Falling into Eternal Night
The five-colored rope used to pray for safety and health did not work. After the Dragon Boat Festival, Chen Nanxing's health deteriorated and he could no longer take care of himself at home. Chen Nanxing was forced to be admitted to the hospital and trapped in that small ward.
She is now incredibly thin. When Ji Chuan hugged her, he felt that if he used a little more strength, Chen Nanxing's bones would be crushed by him.
When he heard the bad news again, Ji Chuan stood in front of Chen Nanxing's ward, wiped away his tears, forced a smile and pushed open the door of Chen Nanxing's ward.
Unlike the scene he imagined of Chen Nanxing lying on the hospital bed, Chen Nanxing was standing by the window in a hospital gown. He was so thin that five protruding bones could be seen, and there was medical tape on the back of his hand.
Apparently, Chen Nanxing had just finished the IV drip not long ago.
She didn't know what she was looking at, she was so engrossed in it that she didn't even notice Ji Chuan coming in.
"What are you looking at?"
Ji Chuan's warm palm touched Chen Nanxing's shoulder, and his young and handsome face also touched Chen Nanxing's face.
Chen Nanxing was not scared. When Ji Chuan was one meter away from her, she could already smell the scent on Ji Chuan, which was a breath of fresh air amid the pungent smell of disinfectant.
That's the smell of lovers.
Chen Nanxing leaned on the windowsill, leaning against Ji Chuan, and pointed at a woman driving a convertible tricycle downstairs and said:
"I saw a classmate."
Chen Nanxing read all his books at Zhaofeng, so it is normal to see one or two classmates here.
Ji Chuan had also seen the woman downstairs in the past two days. She was a young woman who should work in a small restaurant. Every time it was mealtime, she would drive an open-top tricycle to the hospital to deliver lunch boxes.
Ji Chuan tilted his head and kissed Chen Nanxing's cheek, then suggested, "Go down and say hello?"
Chen Nanxing shook his head: "No, it wasn't very pleasant before."
Chen Nanxing was very silent during this period. Although she usually spoke little, she was even quieter these days. Ji Chuan wanted Chen Nanxing to talk more, so he hugged her and acted gossipy.
"Then she must have done something really extreme. Even my baby, who has such a good temper, could get angry with her."
His defense was simply mindless. Chen Nanxing found it funny. She leaned her head lightly on Ji Chuan's body and whispered to him about the past that Ji Chuan didn't know.
"It's not too much. We were pretty close when we were in school. I don't know what trend was going on at school back then, but orphaned children were being ostracized. Xu Xian and I were both adopted from an orphanage, and the other was abandoned by her parents and raised by her grandparents. She's Xu Xian."
Chen Nanxing didn't like to talk too much about his school life where he was bullied and isolated, and he always mentioned it vaguely. Ji Chuan understood this, so he took over Chen Nanxing's words and ended Chen Nanxing's miserable life.
"Then it would be like two poor little guys huddling together for warmth. I feel sorry for my baby."
Chen Nanxing was already immune to Ji Chuan's nickname "baby". She automatically ignored this annoying name and continued:
"Later, Lin Shanglu and I went to City B together, and she also left with her boyfriend, Wang Ming. However, she wasn't as lucky as Lin Shanglu and me. We both had a hard time. A few years later, Hengxing was established, and I unexpectedly ran into them. Xu Xian asked me to help her and her husband, so I recruited them into the company."
Xu Xian, who was downstairs, had delivered the last lunch box and was now turning around on her electric tricycle to leave the hospital.
Ji Chuan praised without thinking: "Wife, you are so kind."
Chen Nanxing was speechless: "Don't yell."
No matter how he changes or where he lives, Chen Nanxing is still somewhat traditional in his bones. Chen Nanxing can't accept calling her wife when they are not married. Ji Chuan doesn't want to change his words, so he just says "Oh" to fool around, trying to divert Chen Nanxing's attention and urge Chen Nanxing to continue.
"Their work attitudes are problematic. Xu Xian is always late or leaves early. Wang Ming, relying on my relationship with Xu Xian and Lin Shanglu as childhood friends, has taken it upon himself to be the boss of Hengxing. He orders the employees around all day long and even casually comments on and alters the designers' work. Hengxing was just established not long ago and hardly kept any idle people. Xu Xian and Wang Ming's behavior... well... has made others very dissatisfied."
Ji Chuan agreed: "Baby did the right thing. People like this should be fired."
Hearing Ji Chuan conclude so quickly that she was the one who fired Xu Xian and Wang Ming, Chen Nanxing raised his eyebrows slightly.
"The one who fired them wasn't me, it was Lin Shanglu."
“…”
Ji Chuan immediately felt like he had swallowed a green-headed fly. It felt really bad to call his girlfriend's ex-husband "baby".
Chen Nanxing patted his big head with his backhand to comfort him.
"At the time, Lin Shanglu was in charge of the company. He made all the decisions about Hengxing, and I was responsible for communicating them. But I was too shy to just fire people off, so I found an excuse to get them to do something else. They got angry and resigned. We haven't been in touch for years since then. Why are you silent?"
Chen Nanxing's gentle voice is in my ears, the fragrance of Chen Nanxing is on my nose, and the afterglow of the sunset is in front of my eyes. These are all beautiful like a dream, but after a few months, the dream will end and Chen Nanxing will die, and all of this will turn into bubbles.
Just like the sunset, after a brilliant moment it will eventually fall into eternal night.
Thinking of this, Ji Chuan took a deep breath, slid his big hand down, and grabbed Chen Nanxing's palm.
"Nanxing, shall we go get treatment?"
Before they were together, Chen Nanxing's illness had always been a taboo between them. Both of them tacitly agreed not to mention it, but now they have to face it.
Chen Nanxing held Ji Chuan's hand back and stood up from Ji Chuan's arms.
"Xiao Ji, I thought we all accepted this ending."
Yes, that's right, Ji Chuan knew this outcome from the first day he learned about Chen Nanxing's illness, but the reason why people are called human beings is that they can always sway their own selfish desires in the face of established facts.
Ji Chuan was speechless.
The sun slowly set, and the afterglow at this moment was particularly beautiful. Chen Nanxing raised his face and enjoyed the delicate feeling of this fleeting beauty on his face.
The soft voice sounded to Ji Chuan's ears like the narration in an old movie, long and full of time.
"A benefactor of mine once said to me that a person's life is about continuous growth while running. I think this is very true."
"Ever since I can remember, everyone around me has been asking me to run. They said that if I could get out there, everything would be fine. I would be happy if I could run. My mother told me to run, my volunteer teacher told me to run, the aunt at the orphanage told me to run, and my adoptive mother told me to run too. Later, I met Lin Shanglu, and he took me running with him. Looking back on my short life, it seems like I've been running every moment, never daring to stop."
She held Ji Chuan's hand tightly and watched the sun sink below the horizon inch by inch.
The half-dark night seemed to blend into her voice, giving Chen Nanxing a touch of vicissitudes that did not belong to her age.
"But Xiao Ji, you know, running all the time is really tiring. I can't run anymore, and I don't want to run anymore. I really want to stop and watch a blade of grass grow, a bird fly, and a flower bloom."
In the gorgeous sunset and Chen Nanxing's gentle description, Ji Chuan seemed to have really seen an old movie. In the movie, a little girl was running desperately. As the girl grew up, her steps became bigger and bigger. The mountains, Zhaofeng... all the hardships she had experienced were left far behind.
In the movie with the dim sky as the backdrop, Chen Nanxing is like Kuafu chasing the sun, running and running... and finally falling down on the way to chasing the sun. Chen Nanxing said that she would not run anymore, but she would also die.
But on second thought, it is much better to die in the scenery along the way of life than to die chasing unrealistic fantasies.
Rationally, Ji Chuan can understand Chen Nanxing, but emotionally, he loves Chen Nanxing. Love is selfish. Love wants Chen Nanxing to be with him all the time. Love makes him feel torn and makes him silent.
It is not easy to accept the death of a lover. Watching the illness take away your lover little by little is even more of a torture. Chen Nanxing is gentle and cruel.
She gently did not force Ji Chuan to accept her views on life and death, but she cruelly insisted on her own views on life and death.
The sunset finally came to an end, and the stars in the sky began to emerge one by one. It was a May day, and the night wind was a little chilly. Chen Nanxing leaned out and pulled the window over to close it.
Locked outside together with the hustle and bustle of the city.
Chen Nanxing leaned back against Ji Chuan's strong chest, playing with Ji Chuan's hand with his slender fingers, and said something without thinking:
"I saw on my social media today that the couple living downstairs had a lovely daughter. Let's go see her together when we get home."
Ji Chuan smiled bitterly, he understood the metaphor in Chen Nanxing's words.
The sun rises in the east and sets in the west, life comes and goes, and death and birth cycle repeat endlessly.
Chen Nanxing was comforting him in a tactful way.
At least she wasn't that cruel to him, wasn't she? At least she still felt sorry for him, wasn't she? At least she knew he was consciously enduring a separation he didn't agree with, wasn't she?
She was just too stubborn, so stubborn that once she made a decision, no one could change it.
Ji Chuan put on a smile that was uglier than crying, and buried his furry head in Chen Nanxing's neck like a frustrated large dog.
As the cold wet tears flowed from the side of her neck into her blue and white striped hospital gown, Chen Nanxing heard Ji Chuan's compromise.
"good."
Chen Nanxing is like a scumbag who PUAs young and ignorant girls, giving them a slap and then a sweet date.
She took Ji Chuan's hand and kissed the back of his hand, then found a lively topic to pull Ji Chuan out of his sadness.
"Which entry in your love diary are you on?"
After being together for a few days, Chen Nanxing discovered that Ji Chuan had a memo titled "One Hundred Things About Love", which Chen Nanxing used to call a love diary.
Before she was hospitalized, they had completed more than 30 things, including but not limited to climbing mountains together, watching an early morning movie together, cooking a meal together, taking a group of photos together, etc.
Ji Chuan understood Chen Nanxing's good intentions. Although he was not in a good mood, he still forced himself to open his memo and turned to the latest unfinished page - going to the barber together.
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