Chi Qiu was barefoot. Ignoring the pain on his body, he persistently touched the wall, trying to find a light switch.
Lu Ming sensed that something was wrong and went forward to stop Chi Qiu’s bewildered behavior: “Chi Qiu!”
Chi Qiu seemed anxious and panicked, helplessly explaining to Lu Ming: “It’s too dark without the light on, I can’t see. I only have one eye that can see. It’s too dark, I can’t see.”
In an instant, Lu Ming guessed the worst possibility.
The Chi Qiu in front of him was getting more and more anxious, and even his voice was tinged with cowardly sobs. He pleaded: “Lu Ming, can you help me turn on the lights?”
From the time they met until now, Lu Ming had never seen such a timid Chi Qiu. He turned Chi Qiu around to face him. As his Adam’s apple moved slightly, he tentatively waved his hand in front of Chi Qiu.
Chi Qiu’s eyes remained motionless.
Lu Ming’s heart was as silent as death as he froze in place. But soon, in Chi Qiu’s trembling, he calmed himself down for the first time.
Lu Ming held Chi Qiu’s shoulder and comforted him: “Sorry, I forgot to tell you that the light is broken.”
Chi Qiu’s eyes reddened in disbelief.
“It’s true! Chi Qiu, the light in this ward is broken. The nurse said it’s just our room, but there are no other single rooms available. Can you bear with it? Someone will be here tomorrow to fix it.”
Chi Qiu’s mind was still muddled, so now was the best time to lie. After he got Lu Ming’s confirmation, there was that little bit of relaxation in his frightened expression, but he still asked dubiously: “Is it…in the middle of the night?”
“Yes.” Lu Ming answered in one sigh. He carried Chi Qiu in his arms and the scared Chi Qiu unconsciously hugged his neck.
After Chi Qiu realized it, he immediately let go of his hand.
In order not to fall, Chi Qiu turned to grab Lu Ming’s jacket, shrinking his shoulders. He was placed firmly on the hospital bed by Lu Ming, and then he heard two sounds of tissue paper being drawn. Lu Ming wiped his feet with a wet towel.
The cold touch rubbed against Chi Qiu’s skin and he didn’t dare to move. Startled, he asked in a low voice, “Why are you here?”
Lu Ming said kindly: “You fell down the stairs, Auntie Su was frightened and called me to bring you to the hospital.”
Chi Qiu closed his mouth. Remembering Lin Yuming’s behavior towards himself, it was hard to describe how he felt. He lowered his eyes and thought he let Lu Ming see the joke. But forget it, his life had been messed up by someone else long ago, so what joke couldn’t be seen by others?
Chi Qiu numbly looked away and said in a weak voice: “Can you use your mobile phone to illuminate the room? It’s too dark, I’m not used to it.” At the end, he added, “Please.”
In response to Chi Qiu’s distancing, Lu Ming consciously withdrew his hand: “Sorry, I came to the hospital too hastily and left my phone in the car.”
“Then can you help me to open the curtains?” The room was extremely dark, and Chi Qiu’s head was still in a state of confusion, exhausted that even thinking was hard.
For a while, he couldn’t actually say what was wrong, so foolishly reconfirmed with Lu Ming, “Is the light really broken?”
“It’s broken.” Lu Ming was lying one after another without a trace. He tucked in Chi Qiu, tidied up his messy hair and replied coherently: “The curtains are drawn, but it seems it’s going to rain, the dark clouds are blocking the moon.”
Chi Qiu effortlessly pushed his hand away and asked incomprehensibly, “Why can you see clearly?”
“My eyesight is better at night.” Lu Ming, afraid of revealing himself, changed the subject, “Are you hungry?”
Chi Qiu shook his head, tugging at the wound, and the pain was so painful that he burst into tears.
Lu Ming used a tissue to gently wipe away Chi Qiu’s teardrops. He looked at Chi Qiu’s dark eyes, clenched his fist and tried his best to smooth out his tone: “Drink some water first, your throat is a little hoarse.”
This time Chi Qiu did not refuse.
Lu Ming lightly touched the straw to his lips. As before, Lu Ming held his hand and let him hold the water glass. Chi Qiu was so thirsty that he didn’t stop until he drank a cup of water.
Lu Ming took his empty glass of water and hesitated again and again. He planned to go to the doctor to ask for clarification: “I have something to do, you can stay here alone for a while.”
“…”
“What’s wrong?”
Chi Qiu asked, “When will Auntie Su come over?”
Lu Ming looked at the time on his watch: “It will probably take a while.”
Chi Qiu did not say anything on the surface, but in his heart, he was nervous. It had been a long time since he faced such a long dark night alone when he was awake, even leaving a small light for him would be good…
He was a little afraid of Lu Ming’s departure, so he pursed his lips and held back his words.
Lu Ming could see his worry and held his hand once more, giving him a piece of mind: “I’m not leaving, I’ll deal with other things later.” The most important thing was to appease Chi Qiu’s uneasy mood.
Chi Qiu frowned awkwardly, seemingly not appreciating it: “Thank you for sending me to the hospital. When Auntie Su comes, you can go back.”
Lu Ming didn’t know if this was an improvement, but because Chi Qiu didn’t let him go now, he deliberately said: “But Auntie Su looked really tired. You have to give her time to rest. Otherwise, it doesn’t seem to be quite in line with labor laws.”
“…”
Chi Qiu, who was in no mood to joke with Lu Ming, frowned, as if thinking about something.
Lu Ming also accepted it as soon as he saw it: “Chi Qiu, take good care of your injury. We won’t talk about anything else these days.” His words had become more and more. He was very good at coaxing people. Almost every word he said was in obedience to Chi Qiu and pleased Chi Qiu.
This kind of feeling made Chi Qiu think he was back to the time when he was fifteen year-old. At that time, Lu Ming was also the same. Facing Chi Qiu who always ignored him, he kept talking about various interesting topics and tried his best to make him smile.
But the twenty-seven year-old Lu Ming was probably unlucky; the adult world did not have too much luck to speak of. The current Chi Qiu was so overwhelmed with grievances that he couldn’t laugh at all, that this kind of coaxing didn’t fool him at all.
Seeing this, Lu Ming kneaded his hands and took the initiative to mention, “I saved a copy of the surveillance video of Lin Yuming hitting you, just in case.”
Sure enough, Chi Qiu’s expression was a little richer, but because of his scarred face, he seemed a little pitiful.
Lu Ming didn’t know if Chi Qiu would blame him for being nosy, because according to what Auntie Su said earlier, with Chi Qiu’s character, he would forgive Lin Yuming and Chi Xia for what they did.
However, no matter what, Lu Ming would respect Chi Qiu’s decision.
As for Lin Yuming, Lu Ming thought it was not too late to settle accounts after the autumn. Chi Qiu didn’t care about the damage he caused Chi Qiu, but Lu Ming couldn’t.
What Lu Ming didn’t expect was that Chi Qiu quickly thanked him again.
“I remember that Chi Xia has the access to manage the surveillance at home. According to her character, I guess this video has been deleted by now. Lu Ming, you’ve really helped me a lot, thank you.”
Chi Qiu’s words didn’t sound like he intended to let Lin Yuming off the hook.
And Lu Ming was thanked several times in a row. He said repeatedly: “Don’t thank me, Chi Qiu, I’m glad I can do these things for you.”
Chi Qiu’s head hurt for a while, so he simply didn’t answer.
Perhaps Chi Qiu was really stressed out and overly tired recently. In a completely dark world, he listened to Lu Ming’s low tone, and without realizing it, he actually felt an inexplicable sense of reassurance.
He was so tired that it didn’t take long for him to fall asleep again. This time Chi Qiu didn’t sleep too deeply; if Lu Ming called him, he could still vaguely answer.
Lu Ming really didn’t expect that the trivial things he and Chi Qiu were talking about were turned into a lullaby. He laughed helplessly and took the opportunity of Chi Qiu’s sleeping to tiptoe out of the ward and go to the doctor.
The door of the ward opened and closed with a soft sound, but Chi Qiu woke up.
Perhaps because he had already slept for a while today so he didn’t sleep so soundly that the slightest movement could wake him up.
At this moment, a nurse pushed in the door: “I’ll give you another infusion.”
Chi Qiu couldn’t even see where the door was, so he followed the sound. But strangely enough, he could not even see the light outside the door. He stared blankly ahead, deeply suspicious of the claim that ‘the light is broken’.
Knowing that Chi Qiu was blind, the nurse asked him softly and patiently, “Feeling better?”
Chi Qiu heard the sound and turned his head in the direction where the nurse was standing, asking a silly question: “May I ask… is the hospital out of power?”
The nurse thought he was joking. While putting the vial on the stand next to the hospital bed, she said: “How can a hospital have a power outage, ah? The lights are on just fine.”
As soon as the words left her mouth, the nurse looked down and saw Chi Qiu’s bewildered expression and tears streaming down his face.
On the other side,
Lu Ming told the doctor about Chi Qiu’s situation one by one.
The doctor looked over Chi Qiu’s case and pondered, “Which of the patient’s family members are you?”
“I am his partner.”
After hearing this, the doctor said reassuringly, “Don’t worry, he was hit on the head and fell down the stairs, it is likely that the impact on the head has resulted in temporary loss of vision.”
Lu Ming caught the word ‘temporary’ and asked quickly, “Does it mean it can be recovered?”
“If it is indeed transient blindness, then it is basically recoverable.”
“How long will it take to recover, please?”
“Not sure, and it’s not necessarily temporary.”
Lu Ming gulped, his throat went dry: “What does that mean?”
The doctor pushed Chi Qiu’s case back to Lu Ming: “Actually, there’s no use talking about this now. You should make an appointment for a checkup as soon as possible. After the checkup’s results come out, we will talk about it.”
Lu Ming frowned deeply and thanked the doctor.
After coming out of the consultation room, Lu Ming sat on a chair in the aisle for a while, wondering how he should tell Chi Qiu about this matter that was full of unknowns.
He wiped his face and went to the bathroom and splashed his face with cold water twice. He tried to clear his mind before walking quickly back to the ward.
In the ward with the lights on, the nurse’s eager voice came.
Chi Qiu just cowered in a corner of the ward, resisting and unwilling to accept the nurse’s concern. He curled himself into a ball, burying his head and hugging his knees, as if he had found a place to lean on in the darkness of the night, hiding himself in despair.
Something in Lu Ming’s heart suddenly broke down and the whole person was drained of strength.
He gritted his teeth and took a few steps forward. When the nurse saw him coming, she said, “I don’t know what happened to him, he suddenly became like this. Sitting there motionless. He wouldn’t listen to any advice, I can’t even inject the needle.” She put away the bottle, “I’ll come over later, you can persuade him first.”
Lu Ming nodded, the soles of his feet were numb as he stepped forward and slowly squatted down on one knee.
“Chi Qiu.” He called him, “It’s me.”
Chi Qiu hugged his knees tightly without raising his head.
The author has something to say:
Gonna reunite tomorrow.
