E ⋆ Chapter 18

Much later, under Yang Ke’s deliberate neglect, the details of the years he and Yu Zhinian spent in harmony had become very blurred in his mind. Like covering a scar, Yang Ke draped those years in thick gauze, sealed them with tape, and when he recalled them, he could at most catch glimpses of fragments that were both sparse and fleeting through cracks that barely existed.

However, Yang Ke’s winter at eighteen was somewhat special, and could not be counted as a scar. Even when he most resented Yu Zhinian, Yang Ke found it difficult to mark it with the stamp of shame.

In the last month of that year, Yang Zhongyun fell ill.

This grave illness came suddenly. The week before, he had still been in the capital attending meetings, playing golf with prominent figures. The very next week, a routine physical examination revealed a mid-stage malignant tumor. After expert consultation, he needed to undergo a major, debilitating surgery immediately.

When Yang Ke learned the news, he was in chemistry lab class. After the teacher finished explaining the experimental procedure, the laboratory door was knocked open. The vice principal and Secretary Xu stood outside together, their expressions grave.

After getting in the car, Secretary Xu, from the front passenger seat, informed Yang Ke and Yu Zhinian of Yang Zhongyun’s condition.

“Zhinian, Chairman Yang specifically instructed before going into the operating room that he wanted you to accompany him,” Secretary Xu said quietly. “So I’ve arranged a leave of absence for you at school for a period of time.”

Yu Zhinian’s brow furrowed slightly. He obediently said okay, then asked Secretary Xu with concern: “Is the success rate of the surgery high?”

Yang Ke glanced at him and saw paint still on his hands, probably from a painting class that had been interrupted midway. He hadn’t had time to wash it off, or had simply forgotten.

Yang Zhongyun had the surgery at a private hospital in which the conglomerate had invested. The top floor had a reserved operating room and suite for him.

They took the private elevator up. The operating room door was tightly shut. Yang Zhongyun’s other two secretaries and group executives were gathered outside the door, all wearing expressions of tremendous concern.

Seeing Yang Ke and Yu Zhinian approach, they all crowded around to offer comfort.

Yang Ke said nothing. In his view, of the dozens of people present, only Yu Zhinian, and perhaps Yang Ke himself, truly hoped that nothing would happen to Yang Zhongyun.

The surgery lasted nearly six hours. At first everyone stood, but as time dragged on, they all sat down.

Yu Zhinian sat beside Yang Ke, anxiously wringing his hands. Yang Ke patted his back reassuringly. Yu Zhinian looked at Yang Ke somewhat weakly.

At just past ten in the evening, the operating room door finally opened. The doctor informed everyone that the surgery was very successful, but because Yang Zhongyun was advanced in age, the actual outcome would still need to be observed.

The people gathered around the operating room waited a while longer, then gradually dispersed.

Secretary Xu saw off the last executive and said to Yang Ke: “Young Master, let the driver take you home first. Zhinian will probably need to stay here.”

It was already midnight when they left the hospital. On the road from the hospital to home, there were hardly any vehicles.

Yang Ke looked out the window. Beneath the broad elevated highway, as far as the eye could see, there were only bare black tree shadows and the halos of streetlights. He suddenly recalled the day the hospital had been completed, about four years ago, when Yang Zhongyun had taken him to the opening ceremony.

There had been only the two of them in the rest room. Yang Zhongyun had said to him: “Yang Ke, those people out there all hope I’ll move in here soon. What about you? Do you hope I’ll leave soon?”

At that time, Yu Zhinian had not yet arrived.

Yang Ke had said: “I don’t hope so.”

Yang Zhongyun had smiled slightly, looking as though he didn’t quite believe it. But Yang Ke had not been lying.

At the front door, the driver opened the car door for Yang Ke. Yang Ke got out, and cold wind kept blowing at him. Most of the trees in the courtyard were evergreens, though they had no vitality either, illuminated by ground lights and landscape lights, drooping listlessly together.

Warm air from the open door enveloped Yang Ke, wrapping him gently and drawing him into this house that didn’t feel like home.

He passed through the corridor, climbed the stairs alone, and as he walked toward his room, a very strange thought suddenly occurred to him. He thought that if he left from here now, there was no one who could stop him.

He could go find his father, stay in Xinshi, and live a life completely different from before.

At this thought, his pace slowed.

Standing beside a large oil painting Yang Zhongyun had recently acquired, lost in a daze, Yang Ke’s phone suddenly vibrated once.

He received a message from Yu Zhinian. Yu Zhinian asked if he had made it home. Yang Ke said he had. Yu Zhinian sent him a photo, saying it was a small partitioned room Secretary Xu had arranged for him to sleep in while providing care. In the photo was a small bed just over a meter wide, not far from Yang Zhongyun’s hospital bed.

Yang Ke frowned and asked him: “Isn’t there a caregiver?”

“There is,” Yu Zhinian told him, “but they want me to stay as close as possible.”

Yang Ke had just finished reading when Yu Zhinian suddenly called him. Yang Ke answered.

“Grandpa needs to be observed and hasn’t come to this ward yet. The caregiver isn’t here either,” Yu Zhinian said helplessly. “I’m alone, and I’m a bit scared.” Then he asked: “You’ll come tomorrow, right?”

Yang Ke felt that sometimes time could stand still, and the sensation of a moment could stretch out endlessly. Within a few seconds or more than a dozen seconds, standing in a silent, dim corridor, Yang Ke looked up at the river in the oil painting, and many images floated through his mind.

Images of the freedom he had imagined, all the scenarios without Yang Zhongyun’s interference, the cheaper but genuine happiness he might be able to obtain, completely unrelated to his present life.

And Yu Zhinian, waiting alone in the hospital, preparing to care for Yang Zhongyun, breathed faintly and distantly through the receiver, like a barely visible key connecting Yang Ke to this moment.

“Yang Ke,” Yu Zhinian asked softly, “will you come?”

At eighteen, Yang Ke finally told Yu Zhinian that he would come.

The next afternoon, when Yang Ke arrived at the hospital, Yang Zhongyun had already been moved out of the observation ward. Following the doctor’s instructions, the secretaries had turned away the other visitors at the door.

Yang Ke walked in. Yu Zhinian was sitting by the hospital bed. Yang Zhongyun was wearing an oxygen mask, sleeping fitfully and weakly.

His hands rested on the blanket, the backs of his hands full of wrinkles, his right hand connected to an IV drip. Two caregivers were watching from nearby.

Yu Zhinian looked like he hadn’t slept well, with dark circles under his eyes. He said to Yang Ke: “You’re here.”

Yang Ke hummed in response. At that moment, he thought that leaving didn’t need to be rushed. The freedom he wanted would come in time.

Yang Zhongyun stayed in the hospital for a month, and Yu Zhinian accompanied him for a month. Yang Zhongyun recovered fairly well after the surgery, but Yu Zhinian had lost quite a bit of weight and didn’t seem in good spirits.

When Yang Ke was at school, sometimes girls would come and talk to him, asking somewhat shyly where Yu Zhinian had gone. In the evenings when Yang Ke went to the hospital to visit, he would mention it to Yu Zhinian, and Yu Zhinian would pretend not to understand and brush it off.

At the end of January, the coldest month, Ning City was swept by bitter wind.

Yang Ke had eaten dinner at home and arrived at the hospital at eight o’clock. Grandpa was asleep. When Yu Zhinian saw him, he stood up from the care chair, and the financial newspaper he had been holding in his lap, ready to read aloud to Yang Zhongyun, nearly fell.

“Clumsy,” Yang Ke said to him quietly.

For some reason, Yu Zhinian looked away. He set the newspaper on the chair, moved closer to Yang Ke, and asked in a somewhat tired voice: “Can you come take a walk with me?”

Yang Ke accompanied him out of the ward and up to the glass room on the rooftop, where they sat for a while.

The night sky that evening was pitch black. The glass room had a few small lights on. They sat on the sofa and chatted about recent school matters. Then Yu Zhinian suddenly fell silent, and his head swayed and drooped against Yang Ke’s shoulder.

Yang Ke lowered his head slightly and saw that Yu Zhinian’s eyes were closed, his brow slightly furrowed, his eyelashes resting on his cheeks.

His face was narrow, his skin fair, his breathing even and long. It seemed no different from when he had first arrived at Yang Ke’s house, yet also seemed to have changed greatly. Yang Ke thought that they had spent so much time together that he had long since forgotten what Yu Zhinian had been like at the very beginning.

Yang Ke let him lean on him like this. After about half an hour, Yu Zhinian suddenly woke up.

He straightened his body at once, turned to look at Yang Ke, his expression blank, staring at him. After a moment, he said: “Did I sleep for a long time?”

“Not really,” Yang Ke told him, his shoulder somewhat stiff.

Yu Zhinian relaxed a little and said to Yang Ke: “I’m so tired.”

“I had a dream,” he said. “Yang Ke.”

His eyes still seemed a bit dazed, as if looking at something far beyond the glass room. He said: “I dreamed that I moved out with you.”

“We lived in a house that wasn’t so big,” he told Yang Ke. “I wanted to get a dog, and you said no, said I was just like a dog.”

Yang Ke was amused by his dream.

Yu Zhinian looked at Yang Ke, seeming embarrassed, and turned his gaze away. His ears had turned a bit red. After hesitating for a few seconds, he spoke again, as if trying to convince himself: “But I’m sure I still have to stay with Grandpa, to take care of him. Grandpa has shown me great kindness.”

Yang Ke didn’t answer.

At that moment, the door to the glass room was suddenly pushed open. A nurse stood outside and, seeing Yu Zhinian, let out a sigh of relief: “You’re here, Zhinian. Chairman Yang woke up and is looking for you.”

Yu Zhinian immediately stood up, saying “sorry,” and hurried toward her.

Yang Ke went with them back to the ward, Yu Zhinian and the nurse walking ahead.

Yu Zhinian was wearing a dark, soft hoodie, and his back looked very thin.

As they were about to enter Yang Zhongyun’s ward that day, Yang Ke was thinking that much later, when Yu Zhinian was no longer bound by Yang Zhongyun either, if he wanted to move into his house, it wouldn’t be impossible.

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