Early June.
Rich greenery spreads across the entire city.
But there are some places in the corners of the city that are filled with gray despair, which is completely opposite to the color that represents vitality and hope.
At the end of the hospital corridor.
A red light was on on the door of the operating room. Fang Zhi sat on a chair against the wall, staring blankly at the closed door.
He had been looking for a fortune teller for a long time, but still to no avail. Qiao Min's condition continued to worsen, and finally reached the point where he had to undergo surgery.
The success rate of surgery is very low.
This is the fact that the doctor had already informed the patient and family when consulting them before the operation.
But Qiao Min and Fang Zhi had no other choice, because if they didn't have surgery, they would definitely die.
There were bayonets everywhere below the cliff on the left, and a raging torrent below the cliff on the right. So they had no choice but to jump into the torrent, which also had little chance of survival, but at least would not kill them immediately.
When sending Qiao Min to the operating room, Fang Zhi encouraged her with a smile, saying, "It's okay, it will work."
But in fact, even he himself did not dare to believe this unconvincing comfort. The moment the door of the operating room closed, the strength he had held on to collapsed in an instant.
Every second of this moment is extremely painful.
What is more depressing than worry and panic is the feeling of powerlessness.
He could only wait, only wait for the final verdict.
It was like a dying man tied to the execution rack, watching the raging fire around him, unable to do anything except pray to God for a miraculous rain.
Buzz—buzz—
At this moment, the phone in my pocket suddenly vibrated.
Fang Zhi came back to his senses, took out his cell phone, and found that the incoming call was from an unfamiliar number.
"Hello?" He answered the phone weakly.
"I heard you were looking for me?"
The old and familiar voice on the other side was like an electric current, instantly penetrating the eardrum and spreading throughout the limbs and bones, causing Fang Zhi's almost numb heart to beat violently: "Where are you?!"
The fortune teller's tone seemed very nonchalant, even a little lazy: "Come down, I'm downstairs."
Before Fang Zhi could answer, the phone was hung up.
Fang Zhi didn't even have time to be surprised or hesitate. He stood up immediately as if he had been electrocuted and ran downstairs in a hurry.
Outside the hospital building.
Under a row of lush camphor trees, sunlight shines through the gaps in the treetops, casting tiny spots of light.
On the bench, an old man in a gray jacket leaned forward, his arms resting on his knees, his fingertips tapping each other lightly, and he looked leisurely at the young man rushing out of the building.
Fang Zhi galloped to the tree, not even having time to catch his breath, and asked directly, "Where's the lamp?"
The old man glanced at him slowly, stood up, and patted the black cloth bag beside him - it was bulging with something, and it was obvious that the "magic lamp" was inside.
Fang Zhi didn't say anything and took out his wallet directly: "Fifty a day, right? I'll give it to you."
The old man chuckled softly, "Young man, I told you you'd regret this. Fifty a day was back then, but it's not that price now."
Fang Zhi paused, but he wasn't really surprised.
Ever since he posted those missing person notices on the wall and started looking for people everywhere with great fanfare, he had anticipated that the other party might take advantage of his urgency and raise the price.
So when he heard this, he was mentally prepared and said calmly, "How much? Just tell me the number."
The old man pondered silently for a moment, raised his hand, and spread out his five fingers: "—five hundred thousand."
This time, Fang Zhi was really shocked.
Although he had thought about the possibility that the other party would raise the price, he did not expect that he would raise it to such an unrealistic level. This was simply crossing the bottom line and asking for an exorbitant price.
The old man clearly noticed his surprise, but his attitude remained unwavering. Instead, he slowly explained, "Young man, you must understand that calamities that haven't yet arrived can only be avoided, but those that have already arrived must be saved. I've said before that the lamp's divine power is limited. It can be used to avoid calamities thousands of times, but it can be used to save calamities after just one use and is essentially useless. If you take it now, it's like buying out all of its divine power. Five hundred thousand to save a life, you're not losing out."
Fang Zhi listened to him quietly. If it were in the past, he would have scoffed at this, but now, after experiencing two "fulfillments", he no longer had the courage to even open his mouth to argue.
Qiao Min is his only remaining relative. If he cannot keep her, everything in this world will no longer have any meaning to him.
And that lamp was like the last straw, tied to the only remaining slim hope, and he had to get it no matter what.
However, five hundred thousand is not a small amount after all.
He and Qiao Min didn't have much savings to begin with, and most of them had been spent on surgery and hospitalization fees, so they couldn't afford any of it now.
Fang Zhi raised his head, closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and said truthfully as if compromising, "I don't have that much money."
He paused, then continued, "Two hundred thousand, that's all I have in my bank cards combined."
The old man stared at him as if judging whether it was true or not, then lowered his eyes and pondered for a while.
After a long while, he finally relented and said, "Okay, but I want cash."
Fang Zhi didn't say anything more. He pointed in the direction of the bank at the hospital entrance, motioning him to follow, and then took the lead and walked towards the gate.
Ten minutes later.
In front of a bank ATM.
Fang Zhi mechanically inserted the card, entered the password, withdrew money, then changed the card and repeated the operation.
The ATM counted the bills meticulously, making a continuous rustling sound and spitting stacks of red bills into the cash dispenser.
All the sounds finally stopped until the last card was ejected from the card reader.
Fang Zhi stuffed several bank cards back into his pocket, took out the last stack of money from the ATM slot, threw it into the plastic bag in his hand, and walked out with it as if he was carrying a bag of cabbage.
Down the long steps in front of the door.
The old man sat facing the street, with the black cloth bag beside him and a fan in his hand that he had come from nowhere.
Fang Zhi walked to the step level with him and handed the plastic bag to him: "Two hundred thousand, count it."
The old man glanced at the bag and smiled nonchalantly: "No, I trust you."
After saying that, he threw the fan aside, opened his cloth bag sideways, and took out a ball of newspaper from it. He then carefully peeled back the layers of newspaper to reveal the intact porcelain lamp wrapped in it. Then he handed it to Fang Zhi: "Hold it carefully. This thing is very delicate and can't withstand any bumps or collisions."
Fang Zhi nodded, put down the bag full of money, carefully took the paper ball from his hand, rewrapped it, and turned to walk down the stairs.
He had walked this road in front of the hospital countless times since Qiao Min was admitted to the hospital. He should have been very familiar with it, but when he stepped on it again at this moment, he inexplicably felt a little unfamiliar.
Perhaps because he was holding his only life-saving straw in his arms, the traffic and steps that he had never noticed before seemed to have become potential threats, making him almost forget how to cross the road. He stood by the roadside until all the cars drove away and there was no car for dozens of meters to the left or right, and then he finally hurried across.
After entering the hospital gate, the noise subsided a lot.
But his pace did not slow down, and even quickened a bit due to his eagerness. He walked towards the inpatient building in the distance impatiently but cautiously along the green shade cast by the row of camphor trees.
The early summer breeze blew through his hair, and tiny specks of light sprinkled through the gaps above his head, finally dyeing the green color that symbolized vitality and hope into his dim eyes, and finally making him feel a little bit of joy like a drowning person about to surface.
As he stepped into the hall downstairs, the joy finally spread throughout his body, and even his steps became lighter, as if the horn of victory had already sounded and was waiting for his arrival not far ahead.
He couldn't help but jog a few steps, but then he felt that this was a bit rash, so he quickly slowed down and calmed down a little.
The next second, the sound of rapid rolling wheels was heard behind him.
The next second, the emergency stretcher that was being pushed into the hall by doctors and family members hit him hard on the lower back.
The newspaper ball in his arms was knocked out by the impact. Fang Zhi's pupils suddenly constricted. He stretched out his hand with all his strength to grab it, but he could only grab the outer layer of the newspaper. He watched helplessly as the porcelain lamp flew out and drew an arc in the air.
Click.
Like a flower blooming and shattering.
Time seems to stand still at this moment.
All figures, colors, and sounds disappeared.
Fang Zhi's world seemed to come into focus, leaving only the broken fragments splattered all over the ground in front of him.
Just a few seconds, but the delay stretched it to seem like a century.
Fang Zhi didn't even know how he walked to the fragments. He squatted down and knelt on the ground. He stretched out his hands devoutly and desperately and grasped them tightly in his palms.
The straw that saved the life became the one that broke the camel's back.
The straight spine slowly bent, and the blood in the palm of the hand, along with the tears that had been suppressed for a long time and finally burst out, burned the mirror-like ground and corroded the hope of life inch by inch.
The attention of the people around him was quickly attracted by him. The confused patients and their families stood there in shock. Doctors and nurses hurried forward to support and ask questions, trying to pry open his bloody hands, but he held the fragments tightly in despair and stubbornness, as if he wanted to embed them into his bone marrow.
The voices of concern and inquiries lingered in my ears, sometimes loud, sometimes soft, sometimes far, sometimes near. They were like auditory hallucinations in a trance, or tinnitus caused by a breakdown.
Under the cover of this noise, the vibration of the mobile phone in my pocket seemed so small and inaudible.
It was not until the phone slid to the ground due to the tilt of the pocket that it was discovered by a sharp-eyed nurse.
"Hey, someone's calling you!"
The nurse shook Fang Zhi's arm, but seeing that he was completely numb and unresponsive, she desperately answered the phone for him: "Hello? Is this... ah? Doctor Liu? Oh, oh, okay, he's right next to me now, I'll tell him right away!"
After hanging up the phone, the young nurse hurriedly pushed Fang Zhi with all her might: "Hey! Hey, hey, hey! Doctor Liu asked where you were. Your wife's operation was successful!"
These words were like a flash of lightning, splitting the layers of chaos and confusion surrounding Fang Zhi. He turned his head stiffly and slowly, like a puppet that had just come to life: "What... did you say?"
"Your wife's surgery is complete and a complete success!" the nurse said, then turned and scolded, "You said you weren't waiting upstairs, so why are you running here? Look at your hands covered in blood! Come with me and treat the wound!"
Fang Zhi was stunned for a while in disbelief. He didn't hear the rest of the words at all. Just the first sentence was enough to instantly inject a surge of warmth into his almost numb heart.
The operation... was successful?
The reason why a miracle is called a miracle is because the probability of it happening is extremely low, so when it really happens, it will make people feel so abrupt and unreal.
This is exactly what Fang Zhi did.
He seemed to suspect that he was dreaming and was eager to verify it. He did not care about the blood on his hands or the obstructions around him. He just staggered to his feet with his scarred palms supporting the ground, pushed away the people blocking his way, and stumbled towards the stairs.
“Cut!”
Zhuang Yan's voice spread throughout the hall through the loudspeaker.
This scene has the largest number of actors in the movie except for the ending. Most of them are extras, but some of them are originally hospital staff.
When they heard the director call for cut, everyone relaxed a little, but they all tacitly agreed not to move around, because Zhuang Yan was still looking back at the monitor. If there were any shots that needed to be retaken, they would have to do it again as is.
However, at the moment when the entire scene seemed to have been paused, Jiang Que, who had been standing on the sidelines and never acted rashly, suddenly stepped out and walked towards the stairs with a clear goal.
Walking straight to Song Yecheng, he immediately asked, "Are you injured?"
Hearing this, the others nearby were stunned. The young nurse from earlier said bluntly, "No way? Aren't they using blood bags?"
Song Yecheng was also a little surprised, because his palm was indeed scratched just now, but his palm was facing downwards during the filming process, and his palm would not be visible even in the camera. Moreover, even the people around him did not notice it. How did Jiang Queyuan find out on the sidelines?
Seeing Jiang Que's serious expression, Song Yecheng hurriedly explained with a smile: "It's okay, it's just a small cut, it's not serious."
"Let me see." Jiang Que stretched out his hand towards him.
Song Yecheng couldn't resist and had to raise his hand and open his palm.
Because this scene only required the image of Fang Zhi holding the fragments with blood oozing from his fingers, and there was no plan to shoot a close-up of the wound on his palm, there was no need to bother to put on makeup to create the effect of the wound on his hand before the scene.
However, at this moment, there was an obvious wound on the palm of his hand, which was obviously not the effect of makeup.
The wound was quite deep and was surrounded by bright red, which looked shocking. However, because a prop blood pack had been used before the injury, it was impossible to tell which was real blood and which was fake blood.
Jiang Que couldn't help but frown. Just as he was about to speak, he heard Zhuang Yan's voice from behind him: "What's going on?"
He had just finished watching the replay on the monitor and immediately got up and rushed over when he noticed the noise.
Jiang Que held Song Yecheng's hand and stepped aside. Zhuang Yan came forward to take a look and was also quite surprised: "Hey, how did this happen? Go and deal with it quickly."
The nurse next to her was originally from this hospital. She quickly stood up and came over: "Let's go to the emergency room. It's over there."
"It's okay," Song Yecheng himself didn't really care, because in his opinion, it was normal to get injured occasionally while filming. "Did you pass that take just now? If you need to reshoot it, I'll do it after it's done. Otherwise, there will definitely be gauze after the bandage, and it will be easy to expose the close-up shot."
This is also the reason why he didn't mention his injury just now. If Jiang Que hadn't come over, he would have waited until Zhuang Yan confirmed this before saying anything.
As a director, Zhuang Yan couldn't help but dislike Song Yecheng's dedication to his work, which prioritized the work above all else. However, as an elder, seeing him disregard his own health was both irritating and amusing. "It's over! Look how much I worry about you. What if you really fail a few times in a row? Are you going to keep this hand? Stop messing around! Go get it bandaged!"
Song Yecheng smiled nonchalantly: "How can it be that serious? Besides, isn't this right in the hospital? I——"
He was about to say a few more words, but his voice stopped abruptly because he suddenly felt his wrist being pinched hard. He could not help but stare at Jiang Que in surprise.
Jiang Que was also staring at him, his thin lips tightly pursed, and his eyes looked a little unhappy.
Song Yecheng was stunned. He felt Jiang Que exert more force on his hand and dragged him towards the emergency room.
This kind of slightly strong attitude was rare in Jiang Que. Song Yecheng didn't realize what was going on until he was dragged for several steps.
yooooo——He makes me so nervous.
Song Yecheng curled up the corners of his lips in secret delight. Seeing the nurse who had followed him run to the front to lead the way, he quietly nudged Jiang Que with his elbow: "Hey, how did you find out?"
Jiang Que turned his head and glanced at him, with a hint of blame still in his eyes due to inertia. However, when he met Song Yecheng's smiling and shining eyes, the remaining displeasure was instantly melted away.
As his emotions faded, he suddenly felt a little lost. He blinked uncomfortably and turned back: "I saw your arm move."
He didn't stare at the monitor when he was on the sidelines, but followed Song Yecheng from beginning to end. Because of this, he noticed details that others, including the camera, didn't notice -
As the filming was nearing its end, Song Yecheng's right arm suddenly retracted.
Although the movement was extremely subtle, and although Song Yecheng controlled his expression in the close-up shot with great professionalism, Jiang Que still keenly captured that detail.
It didn't seem like an intentional action on Song Yecheng's part, but rather a conditioned reflex, like the body instinctively shrinking.
Jiang Que guessed almost instantly that he might have been scratched.
Because sudden pain is different from the mentally prepared pain you experience when you get an injection or have your blood drawn, it's like a knee-jerk reaction, causing the body to respond subconsciously without thinking.
Facts also proved that Jiang Que's judgment was not wrong.
But he didn't expect that the wound was much more serious than he imagined - Song Yecheng's reaction at the time was so subtle, so subtle that it was almost negligible. Jiang Que thought it was just a scratch, so he didn't stop immediately. This was why he suddenly felt a little angry when he saw the wound with his own eyes and heard Song Yecheng's nonchalant tone.
At this time, the two had followed the young nurse who led the way to the door of the emergency room.
Pushing the door open, a doctor on duty was sitting inside. He was stunned when he saw the three people, then he caught a glimpse of Song Yecheng's bloody hand and immediately stood up to greet them: "What's going on?"
"It was cut by a ceramic shard," the nurse explained hurriedly, "but because they used prop plasma, I can't judge the amount of bleeding."
The doctor nodded without saying anything more, and first took Song Yecheng inside to flush and clean the wound.
After all the blood and embedded debris had been cleaned up, he led Song Yecheng back to sit down. While disinfecting the wound to stop the bleeding, he teased with a hint of helplessness: "You are too dedicated, aren't you? Are you making a fake play real?"
The nurse who came with him was actually a casual fan of Song Yecheng. Hearing this, she pouted and nodded in agreement: "That's right, you are too careless. If the fans knew about this, how sad would they be?"
Song Yecheng smiled faintly when he heard this: "I didn't pay attention."
Jiang Que was originally sitting next to him quietly, but when he heard this answer, he couldn't help but look over. Coincidentally, Song Yecheng also looked over at this time. When their eyes met, they both understood the meaning in each other's eyes in an instant.
They all knew it was a lie.
Song Yecheng was not actually "careless".
Jiang Que clearly remembered that the moment Song Yecheng retracted his hand was exactly the moment when the young nurse pushed him hard after answering Fang Zhi's phone call - because she pushed too hard, Song Yecheng had to support himself on the ground to stabilize his body, which caused his originally loose palm to suddenly press down and be cut by the porcelain piece.
But the action of "pushing hard" was actually required by the plot. The young nurse was excited after hearing that the operation was successful, and she did this to wake up Fang Zhi who was immersed in sadness.
However, if they are professional actors, they usually know how to use cleverness to cooperate with others to create the effect of "exerting force", just like in a fighting scene, and they will not really use brute force.
But the young nurse is just an ordinary person after all and does not have such professional skills. She just relies on her instinct to do what the director asks. In fact, she did nothing wrong.
If she knew that the injury was related to her, even if it was just an unintentional mistake, she would definitely be worried, guilty and even frightened, so Song Yecheng didn't intend to mention it at all, and Jiang Que also tacitly remained silent.
The two of them stared at each other silently for a few seconds.
After a moment, Jiang Que chuckled helplessly.
Because he suddenly discovered that the star before his eyes, which he had admired for many years, had never changed.
It is always so dazzling, yet always so gentle.
It will always use its light to illuminate the way forward for others, but will never hurt any pair of eyes.
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