The Promise Sealed with Our Lips

With Wang Feng around, it was much more convenient for them at the hospital. His mother was the director of the Department of Internal Medicine, so almost all of the doctors in the Internal Medicine Department knew who he was. He Nuo took a blood test and a urine test, but he wasn’t even willing to use a thermometer. When his front and back was being checked with a stethoscope, the doctor had to reach underneath his clothes to do it because he wasn’t willing to take his clothes off. The doctor even joked about how shy a big boy like him was.

After all the tests came back, the doctor turned stern and reviewed He Nuo’s medical history. He asked He Nuo many questions, and especially inquired about the events that occurred right before and after his first hematuria in detail. He Nuo wasn’t willing to talk about it in front of Shi Yan, so he asked Shi Yan and the rest to wait for him outside. After that, He Nuo told the doctor that the earliest cause was probably the cold weather; he recounted the piercingly cold snow in his memories, his legs that were so badly frozen it went numb and how two of his toe nails had even been frozen off.

Internal 2 and Internal 3 were linked. Shi Yan and Wang Feng stood behind the screen of Internal 2 as they listened to He Nuo’s calm narration of his condition. Wang Feng himself couldn’t stay calm, but when he looked at Shi Yan, a chill suddenly surged through his heart. He quickly pushed him, “Go to my mum’s office and give Ah Song (Qiu Linsong) a call. Prescribe all the medicine for He Nuo later under his family’s name ba, his mum is in charge of the reimbursement of medical fees in the finance department.

Shi Yan left, because he understood his friend’s intentions, and because he would definitely get He Nuo to tell him the truth about his life in the village. Thus, he plodded towards the office. When he returned, He Nuo had gone to the toilet again while Wang Feng was waiting for the doctor to prescribe He Nuo’s medication. He was filling in the patient’s name and unit now. Shi Yan told the doctor about Qiu Linsong’s mother’s name and company, then he wrote the amount to be paid on the prescription and took the medicine.

Wang Feng brought He Nuo to the ward in the inpatient department that his mother was in charge of. Mama Wang had arranged an empty ward for He Nuo. The original outpatient doctor asked him to stay in the hospital for further treatment, but He Nuo refused. If he stayed in the hospital, his parents would be alarmed and his studies would be delayed too. So after Wang Feng discussed it with the doctor, they prescribed him all the medicine for his infusions first, then he would undergo the infusion in his mother’s ward every day from now on. Shi Yan brought the medicine over, then Mama Wang brought it to the nurse’s station to account for it. But He Nuo wasn’t in the ward — he had gone to the toilet again. Shi Yan met the He Nuo who was walking back slowly in the corridor.

When He Nuo saw how everyone was revolving around him as they served him like this, he felt extremely uneasy and perturbed. Shi Yan took off his thick coat and helped him lie down on his side, then took off He Nuo’s shoes for him. When he realised that Shi Yan was taking care of him like this in front of Wang Feng, he wanted to get up in a rush to do all of it by himself. Shi Yan pressed him back down before turning around to say to Wang Feng, “Get a bottle over ba. If he goes out again after he’s taken his clothes off, he’ll catch a cold again.”

Wang Feng had already thought of that just now, but he was afraid that He Nuo would be embarrassed so he didn’t mention it. And now, he went out to get a bottle.

The nurse came over rather quickly and was holding a skin test needle — apparently there would penicillin in the solution¹. Shi Yan didn’t bother to look at it just now, but now he was looking at He Nuo’s medical report. There were a bunch of illegible words written on it in a handwriting unique to that of doctors, but he could vaguely discern it: acute urinary tract infection. Shi Yan walked over to Wang Feng and suppressed his voice to ask, “You did the diagnosis?”

“I’m not a doctor.” Wang Feng said awkwardly, but Shi Yan kept staring at him so he had to continue, “The doctor said that the treatment is all the same, we need to stop the bleeding first.”

After the nurse went out, Qiu Linsong actually came in. He looked at He Nuo who had half his sleeve rolled up as he waited for the reaction of the skin test, then looked at He Nuo, “Wasn’t he fine last night? He needs to be on a drip for a fever? How high is his fever?”

“Why are you here?” Wang Feng interrupted.

“San Ge’s phone call woke me up, so I decided that I might as well get up. I came over after I had a quick meal.”

“You managed to grab a bite? We haven’t even eaten yet.”

After he mentioned that, Shi Yan remembered that he and Wang Feng haven’t had breakfast, and He Nuo wouldn’t have eaten anything yet either. So they had to go out to buy some food. Qiu Linsong and Wang Feng left, so Shi Yan was the only one left to accompany He Nuo. This was mainly because Wang Feng wanted to remind Ah Song not to ask about He Nuo’s illness.

By the time they returned, He Nuo’s drip had been set up and he was on a small drip bottle of infusion. There was still one big bottle and one small bottle placed at the side. They bought some buns and porridge back, while Qiu Linsong had also bought two cans of pears and peaches for He Nuo — he only heard about He Nuo’s hematuria from Wang Feng’s recount not too long ago, and he felt truly upset for He Nuo. As he was lying on his side with a needle in his hand, He Nuo could only let Shi Yan feed him the buns. But the delicious meat buns that made the Qiu Linsong who had already eaten pack two more back, was found hard to swallow by He Nuo. He wasn’t used to its kind of greasiness still, so after he ate half of it, he couldn’t finish the rest. Shi Yan thought of separating the bun’s skin from its meat filling, then feed him some porridge with just the skin.

In the afternoon, these people didn’t go home. Shi Yan went to He Nuo’s house to tell his parents that in order to get rid of his fever as soon as possible, he was on a drip in his friend’s mother’s ward. He Pa and He Pa said they wanted to pack some food and deliver it to him but Shi Yan used the excuse of how his friend’s mother had already bought food for him in the hospital’s canteen to reject them. The He family was very grateful to him of course. Shi Yan asked them not to worry, and that he would send He Nuo back after his injection. Their lunch came from the hostel in Shi Yan’s father’s company, and it was quite good.

The three bottles of infusion drips were only done around 2pm, but it did show an immediate effect. He Nuo’s urination frequency was greatly reduced, and the colour of his blood was much lighter now. He didn’t appear as wilted as he was before he came to the hospital either. Shi Yan went home with He Nuo, but they hadn’t stayed at his house for too long before Shi Yan’s sworn enemy, Yu Yao, came.

Yu Yao originally thought that her conflict with Shi Yan would escalate, but she discovered that Shi Yan was much quieter today. He would often get some hot water for He Nuo to drink, and didn’t shoot her fierce looks anymore. He Nuo laid on his pillow as he half-leaned against his bed’s headboard, while Shi Yan whispered to him gently to ask if he wanted to turn over. Yu Yao had praised Shi Yan for how well he treated He Nuo in their third year, but she never thought that he could be this meticulous in his care. When He Nuo was turning over, Shi Yan asked her to help him turn his pillow in the other direction, Yu Yao’s eyes widened as she stared at him: Shi Yan held He Nuo in his arms as he turned him over, who did so while half his body relied on Shi Yan. He Nuo and Shi Yan had never had an ordinary relationship, and he was this sick now too. Yu Yao tried to convince herself with these explanations, but she still thought that there was something strange about them.

After the He couple came back after work, Mama He asked He Nuo what he wanted to eat and said that she would specially make noodles for him at night with two extra eggs in it. Before dinner, Shi Yan left with Yu Yao. On their way back, Shi Yan didn’t talk much as usual, so Yu Yao found a topic — naturally it was about how He Nuo had a weak constitution and must have caught a cold last night. Shi Yan rode his bike side by side with her, and after he heard her talk for awhile, he simply answered, “I’m the one who made him fall sick again.”

Yu Yao didn’t know if she was being too sensitive or not, but those few words seemed to contain a boundless amount of pain. If the party involved wasn’t He Nuo, Yu Yao would have thought that he was just making a mountain out of a molehill, who wouldn’t get a headache or a fever once in awhile? Compared to He Nuo’s illness throughout an entire winter before, how bad can a fever be? Why does Shi Yan look like the sky was about to collapse? This desolate look of his really didn’t fit his style. To be fair, Shi Yan has always possessed a haughty demeanour and never cared about how high the mountains or how deep the waters were when he insisted on travelling through them. This was the first time for her to see Shi Yan’s whole body covered in a layer of dust — he looked so weary and pitiful, and she really wasn’t used to seeing him appear like this.

^{1. Before you get a penicillin injection, you need to do a skin test to ensure that your skin isn’t overly sensitive to it.↩}