ATAFBS Chapter 6

After trimming the branches, Zhou Huiyue picked out the appropriate tools to use from the toolbox and started to repair the window screen.

Yu Juan had never done these types of tasks before, but it seemed that Zhou Huiyue was quite skilled in them. After thinking about it some more, even if Zhou Huiyue couldn’t stand, it shouldn’t be too difficult to complete them by using suitable tools.

In this hot weather, Zhou Huiyue was dressed in a long-sleeved shirt that could be worn in both spring and summer. It was quite loose, with the sleeves sliding down whenever he would make large movements. The muscle lines of his arms were slender and smooth, so there was no issue with his ability to complete the task.

When Zhou Huiyue raised his arm, Yu Juan could see a deep scar on the other’s abdomen. The scab should have likely fallen off not too long ago, replaced by pale pink, new skin that still looked uneven. The length was unknown as it extended to an area covered by the shirt.

Yu Juan was stunned.

More than a month had already passed since the car accident.

After having confirmed their familial relationship, Zhou Heng was unhappy when Zhou Huiyue rejected his proposal to merge their companies. Zhou Huiyue wasn’t on good terms with the Zhou family, nor was he interested in their property. Most of his time was spent working, and he didn’t develop his social connections either. The antagonists would use this as proof that everyone betrayed him because he was too arrogant.

Yu Juan wouldn’t analyse the character of the protagonist of an online novel he was reading like he would in a reading comprehension paper. Now that he thought about it, even though Zhou Huiyue might seem indifferent, he actually had a violent side hidden. It would explain his obsession with revenge.

During the short while he was absent-minded, Zhou Huiyue had already repaired the window screen.

So fast.

Yu Juan suddenly felt doubtful. Zhou Huiyue didn’t seem as weak as he thought.

He cast a puzzled look at Zhou Huiyue. The other party turned the wheelchair around after closing the window.

Yu Juan then saw Zhou Huiyue’s face.

Pale face, legs hung in an abnormal posture, and thin arms. Zhou Huiyue’s left hand was bulging with blue veins as he held onto the armrest of the wheelchair tightly, seemingly enduring some pain.

In a rare moment of guilt, Yu Juan squatted down until he was shorter than Zhou Huiyue and asked sullenly, “What’s wrong with you?”

Zhou Huiyue’s gaze shifted from the completely silent sky outside the window to Yu Juan and his hair whorl. “It’s time to take medicine.”

Yu Juan’s heartbeat slowed down.

The sick and weak person in front of him was Zhou Huiyue, the protagonist who was trapped here after falling from grace.

He would make a comeback, but nobody could predict their future so certainly.

*

After that day, there were no more bugs in the room– or, at least, Yu Juan didn’t see any despite having paid close attention to the window.

This much was enough. Yu Juan didn’t want all the bugs in the world to just go extinct.

After barely managing to solve this existential problem, Yu Juan started to ponder on how to make Zhou Huiyue fully recover.

At present, the first thing he should do was to find a reliable doctor since it seemed that the Zhou family had no intention to arrange one for Zhou Huiyue’s diagnosis and rehabilitation.

It was a bit difficult.

To begin with, this manor was located in the middle of nowhere, which meant that it would be quite troublesome to find a doctor to come. Moreover, on the first day, Yu Juan had noticed surveillance cameras at the gate. It should likely be that Su Li was afraid of unexpected issues arising and couldn’t be completely at ease.

The difficulty was too high, so he could only work on it slowly.

The second thing concerned the wheelchair.

Zhou Huiyue’s wheelchair might be new, but it could only be used as an ordinary mobility aid. Since it couldn’t go downstairs, Zhou Huiyue was unable to go elsewhere and was essentially trapped on the second floor.

Having experienced the nightmarish feeling of being trapped in a room, Yu Juan believed that a patient’s state of mind could greatly influence their health. As such, he was thinking of buying a new wheelchair for Zhou Huiyue.

He searched online for a long time, viewing all of the suggestions, before finally deciding on a model that could conveniently adapt to various terrains as well as go up and down the stairs easily. It was just that the price was quite high.

In the end, he paid very reluctantly.

There was no express delivery to this place, so Yu Juan set the delivery address to the nearby town’s post office. He still had to find a way to bring it here.

After placing the order, Yu Juan glanced at the remaining balance on his account a second time.

It was so heartbreaking that he didn’t want to look at it anymore.

He had never been this poor in his life.

Yu Juan put away his phone and plopped down on the bed. When he heard noises coming from the kitchen not far away, he knew that Zhou Huiyue should be having his meal.

He recalled the novel’s plot again– Su Li’s hatred for the protagonist was entirely because she thought that Zhou Huiyue was going to compete for the inheritance of the Zhou family, but she didn’t have the guts to act directly; so, when she heard of the “unexpected” car accident, she was overjoyed.

However, how could she be so certain that Zhou Huiyue would remain disabled? Is it something the doctor had said, or had the medicine somehow been tampered with?

Not every single detail could possibly be written since it was, after all, a novel.

Yu Juan had this suspicion the last time he saw Zhou Huiyue take his medicine, but he had no way to confirm it.

Since Zhou Huiyue wasn’t currently in his room, it was just right to take advantage of this moment to check.

Once Yu Juan had this idea, he got up and walked quietly barefoot through the corridor.

When he passed by the kitchen, Zhou Huiyue was seated on his wheelchair with his back facing the front.

What Yu Juan didn’t know was that Zhou Huiyue wasn’t as clueless as he thought– the latter had turned his head at the last second, quietly watching him walk barefoot until his back disappeared from the door.

A few minutes later, Yu Juan opened the door to Zhou Huiyue’s room as lightly as he possibly could.

He had no interest in snooping around and intruding on other people’s privacy, so he walked straight to the bedside table. All the medication was stored in a large box, so Yu Juan opened the lid and took out the outermost bottle before using his phone to take a picture of the label. After thinking about it, he poured out the pills and snapped another picture.

One reason was to check on the effectiveness of the medicine, and another was to prevent the pills from being swapped and replaced.

Only when he was almost done and felt that he could rejoice soon did Yu Juan finally breathe a sigh of relief.

Then, he heard Zhou Huiyue’s voice coming from behind him at the door.

“Yu Juan.”

Yu Juan froze, and the pill bottle almost slipped out of his grasp as his hand shook. He quietly turned off the camera that had been opened on his phone before inclining his head back.

The wheelchair stopped at the threshold of the door, partly inside the room and partly still outside. Zhou Huiyue then asked, “What are you doing?”

His tone was calm, neither angry nor suspecting, and a bit robotic. It was as if he was only asking for the sake of it.

Yu Juan’s face instantly flushed red. This was the first time he ever did such a thing, and he was even caught red-handed.

Other people would definitely have a guilty conscience, but Yu Juan did not.

So he forced himself to ignore his frantic heart, swiftly found an excuse, then pretended to be calm and composed as he said, “I came here to check if you’re taking your medicine.”

Zhou Huiyue didn’t say a word, his pitch-black eyes gradually becoming icy. Nobody could possibly figure out what was currently on his mind and heart.

However, Yu Juan didn’t care too much. In a bold and justified tone, he said, “I naturally have to make sure whether you’ll be able to recover or not.”

A short while later, just when Yu Juan thought that Zhou Huiyue wouldn’t accept such a poor excuse, the latter asked, “Do your standards include the ability to stand up?”

Yu Juan was stunned and subconsciously looked at Zhou Huiyue.

With broad shoulders and a straight back, Zhou Huiyue should obviously have a tall figure– yet, at present, like he was trapped inside a narrow cage, he was forced to curl up in a wheelchair without being able to stand.

Although Yu Juan didn’t really care about Zhou Huiyue’s mental state, he also didn’t have the intention of purposefully poking at a disabled person’s wound.

To survive was the most important thing, Yu Juan thought. Besides, fifteen years later, he personally witnessed Zhou Huiyue being able to stand.

Yu Juan lowered his head before shaking it– he rarely acted like this. He then unhurriedly said in a quiet voice, “What I can’t accept is my fiancé being bedridden and having a shorter lifespan than mine.”

Zhou Huiyue, who seemed to believe it, moved his wheelchair until he was next to Yu Juan before asking in an indifferent tone, “Yu Juan, just how many requirements do you have?”

Yu Juan had actually not thought about it yet.

He propped his left cheek with his palm, his wrist seeming quite thin, while his lower jaw was slightly raised in his usual unyielding arrogant demeanor.

Thick eyelashes covered up half of his emerald green eyes, the shadows looking like the reflections swaying on the surface of a lake– that kind of pure beauty. Yu Juan said, “A hundred of them, I suppose.”

Zhou Huiyue looked really handsome as he chuckled, then he said jokingly, “Fiancé, you sure have a lot of requirements.”

Yu Juan bit his lower lip, feeling a bit shy.

When he woke up in this world again, and, knowing his identity was that of a cannon fodder in the novel, he had no particular feelings towards this engagement. They didn’t have an ambiguous relationship in the original plot either. Besides, with what Zhou Huiyue had said to him before his death, Yu Juan only regarded him as an enemy.

“Fiancé”, this word, has been said way too many times already.

However, there were some things that, even if they were said a hundred times or a thousand times, would never be true.

With this thought in mind, Yu Juan raised his head again.

“I hope–” he paused for a moment, then changed his words, “I demand that you recover completely.”

It was the most unreasonable demand in the whole world.

Zhou Huiyue answered, “Okay.”

Yu Juan thought that summer was too hot.

Since he gave such an excuse earlier, Yu Juan remained where he was and intended to accompany Zhou Huiyue as the latter took his medicine.

Zhou Huiyue opened the box and took out one tablet after the other, his memory obviously good since he could remember every dosage perfectly.

Pills of various colors piled up on the corner of the desk, and there were English letters engraved on them that Yu Juan couldn’t recognise. Glittering in the sun, they even resembled scattered candies.

Yu Juan naturally knew they weren’t. Before his death, he had taken way too many of these sorts of medicine.

He hated taking medicine.

Zhou Huiyue asked, “Don’t you hate it?”

Yu Juan was frightened as he snapped out of his reverie, his eyes widening, “What?”

Zhou Huiyue stared at him seriously, and in a way that was almost scrutinising, “The cry of cicadas.”

He originally wanted to find out what Yu Juan’s purpose was for coming here.

For what reason had he chosen to stay in this place, to change their previous fate, as well as to do all these things that he really couldn’t understand at all.

As long as someone had a motive, they would definitely reveal it– there was no one who could continue to hide their true colors and intentions for too long.

And so, he looked at Yu Juan.

The branches of the tree extended inside through the half-broken window glass, the dark green and dense foliage a contrast to Yu Juan’s pale skin. His red lips were very much like the cherries hidden among the leaves, seeming like they could drop with just one touch.

It was like something that shouldn’t have been here– something that was incompatible with such a remote place like this.

Zhou Huiyue didn’t like things that were too fragile.

If he had to be around them, he would have to be extremely careful. Otherwise, he might just accidentally break them.

Yu Juan froze for a few seconds, seemingly unable to understand why Zhou Huiyue had asked such a question. Nonetheless, he still honestly answered, “I don’t hate the cries of cicadas. It’s fine as long as I don’t see them.”

He then blinked sluggishly, asking, “You’ve taken so many pills, aren’t they really bitter?”