Zeng Li hid quietly in the living room of her home, her mother's voice still echoing in her ears. Thinking of her past with Yu Yi, her tears couldn't stop flowing.
She didn't even know whether her persistence in her first love until now was due to her reluctance to let go of Yi or her reluctance to let go of herself over the years.
The place on her cheeks that had been wet by tears was dry and painful, so she had to slowly get up and go to the bathroom to wash her face with cold water. When she looked up at the mirror, she found that her lower lip was scarlet. She opened her mouth with her hands, and it seemed that her lip was broken by the wire of the braces when she was beaten just now. She moved, and the wound split open again, bleeding. Zeng Li licked it, pursed her lips, and spit out a little with saliva, and ignored it.
Zeng Li returned to the living room, locked the door from the inside, then took out cigarettes and a lighter from the drawer, sat back on the sofa and lit a cigarette. She was a little tired from crying, so she leaned her back gently on the sofa.
At this moment, her mind became very quiet and blank. Occasionally, she could hear the crying of the neighbor's children downstairs and the mechanically repetitive hawking sounds from the horn of the cart pushed by the vendor outside the window.
After a long time, she remembered that her bicycle was still at the entrance of the community. When she met Ai Jingchu just now, she was afraid of wasting his time, so she left it directly outside the security room. If she didn't go to get it back, it might be lost.
Thinking of this, she had to get up, pick up the keys and go out.
It was already late, and most of the elderly and children who had taken a walk after dinner had returned home, while her red bicycle was still parked alone. As soon as she approached, the security guard immediately came out of the booth.
"Why are you here so late? You just said you would only stop for a while and come back to get it after dinner, so I let you put it down. We have to hand over our shift soon, and I won't be responsible if it is lost."
Zeng Li forced himself to smile and said sorry several times.
She unlocked the car, pushed the bike, turned around, walked a few steps and saw Ai Jingchu not far away.
The street lights in the community were dim and yellow, with only a layer of orange light in the area less than one meter in radius under the lights, and Ai Jingchu was sitting on a wooden chair under the lights. When she came just now, she passed by him, but she didn't notice him because she was thinking about her car.
And he had obviously discovered her a long time ago.
"You..." Zeng Li was stunned, totally not understanding what he was doing sitting here.
"Watch the car for you." He stood up, tilted his head, and smiled a little self-deprecatingly.
She pushed the cart and came closer to him.
"Just now I..." Zeng's mother called her loudly with a dark face. Zeng Li knew what her mother's expression at that time meant. She was afraid that her mother would embarrass Ai Jingchu in public, so she pulled her away and hurriedly turned back to quietly say goodbye to Ai Jingchu. But how should she explain at this moment
"The person just now was my mother. She had something urgent to tell me, so she hurried home." She lied.
"Yeah." Ai Jingchu replied.
"That's it. Sorry, I didn't have time to introduce it to you in person."
She held the bicycle and stood in front of him. She tilted her face up and smiled. Halfway through her smile, she suddenly remembered her own face and retracted her expression guiltily.
"What's wrong with your mouth?" Ai Jingchu noticed something strange.
Zeng Li became embarrassed, lowered his head and dared not look him in the eye again, and just said, "It's okay."
Seeing that he wanted to ask something else, Zeng Li quickly changed the subject, "Where is that child just now?"
Ai Jingchu looked at her and paused for a moment before answering: "I sent him to the hospital, and after giving him a few instructions, I came back to find you. Your phone was not working, and then I saw your car was still there, so I thought maybe you would come back to pick it up, so I waited for a while."
In fact, he had finally managed to coax the child to go to the hospital, and asked the nurses he knew to arrange a bed for the child, and told them to keep an eye on him, and then he rushed to find Zeng Li. He saw the look Zeng Li's mother gave him, and when he saw the mother and daughter leave in a hurry, he felt something was wrong, and Zeng Li's cell phone was not accessible, so he felt uneasy. They had just been to this community when they stored their bicycles, but he didn't know which building she lived in. Seeing that her bicycle had not been taken away, he simply sat down and waited, and this wait lasted for more than an hour.
He didn't say much, just gave a brief and concise account.
Zeng Li brushed his hair to block his sight, thought for a moment, and suddenly said, "Since you are here, why don't you come to my house and sit down?"
If it had been before, she would definitely not have made this invitation, but Zeng's mother's words were like a pair of shackles, the heavier they were, the more she wanted to resist.
Ai Jingchu was stunned for a moment, then replied: "Okay."
So, she pushed the car and he walked on the side, walking side by side. When they got downstairs, she opened the door of the apartment. Ai Jingchu helped her carry the car upstairs, and she did not refuse too much.
The corridor was pitch black.
When the community was first built, there were some problems with the procedures and the owners never received their property certificates and land certificates. Many owners were so angry that they simply stopped paying the property management fees. The property management company often used the excuse of not being able to make ends meet as an excuse, and the service became worse. It was common for street lights to not work.
When she first rented the house here, it was because it was close to her workplace and the rent was cheap.
There were no lights on the building along the way. She walked in front and he followed behind with the bike. She was familiar with the road and would turn back from time to time to remind him, "Watch your step."
The bicycle was not heavy, but the corridor was dark and there were a lot of debris, making it difficult to turn around, so he was more cautious and silently counted the steps in his mind.
When he reached the third floor, Zeng Li stomped his feet vigorously twice, and the dim light on the fourth floor came on. The light shone through the middle, separating one floor from the other. It was dim and hazy, but it was able to outline the outline of the stairs.
Zeng Li looked back at Ai Jingchu, and unexpectedly, Ai Jingchu just looked up. She hurriedly said, "There's only one more floor left."
Ai Jingchu nodded.
After climbing to the fourth floor, Zeng Li stood at the door of his house and felt a little regretful about the invitation he had just made.
She felt that she was out of her mind, so she impulsively invited Ai Jingchu to her house. She smoked so many cigarettes before she came out, and the smell of cigarettes must still be in the room. But she thought again, it's not like Ai Jingchu didn't know that he smoked.
So Zeng Li opened the door generously and invited him in.
Ai Jingchu put the bicycle against the wall and looked around.
Unlike the shabby corridor outside, the house was obviously carefully renovated. The curtains, sofas, and chandeliers were full of feminine atmosphere. On the iron flower stand under the window was a lush green ivy, with branches and leaves like a waterfall almost spreading vertically to the floor. There were many things piled in the corner, but they were tidy. What was out of tune with all this was the lingering smell of cigarette smoke in the room.
Zeng Li called out from the kitchen, "Please sit down. I'll pour you some water."
Ai Jingchu did not answer and sat down on the sofa. On the coffee table in front of him were three things: a box of ladies' cigarettes, a lighter, and an ashtray with four cigarette butts and some ashes.
Zeng Li came out with two glasses and said apologetically, "I don't have any tea leaves at home, so we can only drink boiled water."
The lights in the living room were bright, so that Ai Jingchu could see her face clearly as soon as he looked up. She had obviously been crying, her eyes were swollen, and there was a wound on her lower lip, a new one, as if her lip had been damaged by a collision with her teeth or braces.
After observing her like this, he turned his gaze back to her other facial features and found that her face and nose were slightly swollen, and upon closer inspection, there were fingerprints.
Zeng Li felt a little uncomfortable when she saw him staring at her, so she explained, "It was an accident."
He asked, "Did your mother beat you?"
Such a question would be difficult to talk about even between children, let alone between two adults. Zeng Li's face immediately turned red, and he quickly answered, "No."
After she denied it, she wanted to defend herself further, but she felt that she was at a loss for words. All her sentences seemed so pale under his gaze.
"Because of me?" Ai Jingchu asked.
"No." Zeng Li shook his head.
Ai Jingchu stared at her without saying anything, not knowing whether he believed it or not.
So Zeng Li said again: "It's really not because of you, really."
She paused, then said, "We had an argument, and I said something hurtful to her, so she..."
Halfway through the conversation, for some reason, tears started falling. She wiped them with the back of her hand, and just after wiping her left eye, tears started flowing out of her right eye. She had always loved crying since she was a child, but she rarely cried in front of people other than her family and Yu Yi. However, Ai Jingchu seemed to be an exception.
Ai Jingchu said nothing, stood up and took some tissue paper from the dining table and gave it to her.
Zeng Li said: "Sometimes I think my mother must be doing this for my own good. She may be the only one in the world who treats me so well. She remarried again and again to give me the best family conditions. She interfered with my studies, love and job search for my own good. She must have been tired of the hard life in the past and was afraid that I would repeat her mistakes.
"But sometimes I feel that she never asked me if I needed anything when she did all this. She only treated me well in the way she wanted. Sometimes I also think, it would be better if I didn't have such a family and parents with such personalities."
He did not agree with her or comfort her, but just let her wipe her tears quietly.
After a moment, she calmed down.
He suggested: "Let's go for a walk."
So she and he closed the door, went downstairs, left the community, and drove the car.
He didn't ask her where she was going, but just drove. When he reached the river, he stopped the car.
The boats on the river were lit with lights flickering.
The car's sunroof and side windows were open, and the night river breeze blew through the car, brushing Zeng Li's cheeks, making him feel particularly cool.
Ai Jingchu looked at the night in the distance, and after a moment of silence, he said: "There are many things in this world that we can choose and strive for, but there are also many things that we can't do anything about. Family and parents belong to the latter."
After saying that, he paused for a moment, turned to look at Zeng Li, and slowly added: "I am a posthumous child."
Zeng Li was a little confused, and she almost didn't react immediately to what the word meant. After the words went through her mind again, she finally understood the meaning. She was very surprised, but she didn't dare to turn around and look at him. Instead, she tried her best to hide her emotions, so as not to reveal the slightest abnormality and hurt him.
Ai Jingchu cast his gaze towards the river bank in front of him calmly, as if he was thinking about how to describe his experience. His brows furrowed slightly and then disappeared.
He said: "When my father was in love with my mother, he took her away from here because of the opposition of his family. Not long after, he died in an accident. After that, my mother found out that she was pregnant. When my grandmother found out, she did everything she could to make her give birth to the child. Later..."
His voice was slow, heavy and without any colour as he narrated, as if he was talking about someone else's family, or retelling a story he had heard. He summarized it so concisely and clearly, but at the end, he stopped.
Zeng Li finally couldn't help but go to see him.
They were sitting in the car with the engine turned off and the small light on the roof not turned on. In such a dark, moonless night, Zeng Li could clearly see the outline of his face but could not catch his expression.
He went on to say: "Later, the child was finally born, and both parties got what they wanted."
There was no doubt that he was the child. However, he did not elaborate on what the "each taking what he needed" he mentioned meant.
An unmarried woman was forced to give birth to a posthumous child by her mother-in-law who despised her. The ending was nothing more than each of them getting what they wanted and then going their separate ways.
Zeng Li remembered the morning she met Ai Jingchu in the library after she became his patient. He was sitting in the sunlight through the glass window reading a book. Suddenly, the words that Ma Yiyi's mother often praised popped up in her mind: "How did you, as a mother, give birth to such a good son? You are so blessed that you have accumulated so much in eight lifetimes."
Now it seems like an irony.
He raised his right hand from his side and gently gripped the steering wheel in front of him.
Zeng Li lowered his eyes and looked at his hands.
Maybe it’s because he’s frequently disinfected and wears gloves, but the skin on the back of his hands appears whiter than the skin on his face and above his wrists.
Then the hand loosened again and dropped to grip the gear lever.
Somehow, Zeng Li felt an urge to cover it with her hand and hold it, just like when he repeatedly gave her strength, encouraged her, and comforted her.
"Zeng Li." He called her softly.
She was startled and suddenly withdrew her almost bewitched mind, and also retracted her hand in the air.
He didn't notice her strangeness, and continued, "I'm telling you this not to ask you to sympathize with me, nor am I using my own experience to comfort you. I think that everyone has different setbacks in their lives. They suffer, feel bad, and cry, but in the end they still have to work hard to move forward. Maybe after many years, when we look back, we will find that the things we once insisted on were probably insignificant in fact."
Zeng Li remained silent.
Ai Jingchu said: "I am not suitable to be a teacher, nor am I suitable to give advice, so..."
"I understand." Zeng Li replied.
At this time, Ai Jingchu's phone rang urgently. He answered it, said a few words hurriedly, and hung up.
Zeng Li saw that he looked unhappy and couldn't help asking, "What's wrong?"
"The hospital called and said the child ran away." Ai Jingchu replied.
He started the car and said to Zeng Li, "I'll take you home first."
"No need," Zeng Li hurriedly stopped him, "I can just take a taxi myself, business is more important." Hospital A is in opposite directions from her home, it would be too troublesome.
Ai Jingchu looked at his watch and decisively rejected it: "No. This place is quite remote. I'm worried about you being alone so late at night."
"Then take me to the crowded street ahead." Zeng Li said again.
He didn't say anything else, just pursed his lips and drove. Just when Zeng Li thought he had agreed, he heard him say, "Come with me to the hospital first, and I'll take you home later."
"Really."
"It won't take you too long, just be obedient," he said.
His last two words "obedient" made Zeng Li blush instantly, and she dared not argue with him anymore. She remembered that he also used this word to coax the child in the evening. Is it true that orthodontic doctors, because most of the patients they face are underage children, all have this killer move
When he arrived at the hospital, because the matter was urgent, he did not park the car in the underground garage, but parked directly outside the outpatient hall. After giving Zeng Li a few instructions and leaving the car keys to her, he hurried upstairs.
The dental hospital of University A was not built together with the affiliated hospital of the main campus, but was built on another street, specially and independently. There were not many inpatients in the dental department, and there were twelve floors in total. The lower seven floors were dental clinics, and the upper floors were the inpatient department, hospital office, and operating room.
Ai Jingchu had just temporarily placed the child in the maxillofacial surgery department on the ninth floor. At that time, one of Ge Yi's students happened to be on night shift, so he handed the child over to them.
As soon as Ai Jingchu arrived, the student who was sitting restlessly at the nurse's station said anxiously, "Professor Ai, I'm sorry, I went to the bathroom, and when I came back, the child was gone."
The nurse followed suit and said, "I was sitting here at the time and didn't notice when he slipped away."
Ai Jingchu asked: "What time is it?"
"About half past ten. We'll call you as soon as we find you."
Ai Jingchu nodded, took out his cell phone to check the call time, wrote it down on a piece of paper, and then asked the students to go to the security department and ask them to adjust the surveillance according to this time.
About ten minutes later, the student called to report that the surveillance camera saw the child slipping out of the hospital.
Ai Jingchu was a little depressed with this result. He left the nurses' station and walked to the hall at the end of the corridor and sat down alone.
It's his fault for being too careless.
He should have asked the child about his situation and settled him down carefully before he changed his mind, instead of doing this, not doing anything he said to coax him, and just abandoning him in the hospital at random.
At that time, his mind was full of thoughts about Zeng Li and he had no time to think about anything else.
Suddenly, the elevator stopped at this floor with a ding. It was past ten o'clock, and it was time for the inpatient floor to rest. In the empty hall, only the most basic lighting equipment was still on, and the light was a little dim.
So when the elevator door opened, it was brighter inside than outside.
Ai Jingchu was attracted by the sound and light. He looked up and saw Zeng Li walking out.
He sat alone in a chair directly opposite the elevator, in plain sight.