TFS | Chapter 60

In a daze, a cold ring was slowly slipped onto her finger.

She heard the other person’s voice, a little hoarse, as if his throat were full of gravel, circling in her ears again and again. “Ruanruan, could you… wake up a little faster?”

Xu Linruan endured the headache and slowly opened her eyes.

The ceiling above her was white, the space familiar. This was her own room. She froze for a few seconds. Was it another dream?

This was not the first time Xu Linruan had dreamed something like this, but this time felt very different. The dream felt as real as if she had personally experienced it, as if with one reach, she could touch the other person’s cheek.

She raised her hand. The blue ring tightly fitted around her ring finger was dazzling in the light, glowing with a blue sheen. Suddenly, she had a strange feeling that everything that had happened in the dream was real, that someone was waiting for her in another time and space, looking forward to her return.

Xu Linruan rubbed her aching temples again. Then she heard knocking from outside the door. She threw off the blanket and got out of bed, but after only one step, a sudden stab of pain shot through her head, and she fainted.

When she woke again, she was in the hospital. The moment she opened her eyes, she saw family and friends with slightly red-rimmed eyes. Even though their expressions were still sorrowful, they were trying hard to force out comforting smiles for her.

At that moment, Xu Linruan felt as if she understood something.

The occasional stabs of pain in her head had become much more frequent lately, and she suspected there was something wrong with her body.

Under her questioning, her friend finally caved and told her. After the doctor examined her, they found a tumor in her brain. At present, it looked to be malignant. They did not know whether surgery would succeed, so for now she was only being treated with medication.

Her friend sat by the bed and comforted her. “Ruanruan, don’t worry too much. Medical technology is so advanced now, any illness can be treated.”

Half-sitting on the hospital bed, Xu Linruan stared at the ring on her finger in a daze. She suspected that this situation had something to do with her recent dreams. The sensations in those dreams had been getting more and more real. She had a premonition that she might soon leave this world.

The friend sitting beside her saw that she was silent and thought she was sad, so she reached out and patted her shoulder. “Ruanruan, don’t worry too much…”

“I’m not worried.” Xu Linruan got out of bed and walked to the window. Patchy sunlight fell across her pale brows and eyes, making her look especially delicate. She turned back and smiled at her friend. “I just think I’ll probably leave this world very soon, but before that, I still have some things to deal with.”

Hearing that, her friend hurried over, looking a little angry. “What kind of depressing things are you saying? What do you mean, leave this world? Don’t give up so easily.”

Xu Linruan smiled gently, rubbing the ring on her finger with her thumb. “I’m not giving up. It’s just that I promised someone I’d go home with him.”

She held out her finger for her friend to see. “Look, I’m in love.”

Her friend froze for a moment, unable to keep up with her train of thought. “You’re in love? Since when? But what does that have to do with you leaving this world?”

Xu Linruan lowered her head, a little helpless. “It happened half a month ago. Right now he’s waiting for me in another world. If I don’t go back, he might… no, he definitely will do a lot of stupid things. I have to go watch over him…”

Her friend was a little slow to react. Another world waiting for her, what did that mean? Then she thought about it more carefully. An “other world” meant being dead, didn’t it?

Could it be that she wanted to kill herself?

So she became even more anxious. “Xu Linruan, wanting to die for a man, that’s obviously not your personality. I don’t know exactly what you went through, but your boyfriend definitely wouldn’t want you to do something like this either.”

She felt that Xu Linruan had become very strange after waking up. Although she did not know when she had gotten a boyfriend, or when that boyfriend had gone to another world, the matter was already over. The most important thing was for the person still alive to live on.

“Ruanruan, listen to the doctor and take care of your body properly, okay? Once you’re recovered, I’ll take you to find plenty of boyfriends. It’s just a man, what’s there to cling to? Don’t think about going to another world or anything like that right now, or we’ll all worry…”

Her friend advised her earnestly for a long time, talking until her mouth went dry. Xu Linruan, reading the room, handed her a cup of warm water and promised that she would not take her own life. Only then did her friend relax.

Xu Linruan did not rush to explain. She knew her friend was only comforting her out of kindness, and if she had not experienced something like this herself, she would not have believed it either.

A week later, Xu Linruan settled all her affairs and was admitted to the hospital. Her condition worsened rapidly, her moments of lucidity grew shorter and shorter, and most of the time she spent asleep. Even the doctors felt helpless about it.

…………

That day, the sunlight was beautiful. Fine shafts of light filtered through the mottled leaves and fell into the room. The woman lying on the hospital bed was pale and delicate. Her weak, limp finger moved first, then her fingers slowly curled.

Then she slowly opened her eyes.

The room was filled with a faint sandalwood scent, and everything around her was white and hazy.

She turned her head slightly. On the cabinet sat a photo of her and Qi Yue. This was not the hospital. This was the world in the story. She had come back.

Xu Linruan reached toward the cabinet. The photo frame was streaked with tears, and the edges were badly worn. It was obvious someone had often held it in their hands and rubbed it over and over.

There was no one in the room. She tried to sit up, but her body had gone stiff from not moving for so long. It took her quite a while to get down from the bed…

She looked around and found that her boyfriend did not seem to be there, which made her a little strange. Qi Yue rarely was not in the room陪ing her. Most of the time, he sat beside her and talked with her.

Meanwhile, that morning Qi Yue had gone to a temple. He had gone to pray for Ruanruan’s safety. The old monk at the temple of prayers had rolled the prayer beads in his hand, coaxed him into donating quite a lot of incense money, and even said something about life and death being ordinary matters, that a donor could not force such things. If sorrow was greater than a heart dead with grief, he might as well try entering the empty gate…

Qi Yue sneered and turned to leave. Before he left, he even took back all the incense money he had donated. What kind of bullshit master was that? He was clearly just using the name of a master to swindle people.

That臭和尚 was spouting empty talk, just fooling people. How could he possibly set his Ruanruan aside and enter the empty gate? His Ruanruan was still so young. What was there to talk about, life and death…

After returning home, he went into the room as usual to keep her company and talk to her. Only when he pushed open the door did he realize the person on the bed was gone.

Qi Yue panicked. Had his girlfriend been stolen again?

That was his immediate reaction. This kind of thing had to be done by Xu Zhou. He turned to go out, only to hear a sound from behind the bathroom door.

The door opened.

He saw his girlfriend slowly walking out from inside, wearing loose hospital clothes.

Qi Yue froze on the spot.

In that instant, it seemed he could hear nothing at all. In his eyes, only her figure remained. He watched her blink her misty, beautiful eyes and look over in slight confusion, while murmuring softly, “You seem…” even stupider.

Qi Yue could not help rubbing his reddened eyes. He saw the slightly unfamiliar look in his girlfriend’s eyes and thought she had slept for too long and forgotten him, so he slowly walked over and very carefully cupped her face, as if afraid that if he used the slightest bit of force, he would crush her into pieces. “Did you forget me?”

His voice trembled a little, aggrieved to the core. As he spoke, he lightly touched her cheek with his fingers. It was warm. He said softly, “All right, I know. You must’ve slept too long and don’t remember much. But it’s okay, I can tell you. I’m your fiancé, and you’re my fiancée. The two of us are very much in love…”

Xu Linruan could not help smiling at him. She lightly looped her arms around his neck and kissed the corner of his mouth. “What nonsense are you making up again? I just wanted to say, after not seeing you for a few days, how did you get this ugly?”

Ugly?

Qi Yue subconsciously touched his own face. In his girlfriend’s watery eyes, he caught sight of his current appearance. His face was terribly pale, his lips were very light, there were faint shadows under his eyes, and he looked like someone just recovering from a serious illness. He really did look quite bad.

He nervously held her fingers, squeezing them tightly. “I’ll go shower right now and clean myself up. Don’t leave, don’t dislike me, okay?”

Xu Linruan reached out and pinched that face that still retained a bit of good looks. There was hardly any flesh left, and it did not feel comfortable to pinch at all. She could not help softening. She poked his cheek. “I don’t dislike you. Then go shower, and I’ll stand nearby and watch you, okay?”

Qi Yue’s ears turned red. Under his girlfriend’s serious gaze, he could not help nodding. “It’s fine, it’s fine, but not for now. You just woke up, so you can’t do that right now. At the very least, you’ll have to wait until your body is fully recovered before you can…”

He had not eaten properly for the past half year, and he had not exercised either. His once beautiful body no longer even had abs. Would she think he was disgusting when she saw it?

Qi Yue held her fingers with a slight unease. Their eyes met, then he turned away slowly with a red face, his fingertips unconsciously rubbing over the back of her hand, a very common teasing gesture.

Xu Linruan was really done with him. She could not help flicking his forehead. “What are you thinking about? After you finish washing me up, go straight to the hospital for a checkup. Before you’ve fully recovered, don’t even think about climbing onto my bed.”

Did he think she did not know what this guy had been doing while she was unconscious? He had self-destructive tendencies. If she had really never woken up, it was not hard to guess what kind of stupid things he would have done.

Qi Yue let out a very aggrieved “oh” and tightened his arms around her body. After a long while, he said in a low voice, “Then when I’m better, you have to make it up to me. Pay back everything you owed me before.”

When she did not answer, he kept muttering, “You might not remember. You were unconscious for a total of seven months. At the rate of twice a week, you still owe me seventy-eight times. I’m not very good at math, so I’ll let the ones I miscounted go. But you have to promise me, from now on you won’t leave me again, okay?”

Xu Linruan replied, “Okay…”

Her boyfriend broke into a bright smile, the exquisite lines of his brows and eyes tinged with happiness. “Then say you like me, okay?”

So Xu Linruan indulged him. She lifted his face with her fingers and said very gently, “I like you. The kind I like a lot.”

Qi Yue bent down slightly, his hair brushing against her forehead. Their distance was so close that she could almost hear his breathing, and then she heard him say, “I love you too, Ruanruan. I love you so much. Kiss me, okay?”

Xu Linruan looked up and met those eyes just then. His eyelashes trembled lightly, and the faintly expectant look in his gaze carried a trace of awkwardness, as if he were waiting for her to take the initiative and kiss him.

So Xu Linruan kissed him.

She kissed him hard, pinning him against the doorframe, her fingers gently brushing over his lean shoulders. She kissed him until the corners of his eyes turned wet, until he could not say a single word, leaving only the rough, hoarse breaths spilling from his throat.