MY - 31

All the way, Lu Nandu didn’t leave her shoulder, and the hand holding hers never loosened.

The man’s fingers were distinctly jointed, his palm broad. Jiang Xi was not at all unfamiliar with the bony feel of his hand.

When the car arrived at the hospital, Jiang Xi woke him up: “We’re here, get out.”

As long as Jiang Xi didn’t leave, he remained obedient, dutifully preparing to get out of the car.

Not far away, an ambulance siren pierced the sky, roaring as it stopped at the emergency entrance.

Jiang Xi saw Lu Nandu’s brow furrow slightly. His body, which had been preparing to get out, instinctively sank back into the seat, not forgetting to pull her back into the car: “Not going.”

Jiang Xi frowned slightly.

He’s averse to hospitals?

She didn’t ask directly, just told him to get out: “If you don’t treat the wound, it will get infected. The doctor will just re-bandage it, it won’t take long.”

She observed Lu Nandu’s expression, saw that he was still unmoved, and tentatively added, “They won’t do anything else.”

As expected yet unexpected, Lu Nandu looked at her after hearing these words. Perhaps it was the alcohol, but his expression and words were a little different from usual, somewhat childish.

He asked Jiang Xi, “Really?”

Jiang Xi silently looked at him for a few seconds, then hummed: “Come on.”

Lu Nandu believed everything she said and got out of the car.

The ambulance in front of the emergency hall entrance had already left, leaving a trail of tiny blood drops on the tiles where the stretcher had passed.

The hall was brightly lit, emptier than during the day. Whispers and fragmented conversations were heard about the person who had just been brought in for emergency care.

“A mentally ill person driving, what a sin.”

“Indeed, when he was wheeled in, his whole face was unrecognizable.”

It’s a common state for people in the world, indifferent to the life and death of others. If there’s no connection, there’s no concern for their lives.

From the moment they entered the emergency room, Jiang Xi could feel Lu Nandu’s tension. He didn’t say a word, but the atmosphere was taut.

Jiang Xi remembered when Lu Nandu took her to the hospital for a fever a few months ago while filming.

At that time, Jiang Xi was still in a stage of extreme aversion towards Lu Nandu and hadn’t paid close attention to him. Now, she couldn’t clearly recall his state back then.

She only remembered that Lu Nandu had smoked a cigarette outside while she was getting medicine, returning with the smell of smoke on him.

This person, so averse to hospitals, had insisted on taking her to the hospital then.

There were few people late at night, so there was no queue for registration. Jiang Xi registered Lu Nandu’s name and they went straight into the consultation room without waiting.

________________________________________

In the general surgery consultation room, there was only one female doctor. She shifted her gaze from the screen to the two people who had just entered: “Lu Nandu, right?”

Jiang Xi hummed.

The female doctor gestured to the nearby bed: “Sit there.”

Lu Nandu was a good drunk; he didn’t cause a scene, but he became less talkative.

Jiang Xi told him, “Go in.”

But Lu Nandu ignored her words. He hadn’t let go of her hand since getting into the car and pulled her into the consultation room.

One couldn’t be too serious with a drunk person, so Jiang Xi let him be.

After sitting by the bed, the doctor quickly came over with instruments. Jiang Xi wanted to free her hand from Lu Nandu’s, but he wouldn’t let go.

Jiang Xi looked down at Lu Nandu, meeting his gaze.

He looked up at her slightly, his dark eyes seemingly veiled with a film of moisture from drinking, bright and bewildered, gripping her hand tightly.

Jiang Xi met his gaze for a few seconds. Just as she was about to look away, the female doctor asked her some questions.

Perhaps she mistakenly thought they were a couple, so she asked Jiang Xi directly. Meeting the female doctor’s gaze, Jiang Xi answered her questions.

The female doctor removed the bandage from Lu Nandu’s arm. Her voice came from behind her mask: “Has it been a few days since the dressing was changed?”

Jiang Xi glanced at the bandage in the metal tray, which was slightly yellowed. She estimated that Lu Nandu hadn’t changed the dressing since she helped him bandage it three days ago.

She didn’t speak.

The female doctor said, “The wound is a bit inflamed. I’ll reapply the medicine and bandage it, and then you can take some oral anti-inflammatory medicine home.”

Jiang Xi hummed.

The female doctor quickly and skillfully treated the wound. The bandaging was clearly better than Jiang Xi’s, who was an amateur.

She sat back at her desk to write out a prescription. After finishing, she handed it to Jiang Xi: “After paying, collect the medicine at the window. The dosage will be clearly written on the medicine bottle. Take it after meals, three times a day.”

No other patients came in. The doctor in the consultation room seemed to have gone out for something.

Jiang Xi held the prescription and said to Lu Nandu, “Let’s go.”

She turned back, unsure what he was looking at. Just as she was about to follow his gaze, she saw Lu Nandu pick up the removed bandage.

Jiang Xi looked at him: “What are you doing?”

Lu Nandu seemed not to realize there was anything wrong with what he was doing. Meeting her gaze: “Taking it back.”

Jiang Xi glanced at the thing in his hand: “It’s useless now. Why take it back?”

“You bandaged it for me.”

Jiang Xi froze.

Lu Nandu looked at the medicine-stained bandage in his hand, seemingly dissatisfied with what Jiang Xi said, and added: “It’s useful.”

Jiang Xi was silent for a moment, then reached out and took the bandage from his hand: “You have plenty of this at home.”

Drunk Lu Nandu was truly stubborn: “It’s different.” Although he said this, he didn’t try to snatch back what Jiang Xi had taken.

“It’s covered in bacteria.” Jiang Xi didn’t indulge his willfulness and threw the bandage into the nearby trash can.

Lu Nandu said nothing.

Jiang Xi knew that even though he was obedient, he was unhappy.

She looked at him, not even realizing the softness in her tone: “Alright, let’s go back.”

She didn’t know, but that didn’t mean Lu Nandu didn’t know. Perhaps it had been too long since she had spoken to him like that. He nodded, even though he was still dejected.

Soon, Jiang Xi led him out of the consultation room.

________________________________________

Jiang Xi only recognized Lu Nandu’s private residence.

After getting into the car, she showed the driver the address Lu Nandu had sent her last time. Lu Nandu’s residence was some distance from the hospital, and the drive took half an hour.

This whole ordeal lasted until the early morning. After getting Lu Nandu back to his room, Jiang Xi checked the time.

It was past one.

She wasn’t sure what exactly she had done tonight.

Lu Nandu seemed tired from the night’s commotion, lying on his side in bed, hugging his comforter.

Jiang Xi’s gaze shifted from him. After a while, she turned and left his room.

After the door closed, the bedroom was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. A few seconds later, Lu Nandu, who had been sleeping with his eyes closed, subtly curved his lips.

________________________________________

It wasn’t safe to take a car in the early hours of the morning, so Jiang Xi was extra careful by herself.

________________________________________

Half an hour later, she suddenly received a call from Lu Nandu.

She hadn’t saved his number, but she had remembered it after seeing it last time.

Jiang Xi hesitated for a few seconds before answering the call: “Aren’t you asleep?”

Actually, Lu Nandu had sobered up in the car on the way back, but he didn’t black out when drunk, so he remembered everything from Jiang Xi taking him to the hospital.

However, he didn’t let Jiang Xi know he was sober. If Jiang Xi had known he was sober, she would have surely left halfway and abandoned him to return by himself.

When he drank too much, Lu Nandu’s temples would throb faintly, and upon returning, he was indeed tired and sleepy.

But later, he remembered Jiang Xi taking a car home in the early hours, and he forced himself out of bed and timed a call.

He sat on the bed with his legs sprawled. His fluffy short hair was a bit disheveled from him rubbing it.

He didn’t answer Jiang Xi’s question, asking her: “Are you home yet?”

Jiang Xi heard his exceptionally clear and normal tone: “Are you sober?”

Lu Nandu mumbled in response: “More or less.”

Jiang Xi couldn’t quite describe her mood tonight.

Perhaps Lu Nandu knew that after the last incident, Jiang Xi had become less averse to him, and he pursued her with another question: “Are you almost home?”

Jiang Xi glanced out the window; the surrounding buildings were familiar.

For once, she answered his question calmly: “Mhm.”

Soon the car stopped. Lu Nandu heard the sound of Jiang Xi closing the car door from her end. Jiang Xi said, “Hanging up.”

Lu Nandu, of course, didn’t want to hang up, but he still obediently hummed in agreement.

Jiang Xi quickly hung up the phone.

________________________________________

Days passed without incident, life was bland and uneventful.

Recently, Tong Yun hadn’t secured many resources for Jiang Xi. That day, Jiang Xi went to the company to practice her posture for a while.

The large French window let in a flood of sunlight, illuminating the entire room.

Jiang Xi lay on a yoga ball with her eyes closed, her body seemingly boneless.

After a few minutes, the sunlight made her feel somewhat uncomfortable, so Jiang Xi opened her eyes and, with a slight exertion of her waist, gracefully rose from the yoga ball.

________________________________________

Unlike most people, Jiang Xi disliked bright light and preferred darkness. Usually, the curtains in her home were drawn most of the time.

Jiang Xi wore a thin camisole on her upper body, her arms slender and fair.

She had a shapely figure with a slender waist.

She walked over, picked up the short jacket from the floor, put it on, and pushed the door open to leave.

The company building’s overall color scheme was white, simple and elegant. The corridor’s tiles were so bright they seemed like mirrors.

After leaving the dance studio, subtle gazes fell on Jiang Xi.

A passing girl, who was talking to her companion, kept glancing at Jiang Xi.

Jiang Xi’s face showed no expression, her gaze casually sweeping over.

Her demeanor had always been unapproachable. The girl immediately fell silent when their eyes met.

Jiang Xi didn’t take it to heart; she wasn’t intentionally looking at the girl, just happened to glance over.

She walked straight past the girl.

But the sheer number of gazes on her along the way made Jiang Xi subtly frown.

She disliked crowds, and naturally, she disliked the feeling of being stared at. She had gradually adapted after entering the entertainment industry, but today’s gazes made her particularly uncomfortable.

Jiang Xi felt inexplicably annoyed. She went straight home.

________________________________________

Presumably, some new news had appeared online, but she was too lazy to look. Online rumors wouldn’t be debunked just by her looking at them, especially since there were far too many people now who only looked at rumors and ignored clarifications.

Back home, the suppressed irritability hadn’t diminished in the slightest. Jiang Xi rarely felt this way.

The curtains were tightly drawn. After taking a shower, Jiang Xi stared blankly on the sofa for a while.

After a moment, Jiang Xi reached for the cigarette pack on the table, pulled one out, lit it, and took a drag before remembering she hadn’t smoked in a long time.

She couldn’t remember the last time she smoked.

Perhaps because lady’s cigarettes weren’t as harsh, smoking one didn’t alleviate Jiang Xi’s annoyance at all. Unlike usual, one cigarette wasn’t enough to relieve it.

At this moment, her phone, lying on the bed, vibrated. The screen lit up, buzzing continuously.

Jiang Xi didn’t move for a while, then after a few seconds, she got up and walked to the bed. The caller ID showed Tong Yun. Jiang Xi sat on the bed and answered, putting the phone to her ear.

She asked what was wrong.

Tong Yun’s voice told her she wasn’t aware of the situation: “So, you haven’t seen the news online?”

Jiang Xi was confused and asked, “What?”

Tong Yun had always been unfriendly, and her words were sharp: “The mess you left behind is known to the whole world, and only you don’t know it yourself.”

Even though she could hear the sarcasm in Tong Yun’s voice, Jiang Xi remained expressionless.

Hearing no response from her, Tong Yun said: “Go see for yourself, I don’t have to remind you of everything.”

After a few seconds of pause, she added, “Also, I can’t control the messes you made during your amateur period, but since you are now an artist under the company, you need to explain the full story to me so the company can handle public relations effectively.”

When Tong Yun mentioned her amateur period, Jiang Xi’s ominous premonition grew stronger and stronger, though she couldn’t say why.

Tong Yun didn’t notice her change in state and continued: “Go look, and call me back after you’ve seen it.” With that, she hung up the phone.

The busy tone from the disconnected call filled her ear, but Jiang Xi didn’t move.

She seemed to have a premonition of what she would see, yet she wasn’t certain. It took a long time for her to act.

Jiang Xi leaned against the headboard, her face expressionless, and with lowered eyes, opened the app.

Perhaps because she had gained some popularity recently, the company sometimes didn’t need to spend money to put her in the public eye.

Before seeing what Tong Yun called the “mess,” Jiang Xi still held a glimmer of hope that it might not be what she thought.

Perhaps most things in this world don’t go as one wishes. Those two words appeared before Jiang Xi’s eyes.

Jiang Xi’s previous inexplicable irritation found its outlet at this moment. The subtle gazes from the morning now seemed to have substance: mocking, disgusted, watching a spectacle.

She had never imagined these things would reappear before the world.

When Jiang Xi came back to her senses, she realized her hands and feet were icy cold, her face a little pale, yet she remained calm.

Her unspeakable, oppressive past was dragged out and trampled underfoot, offered for people to freely point at, insult, and amuse themselves with.

In the comments of the exposé about her plagiarism, there were many “informed” netizens helping to popularize gossip.

They said Jiang Xi’s work had been embroiled in a plagiarism scandal three years ago, and her mentor and many friends in the industry had cut ties with her, for no other reason than that the person Jiang Xi plagiarized was her own teacher, Ren Shenghai. Jiang Xi had plagiarized the core concept of her teacher’s work, and the composition was extremely similar.

Ren Shenghai was a teacher who had particularly looked after Jiang Xi since university. After graduating, he had kept this student by his side, entrusting all matters to her. But he never imagined he had nurtured such an ungrateful person, who even attempted to use seduction to gain her teacher’s achievements.

Not only that, shortly after the plagiarism scandal emerged, Ren Shenghai mysteriously disappeared, vanishing without a trace. A renowned painter simply disappeared from public view.

And all of this was Jiang Xi’s doing, though no one knew who was behind her.

The words on the screen were full of malice, and speculation ran rampant.

Jiang Xi watched indifferently.

They said she was a stray dog who had escaped from the art world to the entertainment industry, thinking she could hide her dirty past and start fresh in a new circle.

Impossible.