Re-engraving the Spring - Chapter 38

The next day, City C Central Hospital.

When Lu Ming woke up, it was already ten o’clock the next morning. There was a person lying next to his bed, a sleeping Chi Qiu.

Lu Ming opened his mouth, and as if something was blocked in his throat, he could not make a sound. With an indwelling needle hanging on his hand, he looked upward and saw the liquid in the bottle was only half consumed. And every object around him was telling him that this was a hospital.

He gulped and tried to get up, but found that his body ached violently at the slightest movement.

Lu Ming’s head was chaotic, he reached out and touched it, feeling layer after layer of gauze. He hesitated for a few minutes before thinking about the theater accident.

Together with what remained in his head, there were bits and pieces in his mind of that night. The fragments of memory he recalled were not complete, and not only that, a large part of it was stuffed back into the box in his mind, locked.

Memories could be abandoned, but the touch from yesterday was clearly imprinted in Lu Ming’s heart.

“Chi Qiu.” Lu Ming couldn’t help calling Chi Qiu’s name in his heart.

He was taken aback by himself.

Lu Ming returned to his senses and calmed down. He seemed to have a different change of heart towards Chi Qiu, but because of his own problems, this change was not as intense as last night. He himself failed to clearly perceive it.

At the moment, he was more like an empathetic spectator to those pitiful memories, the heart still retained the remnants of sadness and despair.

Lu Ming raised his hand with a headache and covered his face. After a long breath, he could not help but remember Chi Qiu’s temperature when he held him.

The previous Lu Ming did not care about these temperatures. But now after this experience, he somehow, very much wanted to hold Chi Qiu’s hand. It was a pity that Chi Qiu was still in a deep sleep, breathing steadily, and like an obedient puppy, he was peacefully by his side.

Lu Ming’s heart began to have a soft flat ground. This feeling for him, in fact, was very strange.

He endured the pain but could not control his hand to reach out to Chi Qiu, wanting to touch Chi Qiu’s head.

Unfortunately, just when he was about to touch Chi Qiu’s hair, the door of the ward was suddenly pushed open.

Immediately afterwards, before anyone saw his person, Ji Yanchen’s loud voice broke through the door first: “It’s almost noon, how come the breakfast shop downstairs of this hospital is still crowded!”

He stepped into the ward with a bag of various kinds of breakfast, and became angry at first sight: “Chi Qiu, didn’t I tell you to lie down on the bed last night to sleep? I specially got you two a twin room; there are two beds, can’t you see?”

Chi Qiu was almost awakened by shock. He raised his head sleepily and looked at Ji Yanchen stupidly.

Ji Yanchen chatted endlessly: “Lu Ming has a little skin injury. Didn’t the doctor repeat it to you twice? You hurry up and rest for a while——”

Chi Qiu yawned, still in the fog. He didn’t sleep all night last night and only rested for a while this morning.

He rubbed his eyes and apologized, his voice was soft, “I forgot, I’ll go to bed later.”

“Why didn’t you forget about Lu Ming?” Ji Yanchen saw that Lu Ming was awake: “I bought something to eat for the two of you. I’m afraid that you will eat monotonously at the hospital.”

He put down his breakfast and said to Lu Ming. “I’ll have someone take care of the theater for you first; there should be compensation coming down. Also, the doctor said you were hit on your back and the back of your head, but fortunately it’s nothing serious, just rest for a while. See if you can get up now, if not, you can lie down, I’ll feed you.”

He couldn’t let Chi Qiu, a ‘blind man’, feed Lu Ming, right?

Only then did Chi Qiu know that Lu Ming had woken up. He hurriedly turned back, unable to speak well: “Lu Ming, you, you’re awake.”

“En.” Lu Ming’s throat was hoarse.

Chi Qiu hurriedly fumbled to get the water cup on the bedside table, but Ji Yanchen took it for him and fed it to Lu Ming. Lu Ming was choked by Ji Yanchen’s way of feeding water and couldn’t help but cough.

Chi Qiu said in distress, “Yanchen, let me do it!”

“Just feeding some water, can’t I not feed him well? Chi Qiu, sit down quickly. Can’t you see that you are injured too?” Ji Yanchen’s words reminded Lu Ming.

Lu Ming got a headache from Ji Yanchen’s voice. He fixed his eyes and saw Chi Qiu’s right arm wrapped in gauze: “What’s wrong with your hand?”

“It was scratched last night, but it doesn’t matter; it’s been taken care of.” Chi Qiu used his left hand to touch Lu Ming’s hand, holding it before he felt at ease. He asked: “Are you in pain? Are you hungry? Can you sit up now? Do you want to eat something first?”

It was even a series of questions.

In other times, Lu Ming would probably answer one after another like a machine.

For some reason today, Lu Ming squeezed Chi Qiu’s palm tightly, unable to take his eyes off Chi Qiu’s injured arm. He actually felt a touch of heartache, which had never been felt before. The whole heart was sore and numb, very uncomfortable.

Lu Ming answered the question: “Does your wound hurt?”

Facing Lu Ming’s concern, Chi Qiu’s heart was warm and fluttered. He caught a hint of emotion floating on Lu Ming’s face and was surprised. He shook his head, holding Lu Ming’s hand against his face and lowering his eyes: “I’m hurt at all.”

Chi Qiu’s eyes were slightly red; he should have cried a lot yesterday: “You must be in pain… It’s my fault. I’ll never go to a concert again. I’m also happy when we chat at home on our day off.”

“…”

Ji Yanchen’s hands that were opening the lunch box stopped. He looked at Chi Qiu with a ‘hate iron for not becoming steel’1Describes dissatisfaction with the expected person who is not up to his expectations, and eagerly hopes that he will become better expression, and then looked at Lu Ming; he hoped that Lu Ming could say a human word, not whatever that Chi Qiu was saying.

Lu Ming’s head was wrapped in gauze, his expression was stiff.

Chi Qiu’s tone was full of guilt. He lowered his head and then said, “You were smashed by the roof, it was to protect me.” It was okay when he didn’t mention it, but once mentioned, his eyes moistened up again.

Ji Yanchen held his forehead and really wanted to say a few words. But it was just the couple talking, it was not good for him to talk too much. Although, he had talked too much many times before.

Fortunately, Lu Ming seemed to be enlightened today. He pulled out his hand and wiped away the tears from the corner of Chi Qiu’s eyes: “This is just an accident, not your fault.” If you really wanted to say who was wrong, it was the fault of the theater that was not maintained. If not…Lu Ming frowned, “I didn’t choose a good theater.”

Chi Qiu sniffled and shook his head.

“Don’t cry anymore.” Lu Ming said, pressing his cool fingers on the corner of Chi Qiu’s eyes, his tone softened, “If you cry again, your eyes will be swollen.”

Chi Qiu ‘looked’ at Lu Ming in disbelief, feeling strange, but couldn’t tell what was wrong.

Today’s Lu Ming was particularly wrong. It was different from the usually cold Lu Ming before; the current Lu Ming’s voice was actually a little gentle.

And this, in Ji Yanchen’s opinion, was the norm that should exist between partners.

Ji Yanchen looked at the food that was about to get cold in his hand, and after thinking about it, he squeezed between the two of them abruptly: “Do you still want to eat?” He asked again, “Lu Ming, can you sit up?”

Lu Ming tried and was able to sit up, but needed some help.

This favor was undoubtedly to ask Ji Yanchen to help. Lu Ming was worried about the inconvenience of Chi Qiu’s eye, so he humbled himself2so the literal meaning here is something like Lu Ming lost his face, but I think it just doesn’t sound grammatically correct so I changed it. But anyway, to lose face is to be embarrassed or humiliated, especially publicly. and took the initiative to ask Ji Yanchen for help.

Chi Qiu didn’t walk away. When Ji Yanchen tried to pull Lu Ming to sit up, Chi Qiu leaned forward and held Lu Ming’s shoulder secretly, for fear that he would bump into him.

Considering that Lu Ming and Chi Qiu had to eat lightly these days, almost all the food Ji Yanchen bought were foods with little taste. He put them one after another on the cabinet next to Lu Ming’s bed and said, “You two eat first, call the doctor if you need anything. I still have to go back to the hotel and will come over later.”

Chi Qiu got up and hurriedly stopped him: “Yanchen! This matter…”

Ji Yanchen knew what Chi Qiu was going to say, and he speechlessly answered. “Hey you don’t worry, I didn’t tell my brother, nor did I tell Aunt Chi.”

Mainly because Chi Qiu and Lu Ming were fine, and so Ji Yanchen must be sensible to shut his mouth first. He had heard Ji Feining say that Chi Lanyan had a rather strong opinion on Lu Ming.

If she knew that Lu Ming had taken her baby son into such a big scare and hurt his arm, she might have rushed to City C, and then there would be a big problem.

After Ji Yanchen left, Lu Ming and Chi Qiu started to eat breakfast. Lu Ming’s body was in pain. He glanced at the various types of lunch boxes, but he didn’t want to eat any of them, so he put down the bowl after drinking half a bowl of porridge.

Chi Qiu heard the sound and asked, “Are you full?”

“I have no appetite.”

“Do you want to try this bun? You didn’t eat much yesterday either. The doctor said you need to eat to have strength.” Chi Qiu handed over the vegetarian bun in his hand and said, coaxing kindly: “We have to stay here for a few days before we can go home, then we can ask Aunt Zhang to make something delicious. Let’s eat casually these days.”

Lu Ming did not refuse again, he grabbed Chi Qiu’s wrist and moved it closer to himself before taking a big bite. The inside of the bun was filled with chopped bok choy and mixed with some diced mushrooms.

“Is it good?” Chi Qiu’s wrist was warm from being held.

The author has something to say: Two-way sweetness is about to begin

T/N: my laptop gave me bluescreen twice today :(( after I fixed the first one, chrome kept crashing, then need to restart my laptop after fixing chrome issue. when it restarted suddenly got bluescreen-ed again :((( luckily managed to fix it in an hour. I guess it’s time to buy a new laptop hahahah