Book 1 – Death Doctor
Qi Min lay on an inclined platform in a pure white space.
His blurry vision caught the white-clothed figures moving at the edge of his sight and starlight falling from above.
Tap, tap, tap.
Rhythmic footsteps approached, and the curtain was pulled open with a swish.
The footsteps stopped very close to him.
After several seconds or perhaps dozens of seconds of silent observation, the person extended their hand and spoke in a steady, powerful voice: “How much fingers?”
The previous illusory scene burst like a bubble in sunlight, evaporating and disappearing without a trace.
Qi Min rolled his eyes, first noticing the IV line hanging from the bedside, one end connected to the back of his hand, the other end attached to the IV bag on the stand.
The colorless liquid was down to about a quarter full.
A small table was raised at the foot of the bed, his left leg, wrapped in bandages and a splint, was positioned at an angle, with a suspension strap binding his calf, attached to a circular handle hanging from the ceiling.
A light blue bedside table stood on the left side of the bed.
More of his view was obscured by the person standing at the bedside and the half-drawn curtain of the same color. Through the gap, he could see another single bed of the same specification on the other side.
The bed was empty, with the table folded against the bed’s footboard.
The ceiling and walls were painted white, and the air was faintly permeated with the smell of disinfectant, which seemed to disappear when he tried to focus on it.
Qi Min looked at the other person’s fingers expressionlessly: “Two.”
“Hmm, do you remember what date it is today?”
The ballpoint pen scratched against paper.
Apart from that, the room was completely silent.
2022?… No…
“April 7, 2002?”
On April 5th, 2002, during the Qingming Festival1Tomb-Sweeping Day, also known as Qingming Festival (清明节), is a traditional Chinese holiday dedicated to honoring ancestors and paying respects to deceased loved ones. It typically falls around April 4th or 5th each year, during the beginning of spring. with two consecutive days off, Qi Min and his best friend Hao Peng went to play in the Five Mountains of the Eastern City. On their way down, they were hit by a speeding motorcycle.
The hit-and-run driver fled without looking back.
Qi Min’s left leg was broken, but he remained conscious. He was then taken to the Eastern City Hospital’s emergency room by Hao Peng and a kind passerby.
The doctor in front of him now was the one who had treated him at the time, seemingly named Wei Wenhua.
Qi Min remembered lying on the gurney, sweating from pain, with this doctor running alongside in the corridor, calmly injecting a painkiller into his arm.
His pale, slender wrist didn’t tremble at all.
Qi Min felt like he’d been bitten by a mosquito, and the pain from his leg and body abrasions immediately subsided, making him fall asleep on the spot.
Wei Wenhua neither nodded nor shook his head. After writing, he clipped the ballpoint pen onto the writing board and placed it at the foot of the bed.
Then he pulled out a small flashlight from the pocket of his white coat.
Leaning down, he pulled open Qi Min’s left eyelid and shone the light for a moment, then moved to the right eye, asking while examining: “Besides your lower leg, are you experiencing any headaches, dizziness, or nausea?”
Though Wei Wenhua looked delicate and pale, he was quite tall. His hand almost entirely covered Qi Min’s head when he reached out.
Qi Min endured the discomfort from this height-induced pressure, remaining still and allowing the examination, responding: “No.”
Wei Wenhua put away the flashlight and writing board, wrote something else in his notebook, then tucked the notebook under his arm and briskly walked out of the hospital room.
Shortly after, a round-faced nurse entered.
Glancing at the 5% glucose IV bag, she approached Qi Min’s bedside and stood still.
Unexpectedly, the IV needle was pulled out of the back of Qi Min’s hand.
A few extra drops of glucose dripped from the tube onto his wrist. The dark red blood droplet was immediately pressed back by the nurse’s cotton swab.
She taped two strips of adhesive over the cotton, instructing Qi Min to press firmly, then left the room.
A few minutes later, she pushed a wheelchair in from outside the room.
Carefully avoiding his right leg, the nurse transferred Qi Min from the hospital bed to the wheelchair.
Next, she pushed Qi Min down in the elevator to the radiology department for a brain CT scan, then wheeled him back to the hospital room.
Before leaving, she placed a bedpan beside Qi Min’s bed and softly advised him to use it if he needed the bathroom, warning him not to move his leg.
They had already notified Qi Min’s parents, who would arrive that afternoon.
After the nurse left, the room fell silent.
Only then did he belatedly realize the coldness around his lower body.
Qi Min lifted the bottom of his hospital gown to look, then surveyed the room, searching for items around him.
At that moment, the hospital room door went “ka-cha” and opened. An 180-cm tall, chubby black-skinned teenager walked in.
He was carrying a bag of fruit in his left hand, a boxed meal in his right, and his back was loaded with two bulging backpacks.
Though still a teenager, his face looked somewhat mature, with a circle of facial hair around his mouth.
He was frowning, looking distinctly unhappy.
Seeing Qi Min sitting up, he became very excited.
“Eat!”
He placed the fruit on the bedside table, handed a boxed meal to Qi Min, and opened another for himself.
Hao Peng plopped down on the bed’s edge, loudly cursing the hit-and-run driver’s son of a bitch, while simultaneously eating his meal.
Qi Min wasn’t originally hungry, but seeing the appetizing food, he symbolically choked down a couple of bites.
His gaze wandered over the blood stains on Hao Peng’s jacket front before finally settling on the two backpacks behind him.
Following Qi Min’s gaze, Hao Peng looked over and detached a black backpack, tossing it to him.
“Here, your backpack. Everything’s inside. Though the pants were cut during surgery, so you’ll need your parents to bring another pair when you’re discharged.”
He then looked at Qi Min strangely: “Why are you so quiet today… Oh no! You didn’t crack your head when you fell, did you get a brain injury!?”
He leaned forward to examine Qi Min’s head.
Qi Min: “…”
Uncomfortable with such close proximity, Qi Min turned his head back, trying to create some distance.
“…I’m fine. The surgical anesthetic hasn’t worn off, so I’m a bit weak.”
Glancing at the clock on the left wall, Qi Min continued: “Weren’t you supposed to return to school this afternoon? How come you’re still here? Can you make it back by two?”
From Eastern City to Linjiang City’s Fifth Middle School would take at least an hour, and it was already past noon.
Seeing no other injuries on Qi Min’s head except for the scrapes on his right cheek and mouth, Hao Peng sighed in relief.
Sitting back on the bed’s edge, he wolfed down the remaining food, wiping his mouth with lingering satisfaction: “How could I leave you like this! Don’t worry, I’ve already asked the class teacher for leave. I don’t need to go back this afternoon.”
“No need… I’m not seriously injured…”
Qi Min watched as Hao Peng wiped his greasy hand on the bed cover, momentarily stunned.
He then saw the chubby boy looking around before fixing his gaze on the half-eaten boxed meal in Qi Min’s hand.
Silently, Qi Min handed the meal to the salivating Hao Peng, pointing at his suspended left foot: “As you can see, I’ve got a broken leg. After surgery, I just need to avoid moving, but it won’t heal quickly…”
“You can’t stay in the hospital forever… My parents will be here soon. They’ll take care of me. You should go back to class.”
Hao Peng gulped down the food without chewing, smacking his lips.
Before he could reach out, Qi Min quickly grabbed a tissue from the bedside and handed it to him.
Hao Peng paused, taking the tissue and casually wiping his hands.
With a basketball shot motion, he tossed the tissue into a nearby trash bin, picking his nose: “Alright then. You better come back soon… Midterms are coming up. Last semester, Sun Xiaoxiao scored two points higher than you, looking so smug! We’re counting on you to restore our Class Seven’s science god’s reputation!”
He lingered reluctantly before leaving.
Watching Hao Peng’s behavior, Qi Min strongly suspected his good friend was just looking for an excuse to skip school.
Finally alone, the hospital room grew quiet again.
Qi Min opened the backpack.
Inside were a water bottle, some empty snack wrappers, a thin cotton jacket, a sweater, and a pair of casual pants cut in half, stained with blood.
Searching the jacket and pants pockets, he found a set of keys, a wallet, and a flip Motorola mobile phone.
The phone’s corners were slightly damaged.
Opening the cover, Qi Min clumsily explored the keyboard.
The green screen lit up, the battery nearly depleted.
There was one call made in the early morning, marked “Mom”.
After checking the contacts and messages, Qi Min tried to access the web.
The hospital’s internet was poor, and the loading bar remained stuck.
Frustrated, Qi Min closed the phone and tossed it back into the backpack.
He placed the backpack on the bedside table and began to rest.
Having been hit by a car and undergone surgery, Qi Min was exhausted. He fell asleep half-sitting, eyes closed.
In his dream, he returned to that strange space once more.
He lay half-sitting, half-reclining as before, with people walking around him, their conversations faintly audible.
But the sounds were distant, drifting to his ears like scattered wind.
Flickering light points surrounded him, as if he were lying in an ocean of stars.
He awoke next, driven by an urgent need to urinate.
Qi Min laboriously extended his left hand to retrieve the bedpan.
Hao Peng had left without drawing the curtain. The door was closed, but it had a glass window through which people occasionally passed.
Frowning slightly, Qi Min tilted his body toward the window, lifted the bottom of his hospital gown, and urinated into the container.
Absentmindedly glancing outside, he saw Doctor Wei standing on the hospital’s connecting bridge, blowing on a thermal cup.
Their eyes met in silence.
Qi Min: “…”
What was worse was that Wei Wenhua actually nodded at him.
Qi Min paused, then silently turned back to the right.
Feeling something was off, he wanted to turn back but forcibly restrained himself.
Quickly finishing, he pulled down his hospital gown and placed the bedpan on the floor.
Adjusting the neatly folded blanket behind him, Qi Min draped it over himself and lay motionless on his side.
Wei Wenhua raised an eyebrow at the white buttocks facing away from the window.
Only after the blanket was pulled up did he look away.
Gazing at the bustling people below, he slowly sipped his hot tea.
It wasn’t until sunset that Qi Min’s mother, Miao Lejun, arrived at the hospital.
She glanced at Qi Min, confirmed he was fine, and then left. When she returned, she brought a male caregiver in his fifties.
After instructing the caregiver and taking a few phone calls, Miao Lejun didn’t exchange a single word with Qi Min before leaving.
Apart from appearing on the first day, Qi Min’s parents were never seen again during his hospital stay.
Meals were brought by the caregiver, bodily needs were handled in the bedpan, which was cleaned before the caregiver’s shift ended.
Except for the awkwardness of defecation, Qi Min was quite adapted to these days without familial care.
“How are you? Is your left leg still painful?”
Oh, if only Doctor Wei would stop appearing in his hospital room.
Perhaps because Qi Min was his only adolescent patient recently, driven by a sense of protecting the “flowers of the motherland,” Wei Wenhua frequently visited to inquire about his condition.
Upon discovering Qi Min was always alone, this concern quickly evolved into attentive care.
He would come to greet him in the morning when starting work and check in during the evening when finishing his shift.
The Author has something to say:
Qi Min: (Just left the beginner’s village) (Hit by a car and sent flying) (Half-paralyzed and hospitalized)
Shang Jingshui: Fully armed, but got instantly killed upon stepping outside.
Qi Min: “…”
