Chapter 263 - 118: Goading

Chapter 263: Chapter 118: Goading

Zhang Shutong hung up the phone, a weight lifting from his chest.

He stood quietly by the window. Night had completely fallen, and the moon was high in the sky.

He could actually see the moon tonight. He’d almost forgotten what it looked like.

Holding the medicine bottle in one hand like a wineglass, he raised it in a toast to the distant moon.

Too bad Sailor Moon wasn’t real.

Zhang Shutong didn’t draw much energy from the moonlight. He just wanted to sit back down and rest.

Back on the sofa in the hospital room, Zhang Shutong pulled the down jacket over himself. His eyelids began to feel heavy again.

The news of Song’s recovery had been a shot in the arm, but its effect was short-lived. Or perhaps, it was the very news that had allowed him to finally relax.

Zhang Shutong thought of the story of Bi Gan cutting out his heart. A vegetable can live without its core, but what about a person without a heart? The answer is death, of course. True to the tale, the moment Bi Gan heard this, he dropped dead.

While Zhang Shutong wasn’t quite on the verge of dropping dead, the moment he released that pent-up tension, it felt as though every cell in his body was sounding an alarm.

His brain was now issuing an emergency order: sleep. The kind of deep sleep that an alarm clock couldn’t pierce. Zhang Shutong’s head nodded lower and lower, only for him to jerk it back up. He was so sleepy he couldn’t fight it anymore. In desperation, he quickly called out, "Nurse! Nurse..."

A young nurse hurried over, thinking he was having an adverse reaction.

"What should I do? I can’t stop feeling sleepy," Zhang Shutong said, struggling to keep his eyes open.

"Then sleep," the young nurse retorted impatiently. "Your IV drip contains ingredients that make you drowsy. Of course you’re going to feel sleepy. You think you can defy the laws of nature?"

"But I don’t want to sleep," Zhang Shutong said wearily. "Is there anything that can... pep me up?"

The young nurse laughed in exasperation.

"You smoke?"

"No."

"Then I’m out of ideas." She thought for a moment. "You’re pretty handsome. You got a girlfriend? You could have a nice, long chat on the phone with her."

At her words, Zhang Shutong’s spirits sank even lower.

’Please, just stop. I’m already running a fever, you don’t have to rub salt in the wound.’

"So there’s really nothing?"

"Really, nothing." It was the first time the nurse had ever heard such a strange request. "Even if you wanted to tie your hair to a ceiling beam or stab your thigh with an awl to stay awake, we don’t have the equipment for that here."

Zhang Shutong nodded and resumed his battle against his heavy eyelids.

In a half-conscious daze, he felt someone sit down beside him. Zhang Shutong thought it was the man who’d run off to elope, but a hand suddenly appeared in front of him:

"Want some? I can share."

The young nurse offered him a handful of sunflower seeds.

Zhang Shutong shook his head.

"Look at you," the nurse said, feigning annoyance. "I go to the trouble of finding you something to keep you awake, and you turn it down."

"I don’t have a free hand," Zhang Shutong explained.

"Then just put them on your jacket," she said, pouring a handful of seeds onto Gu Qiuyan’s down jacket. "You can put the shells there, too. Just toss them out when you leave."

Zhang Shutong hadn’t wanted to dirty her jacket, but now that the seeds were there, he picked one up and started to crack it open. It tasted of sunflower seeds... ’Right, my brain must be completely muddled,’ he thought. ’What else would they taste like?’

"Thanks." ’Chatting with someone might help me stay awake,’ he thought. "Aren’t you on duty?"

"I am, of course I am," the nurse chirped, happily cracking seeds with her legs crossed. "This *is* me on duty. The chairs in the dispensary are just too hard."

’Just as you’d expect on a small island,’ he thought. ’The hospital’s wild, the nurse is wild, and I’m not much better. As a patient, I’m pretty wild myself.’

"What’s that look for?" The nurse switched her crossed legs. "Besides, you’re the only one left. For the sunflower seeds’ sake, don’t go ratting on me, okay?"

He looked up and glanced around, only then realizing the entire ward was empty. He was the only one left, sitting on the sofa.

"It’s almost ten o’clock," the nurse added. "Who isn’t home at this hour, besides people showing up at the ER in the middle of the night?"

She was a bit thoughtless. Realizing what she’d just said might be inappropriate, she quickly apologized. "Oh, I wasn’t talking about you. It’s just that, on this island, we really don’t have people getting IVs this late."

"About what time will the needle be out?"

"Probably a little after eleven. Why? Thinking of leaving halfway through? You want to come back tomorrow for more?"

Zhang Shutong shook his head, saying he wouldn’t. He was thinking that once the IV was out, he could rush over to the villa. The timing would be perfect.

"You’re a strange one. When I was in school, if I got sick, I’d be dying to just get a shot, sleep it off, and wake up feeling fine. What are you pushing yourself so hard for?"

"I have something to do later," Zhang Shutong said distractedly.

"Oh, come on." The nurse laughed. "I might believe you if we were in the city, but where is there to go for fun on this island?"

"I’m not going out for fun, I’m going to find someone." Having eaten her sunflower seeds, Zhang Shutong felt a little more talkative.

"A girl? This late at night?"

"How’d you guess?"

"A woman’s intuition is always sharp. So, am I right?"

"More or less."

"What’s that supposed to mean, ’more or less’?"

"It means I’m just going to her house for a bit, but not to see her," Zhang Shutong said, the words sounding cryptic even to his own ears.

"Is this some kind of cheesy soap opera? Did you do something to break her heart?" The two of them were clearly on different wavelengths.

"I don’t know."

"Then you did." The nurse finished her own seeds and grabbed another handful from his jacket. "You guys are all the same. You do something to make a girl sad or angry, and you don’t even realize it."

"Maybe," Zhang Shutong said with a faint yawn. "But I’m not really concerned about that right now."

"Then why are you going to see her? Aren’t you trying to win her heart back?"

The nurse wasn’t much older than him. Her eyes went wide; she had clearly found her entertainment for the night shift in Zhang Shutong.

"Save her life, more like."

Zhang Shutong said offhandedly.