Walk Into Your Good Night

I remember when I was younger, my teachers and parents would always say: God is fair to everyone. I realised, however, that that isn’t the case. Life often produces clouds with one turn of the hand and rain with another. Some people live lives that follow the tail wind, others have to persistently struggle in order to keep living on.

I only found out about Tang Jing Chuan’s wife’s full name after she was pushed out of the hospital room that night. Previously I had only heard Tang Jing Chuan intimately call her Xiao Yun. It turns out her name was Zhou Xiao Yun.

It was a very ordinary name, so much so that if it were in an employee handbook, it wouldn’t stand out or attract much attention. But when I stood next to the bed and next to Tang Jing Chuan and stared at that name, I thought it was rather special.

It was special to Tang Jing Chuan, so it was special to me.

We silently looked at her, who was lethargic. The doctor said her condition wasn’t very good, and that we should prepare ourselves for the worst.

However long Tang Jing Chuan stood there, I stood there too. Afterwards, he turned around and started walking away. He didn’t stand firm and was about to fall. I helped him up.

We went back to the corridor; the ward’s room was shut tight.

He thanked me yet again.

Because of Tang Jing Chuan, I started to become aware of the flaws in my personality.

Not only did I not know how to feel sorry for others like my dad told me, but I also didn’t know how to comfort people; I didn’t know how to react when people apologised and expressed their thanks to me.

“I’ll try thinking of an idea.” I said.

“Huh?”

“It isn’t good enough here. We can still find better doctors.”

Tang Jing Chuan looked at me for quite a while and then asked me, “Why?”

I didn’t understand him, so I looked back at him confusedly.

He said, “So, what exactly do you want now?”

Even absolute idiots wouldn’t have believed this amount of concern and help was because of friendship between neighbours. These things could’ve only been done out of love.

I didn’t know how to respond; he asked another question, “Have we met each other before?”

I thought for a while about how I should respond so that whatever excuse I pulled out wouldn’t look that stupid. Afterwards, I told him, “My dad also passed away due to cancer. Those days, I didn’t spend enough time caring for him, so when I saw you two, I had a lot of empathy for you guys.”

I knew he probably still harboured some amount of doubt, but he didn’t continue to ask.

The morning came, but Zhou Xiao Yun still hadn’t woken up. Tang Jing Chuan also didn’t become any happier despite my accompanying him.

He said, “No need to trouble yourself anymore.”

He said, “We’ve actually already prepared ourselves for this. It was inevitable anyway.”

I didn’t know if this was real or fake. To humans, is death really something you can tranquilly confront if you just prepare for it?

Back then lots of people liked to analogize lives to being like oil lamps. Death is like the extinguishment of the flame, so they said.

When I sat outside the hospital ward and talked with Tang Jing Chuan, I suddenly felt that a person was like a cup of tea. When humans are born, people know that inevitably this cup of tea will become cold, but if it gets lucky and lives in a greenhouse, then it’ll be able to cool down slower. However, if it unfortunately gets pushed outside and experiences harsh snowy weather, not only will the tea cool down quickly, but even the cup will start to break.

It seemed as if I saw the cup of tea that represented Zhou Xiao Yun slowly cooling down. Tang Jing Chuan made a great effort to try and warm up the cup with his bare hands, while I suddenly rushed over and cupped his already cold hands in my hands.

We tried so hard just to save Zhou Xiao Yun, but “man can conquer nature” was merely a saying that people made up to give their chaotic and puny lives some tiny bit of comfort. Sometimes, humans are powerless and helpless.

Zhou Xiao Yun passed away on the third day she stayed at the hospital. I wasn’t there that day; I was having a meeting with a business partner for much of the day. After the meeting ended I still had to prepare for the business trip that I had the next day.

As soon as I got back to the office after the meeting, my secretary knocked on my door and said, “Mr. Shui, Zhou Xiao Yun passed away.”

At first I thought that no matter what, Zhou Xiao Yun would’ve been able to live through this winter, or at least be able to live through another new year with Tang Jing Chuan.

But none of that happened.

I asked my secretary, “How’s Tang Jing Chuan?”

“He’s still alright. He’s very calm.” My secretary replied.

Calm was a given, but he was definitely not okay.

I cancelled the business trip and let my secretary postpone the work originally planned for the next few days. Then, without even wearing my outerwear, I immediately took my keys and went downstairs. I rushed towards He Kang Hospital.

The me that day was like the Tang Jing Chuan who pleaded for my help a few days before. The difference here though, was that he was nervous about Zhou Xiao Yun, while I was nervous about him.

I felt sorrowful after Zhou Xiao Yun passed. It felt like everything I did was for nothing. That sort of feeling really wasn’t good. It was the second time, after my father passed away, that I felt that money really couldn’t be used to solve everything.

In front of life and illness, money is powerless.

It was snowing heavily again. Not one drop of water could trickle through the traffic.

I was trapped inside my car, feeling really anxious. Breathing started to feel more difficult; my breaths were shallow and fast. I had to open my car windows, letting the cold air enter to help keep me awake.

I held my phone and suddenly realised that I had no idea what Tang Jing Chuan’s number was. Thus, I called Zhou Xiao Yun’s main doctor and asked him, “How’s Tang Jing Chuan?”

I wanted to ask everyone this question, except for Tang Jing Chuan himself.

I impatiently wanted to hurry towards him, yet I was scared to see him.

Amongst the fluttering, thick-falling snowflakes and the congestion of the road, I was being torn apart by those two sets of emotions. I started to produce a mental outline of what I wanted to say for when I was going to meet him. I had to comfort him.