Jiang Tong took the early flight back to Beijing. The trip was so rushed that he boarded the plane wearing only a single layer of clothing. The moment he stepped out of the airport, he felt as if he had been plunged head-to-cell into ice water. The cold air was coarse and choking; with every breath, even his stomach ached from the chill.
Perhaps the cold was for the best. Once he finally settled into a taxi with the heater blasting, his numb limbs gradually regained sensation through a stinging prickle. Jiang Tong cracked the window open slightly. The gale roared into the car, whistling like a sharp blade scraping against his face, scouring away the muddled drowsiness from the turbulent flight.
The sky was overcast with a dense shroud of leaden clouds. Behind the hazy gray, the sun cast a pale, weak light—a typical winter noon in the north. Abstract glass-curtain walls of modern skyscrapers and Soviet-style buildings left over from the last century crowded both sides of the road. Tall and short alike, the buildings were uniformly coated in a thick layer of dust, looking utterly listless.
Upon arriving at the hospital, he went straight to see Song Yiyi. She was still in the ICU, so Jiang Tong could only observe her through the glass. The woman was emaciated beyond recognition, her body bristling with tubes. Fluids of ambiguous, murky colors were being pumped in and drained out simultaneously, creating a visual cacophony that overwhelmed her presence, making her look even more shriveled and dried up—a walking corpse devoid of vitality.
Fang Dayong whispered beside him, "They gave her a sedative when she was admitted last night, so she hasn't woken up yet. The doctor said if her platelet count stabilizes, she can leave the ICU tomorrow."
As he spoke, his eyes darted elsewhere, still not daring to look Jiang Tong in the face. Jiang Tong had no time to reproach him. With final exams approaching, his responsibilities at school had piled up like a mountain. He had taken a hurried leave of absence and booked a return flight to Singapore for tomorrow night; he wouldn't even have time to see his mother wake up.
During those dozens of hours in Beijing, even time became a blur. He communicated with the attending physician to finalize the next stage of the treatment plan, handled medical insurance formalities, paid the overdue hospital fees, and contacted relatives from their hometown to come and help with nursing. As the family's sole source of income, Fang Dayong had to keep driving his taxi; being able to sit by the bedside for two hours a day was already a luxury. Then there were the supplies Song Yiyi needed—platelets, human albumin, targeted drugs imported from America, and Leukogen injections. These were all items the hospital either lacked or didn't stock, forcing Jiang Tong and Fang Dayong to split up and scour the small pharmacies near the hospital one by one.
He also had to comfort Beibei. When Song Yiyi’s condition flared up in the middle of the night, the girl had been startled awake. Witnessing the terrifying sight of her stepmother foaming at the mouth and convulsing had left her face pale with fright, her large eyes brimming with dread. She clutched Jiang Tong’s sleeve, asking with extreme caution, "Auntie will be okay soon, right?"
Though she was young and naive, she possessed an animal-like intuition. She knew that the person truly at the helm of this family was not her biological father, but this brother who usually lived far away for his studies and had almost no presence in their daily lives.
"If the sky falls, your brother will hold it up," Jiang Tong said, rubbing her head. He truly loved this sister he had gained halfway through life. "You just focus on your studies. Doing well in school is more important than anything."
At three in the morning, Beibei was asleep and Fang Dayong was at the hospital. Jiang Tong sat alone at the table, which was covered with bankbooks and cards of various colors.
Excluding the apartment they were currently living in, the family’s liquid cash plus Jiang Tong’s savings amounted to a respectable sum. With luck, they might be able to weather this flare-up without taking on external debt.
However, Song Yiyi’s illness had struck with such ferocity that once the floodgates of spending were opened, these meager savings would eventually be nothing more than a drop in the bucket.
Having gone two nights without sleep, Jiang Tong felt as if the back of his head was being struck by a hammer in irregular intervals, driving non-existent nails deep into his brain. Even though he had only eaten a few bites after getting off the plane, waves of nausea rose in his throat, and his chest felt as if it were being crushed by a thousand-pound boulder. The printed black numbers on the bankbooks twisted and jumped before his eyes, making them ache so much he nearly wept.
On the way from the airport to the hospital, he had received his first rejection letter.
Jiang Tong had applied to five schools in total: three top-tier private universities and two "safety" public universities. He considered himself a cautious and conservative person, maintaining a completely objective and rational mindset when selecting schools. When Pei Jing had discussed writing the Personal Statement with him, he had tapped the name of the last school on the application list with a ballpoint pen, his eyes full of undisguised disdain and confusion.
"Even for a safety school, this is overkill," he had seemingly told Jiang Tong then. "Aside from offering a lot of scholarship money, it has no resource advantages. For a scholar, choosing this place is equivalent to a slow suicide."
Yet, it was this very public university in the Midwest that had sent the first rejection.
He wasn't even granted the chance for a slow suicide.
Outside the window, the cold wind howled, making the glass rattle. Jiang Tong was not a sentimental or pretentious person, but in the dead of this silent, lonely night, he suddenly felt a rare surge of sorrow.
Why was life so exhausting, so difficult? He had already worked so hard, lived so desperately. Didn't they say that heaven rewards the diligent? Didn't they say that good people live peaceful lives? Why wouldn't the heavens let even a sliver of luck slip through its fingers for him?
The event had already happened; emotions were useless. He opened his phone, intending to tell Pei Jing the bad news so they could discuss the next move tomorrow. The application deadline for the graduate program at his current university hadn't passed yet. No matter how badly things fell through, it would still be easy to secure a Master's position under Professor Gu. The worst-case scenario was simply spending two years washing test tubes, rebuilding his portfolio of papers, and re-applying for a PhD.
He desperately ignored the fatal flaw in this plan, refusing for now to think about how he would raise the tuition for a Master's degree.
The row of red notification dots in WeChat was understandable. Because he had left in such a hurry, he only had time to ask for leave from the professors whose classes he had today. Xiao Fengtai’s avatar was at the top of his contact list. Seeing the staggering number of unread messages, Jiang Tong realized he hadn't contacted him for an entire day.
Both of them were straightforward people. They weren't like typical couples who felt the need to be glued together through modern communication at every moment. Even so, disappearing for a day without a word was a bit much.
Xiao Fengtai’s last attempt to reach him had occurred at one in the morning—a missed voice call.
*“Something came up at home. I’m in Beijing and didn't have time to check my phone. I’ll be back tomorrow. Sorry.”*
His thumb hovered over the send button. He thought about it again and again, then deleted the apology. Steeling himself, he sent the message and immediately exited the chat, refusing to look at the double-digit unread messages Xiao Fengtai had sent during the day.
It was a completely irrational displacement of anger and a baseless suspicion, but he couldn't control himself.
Though her skin was sagging and her lenses were clouded, the contour of Madam Xiao’s eyes was actually very similar to Xiao Fengtai’s. They shared the same narrow double eyelids and an upward flick at the corners—a beautiful curve that would be too seductive if it were any deeper and too plain if it were any shallower. Xiao Fengtai’s avatar was a landscape photo so casual it was overexposed, yet Jiang Tong felt as if he could see the boy himself through the image—see his eyes, red from resentment and feeling wronged. In the past, he would have been unable to resist such a look, but now he suddenly saw clearly that behind Xiao Fengtai’s eyes hid another pair of eyes. Madam Xiao had smiled with absolute certainty; when they parted, she had said calmly and confidently, *“We will see each other again soon.”*
He knew he couldn't think about it anymore. He needed to sleep; tomorrow everything would be better. Jiang Tong tucked the bankbooks and bank cards away one by one, washed up briefly, and lay down on the bed. He fell asleep quickly, but he did not sleep well. His dreams were filled with piercing colors and chaotic images, though the plot was fragmented. When he was startled awake by his alarm, Jiang Tong could remember almost nothing.
He said "almost" because there was one scene that, at the moment he opened his eyes, felt as if it had been seared into his mind like a developing film.
It was the moment he and Xiao Fengtai first met. The magnificent hexagonal study, the blue sea and sky outside the window, and the noble, beautiful boy standing by the pearwood desk, his black eyes filled with a cold, provocative smile. He had reached out toward him, his fingers long and his skin like jade, the check between his fingers fluttering gently in the air like a small white flag.
***
