The painkiller’s effect had not fully kicked in yet. Su Zhi’s face was deathly pale, and sweat beads trickled down her temples, soaking into the pillow.
Ming Can washed a hot towel and wiped her down. Su Zhi did not resist, only closing her eyes as her eyelashes occasionally trembled, as if trying hard to regulate her breathing.
After finishing these tasks, Ming Can moved a chair over and sat down beside the bed.
She said nothing, just sitting there watching unblinkingly as the numbers on the monitor ticked down bit by bit. Her heart rate dropped to ninety-eight, while her blood oxygen saturation remained at ninety-seven, staying stable.
After about ten minutes or so, Su Zhi opened her eyes.
Those eyes appeared exceptionally deep in the dim light, as if holding something indescribable. She turned her head, her gaze landing on Ming Can, and after a few seconds, she suddenly spoke.
“What time is it?”
The voice came out from beneath the oxygen mask, muffled and terribly hoarse, with every single word sounding as if it took all her remaining strength.
Ming Can was momentarily stunned.
Ever since she took on this part-time job, this was the first time Su Zhi had taken the initiative to ask her anything.
She instinctively glanced at her phone. “Two thirty-seven.”
Su Zhi said nothing, her gaze shifting away to fall back onto the ceiling.
Thinking she was just asking casually and wanting to say something, Ming Can heard Su Zhi speak again.
“How much longer until dawn?”
The voice was even lighter than before, so soft that Ming Can almost thought she misheard. Looking at Su Zhi’s expression, it did not seem like she was truly asking for the time, but rather asking out loud because the pain was unbearable and she did not know how to endure it.
Ming Can’s heart suddenly clenched.
She recalled the time before her mother passed away, when the nighttime pain was unbearable and her mother always loved asking how much longer until dawn, as if knowing the time gave her something to look forward to and helped her push through.
“Summer dawns early. It starts getting light around five o’clock, so another two and a half hours.” After answering earnestly, Ming Can moved her chair a bit closer.
Su Zhi said nothing more, closing her eyes once again.
Ming Can watched her, watching those hands grip the bedsheet until her knuckles turned white, watching those brows furrow and relax, relax and furrow again.
“Su Zhi,” she suddenly spoke, calling out neither Director Su nor Sister, but using her full name.
Su Zhi’s eyelids twitched.
“Let’s play a game,” Ming Can said. “Pictionary.”
Without waiting for Su Zhi’s consent, she dug out a memo pad and a pen from the bedside table drawer on her own accord.
“It’s inconvenient for you to lie down and draw, so I will draw and you can guess, okay?” Ming Can said, quickly sketching on the pad as the pen tip rustled across the paper.
Su Zhi did not open her eyes, nor did she utter a sound.
But Ming Can sensed that she was probably listening.
“The first one is ready,” Ming Can lifted the notepad into Su Zhi’s field of vision. “Guess what this is.”
Drawn on the paper was a circle with eyes and a nose, topped with a bunch of crudely outlined messy tufts. It was terribly ugly and impossible to tell what kind of monstrosity it was.
Su Zhi’s eyelashes trembled, but her eyes remained closed.
“Hurry up,” Ming Can pushed the notepad a bit closer, her voice sounding coquettish. “My arm is getting sore from holding this up!”
Driven by some inexplicable impulse, the woman in the hospital bed forced her eyes open. Enduring the pitch black before her eyes, the first thing that drifted into her view was not that terribly ugly drawing, but the slender, fair hand holding it, her sluggish gaze finally fixing on the circles of red marks around the wrist.
Not waiting for the other person to speak, Ming Can shook her wrist slightly. “Guess quickly. Once you guess it, I will tell you a secret.”
Reacting a beat later, Su Zhi’s empty gaze fell onto the page. She looked at it for a few seconds before calmly looking away.
“It is so easy to guess and you still cannot get it,” Ming Can muttered softly.
“The sun.”
The next second, the woman beneath the oxygen mask spoke. Her voice was still muffled inside the mask, very soft, but Ming Can heard it clearly.
She froze for half a second, then feigned an inflated, indignant expression. “What sun? This is clearly a sunflower!”
Finishing her sentence, she glared at Su Zhi, flipped the page, and started drawing with a ballpoint pen. Half a minute later, a brand new pattern appeared once again in Su Zhi’s field of vision.
It was a rectangle with a crooked arc drawn on top, and a cross sitting at the very peak of the arc.
“The Red Cross,” Su Zhi said calmly.
“Bulls***,” Ming Can swore directly upon hearing that. “This is an ambulance! Didn’t you see there are two wheels at the bottom?”
Su Zhi found herself speechless.
The drawing was so ugly that she really seemed not to have noticed.
Muttering to herself, Ming Can flipped another page. This time, she pressed the pen and notepad down onto the bedside table, leaned sideways, and drew with exceptional focus. A minute later, she stood up holding the notepad, appearing exceptionally confident in her drawing.
“All done!”
Hearing the commotion, Su Zhi’s half-closed eyes moved, staring at the ugly drawing.
On the picture, one little figure was lying in bed, while another little figure sat by the bedside. The figure sitting by the bedside was holding up a sign with a string of crookedly written words: Dawn is here, are you happy?
Su Zhi stared at that drawing for a long time.
So long that Ming Can thought she did not want to answer and was just about to lower her hand when she heard a very soft, muffled voice come from beneath the mask.
“Ming Can.”
It was neither “happy” nor “unhappy.”
It was her name.
Ming Can froze for a moment, her hand holding the notepad suspended mid-air.
Su Zhi stopped looking at her and closed her eyes again, but Ming Can noticed that the knuckles of the hand gripping the sheet were not as starkly white, loosening by a few degrees.
“Do you want to play?” Ming Can tentatively pushed the pen into Su Zhi’s hand, not holding out much hope, but to her surprise, the other person actually caught it.
Holding the pen, Su Zhi’s gaze rested on it as if looking at some strange, unfamiliar object.
A beat behind, Ming Can also lifted the notepad. “I will hold it for you. Draw!”
Gathering her thoughts, Su Zhi glanced at the blank paper fixed before her eyes by two slender wrists. After a few seconds, she raised her pen-holding hand toward the blank paper and began to draw with a slight tremor.
Her hand shook somewhat. Su Zhi drew very slowly, stroke by stroke, laboriously copying. After copying for quite a while, she stopped.
She was done.
Ming Can took back the notepad and lowered her head to look.
Drawn on the paper were two plants, one tall and one short, placed on the floor-to-ceiling window. Morning light filtered through the window, spilling warmly onto one of them, and right above the plant was a smiling face, with four large characters floating beside it: Photosynthesis.
Looking at this scene, Ming Can found the answer almost instantly. At that very moment, something suddenly seemed to block her throat, aching and swelling with a soreness that left her temporarily speechless.
After a few seconds of hesitation, she said softly, “This is Su Zhi and Ming Can.”
Su Zhi gave a slight nod.
Ming Can parted her lips, wanting to say something, but seemed unable to utter a word. In the end, facing that drawing, she let out a sudden, soft chuckle.
When she lowered her gaze again to look at Su Zhi, the other person had already closed her eyes. All of her strength had been poured into that drawing, leaving her entire body completely exhausted, her slender swan-like neck rising and falling rhythmically.
“Thank you.” For no apparent reason, Ming Can dropped those words.
Su Zhi’s eyelashes trembled, but she did not open her eyes.
Ming Can closed the notepad and placed it carefully on the bedside table.
“Sleep. Once you sleep, dawn will arrive, and I will be right here.” She moved her chair forward, sat down, rested her arms on the edge of the bed, pressed her chin against the back of her hands, and quietly watched the woman resting lightly with closed eyes on the hospital bed.
Before long, extremely light breathing came from beside her, even and long.
The painkiller had finally taken effect.
Ming Can did not know when she had fallen asleep. She only knew that when she opened her eyes again, a hazy gray-white light had already filtered through the window, and the ward remained quiet. She moved her stiff neck, discovering that she was still maintaining last night’s posture with her arms resting on the bed edge, her chin pressed against the back of her hands, curled up entirely inside the chair.
The person on the bed had woken up at some unknown point.
Su Zhi’s oxygen mask had already been removed, and she was turning her head sideways, her eyes half-closed as she looked out the window. The morning light fell on her face; that face was still white, but unlike last night’s terrifyingly ghastly pallor, it carried a bit more of the vitality of a living person.
“You are awake?” Ming Can rubbed her eyes and sat up straight, her voice still carrying the hoarseness of just waking up.
Su Zhi withdrew her gaze from the window, let it land on Ming Can, and watched her for two seconds, her eyes holding the daze of someone who had just woken up.
“What time is it?” she asked. She was still asking for the time, but this time her voice was not as hoarse; with the oxygen mask removed, every word was much clearer.
Ming Can glanced at her phone. “Five forty.”
Su Zhi said nothing, turning her head back to look out the window.
Ming Can followed her line of sight. There was a faint layer of orange-red at the edge of the sky; the sun had not yet risen, but there was already light.
“Look,” Ming Can pointed toward the window. “I told you so, summer dawns early.”
Su Zhi did not respond, but Ming Can saw the corners of her lips twitch slightly, as if she had something she wanted to say.
Ming Can did not rush her, and the two of them just stayed quietly like that for a moment.
Then Su Zhi spoke, her voice very soft, as if confirming something.
“Did Jiang Yang send any message?”
Ming Can was momentarily stunned.
Su Zhi’s gaze was still fixed outside the window, her tone devoid of any particular emotion, but Ming Can noticed that the fingers resting on the bedsheet had turned slightly white at the knuckles once again.
“Asking if she arrived abroad,” Su Zhi repeated. This time she finally turned her head to look at Ming Can, her eyes holding something Ming Can could not quite understand, not anticipation, not anxiety, but more resembling worry.
Ming Can’s heart skipped a beat. She remembered that last night before boarding the plane, Jiang Yang had sent her a message saying she would reply when she arrived. Logically speaking, she should have arrived by this hour, yet there was no word at all.
Not daring to think too much, she simply lowered her head, unlocked her phone, and opened WeChat.
In the chat box, the last message had been sent at 9:54 last night.
Nothing after that.
Could something has happened? Ming Can switched out of the screen, tapped into the search page to look up information on that flight, and calculated the time. It should be right around this landing time node, yet the other person had sent no message to Su Zhi, nor to her.