. I was just lying in bed, and when I looked at the stairwell through the several open doors, that dark space that swallowed all the light and stopped abruptly downwards suddenly seemed mysterious and quite attractive to me.
I want to follow it, to go to the edge and see if the end of darkness is still darkness.
My mother pushed me back into the room, crying uncontrollably. With trembling hands, she closed and locked each door, making sure that her now paralyzed hands could not open them. Then she carried me back to bed, lay down herself, her face still wet with tears, and hugged me tightly, kissing my forehead and cheeks again and again.
I suddenly felt terrible; scaring her like that was so cruel.
"Linlin, Mom knows you're working very hard."
"It's your mother's fault for bringing you into this world and failing to protect you properly, causing you to suffer like this now."
I sighed, raised my hand to wipe her tears, and watched my fingers brush against her face, but I couldn't feel the warmth of her tears. This feeling was really awful.
“Linlin, just think of it as me being selfish. After you turned 18, you were rarely around. These past six months, I've been able to stay with you like this. Although it breaks my heart to see you suffer, I still feel very happy sometimes.” She repeated, “Just think of it as me being selfish, wanting to keep you by my side as my daughter a little longer. Can you promise me that?”
I said yes.
My life is probably just an incomplete piece of music, but I have another identity. As my mother's daughter, perhaps I should persevere for her a little longer.
Mom, I didn't break my promise, did I? When my body finally reached its limit and I quietly fell to one side with my wheelchair, I lay on the ground, watching the crowd of mourners rushing towards me in shock. I still regretfully thought that if only I could have sat up and said goodbye to Mom and Dad before they left home on that last morning.
I thought this long nightmare was about to end, but I didn't expect that my parents' strict supervision of my rehabilitation and their meticulous attention to nutrition over the past year had actually worked. When I woke up and saw Jiang Yu's anxious expression in front of my bed, I was somewhat disappointed. I was delirious with fever, and a sincere thought slipped out of my mouth without my realizing it: "Why did you save me?"
It's something I really shouldn't say, but from that time onwards, the people around me became extremely wary, and it probably wouldn't be so easy to find another opportunity.
For example, on my very first day after being discharged from the hospital, the caregiver kept a close eye on me. Even when I was just out in the sun for about fifteen minutes, Jiang Yu kept calling. It wasn't that I deliberately ignored it; my phone was genuinely lost, and I didn't have the ability to find it. If I had it, I would have simply wheeled my wheelchair to the riverbank.
I really didn't plan to do anything that day, because I had a little selfish thought: I felt that Aqing would come to see me.
I really want to see her again. If you ask me what regret I have before the end of my life, it's this.
On the day I felt that Dr. Li You's name sounded familiar and her sudden enthusiasm was a bit suspicious, I casually chatted with her and immediately asked her the name of her high school. Then I casually mentioned the physics curriculum reform that had just been implemented in her year. Dr. Li You seemed to have met a kindred spirit, slapped her thigh and said, "You have no idea how hard I worked to learn physics in my first year of high school. Every day after lights out, my best friend and I would sit on the bench and do our homework."
Okay, case solved. Sometimes I really think I'm a genius.
But the thought that Ah Qing might have seen me like this somewhere made me feel terrified. I wanted to see her, but I didn't want to see her in this state, paralyzed from the neck down and missing a leg. Even I felt disgusted by the sight of myself.
I thought she would suddenly push open the door to my hospital room and appear in front of me one day, but I never saw her until I was discharged.
I thought she wouldn't come, so I forced myself to let go of that thought as soon as possible. I told myself it was better that she didn't come, so I wouldn't develop any more attachment or reluctance to leave this world, which would only cause more trouble later.
Trouble still struck.
Ever since she first found me in the garden downstairs and brought me home, she's been finding excuses to linger at my house for a long time every day. I'm afraid Jiang Yu has told her everything.
Being watched so closely, I naturally had no chance to do anything, and actually, I didn't intend to do anything. If someone had told me in the past that at 28, Gu Wanlin would be drifting through life without any plans or goals, just getting through each day as it came, I would have been horrified, thinking my life was truly over.
I feel pretty good now. I wait for Aqing to come over every day to have lunch together, and occasionally she takes me out for a walk to relax and see the scenery. It makes me feel happy for the first time in a long time.
Even recently, when I was stuck in my most hated bed because of the cold weather and winter, she would come over every day to sit by my bedside to work, read me the manuscripts she was reviewing and correcting, and coax me to sleep. I felt that these times were not as unbearable as before.
Was it that the gods heard the wish I made last Christmas, or that my parents were afraid I would rush to follow them and wanted me to stay in the human world to see more of it, so they sent her back to me?
Whoever it is, I am extremely grateful.
"Oh, the color temperature of this light is just right," Aqing said to me, turning her head. She was plugging in the decorative light strip she had bought to check it, and she looked very satisfied and happy.
I think the sparkle in her eyes is brighter than any lamp; she's someone who can be happy very easily.
She came into my life and brought light back into it.
Without her, I certainly wouldn't have decorated a Christmas tree with lights at home. Although Christmas used to be my favorite holiday because many of my romantic memories with Aqing happened during Christmas.
Back then, we were in love and dreamed about our future life together. We wanted to raise cats and dogs together, preferably two dogs, because one of us liked Samoyeds and the other liked Border Collies, and neither of us could convince the other.
We'd better have a large open kitchen because I love to cook and she loves my cooking, and a long table that stretches from one end of the dining room to the other, because we'll be hosting friends together during holidays.
For example, Christmas.
We're going to set up a Christmas tree in the living room that's taller than both of us, with lots and lots of decorative lights and all the ornaments we both like. We'll pile up our gifts for each other under the tree well in advance, but neither of us is allowed to peek. We have to wait until Christmas Eve, when we're both wearing ugly but matching Christmas sweaters, sitting in front of the tree, taking pictures with our friends, and then opening the gifts while drinking fruit and mulled wine.
It seems I'm not the only one who hasn't forgotten.
Ah Qing, wearing what she calls an "ugly Christmas sweater" (but I think it's cute), busied herself decorating the little tree, apologetically explaining that she had been too busy lately and when she finally had some free time to buy a tree, there weren't any bigger ones left.
There's something I've never asked her, partly because I'm afraid to. But judging from how often she comes to my house, I'm becoming more and more certain that she doesn't have a date or a romantic partner lately. Otherwise, she wouldn't be coming to my house on a holiday like Christmas.
Watching her busy figure, I prayed in my heart that God would forgive my selfishness.
It was greed of me. I was greedy for her to stay with me for a while longer, with her ambiguous identity, until I felt that the world had been fair enough to me and I no longer resented her.
I don't think it will be long, and I won't let this period last too long, otherwise it would be too unfair to her.
I don't want to ask her whether she pities me, sympathizes with me, or still harbors feelings for me that haven't completely faded. I also don't want to tell her that not a day has passed since we broke up without her thinking of me. Some things shouldn't be said; saying them would only make it harder to maintain the status quo, and I'm already quite satisfied with the status quo.
She'd better stay with me a little longer. But not too long. A person who is easily happy shouldn't stay with someone who is destined to lose their happiness for too long. Anyone who stays with me for too long will only be dragged down by me, falling into this heavy abyss with me, never to climb out again.
She will have other lovers, and she should have other lovers, to accompany her through a happy life that is much longer than mine.
I want someone else to love her more than I do, because she deserves it, but I don't want anyone to love her more than I do, because I'm not sure if that would make her forget me too soon.
I'm not a good person either; I'm very selfish.
Forget it, it's better if she forgets about me sooner rather than later. Anyway, I won't know anything about it then, so why make her suffer any more?
I always hope she can feel better.
"Gu Wanlin, do you want to change into one too?" She took out a matching Christmas sweater from another bag and asked me with a smile.
I complained that it was ugly, but my body betrayed me. I took the sweater, put it on my lap, and called Sister Zhou into the room to help me put it on.
When I returned to the living room, she hurriedly turned around, hiding the gift that I had already seen behind her back, and carefully asked me another question: "Can we take a picture together with this tree?"
My throat tightened, and I couldn't readily agree to her request. After I was put in the wheelchair, I didn't take a single photo, nor did I want to. It wasn't until three months after the accident that I saw myself in the rehabilitation center's training hall, huddled in the high-backed wheelchair like a boneless worm, unable to straighten my back or lift my waist.
I've always considered myself a very civic-minded person, but that day I wanted to smash the mirror at the rehabilitation center.
Thanks to the fact that I couldn't stand up or lift my arms, the mirror at the rehabilitation center survived.
Although the rehabilitation training over the past few months has helped me sit up more and more like a human being, and I even put on my decorative prosthesis and protective gear to help straighten my back this morning, I still don't want to sit in my wheelchair and take this photo with her.
I don't want her to suddenly remember me someday when she's old and gray, find our last photo together, and see me slumped in a wheelchair like this.
Before I could even speak, she squatted down next to my wheelchair and asked for my opinion: "If you're feeling well today, can I carry you to sit under the tree with you?"
I closed my eyes and swallowed with difficulty the warm lump stuck in my throat.
She understood my embarrassment, but never pointed it out; she thought of everything for me before I even had a chance to think of it.
How could I bear to let her go then?
Finally, thanks to her and Sister Zhou's hard work, they helped me get into position and sit cross-legged on the carpet under the tree. Then they quickly sat down themselves, supporting my waist and back from behind, and directed Sister Zhou to take a photo that I was very satisfied with.
We sat under the Christmas tree of our 22-year-old dreams, wearing matching Christmas sweaters, with Christmas decorations hanging overhead and colorful Christmas gift boxes piled around us, smiling at the camera together. The decorative lights gently and generously bathed us in warm light.
I look perfectly intact; if you don't look closely, you can't tell that it was Ah Qing behind me who helped me withstand the gravity that was pulling me down in all directions.
Who says there are no miracles at Christmas?
Shen Qingyi, you'd better remember me for a while longer. You can be happy with others, but you're not allowed to hide this photo deep in a drawer where you'll never look at it again.
I'm sorry, but I've changed my mind again. I've said I'm not a good person. We've been in love, so please give in to me.
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