“Jing Shun, If You Need Anything…”
There was only a one-day gap between the recordings of the program’s first two rounds. After cooperating with the work commitments he had on hand, Jing Shun began devoting himself wholeheartedly to preparing for surgery.
Before he knew it, the middle of March had arrived.
Inside the independent, spacious hospital room, Song Chunhui looked at Jing Shun, who had already changed into a hospital gown, and formally informed him, “Mr. Jing, all your physical indicators meet the surgical requirements. We can perform the first operation tomorrow!”
A trace of excitement appeared between Jing Shun’s brows. “Thank you, Professor Song.”
“By the way, according to the relevant regulations, you’ll need to sign this surgical consent form.”
Song Chunhui looked toward the medical assistant behind him and indicated that the assistant should hand over the pen and paper that had been prepared long ago.
“Mr. Jing, who will be accompanying you outside the operating room tomorrow? Will your parents be coming?”
“……”
His parents?
Hearing those long-unheard, somewhat unfamiliar words, the light in Jing Shun’s eyes dimmed.
When he had first been injured in his previous life, he had been at the stage when he needed the company of family and friends the most. But whenever the hospital called his divorced parents, Jing Guanhai and Xu Jia, before surgery, they would merely pass the responsibility back and forth, making excuses and refusing to come.
Even after the operations, the two of them had only visited once or twice, and even then, their words were full of hints that they were unwilling to bear the costs and trouble of his subsequent treatment.
With parents like that, what difference did it make whether they came or not?
He had long since stopped expecting anything from them.
Suppressing the bitter disappointment in his heart, Jing Shun accepted the surgical consent form from the medical assistant.
“Professor Song, I’m the patient himself. It’s fine if I sign it myself, right?”
Song Chunhui was an understanding person. He had already seen the reason behind Jing Shun’s absentmindedness.
He did not expose the other man’s wounds. Instead, he nodded.
“That’s fine. However, I’ll need to inform Chairman Chi about this. Mr. Jing, make sure you get to bed early tonight.”
The medical team had been hired and paid for by Chi Gui, so he naturally had the right to know.
“Okay.”
Jing Shun quickly signed his name without the slightest hesitation.
…
The night was deep.
Jing Shun lay alone on the hospital bed, completely unable to sleep.
He gazed at the warm yellow light filtering in through the window and listened to the occasional cries of birds returning to their nests in the distance. An indescribable sense of dejection and loneliness filled his heart.
Ever since the topic of “parents” had come up that evening, the old emotional wound he had carried for years had surfaced once more, like a massive stone blocking his chest and making it difficult to breathe.
Time passed slowly.
After trying several times to fall asleep without success, Jing Shun resigned himself to getting out of bed. He pulled the wheelchair over, shifted himself out of bed, and prepared to leave the room for some fresh air.
Yet the moment he opened the door, he unexpectedly “bumped into” Chi Gui in the hallway.
“……”
“……”
The two stared at each other, both stunned for a moment.
“What are you doing here?”
“Why haven’t you gone to sleep yet?”
Their questions rang out in perfect unison before both of them fell silent.
Chi Gui’s gaze swept down from Jing Shun’s face. He noticed the thin hospital gown he was wearing, the slippers on his feet, and the exposed ankles—slender and frail, with skin so pale that it was almost bloodless.
“I just finished dealing with some work and thought I’d come by to check on you. When I saw that the lights in your room were off, I assumed you had already gone to sleep.”
Chi Gui withdrew his gaze with restraint.
“But what about you? Your surgery is tomorrow. Why aren’t you resting at this hour? Where are you planning to go dressed so lightly?”
“……”
Only then did Jing Shun realize that he was a little cold. The small blanket over his knees was nowhere near enough to keep him warm.
“Are you cold?”
Noticing his subtle reaction, Chi Gui frowned and advised him, “If there’s nothing important, go back inside. I won’t disturb your rest.”
“Wait! Chi…… Chi Gui!”
Looking at the man who had come to visit in the middle of the night, Jing Shun felt an unprecedented impulse rise from the depths of his heart.
“Are you free? Could you keep me company and chat for a while?”
Chi Gui did not answer immediately. Instead, he lowered his head and checked his watch.
“Now?”
“It won’t take long. I-I’m having trouble sleeping, and I wanted to find someone to talk to.”
Jing Shun tried to invite him, but uncertainty made him lower his eyes.
“If it’s inconvenient for you, then forget it. I……”
Before he could finish his self-deprecating words, Chi Gui’s thick, warm coat was draped over his shoulders.
“The temperature displayed on my phone is only four degrees Celsius tonight. If you’re dressed this lightly, you’ll catch a cold.”
Chi Gui bent down to meet his gaze, as though even his usually intimidating presence had lowered its head.
“Jing Shun, I’m free right now. What would you like to talk about?”
…
The window of the hospital room was open, and the breeze carried a refreshing chill.
Jing Shun took a deep breath. The cold air rushed from the tip of his nose straight into his lungs, instantly clearing much of his muddled mind.
Through the reflection in the glass, he looked at Chi Gui’s blurred figure and finally took the initiative to begin the conversation.
“Today, Professor Song asked me whether he needed to notify my parents about tomorrow’s surgery.”
“I told him there was no need, and then I signed the surgical consent form myself.”
“……”
Standing behind him, Chi Gui listened in silence.
Professor Song and his medical team had all been hired by him, so naturally, news of the matter had reached his ears immediately.
Chi Gui could hear the disappointment hidden beneath Jing Shun’s calm voice.
“If you want your uncle and aunt to come and accompany you, I can send someone to invite them first thing tomorrow morning.”
“There’s no need. They won’t come.”
Jing Shun knew the answer better than anyone.
“My parents each have their own new families now, and I’m not their only child anymore.”
“My father has another son. He should be twelve this year. After my mother remarried, she had a daughter who’s seven.”
“……”
Chi Gui sensed that something was wrong with his words, and his gaze fixed on Jing Shun’s back grew deeper.
A twelve-year-old younger brother? A seven-year-old younger sister?
If he remembered correctly, Jing Shun’s parents had only divorced when he was eighteen. At most, it had been five or six years since then. How could Jing Shun have siblings of those ages?
Jing Shun brought out the secret he had kept buried in his heart.
“During the summer vacation when I was eighteen, a friend sent me a video and asked me, ‘When did you get a little brother?’”
The friend had happened to encounter Jing Guanhai at a shopping mall with a little boy. The two of them had been calling each other “son” and “Dad.”
There was also a short-haired woman accompanying them, but she was not Jing Shun’s biological mother, Xu Jia.
Jing Shun immediately realized that something was wrong. At the time, still young and impulsive, he assumed that his father had betrayed his mother. As soon as he got home, he confronted Jing Guanhai with the video.
“At first, my father still tried to cover things up. But later, my mother added fuel to the fire with her words, and the two of them began arguing right in front of me.”
Even now, recalling that argument still made Jing Shun find it both ridiculous and ironic.
“Can you imagine it? There was nothing but disgust in the way they looked at each other. They wished they could completely tear off each other’s masks. There wasn’t even a trace of marital affection left.”
It was only then that Jing Shun learned the truth—
Jing Guanhai and Xu Jia had been on bad terms and living separately for many years. Their marriage had long existed in name only, yet neither of them had ever brought up divorce.
“Normally, when a couple doesn’t get divorced, it might be because they can’t bear to part with their child or are afraid of hurting the child. But they weren’t unwilling to divorce because they couldn’t bear to leave me.”
A trace of self-mockery surfaced between Jing Shun’s brows.
“After all, I wasn’t important to them. They couldn’t bear to give up the money I earned.”
There were quite a few child actors in the entertainment industry, but very few could earn more than Jing Shun.
Neither of his parents was willing to give up their biological son—their money-making tree. Their shared interests had driven them to maintain a marriage that was only harmonious on the surface.
“I remember they once had a particularly fierce argument. It got so bad that they grabbed me and demanded, ‘If your father and I get divorced, who will you go with?’”
At that time, Jing Shun had just stayed up all night filming a major scene. Suddenly facing his parents’ hysterical argument, he was utterly exhausted. With reddened eyes, he threw out one sentence—
“I won’t go with either of you! If you get divorced, I’ll never act again!”
Perhaps that very sentence had struck at the couple’s weakest point.
From that day onward, Jing Guanhai and Xu Jia’s open arguments almost disappeared. In front of Jing Shun, they once again “played” the roles of loving parents who cared about his every need.
But in private, they had already reached an agreement: they would each live their own lives.
Jing Guanhai had already been dating a new girlfriend. Meanwhile, while Xu Jia was taking Jing Shun from one production crew to another, she met a wealthy businessman who was divorced and had a child of his own.
Both of their new partners knew about the marriage that existed in name only. The only person kept completely in the dark was their biological son, Jing Shun.
“Chi Gui, before I turned eighteen, all the money I earned from acting not only supported my parents, but even became an additional source of income for both of their new families. Don’t you think that’s ridiculous?”
Even now, Jing Shun still couldn’t understand what he had done wrong.
Why had no one loved him? Why had no one felt sorry for him?
“It was their fault. They were the ridiculous ones.”
Looking at Jing Shun’s lonely back, Chi Gui finally understood why he had chosen to live alone after turning eighteen.
“Didn’t you consider taking legal action at the time and trying to get as much of that money back as possible?”
“I consulted a lawyer, but in the end, I gave up.”
“For one thing, all of the money I earned belonged to the period when I was a minor. As my legal guardians, Jing Guanhai and Xu Jia did have certain rights to manage and control it.”
“Not to mention that many of the contracts with production crews had been signed on my behalf by them.”
“For another, Jing Guanhai and Xu Jia, along with my grandfather, maternal grandfather, and maternal grandmother, who were still alive at the time, each came to plead with me. They coaxed me, begged me, and tried to persuade me to let the matter go. They also left me that old, run-down apartment as compensation.”
“And third, I was an actor, and I didn’t have a management company back then. Handling everything would have been somewhat inconvenient.”
Even though Jing Shun had grown up on film sets and had seen more of the world than most people his age, he was still only an eighteen-year-old boy.
“After seeing the truth clearly, I was partly acting out of spite. I stopped having much contact with them.”
But after so many years, the anger he had once held had long since faded.
In the end, he had come to accept the fact that he was someone who “had no parents.”
The night wind made Jing Shun’s eyes sting.
“……”
Chi Gui understood Jing Shun’s helplessness and difficulties back then, so he did not ask any further questions.
He stepped forward and closed the window, shielding the person beside him from the cold wind.
“You did the right thing.”
Parents like that were better off left behind.
Jing Shun turned his head toward Chi Gui. “I couldn’t sleep tonight. One reason is that I remembered how they hurt me back then. The other is that I’m also… a little afraid.”
In his previous life, Jing Shun had undergone several surgeries, both major and minor.
At first, there had been Chi Sheng, who was only “putting on an act,” and friends who had sincerely accompanied him outside the operating room. Later, Chi Sheng could no longer keep pretending, while his friend had gone abroad because a family member had fallen ill.
And as long as it was surgery, there was always a risk of failure, even a certain mortality rate.
Jing Shun knew that he had no family he could truly rely on. He had grown accustomed to suppressing his genuine fear again and again. He had also grown accustomed to the process of holding on to hope each time, only to watch that hope collapse.
“Professor Song is the most authoritative expert in this field. But what if I still don’t get better after this surgery? What will I do then?”
Fine worry and tension surfaced deep in Jing Shun’s eyes.
Chi Gui quickly stopped his pessimistic train of thought.
“Don’t think about it so much. You’ll get better.”
Jing Shun was uncertain. “Will I really get better?”
Chi Gui caught the hesitation in his voice.
“Yes. If it doesn’t work the first time, we’ll try a second time, then a third. I’ll have people look for other treatment options as well.”
Jing Shun’s breathing grew tense. “Chi Gui, why do you……”
Chi Gui guessed what he had been unable to say and gave the most appropriate reason.
“Didn’t you ask me for help in the first place because you wanted to stand up again?”
“Since we drew up an agreement, I won’t go back on what I promised you.”
Chi Gui faced him directly, his tone calm and firm.
“Jing Shun, it’s not too late for anything yet.”
“……”
It’s not too late for anything?
In an instant, Jing Shun’s heart—and even his soul—seemed to jolt.
Caught completely off guard, he fell into the depths of Chi Gui’s eyes. Their dark color was thicker than the night itself. As they looked at each other, it seemed as though they could absorb all his unease, confusion, and anxiety.
Then he heard Chi Gui say:
“Jing Shun, if you need me, I can stay with you.”