Perhaps because they had been too wild the day before, Ran Jiu actually fell ill.
Some illnesses strike like a collapsing mountain—silent, without any warning at all. The night before, when they returned home, Ran Jiu had still been joking around with her. They had taken hot showers one after the other before bidding each other goodnight.
Later, when Rong Ting thought back on it, that smile had seemed a bit pale.
At first, she didn’t notice Ran Jiu was sick at all, because the door to that room was always closed. Without Ran Jiu’s permission, she wouldn’t take the initiative to open it.
But that day, she returned home early at noon and instinctively glanced toward Ran Jiu’s room. The gap under the door was dark, with no light seeping through. Feeling a bit suspicious, Rong Ting walked over and knocked, but there was no response. She thought she might be overthinking it.
She had been too busy recently, and her tutoring sessions had been delayed for a while. This week, the parents asked her to make up a few extra classes. Since she had no classes in the afternoon, she agreed. On the bus, she sat with her chin propped on her hand, her gaze fixed on a point in the air.
As she neared her destination, she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the window—her hair slightly disheveled, the fine hairs at her temples swaying in the breeze like tangled thoughts.
After getting off the bus, she headed toward the German embassy. This tutoring job had been given to her by a senior she met in a German class. The senior was going to study in Germany and had passed on this tutoring opportunity.
At the time, the tutoring market wasn’t great. Some jobs required long commutes for low pay. But this family was a Sino-German blend—the father was German, the mother was Chinese. The two children had grown up in Germany until they were ten before returning to Beijing. The family needed someone who could speak German to teach the children Chinese. Of course, given the demanding conditions, the pay was also quite good.
The senior had liked her gentle and steady personality, saying the two children were mischievous but the pay was high, and she could think about it. Rong Ting didn’t hesitate long before accepting.
The two children, a boy and a girl, had just returned from a spring camp, carrying small backpacks. The family’s nanny helped them take the bags off and said kindly, “Teacher Rong, please wait a moment. The children are too excited.”
Rong Ting propped her chin on her hand, her eyes crinkling into a smile. She was happy too, as if this were a season of joy.
The two children pointed proudly at the newly learned German words in their book. “Teacher, do you know how to say ‘summer’?”
Rong Ting pretended not to know and said in Chinese, “Can you teach me?”
The little girl pronounced it in a sweet, childish voice, and her brother corrected her seriously, “No, you have to round your mouth and make an ‘oh’ sound—der Sommer!”
The little girl looked a bit upset, and Rong Ting spent a while comforting her. Gazing out the window thoughtfully, she said, “Summer is coming.”
She vaguely felt that their relationship had grown closer, and everything she did was filled with energy. On her way back in the evening, she passed by the library and stayed inside for a while, looking up a lot of information about Inner Mongolia’s climate and travel guides.
She had said she might take her to the grasslands.
Just thinking about it sent ripples through Rong Ting’s heart. She looked up even more about the local customs and traditions.
By 5 p.m., she had hurriedly finished organizing the materials for a document and sent Ran Jiu a message, asking what she wanted to eat for dinner. Usually, Ran Jiu would reply within an hour, but this time, there was no response at all.
Receiving no message, Rong Ting felt a pang of disappointment.
She still went to the supermarket to buy some backup fruits and vegetables. The seasonal thick scallion pancakes had just come out, and Rong Ting, smelling their aroma, bought several.
When she returned home, the house was unusually quiet, the windows tightly shut, as if they hadn’t been opened for ventilation all day.
Finally sensing something amiss, she knocked on Ran Jiu’s door again, but there was still no response from inside.
“Ran Jiu?” Rong Ting instinctively grasped the doorknob and pressed down slightly—it gave way without any resistance.
Ran Jiu hadn’t locked the door.
A vague sense of foreboding crept over her.
As the door swung open, her field of vision gradually widened, revealing the cluttered computer desk and Ran Jiu’s bed squeezed beside it.
The blanket hadn’t been folded at all, nearly bundled into a heap. The deep blue bedding looked thick and heavy, faintly outlining a human shape within.
“Ran Jiu?” Rong Ting called softly.
There was no movement from the bed. The person was buried deep in the bedding, almost as if murdered by the bed itself.
Rong Ting slipped off her slippers and entered the room, stepping onto the carpet in her socks. The soft texture brushed against her ankles, the long fibers grazing her skin. The room was filled with a cold fragrance, a blend of woody notes and bitter orange leaves.
Entering the room felt more like stepping into an ice cellar. She was enveloped by a wintry chill and couldn’t help but sneeze.
The person on the bed seemed to stir slightly. Rong Ting focused her gaze on the heap of bedding, but it fell still again.
Rong Ting sniffled, scanning from the desk to the carpet, but couldn’t find the air conditioner remote.
Narrowing down the remaining possibilities, she cautiously approached the bed, slowly searching through the tangled heap of blankets for the remote.
It wasn’t on the bedside table. Next, she tried lifting a corner of the blanket to check near the foot of the bed.
As she fumbled around, her hand suddenly brushed against a patch of cold skin—smooth, soft, and bone-chillingly icy.
As if sensing the warmth, the leg shifted closer, pressing against Rong Ting’s arm.
Rong Ting: “…” She found the remote, breathed a sigh of relief, and quickly turned off the air conditioner.
The cold air in the room gradually dissipated, returning to a normal temperature. Rong Ting grasped Ran Jiu’s ankle, the chill making her shiver.
She held it for a while until her own hand grew cold, then tucked Ran Jiu tightly under the blanket, securing all four corners before feeling at ease.
Ran Jiu was sick—that much was certain.
Rong Ting was relieved she had brought a thermometer when she moved in. She hurried back to her room, rummaged through her luggage for the box, and rushed back.
She dug Ran Jiu out from the head of the bed, tapped the thermometer against her ear, and measured a temperature of 38 degrees Celsius.
Seemingly sensing the cold, Ran Jiu tucked her head back under the blanket, pulling the covers tightly over her shoulders until only her head was visible, like a slender silkworm cocoon.
Rong Ting left her bedroom, boiled some water, then put on her clothes and went downstairs to the pharmacy to buy fever-reducing medicine. By the time she returned, the water had just boiled. She poured it into a cup, mixing it with the previously prepared warm water.
Rong Ting took the medicine to Ran Jiu’s room. The girl was still lying in bed, but had shifted into a different position. Most of the blanket was piled around her upper body, leaving her slender, pale calves exposed, the arches of her feet elegantly curved.
“Ran Jiu.” Rong Ting shook her arm gently. “You have a fever. Time to take your medicine.”
Ran Jiu’s leg suddenly twitched. She mumbled something, her voice hoarse and indistinct.
“Not taking it.”
Rong Ting had no choice but to set the water and medicine on her desk first. She pressed the back of her hand against Ran Jiu’s forehead—it was still burning hot.
She had no choice but to negotiate gently, “Taking the medicine will help you recover faster. After you finish it, you can go back to sleep. I’ll make your favorite dishes for dinner tonight, okay?”
There was no response. Ran Jiu’s thin eyelids were marked by prominent under-eye bags, resembling faint gray eyeshadow. Her cheeks were flushed with a sickly pink hue, giving her an unexpectedly delicate and captivating appearance.
Rong Ting tried her best to remain calm. “Have you not gotten out of bed all day? If you don’t take the medicine, you’ll still feel weak. What about your work then?”
She had said it casually, not expecting how deeply those words would resonate with someone who was overworked.
Suddenly, the bedding on the bed rustled twice. The person inside slowly emerged and leaned against the headboard, eyelids still drooping. In a voice as faint as a mosquito’s hum, she extended her hand toward Rong Ting. “Medicine.”
Rong Ting handed her the pills. Ran Jiu stuffed them all into her mouth, took the glass of water, and drank it in one gulp. Then, she slid back down and burrowed into her cocoon-like blanket.
Just as Rong Ting was about to leave, she heard Ran Jiu mumble, “If I take the medicine, will I feel better by tonight?”
A faint smile curved at the corner of Rong Ting’s lips. “Mm-hmm.”
“You’re not allowed to lie to me.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“I don’t want to go to the hospital.”
Rong Ting thought it over carefully. As long as her fever subsided, she wouldn’t take her to the hospital. But her words were tactful. “Okay.”
“And you have to make the delicious food you promised.”
Rong Ting turned around. Ran Jiu was looking at her with slightly fragile eyes, tinged with redness at the corners, yet filled with a stubborn determination.
Rong Ting smiled. “Mm-hmm, I will.”