Zhong Yu and Qiao Siheng had crossed paths again.
This time, the bridge between them was a pituitary MRI scan.
On the phone, Qiao Siheng’s voice was low and heavy. Once he confirmed that the patient wasn’t Zhong Yu herself, his tone became somewhat languid.
That changed when Zhong Yu told him she was at the hospital right now.
Qiao Siheng had just finished serving as first assistant in a Level IV surgery under his mentor. He had only recently stepped away from the operating table, at that particular hour when both mind and body were at their most depleted.
As he walked through the crowd and caught sight of Zhong Yu, his pace slowed.
She sat composedly in a corner, dressed in a long trench coat and jeans, a light-colored turtleneck framing her clean, lovely face. Her medium-length hair was casually gathered at the nape of her neck.
Beside her sat a girl around the same age, her elbow propped on her knee, chin resting in her palm as she thought.
Zheng Hao was in the midst of an absurd and sorrowful reckoning with the fact that she had a pituitary tumor growing in her head. She had asked Zhong Yu, her old schoolmate who had gone into medicine, whether the doctor she recommended was reliable. Her will to live was still remarkably strong.
Zhong Yu hadn’t had anything to do with Qiao Siheng for several years. All she could tell Zheng Hao was that clinical medicine at Fudan University Shanghai Medical College was reliable, and so was the Department of Neurosurgery at Huashan Hospital.
When Qiao Siheng appeared, Zheng Hao’s eyes lit up. She nudged Zhong Yu’s arm.
“Is that him?”
Zhong Yu looked up. The instant their eyes met, she rose to her feet, her gaze lingering on the white coat he wore.
His face had changed very little. There were few traces of the wear and tear one might expect from a high-pressure job. What lay beneath his clothes was impossible to make out clearly, but his silhouette was still as good as ever.
Zhong Yu gave him a polite greeting, then introduced the two people who were meeting him for the first time.
Hearing that Zheng Hao was her colleague, Qiao Siheng raised an eyebrow.
“How did you end up coming to Shanghai for treatment?”
Zhong Yu said she had been working in Shanghai for two years. Her tone was as detached as her expression.
Qiao Siheng’s long, slender fingers went still amid the stack of medical reports. His gaze returned to Zhong Yu’s eyes, an unreadable smile appearing at the corner of his lips.
“Really? Then how come you’ve never come looking for me?”
He had always thought she was still in Beijing.
After graduating from university, she had joined the gaming division of one of the major internet companies as an engine development engineer, a core technical position. She had once said she disliked Beijing’s climate, but she had never mentioned wanting to develop her career elsewhere.
It had been two or three years since they had been in contact.
Zhong Yu steered the conversation back to Zheng Hao’s scan.
Qiao Siheng came back to himself and frowned slightly.
“The location isn’t good. She’ll need surgery.”
Zheng Hao pursed her lips and gave a soft little “Mm.”
Qiao Siheng lowered his eyes to her.
“You’ve got a pretty good attitude.”
The examination had been done at another hospital, but Zheng Hao decided to have the surgery at Huashan Hospital.
Qiao Siheng took care of the arrangements as a favor, putting it down to Zhong Yu’s account.
They agreed that she would register and be admitted within the next few days.
Zheng Hao’s family lived far away in the Northeast, and she didn’t want to trouble them with a long journey.
Zhong Yu suggested hiring a professional caregiver. She would also come by the hospital whenever work wasn’t too busy.
Two days later, when they arrived at the inpatient department, Qiao Siheng appeared at the nurses’ station.
Everyone whispered among themselves. A few people looked toward him as though seeking confirmation that the rumors were true. He stood straight with both hands in his pockets, the corners of his lips curling upward. He pulled a few pieces of candy from his white coat pocket and placed them in front of the medical staff, refusing to reveal a single bit of gossip.
Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the person waiting and turned his head, his gaze settling on her.
All the way there, Zhong Yu had been listening to Zheng Hao chatter nonstop. She had been talking about Qiao Siheng’s several first-author SCI papers, how his doctoral supervisor was one of the stars of neurosurgery, and just how popular he was at the hospital.
When Qiao Siheng’s gaze touched her, there was a moment of silence in her ears.
He really was popular. The sight brought back memories of those ten-minute breaks between classes in high school.
As Zheng Hao handed her documents to the nurses’ station, Qiao Siheng pointed toward Zhong Yu behind her and said to the head nurse, “She was my classmate in high school.”
He then explained Zhong Yu’s relationship with Zheng Hao.
The head nurse took one look at Zhong Yu, nodded, and personally accepted Zheng Hao’s paperwork.
The four-bed ward had a window-side bed. The nurse assigned to the room was Liu Qingying, a lively and friendly young woman.
While Liu Qingying was taking Zheng Hao’s basic vital signs, Zhong Yu went to meet the caregiver. Qiao Siheng had been the one to recommend her.
Liu Qingying chatted with Zheng Hao.
“Your colleague really cares about you. You two must be pretty close, huh?”
Zheng Hao said Zhong Yu was her team leader and had always looked after her.
“Heart rate’s 106. A little nervous?” Liu Qingying reassured her. “Endoscopic transsphenoidal surgery is a routine procedure, and the success rate is very high. Relax.”
Zheng Hao asked, “Will I get diabetes insipidus after surgery? Wouldn’t that be embarrassing?”
Liu Qingying smiled.
“Even if you do, there’s nothing to be embarrassed about. Don’t worry.”
When Zhong Yu returned to the ward after collecting the supplies, Qiao Siheng was standing by the window.
He was looking down at Zheng Hao’s examination results. He was so tall that his shadow fell across the hospital bed, sharply outlining his handsome features.
Zheng Hao had already asked a whole string of questions, and Qiao Siheng had patiently answered every one. Now that Zhong Yu had returned, she moved on to a different subject.
“Were you two close when you were in high school?”
Qiao Siheng looked at Zhong Yu. She was bent over, organizing the hospital gown and the few medical necessities she had bought. Her thin oatmeal-colored sweater outlined her rounded chest and slender waist. A strand of her tied-back hair had fallen beside her ear, and half her body was enveloped in his shadow.
“Pretty close.”
That was Qiao Siheng’s answer.
Zhong Yu, however, neither confirmed nor denied it.
She had a meeting that afternoon. After getting Zheng Hao settled, she left.
Qiao Siheng walked her to the elevator. While they waited, they were surrounded by patients and medical staff, and the elevator numbers seemed to pause for several seconds at every floor.
His question was mixed in with the surrounding din. His voice didn’t sound particularly serious, yet every word was unusually clear.
“You’ve been in Shanghai this long. How come you never told me?”
Zhong Yu watched the numbers crawl upward, a faint smile on her lips.
“Is that important?”
Qiao Siheng reached out and touched the fuzzy charm hanging from her bag. His fingers tightened around it and gave it a squeeze.
“Still holding it against me?”
Zhong Yu lowered her eyes. The white toe of his shoe was level with hers. She looked away and shifted half a step forward.
A moment later, the elevator arrived.
Qiao Siheng carried Zhong Yu’s fuzzy charm back to his office and casually set it beside his water glass.
It was a little white monster with fangs, purple eyes, and pink hair—a furry-toy version of a Shamate.
He studied it for a while before putting it into his desk drawer.
Zhong Yu had slipped it into his hand before getting into the elevator.
The surgery was scheduled for three days later. With nothing better to do, Zheng Hao became the neurosurgery department’s news correspondent—
The female patient in such-and-such a bed hadn’t seen her husband or son even once before or after surgery; the neurosurgery director in charge of research and teaching was only in his early forties; Nurse Liu had just broken up with the male doctor from dermatology; Dr. Qiao’s junior female colleague and a female doctor from cardiology were both pursuing him…
Zhong Yu was forced to become Zheng Hao’s audience, taking the gossip as seasoning for her busy workdays.
In the second half of the year, the team was putting their self-developed engine on the agenda. As a core member, she was under no small amount of pressure.
That night, she worked overtime until nine-thirty.
A dessert shop had recently opened outside the subway station. Zhong Yu walked in, wanting to buy herself an emotional pick-me-up—the sweeter, the better.
As she was paying, Qiao Siheng suddenly sent her his location.
She froze for a moment before tapping to join. They were less than two kilometers apart.
She exited the location-sharing screen and sent him a question mark.
Qiao Siheng replied:
I’ll come find you.
The room was warm. After sitting inside for two minutes, Zhong Yu got up, bought a slice of matcha mousse, and went outside to wait.
There was a long blue wooden bench by the entrance. The person who had been occupying it had just left, so she sat down.
She let her mind drift, idly wondering why certain coincidences happened to fall into place. She thought about Zheng Hao having entered her workplace, address, and other information during the hospital admission process, as well as her astonishing ability to socialize with everyone in the inpatient department.
But how had he known what time she would get off work today, or which subway exit she would take?
Zhong Yu didn’t yet know that Zheng Hao had also shared her information with the doctors and nurses in the department—where she had graduated from, that she had been the top science-track student in her year at their school, that she was currently single, and so on.
When the car reached the dessert shop across the street, Qiao Siheng saw Zhong Yu waiting outside.
Her work clothes gave her a more mature air. The allure of a grown woman had covered over the memory of the girl in her old school uniform.
Zhong Yu was watching the traffic, seemingly without purpose, when a silver AMG GT slowed to a stop by the curb. She stood and walked toward the roadside. After stepping down from the curb, she remembered that she hadn’t taken the dessert and turned back.
Once she got into the car, Qiao Siheng teased her.
“What were you rushing off for just now?”
She caught a faint scent of pomelo. Her thoughts snagged for a moment, and she ignored him.
With the paper bag in her arms, it was awkward to fasten her seat belt. She was looking for somewhere to put the dessert when Qiao Siheng leaned over, reached around behind her, and pulled the seat belt across.
“Don’t move.”
As he clicked the buckle into place, Qiao Siheng lowered his face slightly toward the paper bag, his voice dropping with it.
“What did you buy?”
She stayed perfectly still.
“Cake.”
“Matcha?”
“Mm.”
When Qiao Siheng straightened, he casually took the dessert bag from her arms.
Matcha was his favorite.
She remembered that.
She also remembered having ridden in this very car once, two years ago.
The restaurant Qiao Siheng had chosen was nearby, a yakitori place. The owner was a bartender Zhong Yu had come across on social media.
They took a seat in a secluded corner.
Zhong Yu ordered pigeon and several kinds of grilled mushrooms.
Qiao Siheng didn’t order a staple either, adding only some beef and two servings of pineapple. After ordering, he asked Zhong Yu if she wanted a drink.
“Anything’s fine.”
He added a bottle of junmai daiginjo.
The lighting inside was dim. While they waited for the food, Zhong Yu lowered the brightness of her phone screen.
She was scrolling through the company’s internal app.
There was no need to pay too much attention to social etiquette when eating with Qiao Siheng.
Once the food arrived, Qiao Siheng poured her some sake. Knowing that she could hold her liquor better than he could, he left the bottle on her side of the table.
Zhong Yu took a hair clip from her bag, twisted her hair up, and secured it casually. She raised her glass and clinked it against Qiao Siheng’s, took a sip, and then began eating.
The conversation began with work.
Qiao Siheng asked her, “What made you decide to come to Shanghai?”
“Shanghai has energy.”
The internet’s summary of the two cities—Beijing for business, Shanghai for modernity—fit well enough.
Qiao Siheng pursed his lips.
“All the big tech companies are pouring money into developing their own engines. Your work must be pretty demanding.”
“It is.”
They chatted idly about this and that, like old friends, and yet also like a man and woman on their first date who had never met before.
The feeling was strange to Zhong Yu, all along. Like eating rice that was slightly undercooked but otherwise good quality—the rawness and the softness both so unmistakable.
She also had a sense of déjà vu, as though this sort of scene kept repeating itself.
Until Qiao Siheng’s phone received a video call.
The moment he answered, a breathless voice traveled across the table and reached Zhong Yu’s ears.
A young woman spoke in a soft, delicate voice.
“I brought so many books home today. I just got into the residential compound. Can you come downstairs and help me carry them?”
Qiao Siheng looked at Zhong Yu. She was keeping her head down, earnestly gnawing on a pigeon wing.
He answered the girl, “I’m eating out.”
“Oh. Okay, then. When will you be back?”
“Not sure.”
“Professor Chen wants me to go to the lab tomorrow. Could you come by? There’s something I want to ask you about.”
“I have an observation and a first-assistant shift tomorrow.”
“Okay… Why’s it so dark where you are? Did you go out for yakitori?”
“Mm.”
Zhong Yu gnawed the bone completely clean, then arranged the bones neatly in the small dish.
After Qiao Siheng ended the video call, he casually explained, “She’s my junior.”
Zhong Yu nodded as though she had seen it all before and said nothing.
Qiao Siheng noticed that her glass was empty and refilled it.
Thirsty, Zhong Yu drank half a glass.
Suddenly, the undercooked conversation became impossible to continue.
Qiao Siheng went to the restroom. When he came back, her seat was empty.
Zhong Yu was gone, and she had paid the bill as well.
He called her.
Zhong Yu was striding through the wind, her crisp voice scattering into the night air.
“Thank you for taking care of Zheng Hao.”
He gave a low laugh.
“Why are you being so formal?”
“I should be. We may be old classmates, but we’re not exactly close.”
“Not close? And yet you’ve made such good use of me.”
Zhong Yu hung up.
She scrolled back through their chat history. One swipe took her all the way back to two years ago.
The last message had been his.