The old man left, and only Qiuhua and Wu Xin were left in the corridor.
Since he couldn't sleep anyway, Qiuhua thought he might as well build a cucumber shed.
"Wait for me here for a while." Wu Xin said as he slipped into the ward next door.
Qiuhua didn't understand, but since she had agreed to wait for a while, she just waited.
After a while, Wu Xin came out of the ward, walked up to Qiuhua, and said, "Stretch out your hand."
"what?"
"Stretch it out."
Qiuhua did as she was told, and Wu Xin reached out and put a handful of melon seeds and two pieces of candy in her hand.
"Wait a minute, there's more." He took another peach from his pocket and handed it over.
Qiuhua hesitated for a moment and didn't answer.
Although the family was poor, they still had some education. Their mother taught them since they were young not to stare at others eating, not to take things given by others casually, and not to ask others for things.
"You take it." Wu Xin stretched his hand forward again. Under the dim light, his already fair face looked even more pale.
Qiuhua sometimes wondered where such fair skin could come from in the countryside. She had only seen two such people in her life. One was Sister Luo Zhen, which was easy to understand since she never went out, and the second was Wu Xin.
"I don't want it. You eat it. It's not good for me to take your things."
At this time, the two hands had already received the things, and Qiuhua wanted to return them to him, so she stretched out her hands.
Wu Xin seemed to see through it and said hurriedly, "You're not going to give these back to me, are you? If you don't want to eat them, just throw them away and don't give them to me."
"Thank you very much."
There was an imperceptible smile on the boy's tense face.
"Take the peach too. I don't like it. It gives me diarrhea. Just consider it as helping me solve the problem."
Qiuhua still refused to take it and said, "Give it to your family."
"No one's home..."
Realizing that she had said the wrong thing, Qiuhua hurriedly took the peach, but she was reluctant to eat it and wanted to leave it for Xiaohua.
"This is a peach. It won't last long. Eat it now."
After saying that, he took the peach back, held it gently in one hand, and gently pinched the tip of the peach with two fingers, and a layer of skin as thin as transparent was peeled off.
"I'll do it myself."
Qiuhua doesn't have the nerve to eat other people's food and ask them to help peel the skin.
This peach is different from any other peach Qiuhua has ever eaten. There are several peach trees behind her house, and the fruit on them is called May peach.
May peaches are small in size. The red parts of ripe peaches turn purple, and the green parts are raw and astringent. They taste crisp, sour and sweet, and have a strong flavor.
This juicy peach is completely different. They are all peaches. If the May peach is a little girl of thirteen or fourteen years old, then the juicy peach is an eighteen-year-old lady.
The meat looks white with a hint of red on the outside. Gently peel the skin and take a bite. A hint of sweetness enters your mouth, and the rich juice flows down the back of your hand.
Qiuhua ate in a somewhat awkward manner. She changed her hand to hold the peach and tried to wipe her wet hands clean on her clothes.
"Don't get your clothes dirty, use this."
Wu Xin handed over a handkerchief.
Qiuhua took a look and saw that it was a snow-white handkerchief, whiter than the snow accumulated in the yard last winter.
She still rubbed it on her clothes and said, "How can I do that with such a fine handkerchief!"
Wu Xin had no choice but to take it back silently.
The estrangement between the two people is obvious. Yes, they are not actually familiar with each other.
But it doesn't seem right to say that they are not familiar with each other. There is only one school in the nearby villages, and the two have been in the same class for four years, but they have never spoken to each other.
Qiuhua also felt that Wu Xin was a strange person, different from them all. In rural areas, the annoying "black dog" was a normal existence.
He doesn't go to school, loves to fight, talks a lot of nonsense, and is tanned.
The young man in front of him had fair skin, a thin figure, was taciturn and cold.
However, Qiuhua could still tell that he was good-looking.
After finishing the peach, Qiuhua wiped her mouth with her sleeve and smiled sheepishly: "Why are you in the hospital? Is someone in the family sick too?"
He nodded, and the anger that had just been aroused in him subsided again.
Qiuhua shut up and stopped asking. The corridor suddenly became quiet, without a sound at all.
Suddenly, a man popped his head out of the ward and shouted, "Doctor! There's no more saline solution. Come and take out the needle."
The two were startled and laughed at the same time.
"Actually, there's nothing I can't say. She's my mom."
Qiuhua blinked at him, as if wanting to give him some comfort, thinking that it was probably not a serious illness.
"She jumped into the river and nearly died."
He used the word "jump" instead of "fall". Qiuhua heard it clearly. Her heart trembled and she unconsciously showed a sympathetic look.
Wu Xin turned his head to avoid it. He had seen this kind of look too many times.
"Your mother is fine now, so it's okay."
This was the only way she could think of to comfort him.
"Let's see, it's not certain yet."
His answer surprised Qiuhua. It was too plain and his expression was indifferent, as if he was talking about the affairs of any random family in the village and it had nothing to do with him.
No, if something like this happened to someone in the village, Qiuhua would also be sad for a while.
The light from the incandescent lamp was yellowish, and the corridor was not very bright. Even Wu Xin's shadow was faint.
"What about you? Who's sick in your family?" Wu Xin changed the subject.
Qiuhua sighed, and the feeling of self-blame surged up again. Even though she had just eaten a peach, her mouth now began to taste bitter.
"It's my brother. He ate too many mulberries and got roundworms in his gallbladder." She sniffed and continued, "It's all my fault. I took him to pick mulberries and let him eat as much as he wanted. Now he's suffering."
She held back her tears, but how could her shallow eye sockets contain such a surge of self-blame and pain?
Seeing her tears flowing down to her chin, Wu Xin forced the handkerchief into her hand.
Qiuhua couldn't resist, so she picked it up, wiped her tears and said, "I'll wash it and return it to you when the time comes."
"What are you two doing?" the nurse came out of the ward and said with a frown, "Hurry in. It's so late and you're still chatting. Aren't other people resting?"
After being sent away like this, Qiuhua had no choice but to say goodbye to Wu Xin and part ways.
It was late at night and Qiuhua was half asleep. She had two pieces of candy and a handful of melon seeds given by Wu Xin in her pocket, which she planned to give to Xiaohua at dawn.
I don’t know how long it took, but there was a noise outside the ward. It seemed like someone was crying, and doctors and nurses were running around in panic.
Qiuhua seemed to hear the familiar voice of the young man, and the suppressed sobs crept into her dreams.
She tried hard to open her eyes, but sleepiness came over her again, and the sounds outside were getting farther and farther away from her...
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