It Seems There is Light

Breaking the Ice  

The door to the hospital room was opened.

Shi An had no time to think about who had entered the room. He sat in front of the hospital bed, laying his body on his lap, his head buried in the crook of his arm.

The person walked straight up to him before stopping.

It was probably Yan Zhao who had returned.

Shi An couldn’t stand the thought of being in such a vulnerable and distressed state in front of others, but unfortunately, he had little strength to return to the calm, self-contained and well-mannered Shi An.

Yan Zhao stood in front of him for a while, and suddenly reached out and put his hand on his back, patting it soothingly, with a very light force, even a little cautiously.

The dry, warm fingertips had a light, clean scent of lemon soap.

Shi An’s body slightly paused before he slowly raised his head. It was Yan Liang’s handsome young face as expected.

Shi An’s eyes widened slightly.

He suddenly realized that he actually missed Yan Liang so much.

He wanted to see Yan Liang so badly.

The distance was so close that he could reach out and touch the place.

But he still missed him so much.

He had been thinking about him so much that he was going crazy.

Shi An’s thin, light-colored lips moved slightly, as if to say something.

I miss you so much.

“What did you say?” Shi An’s movements were small, his lips opened only a shallow slit. Yan Liang could not hear what he said so he bent down and asked him, trying to put his voice to the softest and most gentle. The palm lightly ran along on Shi An’s back.

Yan Liang’s movements were so light and careful, as if he was facing a person he cherished and valued.

Shi An’s nostrils could not stop the soreness. He slightly turned his face sideways and let his eyelashes fall down to cover his eyes.

Yan Liang watched as thin vapor slowly blurred in Shi An’s beautiful eyes.

Shi An turned his face slightly, and Yan Liang clearly saw the young man’s red eyes.

His heart was in chaos.1

Yan Liang panicked and fished over the tissues on the nightstand, took a few and squeezed them in his hand, looking at Shi An helplessly.

Shi An didn’t take his tissues, but just tilted his head slightly and blinked his long eyelashes quickly, as if trying to hold back his tears, but the redness at the end of his eyes became more and more conspicuous.

“Give me three seconds,” Shi An whispered, trailing off with an inconspicuous tremor, “Just three seconds.”

Yan Liang’s heart felt like it was being grabbed hard for a moment, and it hurt so much that he could barely breathe.

Soon, Shi An lowered his head, and the tears in his eyes had disappeared.

His eyes were exceptionally bright and always seemed to contain a watery glow at the bottom of them, with a conspicuous red at the end of them, still looking like he had cried a lot.

Yan Liang’s heart could not stop the soft pain.

Fuck everything.

He didn’t want to leave Shi An for a moment now.

He just wanted to stay by Shi An’s side all the time.

That’s right, he just liked Shi An.

Shi An needed him, and he had to be there.

It was an honor, an honor permitted no turning back

“She went to practice Chan Qi, fainted on the way there and was sent here.” Shi An put Jiang Yuan’s hand gently into the quilt, his voice was calm but the tail tone was slightly muffled. “The doctor said she has to be hospitalized, the situation is not optimistic.” As he said, Shi An’s voice began to tremble again as his throat could not stop choking. He didn’t dare speak again. He took a few deep breaths and pursed his lips slightly.

When he heard the doctor say ‘not optimistic’, Shi An thought he would collapse and die suddenly on the spot.

Didn’t even have the chance of ‘not too optimistic’.

In the morning, Jiang Yuan still smiled softly, talking about how she was going to cook something delicious for Shi An after she returned from Chan Qi.

Shi An turned the medical record back and forth many times, clearly did not understand anything, but the heart was still cooled down little by little.

Yan Liang raised his hand and gently rubbed Shi An’s hair.

The two sat in silence in the ward until almost eight o’clock. The sky was already dark, the ward was lightly lit with a bedside lamp, and the room was haloed in a strange dark blue tone.

Shi An had no appetite to eat, but he turned his head to look at Yan Liang’s black and white peach blossom eyes and couldn’t stop his heart from palpitating again.

He felt like he hadn’t spent time with Yan Liang in a long, long time.

He nodded slightly, yet just as he stood up, he was caught off-guard by a spiral of heaven and earth.

“Shi An?!” Yan Liang let out an uncontrollable cry in the ward, he stood up and lifted Shi An into his arms, “How are you?”

Shi An stretched out a hand against his temple, his eyes half closed, his face faintly pale.

Yan Liang gently patted his face and called his name in his ear.

Shi An leaned in Yan Liang’s arms. It took six or seven seconds before his consciousness slowly recovered his clarity. He felt Yan Liang’s concerned eyes burning down on his face, and for a moment, he didn’t really want to get up from Yan Liang.

Sure enough, the feeling of being cared for by Yan Liang was really addictive.

He was embraced by Yan Liang and he didn’t dare to move. He greedily felt the temperature of Yan Liang’s body, and even his breathing was slightly relaxed.

“Where are you uncomfortable? Are you dizzy?” Yan Liang was so shocked that his heart nearly exploded, and he didn’t dare to exert much force on his arm around Shi An. He gently ruffled Shi An’s hair in front of his forehead and touched his forehead.

Touched his forehead.

Yan Liang looked down at the person in his arms carefully, but found Shi An’s watery eyes also looked at him unblinkingly.

Shi An gently shook his head, his voice softened slightly: “Nothing. I’m hungry.”

Yan Liang peeled open a toffee and carefully handed it to Shi An’s mouth. Shi An’s thin lips opened slightly, the tip of his pale tongue stretched out and rolled the candy into his mouth, his cheeks puffed up slightly, like some kind of small animal that was eating.

After that fiendishly hasty kiss, Yan Liang had never dared to look Shi An in the eyes. The teenager’s love was youthful and pious, and he placed Shi An carefully in the cleanest and softest part of his heart, not to be touched, not to be thought of, for fear of soiling the whitest and clearest part of it.

Maybe he had liked Shi An for a long time.

Because he liked him so much that he didn’t know what to do.

So he could only hide it in secret.

Although he might have to continue to hide in the future, Yan Liang no longer wanted to hide from Shi An.

The feeling of being depended on by Shi An was really good.

Jiang Yuan lived in an ordinary double room, and Shi An put a small folding bed for himself in the corner of the room. He went back to the Qingjiu Alley and brought some daily necessities.

The clinical patient was an old woman of similar age to Jiang Yuan.The old woman’s surname was Kang, named Kang Xinci. She had white skin, a slightly fat figure, silver curly hair, and was full of energy, smiling like a cartoon character wearing a sky blue apron. Her voice was gentle and loud, and when she saw Shi An, she always called him “baby”.

Kang Xinci was accompanied by her daughter, a middle-aged woman named Chen Yu, and her appearance was almost the same as that of Grandma Kang. Her eyes and eyebrows were always smiling, she liked to wear T-shirts with anime characters, use silicone phone cases in the shape of SpongeBob SquarePants, wore bright pink nail polish, and her yellowish curls made her look young and cute.

Thanks to this mother-daughter pair, the air in the ward was always bright and cheerful.

Two old people, one was cheerful and talkative, and the other was gentle and elegant, who were also very easy to get along with, had become a pair of sisters in less than a week. Doctors and nurses all liked the two old people very much. They always talked for a long time when they came back for rounds, and they were reluctant to leave when they were finished. From doctors and patients to family members, people were about to forget that this was a hospital with impermanence of life and death.

Once in a while, Shi An still couldn’t help but feel a little panicky.

Especially when looking at the old woman who was smiling warmly and slowly discussing what to eat in the evening one second, and the next second she was tortured by sudden illness and pain, full of cold sweat and delirium.

It was so distressing that the heart stopped beating.

After staying in the hospital for more than a week, Jiang Yuan entered the emergency room again. After coming out, the number of tubes in her body increased again, and there were five or six shining salt water bottles hanging above her head.

Shi An sat at the bedside, his nose could not control the soreness. Jiang Yuan smiled and wanted to raise his hand to touch his hair, but she was afraid that the needle on her arm would slip out, so she had to give up.

“Xiao An has lost weight.” Jiang Yuan’s affectionate gaze fell softly on his face, the corners of her pale mouth were smiling.

Shi An only felt pain in his eye sockets, and turned his back to look at the summer sky that was so blue without a single cloud. The gray birds chirping and resting on the black power lines..

Shi An was glad that Jiang Yuan was admitted to a ward with such a good atmosphere.

Chen Yu read the interesting news she has just discovered. Kang Xinci kept interrupting to make her own comments and Jiang Yuan just curled her eyes and laughed, occasionally glaring at Kang Xinci, expressing her displeasure at her random interruptions.

Yan Liang came to the hospital from time to time to chat with Jiang Yuan. The gags between Xie Fei and Yan Zhao made Kang Xinci and Chen Yu, the two mother and daughter, laugh. Shi An watched quietly and could not help but curl the corners of his mouth with them.

This moment was always so bright that it was hard to tell. There was always a moment when he felt that there might be no separation of life and death in this world

Because everything was good.

Everything would be fine.

Shi An contacted Lu Qingzhi once to tell her that Jiang Yuan had been hospitalized. Lu Qingzhi paid a sum of money back, but there was no reply after that.

Shi An looked at the read receipt and suddenly wanted to laugh a little.

He had long since stopped expecting anything from Lu Qingzhi.

In the middle of July, Kang Xinci’s condition seemed to be deteriorating. She had lost weight and her white arms became bruised because of the injection, but her spirits were still good, always smiling, still full of enthusiasm and joy for everything. Shi An looked at her eyes, which were still bright, and could not stop the pain at the bottom of his heart.

Kang Xinci spent two consecutive nights in the emergency room. But the air in the ward was still bright and relaxed. The summer sun filled the room and everything seemed to be filled with infinite hope and vitality.

This atmosphere made Shi An feel at ease.

One night, more than half a month later, Shi An suddenly woke up in a daze. There were no lights in the room tonight, and he was trapped in the darkness where he couldn’t even see his hands. He couldn’t tell for a moment whether he was awake or still dreaming.

The thick night trapped the person who woke up in the middle of the night, and the quiet depression and silence wrapped around him. Shi An’s breathing became uncontrollably heavy; he got up slightly and stretched out his hand to open the curtains. In the middle of the night, the small town was shining brightly, soaking in the boundless night.

Looking at the warm light, Shi An calmed down a little and raised his hand to wipe the cold sweat on his forehead.

He was a little uneasy, got up quietly, and walked to Jiang Yuan’s bed.

Jiang Yuan was sleeping soundly, with a peaceful demeanor and long, even breathing.

Shi An’s sleep quality was not good, and it was difficult to fall back asleep after waking up. Sitting on the wooden folding bed, his consciousness became clearer in the late night room.

He felt some congestion in his chest for no apparent reason, and could not help but feel a little stuffy. He wanted to walk around but pant heavily, like a little beast with its head under the control of shackles.

Shi An did not dare to make a sound, for fear of disturbing the two elderly rest. Everything was sleeping in the thick and cloudy night. He desperately wanted to see the light, to blow the wind, or just do something to relieve the unwarranted depression and annoyance of waking up in the middle of the night.

It was so quiet here that he couldn’t stop his ears from ringing.

Shi An got up very gently and slowly, and went out of the room with the slowest and smallest movement.

T/N: I was so busy I forgot about Friday’s update. Anyway, it will be double update today. Also, merry Christmas to everyone that celebrates it!

方寸大乱 (idiom) – 方寸 refers to the heart and thoughts. So it’s to describe a bad mood and messy thoughts.