The Doctor stared at Xu Xingyuan for a while, remaining silent for a long time.
He had never seen a human like Xu Xingyuan.
Xu Xingyuan coughed twice. Seeing that the Doctor wasn’t speaking, he blinked gently and asked in a whisper:
“Doctor, are you angry?”
A simple sentence finally spurred the Doctor into action.
He was amused. He raised his hand and affectionately rubbed Xu Xingyuan’s small head.
“Silly child. You protected my herbs; why would I be angry?”
The Doctor picked up a towel nearby and helped dry Xu Xingyuan’s hair. “I’ll go find Ah Jiao and ask him to make you some ginger soup.”
Five minutes later.
The door to the infirmary was kicked open!
Before Xu Xingyuan could react, he fell into an embrace filled with a faint fragrance.
“Xingyuan! My Xingyuan!”
The moment Ah Jiao heard the Doctor say Xu Xingyuan had been caught in the rain, he dropped his kitchen knife without a second thought and rushed toward the infirmary!
Judging by looks alone, Ah Jiao was an absolute peerless beauty, the kind that would make anyone with a severe white-hair fetish ecstatic.
His beauty was androgynous. He had very smooth, beautiful long white hair, and his eyes were a stunning ice blue.
If melancholy was a talent, Ah Jiao was undoubtedly a master of it.
When he wasn’t speaking, just sitting there quietly, he looked as beautiful as a painting, his face always wearing a faint sorrow.
“How could you go out and get rained on?”
Ah Jiao gently cupped Xu Xingyuan’s cheeks, his ice-blue eyes gazing at him with heartache as he soothed, “I made soup for you. Will you drink a little?”
Ah Jiao’s culinary skills were exceptional. The ginger soup had fresh pears added to it, making it taste sweet.
Xu Xingyuan originally wanted to drink it himself, but Ah Jiao insisted on holding the spoon and feeding him bit by bit.
Xu Xingyuan was fed a large bowl just like that. His small belly became round, and his cold body warmed up.
After Xu Xingyuan finished, Ah Jiao peeled a candy for him.
It was that pearl-like candy again, with snow-white coating and a faint scent of milk.
The Doctor stared at the candy, clicking his tongue in wonder. “Usually you treasure those like crazy, but now you’re willing to make them into candy for Xingyuan to eat.”
Ah Jiao pretended not to hear and shoved another one into Xu Xingyuan’s hand.
“I’ll go get a thermos and pack some more ginger soup for you to take back and drink slowly.”
Xu Xingyuan lowered his head, opened his palm, looked at the candy in his hand, and nodded very slightly.
Before his mother passed away, she always liked to hold Xu Xingyuan in her arms while coaxing him to take his medicine, habitually clutching a candy in her palm.
She said that good children who finished their medicine obediently would get a reward.
Although the reward was always the cheapest kind of bulk candy from the supermarket.
Every time Xu Xingyuan finished a candy, he would carefully preserve the colorful wrapper.
He had a very battered tin box filled to the brim with a thick stack of colorful candy wrappers.
After his mother died, this box became Xu Xingyuan’s most precious possession.
Whenever he missed his mom, he would open the box, pull out a wrapper, and lower his head to sniff the lingering scent on it.
That was the remaining, incomplete, and only sweetness in his memory that could comfort Xu Xingyuan.
Until later, when the box was gone.
And the wrappers were gone too.
Xu Xingyuan had gradually forgotten this habit, but now, looking at the snow-white candy wrapper in his hand…
He instinctively smoothed out the wrapper and carefully tucked it into his pocket.
After Ah Jiao left, the Doctor sat on the chair opposite Xu Xingyuan and checked his temperature.
“No fever, but we need further examination.”
The Doctor leaned his upper body forward, opened his eyes, and stared intently at Xu Xingyuan with those eerie snake pupils, soothing him:
“The next part might be a little… um, hard to accept?”
Xu Xingyuan quickly understood what the Doctor meant.
He looked down and watched as the Doctor’s arm passed right through his chest. A strange sensation came from his heart.
“Doctor, are you touching my heart?” Xu Xingyuan endured it but still asked.
The Doctor explained, “Yes. The rain outside the apartment affects not just the body, but the soul as well.”
The fastest way to check if the soul had been infected was to examine the heart.
But the result of the examination surprised the Doctor—Xu Xingyuan’s heart was clean, without a trace of corruption.
For a human, this was almost impossible.
In all the time the Doctor had lived, this was the first time he had seen a human who, after contact with the Yin rain, could still maintain a completely clean soul without any filth.
With a strange expression, the Doctor withdrew his hand and stared at Xu Xingyuan.
The latter, sucking on the candy, looked down curiously at his own chest and even reached out to touch it.
Perhaps, just as his boss had said, Xu Xingyuan had enormous potential to be a Ferryman.
The Doctor coughed and spoke up. “Xingyuan, do you want to become a Ferryman?”
Xu Xingyuan looked up instinctively, tilting his head curiously. “Ferryman?”
The Doctor gave Xu Xingyuan a detailed explanation of all aspects regarding Ferrymen, including the dangers.
“After hearing all this, are you still willing to become a Ferryman?”
The Doctor was prepared for Xu Xingyuan to refuse.
Through his observations during this time, he found Xu Xingyuan to be a very mature and steady child.
He worked earnestly without slacking off and liked a quiet, stable life. Like a tree that takes root where it lands, once he settled in a place, he wouldn’t easily move.
After thinking very seriously, Xu Xingyuan asked the Doctor:
“Doctor, after becoming a Ferryman, will my existence have value?”
Another question that caught the Doctor off guard.
Xu Xingyuan looked up with his palm-sized face, gazing at the Doctor earnestly, and continued:
“When my mother was alive, people said I was a burden to her. After she died, people said I was a burden to my father. When my father wanted to abandon me, everyone said I was a burden.”
Xu Xingyuan’s existence had been so lightly negated.
Everyone said he was a burden, and eventually, even Xu Xingyuan thought so himself.
Perhaps with some kind of expectation, or maybe a hope that even Xu Xingyuan himself hadn’t realized, he repeated the question:
“Doctor, if I become a Ferryman, does that prove I am a person worth existing?”
Hearing this, the Doctor’s gaze gradually softened. He gently stroked the side of Xu Xingyuan’s thin face with one hand and asked very tenderly:
“To exist is to be justified. What do you think you are?”
Xu Xingyuan thought for a moment and gave an answer.
“I am the unlikable gloomy rain outside the apartment.”
The Doctor shook his head gently, rejecting it.
“No. In my eyes, you are a colorful flower.”
Xu Xingyuan lowered his eyelids, speaking somewhat dejectedly:
“But Doctor, flowers can’t grow in the Infinite Flow world.”
Hearing this, the Doctor pinched Xu Xingyuan’s cheek and smiled.
“Your existence is the brightest flower.”