When he received Lang Feng's call again, it was not yet seven in the morning, and Zhou Qichen was really woken up by the ringing of the phone. The ward was still dark, and he took a second to react, then tried to remind himself that it was the second day after the operation and that he should not move too much, and just reached for the phone on the bedside.
"Hello." He didn't look at the screen when he picked up the phone. Because the anesthetic had just worn off the night before, he didn't sleep well, and his voice was tired and hoarse, which was unique to the morning.
"I'm downstairs at your house." Lang Feng said on the other end of the phone. The first second he answered the phone, he guessed that Zhou Qichen was woken up by his phone call.
Zhou Qichen woke up immediately and called his name: "Evan... I didn't see who was calling. Why are you so late?" In the phone call yesterday, he made his meaning clear. Although Lang Feng didn't say the word "count", all the signals were positive. He even said: "I want to hear what you want to say, just tell me."
That was the first time he heard the urgency and urgency that is unique to young people in Lang Feng's tone. He had heard him make many phone calls. His tone was calm and measured on work calls, intimate and relaxed on family calls, and open and direct on calls to himself. Only then, halfway across the world, did Zhou Qichen read his tone, which was urgent and uncertain, and seemed a little uneasy. Lang Feng hung up the phone first, and he hung up very quickly. Zhou Qichen actually didn't guess his next move.
From Amsterdam to Beijing, a direct flight takes 9 hours and 30 minutes, and a flight with a stopover takes about 11 hours. From the time he hung up the phone to the time Lang Feng appeared in front of him, it took him 12 hours and 15 minutes. Zhou Qichen felt that he and KLM could be awarded a Guinness World Record.
The call came too early, and it took him a while to react. When Lang Feng asked him to come out to pick him up, Zhou Qichen realized that he had driven to his home. He also had an apartment near Daxing, which was a rented house. He had mentioned to Lang Feng where he lived a long time ago, but he had never taken him back to his home. Every time, he would go to the Yueguo Hotel to find Lang Feng. The reason for this was probably that home was just a place for him to sleep, and he was embarrassed to ask Lang Feng to come over.
"… I'm not at home," Zhou Qichen explained. "I was in a hurry to hang up before, so I didn't have time to tell you. Come to the 201 Hospital to find me, in the 4th floor of Building 3, Inpatient Department. I'll send a message to your phone. I'll tell the nurse that I'll be checking the room at 7 a.m., so you may have to wait a while."
Lang Feng responded, and then he heard the sound of the car engine starting up, and the foreign language navigation voice of the map. Lang Feng didn't hang up the phone, he set the destination, and then asked him: "What's wrong with you?"
Zhou Qichen said: "It's not a big deal. I'll remove the steel plate."
"Have you had the surgery?"
"Yes, I did it the day before yesterday. I will be discharged from the hospital in a few days."
Lang Feng talked to him while driving: "... I don't know."
Zhou Qichen seemed to laugh, but he didn't respond to this. If he hadn't said that he regretted it first, he wouldn't have taken the initiative to tell Lang Feng about his hospitalization, nor would he have used this incident to gain anyone's attention or sympathy. He couldn't do such a hypocritical thing.