Early the next morning.
When Kamui left the construction site, the sky hadn’t fully brightened yet.
He was wearing an old, grey cotton-padded jacket.
His pant legs were still stained with cement dust from yesterday’s work.
His right leg still limped when he walked, but it was a bit better than yesterday.
He rode the bus for over forty minutes.
He got off at the entrance of the City Second People’s Hospital.
The Pediatric Cardiac Surgery ward on the third floor of the Inpatient Department.
The smell of disinfectant permeated the corridor.
Kamui signed in at the nurses’ station.
The nurse told him to go to the attending physician’s office first.
Dr. Wang was a middle-aged man in his forties, wearing Gold-rimmed Glasses, and slightly plump.
A stack of medical reports was spread out on the desk.
“Mr. Zhang, have a seat.”
Kamui sat down, rubbed his hands together, and placed them on his knees.
“Dr. Wang, how is my daughter’s condition?”
Dr. Wang pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and opened the first report.
“The results of Yueran’s echocardiogram are out.”
“The area of the ventricular septal defect has increased by fifteen percent compared to six months ago.”
Kamui’s fingers dug into his knees.
“Increased? Didn’t you say medication could control it?”
“Medication can only slow down the progression, not reverse it.”
Dr. Wang’s tone was flat, but not indifferent.
“Mr. Zhang, I told you before, if Yueran doesn’t have surgery…”
“…the defect area will continue to enlarge, and her heart function will further deteriorate.”
“I’m still raising the surgery fees.”
“I understand your difficulties.”
Dr. Wang put down the report.
“But the problem now is, if she doesn’t have surgery soon, her heart function may suffer irreversible damage.”
“And if we keep dragging out the medication she is currently taking…”
He paused.
“If the hospitalization and medication fees for the next three months aren’t paid, according to hospital regulations, we will have to stop the medication.”
This sentence was like a blunt knife, sawing away at Kamui’s ribs, one stroke at a time.
“How much?”
“Three months of medication and hospitalization fees, about thirty-six thousand.”
“What about the surgery?”
“For the surgery, including subsequent ICU monitoring and rehabilitation, the total cost is about one hundred eighty thousand to two hundred thousand.”
Kamui’s Adam’s apple bobbed.
He still had four thousand seven hundred yuan in his savings book.
“Dr. Wang, can you grant me a little more time? One month, give me one month.”
Dr. Wang looked at him and sighed.
“Mr. Zhang, I personally am willing to help you find a way, but the hospital has rules, and the finance department has already urged us several times.”
“One month, just one month.”
Kamui’s voice muffled, his knuckles turning white as he clenched his fists on his knees.
Dr. Wang was silent for a few seconds, then nodded.
“I will try my best to hold them off for you, but you need to hurry yourself.”
Kamui stood up, bowed, and left the office.
He went to the ward to see his daughter.
Bed 307, by the window.
Zhang Yueran lay on the hospital bed, her face pale and devoid of color.
Although she was nineteen, she was not tall.
Only about 1.4 meters tall, she was a petite girl.
An indwelling needle was inserted into her arm, and the liquid dripped down drop by drop.
Seeing Kamui push the door open, the girl’s eyes lit up instantly.
“Dad!”
Kamui walked over quickly, sat on the edge of the bed, and reached out to stroke his daughter’s hair.
“I did, I ate half a bowl of porridge today, and an egg.”
Zhang Yueran counted on her fingers.
“The nurse said I behaved very well today and gave me a little star sticker.”
She turned her hand over to show Kamui.
Sure enough, there was a little golden star sticker on it.
Kamui smiled, but there was an indescribable bitterness in his smile.
“Dad, why hasn’t Mom come to see me for so long?”
Kamui’s smile stiffened for a moment.
“Mom is busy with work, she’ll come in a few days.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
Zhang Yueran nodded happily.
She held Kamui’s hand and talked for a while about things in kindergarten.
As she talked, she got sleepy, and her eyelids began to droop.
Kamui pulled the quilt up and tucked the corners in for her.
“Dad is here, go to sleep.”
The girl closed her eyes, and her breathing gradually became even.
Kamui sat by the bed, looking at his daughter’s pale little face, his nose stinging painfully.
He stayed in the ward for two hours, and his phone rang three times.
They were all calls from Foreman Ma at the construction site urging him to go back to work, but he hung up on all of them.
After four in the afternoon, Kamui came out of the hospital.
The sky was overcast, and the wind was very cold.
He wrapped his cotton jacket tightly around himself and walked along the road outside the hospital for a while.
He prepared to go to the station to take the bus back to the construction site.
When passing an intersection.
He saw a black BMW SUV parked on the side of the road.
It looked very familiar.
The car door opened, and Zhou Fang got out from the passenger seat.
She was wearing a red down jacket Kamui had never seen before, and on her feet were a pair of high-heeled ankle boots he had also never seen.
Her hair was styled in a new look, and she was wearing a pair of sparkling earrings.
Kamui stopped.
Zhou Fang saw him too.
The expression on her face went through a transition from shock to panic to concealment, all in less than two seconds.
“Why are you here?” Her voice was a bit airy.
Kamui didn’t look at her; he was looking at the car.
A person was sitting in the driver’s seat, with a thick neck, a gold chain, and a face piled with rolls of fat.
Sun Debiao.
Sun Debiao saw Kamui and rolled down the window.
His face piled up with that smile Kamui was extremely familiar with.
“Yo, Kamui, what a coincidence?”
Kamui’s temples began to throb.
He turned his head to look at Zhou Fang.
Zhou Fang’s eyes were dodging.
Her fingers clutched the zipper pull of her down jacket, her lips moving a few times.
“He said he could help with Yueyue’s matter, so I, I went to have a chat.”
“Had a chat?”
Kamui heard his own voice as if it were coming from very far away.
“Wearing new clothes and new shoes, had a chat?”
“Kamui, don’t overthink it.”
Zhou Fang’s voice raised a little.
“How much money can you earn carrying bricks at the construction site every day? Can you afford Yueyue’s surgery fees?”
“General Manager Sun said he could lend it to us first, the interest is very low.”
“Lend it to us?”
Kamui’s throat felt as if it were blocked by a ball of fire.
“When did he become the ‘General Manager Sun’ in your mouth?”
“Didn’t you say last month that he was that shameless fat guy at the construction site?”
Zhou Fang’s face flushed red instantly.
“Kamui! Can you not be so loud?” Visit g.com for the full chapter.
“I’m loud? I’m loud?”
Kamui walked two steps toward the BMW.
Sun Debiao’s car window was still open; he watched Kamui approach, his smile unchanged.
“Kamui, don’t misunderstand, I was just giving your wife a ride on the way.”
Kamui ignored him and reached out to pull the passenger door.
Two burly men in black jackets got out from the back seat.
One blocked the car door, and the other grabbed Kamui’s arm directly.
“Let go,” Kamui said in a low voice.
“Brother, don’t be impulsive,” the black jacket dragged his arm backward.
A sharp pain shot through Kamui’s right shoulder.
It was an old injury; it had never truly healed after the ligament tear.
The pain triggered his instinctive reaction; he shook off that hand and threw a punch with his backhand.
This punch carried the force-generating habit from when he boxed five years ago.
Transferring power from his waist and hips to his shoulder and then to his fist, even with the injury to his right shoulder.
The force delivered was not something an ordinary person could withstand.
The black jacket took a solid hit to the chin and stumbled back two steps.
But the second black jacket had already circled around from the side.
He kicked Kamui’s injured right knee.
Kamui’s right leg went soft, and he knelt on one knee on the ground.
The first black jacket recovered.
He rushed up, pressed down on the back of Kamui’s head, and pushed his face into the asphalt road.
Sun Debiao watched all this from inside the car.
He lit a cigarette and slowly blew out a smoke ring.
“Kamui, you are just too impulsive.”
He leaned half his body out.
Looking down at Kamui, who was lying on the ground.
“I kindly introduced a job to your wife, and you want to hit my people?”
“You just wait.”
Kamui’s face was pressed against the rough road surface, blood seeping from the corner of his mouth.
“Sun Debiao, you just wait.”
“Wait for what? What else can you do to me?”
Sun Debiao laughed and flicked the cigarette butt in front of Kamui.
“Don’t bother urging me about the wages anymore. Just this punch you threw at my man today is enough for you to pay over one hundred thousand in damages, which just happens to offset the wages.”
He gave a wink to the black jacket.
The black jacket lifted Kamui’s right leg, aimed at the knee, and stomped down hard.
A dull thud.
Kamui gave a muffled groan, the veins on his forehead bulging, but he didn’t scream.
The pain was like a red-hot iron rod piercing through his entire right leg, burning from his knee all the way to the sole of his foot.
The black jacket let him go and took two steps back.
Kamui lay on the ground, his right leg unable to move.
Zhou Fang stood on the sidewalk two meters away, clutching the zipper pull of her down jacket.
The expression on her face was complicated; her lips opened several times, but nothing came out.
Finally, she turned around and walked away quickly.
The BMW SUV’s doors closed, the engine roared to life, and it slowly drove away from the curb.
Only Kamui was left on the road.
He lay on the cold asphalt road, the excruciating pain from his right leg making his vision go black in waves.
It began to rain, very lightly, almost imperceptible on his face.
Kamui rolled over and lay on his back.
Rain fell into his open eyes; he blinked twice but didn’t close them.
The light from the streetlamp scattered into a blurry orange halo amidst the rain.
He thought of his daughter’s face, thought of that hand with the little golden star sticker on the back.
Thought of her saying, “Why hasn’t Mom come to see me for so long?”
Kamui’s teeth clenched together, biting so hard that he tasted blood in his mouth.
Hatred seeped out from the crevices of his bones little by little, like groundwater squeezed out of rock fissures by pressure, gathering silently.
Deep in the underground rock layers of the city, Knull trembled slightly.
That signal changed.
The floodgate shattered.