The message was sent by Jiang Yang.
[I am at the airport getting ready to board. I will text you when I arrive. How is Su Zhi doing?]
Ming Can typed back: [Asleep.]
Jiang Yang replied very quickly: [Hard work, Can-Can.]
Can-Can again.
Ming Can stared at those two words for two seconds and did not reply.
She tucked her phone into her pocket, and then, without thinking about anything else, turned on the faucet, professionally and earnestly scrubbing the towel in her hands.
Accompanied by the rushing sound of the faucet, that strange sensation squeezed into her brain once more. Ming Can ignored it, scrubbing the towel over and over again until her fingertips turned pale, before finally turning off the faucet, wringing it dry, and draping it over the rack.
She stood in front of the mirror for two seconds.
Looking at herself in the mirror, her expression was calm, but the trace of light red on the lobes of her ears, which had not yet faded away, could no longer be suppressed no matter how hard she tried.
Wiping a body, what is there to feel guilty about? It is not like I have not seen more private things before!
She muttered a few words of slander to herself in her heart, patted her face with cold water once more, and then pushed the door open to go out.
The lighting in the hospital room was dim, with the small nightlight at the head of the bed glowing and casting a small circle of warm yellow light. The screen of the monitor flashed faintly, and the three rows of numbers for heart rate, blood pressure, and blood oxygen saturation all beat regularly.
Su Zhi was still awake.
That pair of eyes looked exceptionally bright in the dimness, staring up at the ceiling. Hearing Ming Can’s footsteps, her gaze shifted over and landed on her.
Ming Can’s steps paused for a moment with a momentary flash of unnaturalness.
She gave a dry cough: “Still haven’t slept?”
Su Zhi didn’t speak, her gaze lingering on her face.
Ming Can felt even more unnatural. After her mind went blank for a second, she suddenly remembered the message Jiang Yang had sent. She cleared her throat: “That colleague of yours just sent me a message saying she arrived at the airport.”
Su Zhi still didn’t respond, merely shifting her gaze away from Ming Can’s face and letting it land somewhere unknown.
Ming Can took a deep breath, walked to the hospital bed, pulled the blanket up a bit to cover Su Zhi’s shoulders, and adjusted the position of the infusion tube. After finishing these tasks, with truly nothing left to do, she had no choice but to sit down in the chair.
The lingering effects of the anesthesia on Su Zhi had worn off, and the pain overpowered her drowsiness, leaving her wide awake. Every tiny movement made by Ming Can precisely drilled right into her ears.
Just like right now, she could actually clearly sense that this kid was a bit different tonight compared to usual, yet she couldn’t quite pinpoint where the difference lay, feeling rather strange.
She parted her lips, wanting to ask what was going on with her, but didn’t know how to start appropriately. The two of them remained in silence like this until drowsiness struck, and the voice transmitted from beneath the oxygen mask came out weak and calm.
“If you are sleepy, you can go to sleep first.”
Ming Can gave a sudden start, waking up a bit more.
Today had been like a roller coaster, and it would be a lie to say she wasn’t tired. Ming Can glanced at the person on the hospital bed, and seeing that the other’s condition was holding up well, she didn’t persist further.
She moved the chair closer to the bed, just two steps away from the accompanying cot, but instead of actually lying down on it, she curled up in the chair with her back resting against one armrest and her legs propped up on the other, curling her entire body like a cat.
The chair was too narrow and felt quite prickly, but when drowsiness took over, nothing else mattered.
Ming Can closed her eyes.
All sorts of messy things were still spinning in her head: that towel, that soft and cottony touch, Su Zhi’s collarbones soaked in sweat, and those exceptionally bright eyes in the dimness.
As things spun around, her consciousness grew fuzzy.
I do not know how much time passed.
Ming Can was awakened by an extremely faint movement.
That kind of movement wasn’t loud, and could even be described as cautious, as if someone was trying their best not to make a sound in a completely quiet environment. However, the more careful one was, the clearer certain subtle noises became.
The rustling sound of friction between fabrics.
A gasp where the breathing suddenly grew heavy.
And a muffled groan that was forcefully suppressed deep in the throat, barely audible.
Ming Can opened her eyes.
The hospital room was still dark, and the warm light cast by the nightlight had a limited range, leaving most areas plunged in shadow. She adapted for two seconds and dropped her gaze toward the hospital bed.
The breathing beneath the oxygen mask was rapid and deep, with each inhalation sounding as if someone was pinching her throat.
Ming Can’s drowsiness instantly dissipated completely.
She practically sprang up, crossing two steps to the bedside: “Su Zhi?”
Su Zhi didn’t answer her, and seemingly didn’t even hear her speaking, as all her attention was focused on fighting that wave of pain. Her eyes were closed, her eyelashes trembled violently, and her forehead was covered in sweat. Her hair, which had just been wiped not long ago, was soaked again, sticking to her face in strands.
“I will go call a doctor.”
Sensing something was wrong, Ming Can turned around and started heading toward the door, but her wrist was suddenly gripped by someone at that moment.
The force was very heavy, just like the previous few times. Ming Can felt the creaking sound of her bones being squeezed, yet she didn’t feel the fear she had experienced on prior occasions.
She quietly stayed in place, lowering her head to watch a ring after a ring of white color appear around her wrist bone under the faint light.
“Don’t.” Su Zhi’s voice came out from beneath the oxygen mask, muffled and intermittent, every single word squeezed out hard through her teeth. “I will wait it out, for a moment, it will be fine.”
Accompanied by extremely weak panting, Ming Can shifted her gaze to the owner of the voice.
That face looked frighteningly pale in the light of the nightlight, devoid of any color on her lips, with the veins at her temples bulging. Yet she simply gritted her teeth and stubbornly held on, refusing to make a sound or let anyone go call a doctor.
Ming Can suddenly realized.
It wasn’t that she lacked consciousness; she was simply in so much pain she had no other choice, yet feared disturbing others in the dead of night.
“Doctor Gong is on duty tonight. She usually doesn’t sleep much when she is on duty.” Ming Can paused, attempting further guidance. “If you stubbornly endure like this, it will become even more troublesome if something happens later.”
Su Zhi didn’t agree, the force gripping Ming Can’s wrist tightening a bit more.
That force was shaking.
Ming Can could feel her fingertips shaking, her entire arm shaking, not an out-of-control tremble, but a physiological reaction caused by pain, uncontrollable when the body reached its limit.
Yet she simply refused to let go, nor would she yield.
Ming Can stood there, held by her, lowering her head to look at her.
After two seconds, Ming Can moved forward slightly.
Instead of shaking off that hand, she followed that force and sat down on the edge of the bed, reaching out her other hand to gently push aside the hand Su Zhi had pressed against her incision, then placed her own hand right over it.
Through a thin layer of hospital gown, she could feel the location of that incision, the gauze wrapped beneath the fabric, and the slight tremor of Su Zhi’s body beneath her palm.
“Be good.” Ming Can spoke up, her voice softer than before. “Let Sister Gong come over to check the situation, otherwise, in case something happens, she will lecture me again for being unprofessional.”
Su Zhi looked at her while enduring the pain racking her entire body.
The light of the nightlight spilled over from the side, outlining a small patch of warm-colored contour on Ming Can’s face. Those eyes were right inside this patch of light, clear, carrying a bit of softness, yet also a bit of stubbornness.
Amidst the hazy consciousness, a scene suddenly surfaced in her mind: the little girl looking aggrieved and blaming herself over her own surgery.
The pain continued, but the force of the hand gripping Ming Can’s wrist gradually eased away bit by bit.
It was both a compromise and an understanding.
Realizing it belatedly, Ming Can watched her gaze fall upon the hand gradually loosening around her wrist. After a few seconds, she said: “I am going to call the doctor.”
This time, Su Zhi didn’t stop her.
The fingers circled around her wrist moved, as if wanting to grip tightly, or perhaps wanting to let go. In the end, her fingertips merely brushed lightly across her skin before dropping down, resting against the edge of the bed.
Ming Can stood up, picked up that hand, placed it back into the blanket, and hurried over to turn around and leave.
The duty room was at the end of the corridor, and she practically jogged over. The inpatient department late at night was excessively quiet, with her footsteps echoing in the empty hallway, hurried and chaotic, matching her unclear and indescribable state of mind at the moment.
Gong Que truly wasn’t asleep. The door to the duty room was ajar, letting out a sliver of light. Ming Can knocked twice and pushed the door open without waiting for a reply.
“Sister Gong.”
Gong Que was flipping through a medical chart and stood up immediately upon seeing Ming Can enter: “The anesthesia’s aftereffects have worn off, so it hurts, right?”
She casually picked up a flashlight and several painkillers from the desk: “Let’s go, let’s take a look!”
Ming Can followed closely behind, the two of them entering the ward one after the other. Gong Que walked straight to the bedside, first glancing at the numbers on the monitor and then checking Su Zhi’s complexion.
Su Zhi was trembling all over, her fingertips digging wrinkles into the bedsheet. Hearing the movement, she turned her head slightly, her gaze crossing over Gong Que and landing on Ming Can behind her.
That glance was very light, as if confirming she was still there.
Only then did she look at Gong Que.
“How long has it hurt?” Gong Que leaned over, asking while lifting a corner of the blanket to check the condition of the wound dressing.
Su Zhi didn’t speak.
Standing by the bedside, Ming Can answered for her: “I accidentally fell asleep, and when I woke up, she was already hurting. It has probably been ten or twenty minutes.”
After getting the general information, Gong Que pulled a small flashlight out of her pocket and shone it into the patient’s pupils.
The light was blinding, and Su Zhi squinted and turned her head away with a frown.
“The danger period has passed, and this is normal post-operative pain, but her pain tolerance threshold is lower than I expected.” She put away the flashlight. “Let’s use some pain relief to help her ease for a bit. There is no other way anyway.”
Ming Can let out an “oh”.
Gong Que glanced at her and abruptly spoke up: “You did well this time, knowing to call someone.”
Ming Can was caught somewhat off guard by the praise. After processing it, the lobes of her ears grew slightly warm, though she tried her best to put on her usual demeanor: “Of course! Once bitten, twice shy, and I certainly don’t want you lecturing me every single day.”
Gong Que gave a faint “mm”, pulled a painkiller out of her pocket, skillfully snapped open the ampoule, and drew it clean with a syringe.
“It might feel a bit cold.” She said softly, pushing the needle into the reserved port of the infusion tube.
The transparent medicinal liquid slowly dripped into Su Zhi’s blood vessels along the tubing. The numbers on the monitor were still jumping, with the heart rate column starting to slowly tick downward from the previous hundred and ten plus: one hundred and nine, one hundred and five, one hundred and one.
Gong Que stared at the screen for a dozen seconds, then looked back at Su Zhi’s face.
The expression on that face hadn’t changed much; it was still frighteningly pale, and the sweat on her temples hadn’t receded either, but that tense, forcefully-enduring stiffness seemed to have loosened a bit.
“It takes effect in fifteen to twenty minutes.” Gong Que put the used ampoule into her pocket. “If it still hurts badly, press the bell again.”
She turned to look at Ming Can: “Don’t sleep too deeply in the second half of the night. Her body is heavy right now, and sleeping too long might cause too much pressure, so you can help her change positions appropriately. Also, if the oxygen mask feels oppressive, it is fine to take it off for a little while.”
Ming Can acknowledged each instruction.
“Call me if anything happens.” Gong Que finished instructing, turned around, and walked out, her white lab coat casting a blurred shadow in the dim lighting.
The ward door closed softly.
Ming Can stood in place, staring at that door for two seconds before slowly exhaling a breath.