Home/ The Selfish Gene/ Chapter 49
When I woke up again, I was in a hospital bed. There was an intravenous drip on the back of my hand, and a heart rate monitor was placed on the bedside. With just a slight rolling of my throat, I felt a violent tearing sensation in my trachea.
My body felt light and tired, very similar to the feeling I get every time I take too much medicine, unable to fall asleep or wake up.
I wanted to feel what was wrong with my throat, but as soon as I moved, the instrument next to me made a piercing buzzing sound. In the next second, a figure with a fragrant breeze rushed towards me and held onto my hand.
“Don’t move, don’t move, it’s the blood transfusion. Do you feel cold? I’ll slow it down for you.” Xu Xi shook my hand and slowed down the infusion speed.
“What’s wrong with me?” I endured the pain and asked with difficulty, my voice rough and unpleasant, as if my entire vocal cords had experienced a tragic traffic accident.
Xu Xi sat sideways by the bed, her eyes slightly red and swollen, with tears shining in them.
“You’re still asking me what’s wrong?” She touched my cheek and a crystal teardrop fell down on my hand. “Who doesn’t have obstacles in life? Why do you want to ruin yourself like this? If Xiao Tang and I were an hour late, you might never wake up again. Xiao Nian, if you still treat me as your aunt, you can’t scare me like this again.”
I was filled with doubts. Who is ruining their life? Who can’t wake up? Who did I scare?
I remember drinking alcohol and taking sleeping pills, but from Xu Xi’s words, they thought I was at home and… took pills to commit suicide?
What a joke, how could I commit suicide?
When I think about how many people will point their fingers at this matter after my death, or talk about my life as a gossip of the wealthy family. Even a cat or a dog would be qualified to comment on my character. Even if I was a ghost, I would still find a way to return to the mortal world. How could I take the initiative to die?
I am not afraid of death, but I will never allow others to see my joke.
“I didn’t… “I furrowed my brows and tried to explain to her, but due to the discomfort in my throat and the fatigue that had not yet completely dissipated in my body, I couldn’t even say a few words.
“From what you looked like yesterday, I knew something was going to happen. Fortunately, your combination lock was the same as the previous apartment, otherwise Xiao Tang and I wouldn’t be able to get in.”
Xu Xi really didn’t believe me. She decided that I really wanted to die. Otherwise, for what possible reason a sane adult would take sleeping pills with strong alcohol.
The reason was— to stop dreaming.
I briefly thought about explaining this reason, then lay down obediently and honestly accepted Xu Xi’s sincere explanation, not intending to defend myself any more.
“This is the second time I have rescued you…” Xu Xi tucked the quilt for me and said in a nasal voice, “Sang Nian, I know you have a lot of complaints about us. But in my heart, you will always be the child I held in my arms and brought to the Xu family twenty years ago. It was the most well-behaved and brave child I have ever seen, and he grew up stronger than anyone else.”
“No matter who you are or who your parents are, I just wish you could be healthy and happy in the future.”
Xu Xi always avoids talking about my childhood experiences. This was the first time I heard her mention it in such a positive way as an adult.
Her filter on me is too thick…
I stared at her intently, wanting to smile at her so that she wouldn’t have to worry about me, but the corners of my lips trembled so much that they couldn’t stay in the same position for a long time.
“…I’m hospitalized, what should I do with my kittens?” I started talking about a completely unrelated topic.
Xu Xi realized that I was changing the subject and didn’t force me to continue: “Monica took the two kittens home, and Xiao Tang took the turtle with him. Anyway, he has experience in taking care of it.”
“What kind of fucking experience does he have!” I whispered.
If he could really take good care of it, the little bastard wouldn’t have gotten sick and almost died last time.
“Well, you can’t take care of the turtle yourself anymore, so don’t think about it.” Xu Xi said helplessly, “The doctor said that you are very weak right now and you need to take a good rest.”
I let out a vague “hmm”, and probably because the sleeping pills in my body hadn’t been completely metabolized yet, I only talked for a while before closing my eyes again.
Gastric lavage damaged the gastric mucosa, so I could only eat liquid food and take nutritional injections for the past few days. Three days later, the doctor confirmed that I was fine and allowed me to be discharged.
I didn’t return to the rented house. My dependence on alcohol and drugs was getting increasingly severe, and if I didn’t quit now, it would be a huge problem for me in the future. Long-term pain is worse than short-term pain, so I asked Xu Xi to find a specialized withdrawal rehabilitation hospital for me. As soon as I was discharged, I moved in seamlessly and started professional withdrawal treatment.
I lived in a single-person ward, with surveillance installed in the room and no sharp tools around. The only window could only be opened to the size of a crack, and I couldn’t even reach out with a hand. There was also an invisible protective net outside the window.
Three meals a day are scheduled, and nurses will send medicines to the ward. After lunch, various activities such as aerobics, singing, and Tai Chi were organized for everyone for health purposes. Except that relatives and friends can visit here freely, this place was almost like a comfortable prison.
My emotions quickly stabilized under the control of drugs, and I was no longer full of anger or resentment.
Tang Bian and Xu Xi would come to see me from time to time, chat with me, and gossip about the outside world.
Perhaps it’s because they were afraid of stimulating me, but they never said anything about the Sang family. Whether Sang Zhengbai has disclosed my identity to the public, what happened to my engagement with Gu Ying, whether Ji Chenfeng recognized his ancestors and returned to the family… I don’t know anything about all this.
“Brother, the young master from the Zheng family has been looking for you recently. Everyone doesn’t know where you have been, so they all come to me to ask about your whereabouts.” Tang Bian sat on the double sofa next to the hospital bed, stuffing cherries into his mouth one by one until it was full, his cheeks bulging like a greedy squirrel.
Smoothly writing words on the paper with the tip of the pen, I looked up from the small desk and asked him, “What did you say to him?”
“I said you have gone to meditate. There is no signal in the mountains, so it is inconvenient for outsiders to disturb you.”
The end of my eyebrows twitched and I made no comment, just lowering my head and continued writing.
“However, recently there are rumors that the Zheng family’s capital chain is broken. It is said that they owe billions in debt and are in huge trouble. I don’t know if it is true.”
I was stunned for a moment, and the tip of the pen could no longer fall down on the paper.
Did the Zheng family collapse? Is this why Zheng Jieyuan came to find me?
Then he really got the wrong person. Nowadays, I can still gather one or two million, but billions are too difficult for me.
“Brother, what do you write every day?” Tang Bian suddenly came over with a cherry in his hand, “I thought it was strange that you asked me to buy hundreds of greeting cards before. Who still sends greeting cards now? It’s too old-school. ‘Today is the beginning of summer. The lunch at noon is hard to swallow, but the soup is not bad…’ Hahahaha what are you writing? It’s so funny, I thought you were writing a love letter.”
Flipping the greeting card upside down, I gave him a hard look and said coldly: “Just focus on eating.”
Tang Bian sat back on the sofa, still laughing while stuffing cherries into his mouth.
Opening the greeting card and looking at the content inside, I was a bit unsure…Is it really so cheesy? But didn’t Ji Chenfeng also write about boring things like this back then?
He can write it, so why can’t I?
“Brother, is this for…Dr. Ji?” Tang Bian asked tentatively.
The commotion was so loud that day that I left the company like a lost dog. I guess all kinds of rumors had already spread throughout the company. In addition, Tang Zhaoyue was a close confidant of Sang Zhengbai, so he wouldn’t hide this kind of thing from her. In this case, it is not surprising that Tang Bian would know about Ji Chenfeng and me.
I folded the greeting card and carefully stuffed it into a light green elegant envelope. Without writing an address, I opened the drawer of the bedside table and threw it in through the gap.
“Dr. Ji, shouldn’t he be called Young Master Sang now?”
“Ah, didn’t Miss Xu tell you?” Tang Bian exclaimed in surprise, “Dr. Ji left and hasn’t stayed at the Sang family. He said that he was just delivering the letter to fulfill his adoptive mother’s last wish. He has his own life and doesn’t intend to give up the path he took for anyone.”
I was stunned and asked in disbelief: “Dad…Sang Zhengbai just let him go like this?”
“Mr. Sang is really angry, but there is nothing he can do about it. If Dr. Ji doesn’t want to recognize his ancestors, Mr. Sang can’t just take him to the police station and force him to change his name. Besides, there is already no father-son relationship between them. If Mr. Sang goes too far, what if the other party simply cuts off all relations?”
Billions of wealth, Ji Chenfeng just gave up like this? Is he stupid? With a wealthy man like Sang Zhengbai, not to mention a pet hospital, even a zoo can be opened. No matter the path, he can just do whatever he wants with that much money.
Thinking of that day in the snow, he asked me if money was so important. I told him that the worst thing in the world is poverty. I know that at this moment, I shouldn’t be too sentimental, but I still can’t help but think… Is he trying to prove to me that he can indeed regard money as dirt and live an ordinary life?
As summer arrived, my rehabilitation treatment had achieved good results. My flesh had grown back, my complexion had improved, and my sleep was much more normal.
On the day of the discharge, Monica and Xu Xi came to pick me up from the hospital. When they were packing my luggage, they found hundreds of greeting cards in the drawer.
“Wow, what is this?”
Monica curiously reached for one of the envelopes, but I stopped her with quick hands.
“I can just take care of this myself.”
She backed away quickly, indicating that she had no intention of invading my privacy.
I put all the greeting cards into the cardboard box, just enough to fill it. Carrying the luggage in one hand and the cardboard boxes in the other, I got into Xu Xi’s car and left the place where I had stayed for three months.
The air outside was slightly tinged with the dryness of early summer, and roadside trees were lush and green, as if they had completely returned to life.
Because Xu Xi was concerned about me, she wanted me to move in with her. But I didn’t agree. Firstly, I didn’t want to be a light bulb. Secondly, it was inconvenient for me to do things by myself with them around.
The car drove into the residential area and parked downstairs of the rental house. Xu Xi got out of the car and escorted me to the door.
“If you need anything, just come to me. Don’t treat me as an outsider.” Xu Xi said.
I nodded, but I still made a decision in my heart not to look for her in the future.
She is different from me. She is Xu Wanyi’s sister and Sang Zhengbai’s sister-in-law. Not only in terms of kinship, but also in terms of career, she is inextricably connected with the Sang family. Recently, I’ve had a lot of interactions with her, and it wouldn’t be good for her if Sang Zhengbai found out.
Because Tang Bian came to clean it regularly, the windows in the rented house were bright and clean, without any dust. All the wine had been disposed of, whether it was red wine, foreign wine, or even cooking wine.
I charged my mobile phone that hadn’t been turned on for three months. As soon as the screen lit up, an astonishing number of notifications flooded in.
After taking a rough look, I didn’t find any important information, so I deleted it all with one click.
After taking a shower and changing my clothes, I went out again with a cardboard box full of greeting cards.
Winter passed and spring arrived, spring passed and summer arrived, the vegetation in the city constantly changed, but the Fly City remained the same.
The tangled wires in the sky, the dilapidated streets, and the dangerous and overly long steps, everything looked bad.
Previously, I wasn’t sure where Ji Chenfeng would move, so I never sent out the greeting cards, for fear that he wouldn’t receive it. Now that it is known that he has no plans to return to the Sang family to inherit the family business, there is a high probability that he will still live in Fly City. After all, this is where he grew up.
Climbing the stairs in front of Ji Chenfeng’s house in winter makes people gasp for breath, let alone in summer. By the time I reached the top, I was already sweating profusely from my neck and back.
I solemnly placed the cardboard box in front of the blue iron door. There was no signature on it, but as long as Ji Chenfeng opened it and took a look, he would definitely know who wrote it.
This is the reply I owe him…
After adjusting the placement of the cardboard box, I turned around and left with an uneasy feeling. When I was going down the steps, I saw two people walking up the long steps from a distance.
Even if it was just a blurry figure, I could recognize one of them as Ji Chenfeng.
I’m not ready to face him again, or rather, I don’t know how to explain my motivation for appearing here to him. In a panic, I went back the same way, crossed the blue iron door, ran deeper into the corridor, and hid behind a foam box piled higher than a person’s height.
A few minutes later, Ji Chenfeng walked up with a strange man and stopped in front of his iron gate. The two of them were holding bags in their hands, as if they had just returned from shopping in the supermarket.
“Huh? Did you have an express delivery scheduled for today?”
The unfamiliar man was about thirty years old, with a rather rugged appearance and an accent that sounded like he was from the north. Although he was not as tall as Ji Chenfeng, his figure could be described as burly.
He picked up the cardboard box from the ground and shook it, saying, “It’s quite heavy.”
Ji Chenfeng took the cardboard box and looked at it, frowning in confusion: “I haven’t bought anything.”
He has no obvious changes from three months ago. He was wearing a loose casual t-shirt and looked very lively. He looked like a college student at home on vacation.
“Maybe an acquaintance sent it to you? Go inside and unpack it, it’s so hot here…”
“Is it so hot?” Ji Chenfeng smiled and handed the cardboard box back to the other party. Although he said this, he still took out the key and quickly opened the door.
The man pushed him into the house: “You have muscles and bones as cold as jade, not afraid of the cold or heat. How can you be the same as ordinary people like us…”
The iron door slammed shut, cutting off the conversation between the two, both talking and laughing.
After staying there for a while, I slowly stepped out from behind the foam box and came to the iron door. I wanted to look through the iron plate to see what was going on inside.
Who is this man? Why did Ji Chenfeng have such a person beside him in just three months? They looked very intimate?
Ji Chenfeng smiled at him, they went shopping together and went home together…
Is that his new boyfriend? It’s only been three months, has he already fallen in love with someone else?
I retreated step by step, turned around and sprinted down the stairs, regardless of whether I would fall and break my neck.
Returning to the flat ground, I held my knees and gasped for a moment. I hurriedly took out the medicine box from my pocket and poured an anti-anxiety pill into my mouth.
Without water, I could only swallow it dry. Because it was sugar-coated, it wasn’t too bitter.
Walking towards the main road where I could get a taxi, I took out my mobile phone and found Ayao’s phone number and called her. Before entering the rehabilitation hospital, I had settled all her wages. I thought I would never need her again in this life…
Fortunately, I didn’t delete her phone number in the first place.
“Hello, boss?” Ayao quickly picked up the phone, “Didn’t you say that there’s no need to follow Ji Chenfeng anymore? Are there any other instructions?”
Looking back at Ji Chenfeng’s home, the blue iron door was very eye-catching and could still be seen clearly from far away.
“Check a person for me, I want his information right away.”
Dr. Ji:
Today is the beginning of summer. The lunch meal is hard to swallow, but the soup is not bad. I felt a bit noisy during my nap. When I got up, I saw a magpie on the protective net outside the window.
It is said that good things will happen when you meet a magpie. I don’t know what is a good thing for me. I just hope that it won’t disturb my sleep again.
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