“It won’t take that long,” Ming Can said. “The plane still needs some time to taxi after landing. I’ll send her a message to ask, so don’t worry.”
She switched to the chat window, sent Jiang Yang a message, and then searched online for that flight. It had landed on schedule, with no reports of any accidents.
Ming Can shook her phone screen in front of Su Zhi. “Look, the flight arrived on time, just ten minutes after landing. She’s probably waiting for her baggage or dealing with bad cell service, so don’t worry.”
Su Zhi’s gaze lingered on the phone for a few seconds before shifting back to the brightening sky outside the window. She didn’t speak, but the knuckles of her hands slowly loosened.
Ming Can looked at her, remembering something, and stood up to fetch a basin of warm water from the bathroom, wetting and wringing out a towel.
“Look, dawn has arrived. A new day, a new beginning.” She walked back to the bedside, her tone as brisk as if she were coaxing a child. “Let’s wipe your face and refresh ourselves.”
The towel was warm. As it was laid across her face, Su Zhi’s eyelashes trembled, but she didn’t dodge. Ming Can’s movements were very light, wiping away that layer of cold sweat and exhaustion from her forehead to her cheeks and down to her chin, bit by bit.
“I can do it.” Su Zhi reached out to take the towel.
Ming Can pulled it away. “Don’t move. I’m a caregiver who gets paid triple, and I’m very professional!”
Su Zhi gave her a flat look and didn’t press the matter further.
After wiping her face, Ming Can helped her wipe her hands, going finger by finger, praising her all the while.
“Oh my, Sister, your hands are truly stunning!” She cupped the other’s fingertips in her palm, turning them over and over to look. “Your fingers are so slender, with every knuckle clearly defined. Using hands like these just to tap on a keyboard every day is a complete waste of heaven’s gifts.”
Su Zhi subconsciously tried to curl her fingers inward, but Ming Can held onto them firmly.
“Really, I’m not exaggerating at all. Hands like this should be properly pampered and put on a pedestal for people to admire!” As she spoke, she purposefully stretched out her own hand and compared them. “Look at mine, they’re not delicate and slender like yours. Mine are wider at the top and taper at the bottom, kind of like a carrot. Oh no, I need to lose weight!”
Su Zhi was slightly annoyed by her chattering voice, yet she couldn’t help glancing at those splayed fingers for a brief moment before expressionlessly withdrawing her hand from the other’s grasp. She didn’t say a word, though the tips of her ears quietly flushed with a pale pink.
Ming Can caught this, holding back a smile as she stood up. “Alright, I won’t tease you anymore, my big benefactor. The doctor said you can rinse your mouth properly now. Do you want to? Shall I go get you some mouthwash?”
Su Zhi didn’t answer, nor did she show any sign of resistance. Ming Can put the damp towel back into the basin, walked over to the washroom, and came back with a mouthwash cup and a small basin.
She raised the head of the hospital bed slightly so Su Zhi was half-sitting, then handed her the cup and basin.
Su Zhi took the cup with some difficulty, lowered her head to take a small sip, turned slightly to the side, and rinsed her mouth very gently before spitting into the small basin. Ming Can held the basin beside her while holding a tissue ready in her other hand.
“Another sip?” she asked.
Su Zhi gripped the cup with trembling hands and took another sip.
After repeating this two or three times, she had run out of strength. She put the cup down and tried hard to lift her hand to reach for the tissue box on the nightstand. Ming Can reacted quickly, pulling out a tissue and handing it to her lips. “I’ll help you.”
Their eyes met, and Su Zhi felt a bit embarrassed.
Ming Can had already pressed the tissue to her lips, wiping gently while chattering away. “You’re my benefactor right now, so you need to learn to enjoy being taken care of.”
Su Zhi lowered her eyelids, looking unconvinced by that reasoning.
By the time she finished, dawn had broken completely. Morning light leaked through the gaps in the curtains, casting long, thin bars of light across the ward’s floor tiles. The distant sound of traffic from the impending morning rush hour could be faintly heard as the city slowly woke up.
“Jiang Yang.” Su Zhi, lying back down, spoke again.
Ming Can glanced at her phone. “Don’t worry, give it a little more time. Sometimes cell reception is bad right after landing, or her phone might be out of battery. Both are possible.”
Su Zhi didn’t speak, her calm gaze filled with worry.
Ming Can looked at her, thought for half a second, and suddenly spoke. “Su Zhi.”
She called her by her full name. As their eyes locked, Ming Can’s eyes shone brightly. “Do you believe it? Dawn has come, and things really will be different!”
Su Zhi’s gaze lingered on those bright eyes for a few seconds.
“I didn’t believe it either, back then,” Ming Can continued, her voice softening. “When my mom was sick and in too much pain to bear, she’d ask me every night how much longer until dawn, thinking things wouldn’t hurt as much once the sun came up. But when morning came, the pain was still there, and the suffering was just as bad. It was only later that I realized:”
She paused, as if organizing her thoughts.
“The point of dawn isn’t to make things magically better; it’s to let you know that you’ve survived another day. As long as you can make it through, there’s still hope.”
Su Zhi looked at her with a hint of surprise in her eyes, something shimmering within those depths.
So the reason she’s carrying so much debt is because of this?
Su Zhi thought to herself.
The next second, her fingertips were grasped.
“You asked me last night how much longer until dawn,” Ming Can held her hand, a bright smile blooming at the corners of her lips. “Now dawn is here, and a new day has begun. No matter whether Jiang Yang replies or what you have to face next, at least you survived this night.”
The hand resting in her palm felt warm. Ming Can placed her other hand over it, wrapping both hands around it.
“So, a new day, a new beginning. Don’t always assume the worst, okay?”
Her words and her smile, right there where the sunlight poured in, radiated a kind of energy, an energy that provided faith and strength.
Su Zhi lowered her head, looking at the hand covered by the other’s palm. She didn’t move for a long time.
The morning grew brighter. Medical staff came by intermittently for rounds. Ming Can ordered buns and porridge online, and under her constant coaxing, Su Zhi finally agreed to eat. Eating was extremely difficult for her due to psychological barriers and physical caution; she would hold a spoonful of porridge in her mouth for a long time before managing to swallow it. After trying a few times, she refused to open her mouth again.
Rome wasn’t built in a day. Ming Can had a good mindset; since she was getting triple the pay, she had three times the patience of anyone else.
Time ticked by, and Su Zhi remained fully conscious. Around ten-something in the morning, she asked about Jiang Yang’s status once more.
Ming Can had been keeping an eye on updates over there, even secretly trying a voice call during the time, which rang through with no answer. However, she had confirmed that the flight had indeed arrived safely at its destination. Right after landing, missing calls and messages could be chalked up to airplane mode, but hours after landing, it was impossible not to reach someone.
“My phone.”
Su Zhi asked Ming Can for her phone.
When Ming Can handed it over, her fingertips lingered on the edge of the device for a brief second, but she said nothing.
Su Zhi dialed directly. The phone rang and rang, and by the thirteenth ring, someone picked up.
“Hello?”
Jiang Yang’s voice came through the earpiece, accompanied by a bit of bustling background noise, making it hard to tell where she was.
The fingers holding Su Zhi’s phone tightened slightly.
“You arrived?” she asked.
“Yeah, I got here.” Jiang Yang paused on the other end. “My phone died right after landing, just turned it back on.”
Su Zhi didn’t speak.
Jiang Yang didn’t speak either.
Across the phone line, the two of them fell silent for a few seconds, as if something lay suspended between them, not distance, but something else.
“You…” Su Zhi started, her voice a bit raspy. “You…”
Before she could finish, the other person spoke first.
“Su Zhi.” Jiang Yang said her name, her tone lighter than before. “The issue I ran into with the project here is a bit tricky. If I stay to sort it out and come back, it might take a few extra days. Make sure you rest well, you hear me?”
A bit tricky.
Su Zhi lowered her eyes, wondering what was going through her mind. The IV catheter taped to the back of her hand was stark, clear liquid dripping down drop by drop. A few seconds later, she shifted the phone to her other ear, her voice very flat. “Do you need help?”
Jiang Yang didn’t answer.
Suddenly, a man’s voice came through the background noise, sounding a bit distant, as if calling out something unintelligible. Jiang Yang turned her head to respond, then spoke into the phone again. “Su Zhi, I’m a bit busy right now. I’ll call you back later.”
Su Zhi didn’t get a chance to speak before the line went dead.
She pulled the phone away from her ear and stared at the call log on the screen, noting forty-two seconds.
Ming Can was busy packing up the finished breakfast boxes nearby. Seeing out of the corner of her eye that Su Zhi was holding the phone motionless, she assumed she was just spacing out after finishing her call with Jiang Yang and didn’t think much of it.
“How is it? She arrived safely, right? See, I told you everything was fine.”
Before she could finish, Su Zhi had already redialed the number.
Seeing her action, Ming Can slowed down her packing.
The call went out. One second, two seconds, three seconds.
“Hello, the number you have dialed is currently switched off.”
Su Zhi pulled the phone away from her ear and dialed again.
The same prompt, a cold, mechanical female voice repeating those exact words.
She didn’t stop, dialing a third time.
Ming Can put down what she was holding and walked over to the bed. “What’s wrong?”
Su Zhi didn’t speak, simply pulling the phone away from her ear to stare at the screen. Her finger was still pressing on the dial button, her fingertip turning slightly white.
An overseas project emergency meant the internal company group chat definitely would have activity. Su Zhi swiped open WeChat, her finger pausing for a moment before tapping into the main company group.
The group was completely quiet.
The last message remained from a little past seven o’clock last night, which was the administrative department’s duty roster, followed by a smattering of “Received” replies. After that, absolutely nothing.
She scrolled up to earlier chat logs, including project progress reports, team-building announcements, and workflow approvals.
Everything was local information, with zero news regarding the overseas project.
Su Zhi stared at the screen, her finger hovering there.
That’s not right.
She exited the main group and tapped into the project department’s sub-group.
Equally quiet.
Then she checked the executive group.
The main group was quiet, the project group was quiet, and the executive group was quiet too.
That left only one other possibility: after returning, Jiang Yang had been pulled aside by upper management for a talk, and they had warned her not to get too close to someone like her. But she wasn’t that kind of person! Otherwise, she wouldn’t have dropped everything and traveled long-distance to see her at such a critical moment as project launch day.
Su Zhi couldn’t figure it out.