Mi Yang was alone in the hotel room, wrapped in a blanket, trying to keep warm. He called the hotel and asked someone to send him some hot water. He took some medicine and drank a large glass of hot water, and he felt a little better.
By the time the medical staff came to measure my temperature, it had dropped slightly to 37.3 degrees.
The doctor relaxed a little after hearing him say his temperature had dropped, but he still stood at the door wearing a thick protective mask and asked about his itinerary in the past few days: "When did you arrive in Beijing? Have you been out? Where have you been?"
He asked very detailed questions, and Mi Yang answered them one by one. The doctor then asked him if he had had any contact with the previous sick person.
Mi Yang shook his head and said, "No, I was in the room the whole time. I just went to the restaurant to eat and never left."
The doctor said, "It's less than 38 degrees. It's just a low-grade fever and you don't need to go to the hospital, but you still need to be observed. Please stay in the room and don't walk around."
Mi Yang nodded and agreed.
The accompanying medical staff left some medicine for him, and told the hotel staff to have someone deliver food to Mi Yang and leave it at the door. Although it was not explicitly stated, people could not leave the room for the time being.
Mi Yang was quite calm, and the doctor who came to comfort him said, "It will be over soon, everyone please be understanding and hold on."
Mi Yang said: "It's my duty. You have worked hard too."
The doctor smiled at him through his protective mask, nodded, and left.
Mi Yang remembers that medical staff worked the hardest during the SARS epidemic. The news also reported on doctors and nurses who had sacrificed their lives. One nurse repeatedly expressed her willingness to test new treatments on herself after being infected with the virus, in order to gain hope of survival for more lives. These medical staff who are fighting on the front line are truly worthy of admiration.
Mi Yang had a simple meal and his body warmed up a little. After a while, he measured his temperature again and it was still around 37 degrees. It should be just a cold, not a big problem.
Mi Yang picked up the medicine and looked at it. They were all ordinary cold treatments in the hospital, and there was also a small bag of anti-inflammatory medicine. He took the medicine according to the instructions. Just after swallowing the medicine, the mobile phone on the side rang. It was Bai Luochuan calling.
Bai Luochuan turned off his phone during the competition because the TV station was filming. Later, he was taken by his teacher to an interview. He turned on his phone a little late. When he saw the messages from Mi Yang, he was panicked: "Where are you?"
Mi Yang said: "I'm in the hotel, I'm fine, but the hotel is restricting people from entering and leaving now, you can go back to Shanghai directly..."
Bai Luochuan interrupted him and said, "I know."
After saying that, he hung up the phone in a hurry.
This incoherent sentence made Mi Yang feel a little uneasy, and when he called again, the other party did not answer. Mi Yang was also a little worried, and with the effect of the medicine, his eyelids were heavy, and he fell asleep wrapped in the quilt.
Fortunately, Bai Luochuan asked for an extra quilt from there yesterday. He is using it now and it has a good heating effect.
I don’t know if it’s because he was wrapped too tightly in the quilt or the medicine was too effective, but Mi Yang felt hot and curled up in the quilt, falling into a deep sleep. Even if there was a sound in his ears, it was as if there was a layer of separation and he couldn’t wake up.
He vaguely heard the sound of an ambulance, then Bai Luochuan's voice, and he kept dreaming about someone on the stretcher being carried away by the doctor. Perhaps because of Bai Luochuan's voice, he always suspected that it was him who was lying on the stretcher and being carried away... The more anxious he was, the more unable to move his body, and it was difficult for him to breathe.
"A high fever is only considered high if it's over 38 degrees. It's 37.5 degrees now, right... no other symptoms. He had a fever before because of a sore throat. He has been like this since he was a child. It's not the first time because of the change of seasons..."
Mi Yang felt dizzy and heard someone talking next to him. The voice was very familiar, but there was a buzzing in his ears, as if there was a layer between them, and he couldn't hear clearly.
He opened his mouth and shouted: "Bai Luochuan..."
The voice was much quieter and hoarse than he expected, so the man came over, held his hand, and asked quietly, "Are you awake? Are you still feeling bad?"
Mi Yang wanted to drink some water, but before he could open his mouth, warm water was already at his lips. He closed his eyes and took a few sips. Feeling a little better, he nodded and said, "A little better." He was helped to sit up, and saw Bai Luochuan went to the door to see off the medical staff, closed the door, turned back and sat beside the bed, reaching out to test the temperature of his forehead. Mi Yang dodged for a moment, but his forehead was still covered by his palm.
Bai Luochuan frowned and said, "It's still a little hot."
Mi Yang looked at him and said, "Why did you come in? Didn't I tell you to go back with the teachers first?"
Bai Luochuan said: "The teacher asked me to take care of you."
Mi Yang looked at him without saying anything.
Bai Luochuan paused for a moment and said, "Okay, I can sneak in by myself. I saw that the cordon over there was not strict, so I rushed in."
Mi Yang's head hurt even more because of him, and he said, "You can't do this, go and talk to the people downstairs, take the temperature and see if you can get a health certificate, and then go out first."
Bai Luochuan said: "I won't leave."
Mi Yang said: "Stop making trouble. The person who was sent to the hospital this afternoon has not been diagnosed yet. You don't know how dangerous it is here..."
Bai Luochuan put a coat on him and said, "I turned on the air conditioner. Do you feel warmer? Do you want to turn it up higher?"
Mi Yang said: "Bai Luochuan!"
Bai Luochuan pursed his lips and looked at him, with anger in his eyes, but he still lowered his voice and said: "I said, I won't leave."
Mi Yang turned on the TV to show him. There weren't that many news reports yet, but they were starting to come out. After changing a few channels, he still couldn't find any news about SARS. Bai Luochuan took the remote control from him first. He stood by the bed and looked at Mi Yang, saying, "I know how serious it is. I counted 12 ambulances on the way here."
Mi Yang looked at him, opened his mouth but couldn't speak.
Bai Luochuan leaned over and covered him tightly with the quilt, saying, "I won't leave. A cordon has been set up downstairs. The hotel staff just came to tell me that I have to be quarantined here for at least 15 days."
Mi Yang rubbed his eyebrows and nodded after a long time: "Okay, bring me my phone and I'll talk to my family."
Bai Luochuan said, "You called Aunt Cheng, right? I called her when you were sleeping just now. I've already told my family about it. Don't worry about it."
Mi Yang had no strength left in his body. He sat for a while and then lay down again. Bai Luochuan held his hand. He moved his fingers and asked, "Did you scare them?"
Bai Luochuan shook his head and said, "The situation in Shanghai is not that serious yet. They just said they knew about it."
Mi Yang said "Oh" and didn't say much.
Bai Luochuan held his hand tighter and whispered to comfort him, "Don't be afraid."
Mi Yang was not actually very scared. After all, the epidemic was brought under control in less than half a year in his previous life, and everyone slowly returned to normal work. However, the atmosphere now was too tense and solemn, and he couldn't relax.
In the evening, the hotel staff delivered food and placed it at the door. Bai Luochuan went to get it and brought it in to eat with Mi Yang. Seeing that Mi Yang didn't have a good appetite, he called and ordered another bowl of porridge. He coaxed Mi Yang to drink half a bowl before letting him take medicine and go to bed.
Mi Yang's illness was not so serious originally, but the power supply in the hotel was intermittent during the day, and the temperature was fluctuating between hot and cold. He also came from the south and had not yet adapted to the climate, so his illness was more serious than before.
Bai Luochuan followed the doctor's instructions and measured Mi Yang's temperature every once in a while and recorded it on a table nearby.
In the middle of the night, Mi Yang developed a low fever and had a very long dream.
In the dream, he traveled a long way for so long that he was so tired that he couldn’t even lift his feet. He kept trying to find something, but he couldn’t name it.
After walking in the darkness for a long time, he saw a faint light. He raised his head and stared at the fire.
It was a very familiar yet strange feeling, like meeting a good friend, but also like a beating blood-red flame "heart" that I had never seen before.
He only took a small step and was immediately enveloped by the flames, all he could see was a blinding red. The flames engulfed his entire body, but were careful not to hurt him at all, dancing wildly with uncontrollable joy. Mi Yang reached out and touched it, and it immediately wrapped around his wrist, licking his palm, clinging to him with a slightly hot residual warmth as if possessing him.
It was as if they had found their home, and were not afraid of each other, only intimacy.
The flames were getting tighter and Mi Yang felt a little tired, so he moved his fingers to wake up.
He lay there for a while before he remembered that he was in a hotel. Bai Luochuan's arm was around his waist, pressing heavily, and the other person was also around him from behind. No wonder he couldn't sleep well at night.
Mi Yang was in a trance thinking about the things in the dream, and whispered: "... Turns out it was you."
The person who was originally asleep behind him woke up almost immediately and said in a hoarse voice with a heavy nasal tone: "Who do you think it is?!"
Mi Yang laughed, and said, "My young master."
The person behind snorted, sounding still unhappy.
Mi Yang said: "Why are you in my bed? Don't get too close to me, or I might infect you."
Bai Luochuan didn't listen to him. He just hugged him tighter and said, "You kept complaining about being cold at night, so I put my down jacket on you, but you were still shivering, so I came up... Are you still cold now?"
Mi Yang shook his head and said, "It's not cold anymore."
Bai Luochuan also relaxed a little. He took the thermometer to Mi Yang and heaved a sigh of relief after checking the temperature with his own eyes. He took the form to record it: "Much better, 36.9 degrees, no fever anymore."
He turned on a small lamp by the bed and wrote down the number carefully. There was a lot written on the form. Basically, he measured Mi Yang every two hours. When Mi Yang looked at it, he noticed that there was a blank after 10 o'clock in the evening. He wondered, "Why is there nothing written here?"
Bai Luochuan said: "I was too sleepy, so I didn't remember."
Mi Yang said, "You're lying. You always go to bed very late at night. You never go to bed before 10 o'clock." He looked at the first two sets of numbers that were slowly rising, and understood what was going on. He asked him, "Do I have a fever? Is it over 38 degrees?"
Bai Luochuan shook his head, threw the form aside, lowered his head and hugged him, saying, "It was almost there. I took your temperature many times, and it didn't go down. I thought about it for a long time. What if you exceed 38 degrees? If I call the hospital and he passes away in an ambulance in the middle of the night, what should I do..."
Mi Yang was not afraid, but the person holding him was shaking, and he was still saying stubbornly: "Don't be afraid even if you go to the hospital. If you really get SARS, the TV said that people who often come into contact with patients will also get it. Then I will be quarantined, and we will still be together."
Bai Luochuan said quietly but firmly: "I'm with you, don't be afraid."
Mi Yang also hugged him: "I'm fine."
He felt that if he didn't hug the person in front of him, he would cry.