Around 7 p.m., Zhou Xinya stood alone at her front door after one of the shoulder straps on her pinafore dress broke.
Just now, Dad pulled the strap from behind, preventing her from falling completely.
Even though she knelt down, her knees still touched her mother's stomach.
Dad took Mom to the hospital, as for myself—
She couldn't catch up with her father's car.
Or perhaps she was too afraid to go over.
Dad carried Mom downstairs without even taking the elevator. By the time they got downstairs, the car had already started moving.
Zhou Xinya dared not call for the car to stop, nor did she dare to run around, for fear that her parents would not be able to find her when they returned.
So she went home.
Following the stairs she had run down, the little girl climbed up one step at a time until she reached the open front door and stopped.
The usually bustling house was now eerily quiet.
It was like a deep abyss trying to suck her in.
There was no one there. After thinking for a moment, Zhou Xinya went inside and called her great-grandmother.
The call was answered quickly, and Grandma Sun immediately asked, "Who is it?"
"Great-Grandma." The little girl's voice was calm. She sniffed, suppressing the soreness in her throat, and casually asked, "Great-Grandma, have you eaten? What did you eat?"
It's nothing, she just needs someone to talk to right now.
She did something bad.
"Oh, is Yaya catching a cold?" Grandma Sun chimed in. "She ate steamed buns, porridge, and leftover fish from lunch."
"Has Ya Ya eaten enough? What did Mommy make for you?"
As usual, they chatted about everyday things, but Zhou Xinya couldn't hide her true feelings.
She had hoped to alleviate her fear by making a phone call, but what she found after dialing was...
She couldn't ignore it.
Meanwhile, the little girl couldn't hold back her tears, which streamed down her face, and she sobbed softly.
Grandma Sun noticed something was wrong with her granddaughter and kept calling her name loudly on the phone.
"Zhou Xinya, Zhou Xinya, where is your mother?"
“Let your mother talk to me... Come on, let's see if Xinya will listen to me and give the phone to her mother.”
Sun Lifang always stays with her daughter whenever she's home; she can't just leave her daughter at home alone.
Hearing her granddaughter's sobs, Grandma Sun didn't care about anything else and just said, "Don't run away from home, Grandma will come find you."
"Good boy, ah."
After hanging up the phone, Grandma Sun grabbed a coat and put it on as she walked. When she reached the door, she called out, "Don't touch the bowls on the table. I'll wash them when I get back."
"Oh, Auntie, where are you going?" Qiu Ju, wearing black rubber gloves, stepped forward and asked, "Are you going to Lifang's house?"
Grandma Sun buttoned up her cotton-padded coat, grabbed a flashlight, and hurried outside.
Their area is a remote place. It's a long walk to the main road where you can see streetlights. Without a flashlight, you'll be in the dark and can't see anything when you go out.
But it wasn't daytime, so Grandma Sun walked up to a row of motorcycles to ask about the price. Behind her, she heard the clear, ringing sound of bicycle bells.
Qiu Ju rode out on her bicycle and let Grandma Sun sit on it, saying, "Hold on tight, I'll take you there."
"Don't waste time, I've been to that place once before."
As she spoke, Qiu Ju put Grandma Sun's small yellow cloth bag into the bicycle basket, gesturing with her eyes.
Grandma Sun stopped rubbing, climbed onto the back of the bicycle, and the bicycle shot forward like a blazing fire.
The driver was quite skilled; it didn't seem to take much effort, and the car passed two stops with a clanging sound.
"Qiu Ju, last time—"
She hasn't heard from him since he came back last time, and Grandma Sun wants to ask him what happened in that incident.
Before she could even ask the question, Qiu Ju's loud voice came from the front, "Auntie, you should worry about what's in front of you first, I'll talk about that later."
Yes, we'll talk about that later.
Upon hearing this, Grandma Sun retracted her words and turned her gaze to the woman riding the bicycle in front of her.
The woman was wearing a dirt-resistant, loose-fitting protective garment. The wind blew in from underneath, filling the garment and inflating it like a giant balloon.
Changing shape with the wind, passing under the bright streetlights, the woman who stood up to pedal her bicycle seemed to have grown wings, transparent as a moth, almost drifting away with the wind...
......
Over there, Sun Lifang wrapped her arms around the man's neck, trying several times to make him stop.
"It's just a stomachache, there's no bleeding."
"And it only hurt for a moment, it doesn't hurt anymore."
But Zhou Yunshi seemed not to hear her and rushed her to the emergency room.
When the man was placed on the trolley, Sun Lifang was both amused and exasperated. Every time she tried to say something to ease the tension, the man's serious expression stopped her.
"Hey," Sun Lifang shook their clasped hands, "Are we acting out some kind of melodrama?"
The man, facing a life-or-death separation, sat on the edge of the bed and held the woman's hand.
This kind of scenario would be quite novel if it happened to me.
After the nurse finished her examination, she told them to wait and that she would do an ultrasound later if they were still worried.
Zhou Yunshi asked the nurse to schedule a full-body checkup, but the nurse refused outright, saying, "No, our hospital—"
The staff in the examination department either leave work on time or go to other posts for duty, so it's impossible to get a full physical examination now.
"Okay, I'll find someone else."
As he spoke, the man took out his phone.
"You can't get help from anyone!" the nurse said to herself. "Everyone's off work now, and the hospital won't issue a form for something as trivial as a physical exam at night."
"There's no rush for the physical exam," Sun Lifang reassured the man, then turned her head away without arguing, simply asking the nurse to leave.
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