TSDT - 17

In the night, Jiang Ying vaguely dreamed that she was trapped in a steamer, especially her face, which felt like it was being pressed by a scorching iron plate, sizzling hot, with someone buzzing a low incantation, getting hotter and hotter, and she was almost cooked.

She pushed away the iron plate, but it came back after a short while, endlessly grilling her.

Jiang Ying struggled a few times and woke up.

The buzzing low murmurs were intermittent. Meng Jingshu’s burning hot palm was pressed tightly against her cheek. Perhaps he found her cool, because every now and then, he would turn his palm to the back of his hand, rubbing it as if to cool off.

His whole body was burning hot, his face flushed abnormally. His hand was pressed against her, but his eyes were tightly shut, as if he was delirious from the fever.

Jiang Ying was startled and called out to him: “Meng Jingshu, wake up, Meng Jingshu?”

He didn’t wake up. His somewhat chapped lips slightly parted and closed. He was mumbling something in his delirium. Jiang Ying climbed out of bed, feeling like she had escaped a steamer, running into coolness. She rushed out to find a thermometer, then wrung out a wet towel and rushed back to place it on his forehead. She forcefully pulled his arm away to take his temperature.

Jiang Ying left the bed and moved around, her body temperature dropped, and she started to feel chilly. She went back into the bed and pressed against him for warmth.

The high fever kept him from waking up properly, making his sleep restless, trapped in dreams that felt both real and unreal. In the few minutes while waiting for his temperature to be taken, she heard him mumbling again in his daze. She leaned in, listening carefully—

“Good girl...”

What was he saying?

“...I just want to smoke, what’s it to you...”

Hmm??

“Silly studious good girl...”

Who was he talking about?!!!

“So talkative...”

Ah!!!!

So, that’s what he was thinking when he listened to her rambling with a poker face back then??? She thought he had at least taken some of it in, felt guilty but couldn’t control himself, which was why he had nothing to say.

It turned out he was complaining about her in his head?!

Ah... I’m so angry!!!

Jiang Ying reached out and pinched his neck, really wanting to take a photo of him like that cat meme online. Her hand was small, only half-encircling his neck, not even using force, yet he seemed to feel a bit uncomfortable, his breathing becoming heavier.

“...”

Jiang Ying pinched his face, hmph, she’d let him off for now.

She pulled out the thermometer and looked at it. Holy cow, 39.2 degrees Celsius!

Jiang Ying stopped warming herself up. She sprang up and put on her clothes, bouncing on the bed as she dressed. The spring mattress bounced and swayed under her feet, the man lying flat was affected, shaking along with it.

An extremely brutal wake-up call.

“Meng Jingshu, get up!”

A few seconds later, Meng Jingshu moved his arm and placed it over his eyes to block the light. His eyelids were too heavy to open.

“...Mm... What do you want?”

Just hearing that tearing sound, Jiang Ying could imagine how uncomfortable his throat was.

She quickly put on her clothes, then immediately went over and grabbed Meng Jingshu’s arm, pulling him up. He was hot like a giant hot water bottle.

Jiang Ying: “Let’s go get a shot! Otherwise, you’ll burn your brain out!”

Jiang Ying energetically pulled him up and rushed him to change clothes. In a few minutes, they were both in the car heading to the hospital.

All the way there, Jiang Ying kept asking him, “Meng Jingshu, are you conscious now?”

Or, “Do you know who I am, and what are we going to do?”

Or she would hold up her hand and wave it in front of his eyes, asking, “What number is this?”

Meng Jingshu was speechless, saying flatly, “I just have a fever, I’m not brain-damaged.”

It wasn’t Jiang Ying’s fault. When she was little, she once had a fever that almost left her with sequelae. That time, she was afraid of injections and refused to go to the hospital. Later, she had a high fever and convulsed, speaking nonsense and unable to be woken. Her parents were terrified and rushed her to the hospital overnight, carrying her on their backs. She still vaguely remembers how her parents took turns carrying her that night, jolting along the way, the lights and the darkness of the night swaying in her vision, but she wasn’t scared at all.

From then on, Jiang Ying’s mother would always say that the doctor told them it was good luck; if she had burned up for a little longer, who knew what the consequences would have been. Her mother also said that a certain relative’s nephew of one of her colleagues had brain damage and intellectual disability because he didn’t go to the hospital in time for a high fever. Jiang Ying heard it so much that she also felt scared afterwards.

She now felt that if Meng Jingshu’s brain was damaged by the fever, it would be her fault. The moment she saw him looking so sickly at his home, she should have dragged him to get an injection.

Thinking this, Jiang Ying couldn’t help but complain to him again: “When your throat hurt a few days ago, I reminded you to take medicine, but you didn’t, did you? Or did you wear short sleeves outside again and get caught in the wind and rain?”

She sighed in an old-fashioned way, “...Yes, you’re always like that... Look at what you ate at noon today, and you even drank ice water... You really haven’t made any progress...”

Meng Jingshu had a headache listening to her and wanted to stop her: “Jiang Ying, my throat hurts a lot.”

Jiang Ying said, “So don’t reply, just listen. Your ears should still be perfectly healthy, aren’t they?”

Meng Jingshu: “...”

The driver chuckled up front. Driving at night was the most tedious and tiring, and when he met talkative passengers, he also wanted to tease along: “Young man, just be happy inside! Your girlfriend cares about you so much.”

Meng Jingshu hadn’t spoken yet when Jiang Ying quickly chimed in: “Sir, you’ve misunderstood, this isn’t my boyfriend. He’s my younger brother.”

Meng Jingshu, Driver: “............”

...

Originally, there was an empty bed in the emergency room where he could lie down, but tonight, a few drunk people got into a fight, and the ward smelled terrible. Meng Jingshu was unwilling to stay with them. Jiang Ying went with him to a corner of the infusion room and sat quietly.

The IV drip was probably one drop per second. When you stare at it and simultaneously realize there’s another fat bottle waiting next to this one, it feels infinitely slow.

Meng Jingshu stared at the regulating gear and reached out his hand.

Jiang Ying intercepted him halfway, warning: “What are you doing?”

Meng Jingshu: “Too slow.”

Jiang Ying grabbed his hand: “Have mercy on your veins.”

Meng Jingshu had an impatient look on his face, but he didn’t move again. His throat was so dry it felt like it was smoking, and he coughed a few times.

Jiang Ying was reminded and let out a soft “ah.”

Meng Jingshu looked at her.

Jiang Ying chuckled, then pulled out a thermos bottle from her bag. She had found it in his cabinet when looking for medicine at his place; it had been untouched for a long time, even covered in dust. While he was getting dressed, she had conveniently washed it and filled it with warm water to bring along. She was just afraid this young master would get thirsty outside and impulsively buy ice water again.

Meng Jingshu was speechless, watching her rummage through her bag again. Soon, she pulled out a straw, tore off the plastic film, and inserted it into the bottle opening for him. Only after completing this series of actions was the thermos handed to him.

The infusion room was quiet, and her voice was light: “I added a little white sugar, so it’s not so boring to drink.”

A sudden realization.

Had time flowed backward, or had it been standing still all along?

It seemed that ever since a long time ago, the few times he had been sick, besides sleeping at home, she had always been by his side. Nagging him not to drink ice water all the time, if he was lazy, she would bring hot water and put it on his desk, along with medicine and instructions. It was the same in college; she could guess he was sick from his dry vocabulary and impatient tone during chats, and she would cross the entire campus to bring him medicine. When he was uncomfortable, he didn’t like to be bothered, but his ears couldn’t help but hear her soft murmurs, and when he looked up, there was her moving figure.

He never said thank you, and she never showed disappointment. She just quietly, selflessly, did what she wanted to do. And then, one day, suddenly, she would disappear without a word.

And then, for an instant, he had wished time would go back.

This “instant” didn’t linger too long in his past life. When his eyes were only on himself, he was most adept at focusing intently.

However, recently, memories have constantly overlapped with reality. The moments he could call “an instant” were no longer as scarce as before.

Just like now.

Because of a bottle of water, a single sentence, it was as if he had driven out of a rainstorm, crossed the boundary between clear and rainy skies, and in an instant, the sky had suddenly cleared. The irritation vanished, and everything around him became unreal. He felt as if he had soared to a very high place, floating, everything incredibly quiet and soft.