"Are you okay?"
Yang Zhao grabbed Chen Mingsheng's arm, and the latter's arm was tense.
Chen Mingsheng's face turned pale, and he stabilized his body.
"Thank you."
Yang Zhao saw him sweating, frowned and said, "Are you feeling unwell?"
Chen Mingsheng shook his head and said, "It's okay."
Yang Zhao looked down, and Chen Mingsheng's right hip was trembling slightly. She looked up, and Chen Mingsheng's face was close at hand. Yang Zhao stepped back a little, and said to Chen Mingsheng, "You can't do this, I'll take you to the hospital."
Chen Mingsheng looked at her in surprise, this woman was not too troublesome. But he still refused.
"I'm really fine, don't bother."
Yang Zhao looked at him and said, "Can you walk like this?"
Yang Zhao's eyes are slender, she seldom stares, her eyes are always dull. Chen Mingsheng glanced at her to judge whether the words were malicious, and finally he looked away and said, "I can go."
Yang Zhao turned around and reached for the coat hanging by the door. She turned to Chen Mingsheng and said, "I'll take you to the hospital."
Chen Mingsheng took a deep breath, and Yang Zhao looked at her without saying a word. Chen Mingsheng couldn't see any fluctuations in her eyes, and he didn't bother to say anything, so he nodded.
Yang Zhao said, "I'll go downstairs to pick up the car, can you go downstairs by yourself?"
Chen Mingsheng nodded again.
Yang Zhao opened the door and left first. Chen Mingsheng watched the direction she was leaving for half a minute before starting to move.
He rolled up his trouser legs and looked down. As he expected, the leg was infected. Chen Mingsheng sighed, turned around, took the artificial limb in his hand, and went out.
Fortunately, this apartment building has an elevator... Chen Mingsheng leaned in the elevator room, thinking.
Yang Zhao parked the car at the door, and Chen Mingsheng put the prosthesis on the back seat. Originally, he wanted to sit in the back, but Yang Zhao leaned forward and opened the passenger door for him.
After Chen Mingsheng sat in, he put his crutches on the back seat.
The car started and hadn't been driven for a long time. Chen Mingsheng was a little strange, but Yang Zhao just turned to look at him.
"fasten your seatbelt."
"..." Chen Mingsheng had never been in the habit of wearing a seat belt. He nodded and fastened his seat belt.
Yang Zhao started the car and drove out of the community. She asked while driving: "Go to the Third Courtyard? This is the closest to the Third Courtyard."
"Ah..." Chen Mingsheng remembered something, and said to Yang Zhao, "You don't need to go to the hospital, please take me to the city rehabilitation center."
"Rehabilitation center?" The car paused, Yang Zhao glanced at Chen Mingsheng from the corner of his eye, and asked, "Where is the rehabilitation center?"
Chen Mingsheng said, "At the intersection of Shisanwei Road."
Yang Zhao parked the car on the side of the road and started to set up the navigation. Chen Mingsheng silently watched her fiddling with her for a long time but failed to fix it. He said, "The Shisanwei Road is next to Qishan Road. It takes 20 minutes to drive from here. I can show you the way."
Yang Zhao sat back, "Then you lead the way."
The car was very quiet, the two of them didn't talk much, and Yang Zhao didn't have the habit of listening to the radio or music in the car. Chen Mingsheng only gave Yang Zhao advice at key intersections. In fact, it only turned a corner, and then walked all the way to the end. Yang Zhao never knew that there was a rehabilitation center so close to where she lived.
After driving for twenty minutes, they arrived at their destination.
Yang Zhao took a look from the car. The rehabilitation center seemed to be newly built. The building had four floors and looked very new. There was a row of cars parked at the entrance of the rehabilitation center, and Yang Zhao found an empty space to park the car.
Chen Mingsheng unfastened his seat belt and said to Yang Zhao, "Thank you, I can do the rest myself."
Yang Zhao pulled out the car key, "I'm fine today, I'll see your doctor before leaving."
Chen Mingsheng: "..." He got out of the car, stood on one foot and opened the back door. Yang Zhao's car was parked very close to another car, and the door was hard to open. Yang Zhao saw it and said to him, "Wait a minute, I'll get it for you."
Yang Zhao took out his crutches from the other side, she paused when she saw the artificial limbs in the back seat, and finally decided to only take the crutches.
"Let's go, do you use registered mail here?"
Chen Mingsheng walked beside Yang Zhao on crutches. He said, "No need, I sent a text message to the doctor, just take the medicine."
"oh."
The entrance of the rehabilitation center is a slope-shaped road. They entered the first floor, and Yang Zhao saw several wheelchairs placed at the entrance of the first floor, which seemed to be for the convenience of people entering and exiting. Yang Zhao said to Chen Mingsheng: "You can sit here, do you want to?"
Chen Mingsheng didn't speak, Yang Zhao pushed a car over.
"Sit down and save some energy."
Chen Mingsheng did have a lot of trouble standing up. He usually doesn't like to sit in a wheelchair, but now he can't help being brave.
Yang Zhao held his crutch in his hand, and Chen Mingsheng swung back and forth a few times in the wheelchair.
"Which floor is the doctor on?"
Chen Mingsheng rowed his wheelchair towards the elevator, he seemed to be very familiar with this place.
"The third floor."
Yang Zhao followed him. She walked in the building of the rehabilitation center. Barrier-free facilities, slopes, blind paths, and handles can be seen everywhere. Yang Zhao had never had such close contact with the world of disabilities, and she followed Chen Mingsheng closely.
On the third floor, as soon as the elevator door opened, Yang Zhao saw a sign at the entrance of the building, with a sign saying "Limb Recovery" posted on it. The hallway is quiet, with a few rooms on either side. When Yang Zhao passed by, he saw an open door in one of the rooms, with several levers inside, and a doctor instructing patients to walk in the middle.
Chen Mingsheng went directly to the innermost office, he knocked on the door, and someone opened the door soon.
The doctor who opened the door was a young doctor with a kind face. He smiled happily when he saw Chen Mingsheng.
"It's Xiao Chen, come in quickly. I received your text message. What's wrong, your leg is infected?" Chen Mingsheng and Yang Zhao entered the office together. It was very spacious, and only the old doctor was alone. There is a desk in the room, and there are several pots of flowers and plants in the corner.
The old doctor pulled a bench and patted it.
"Come on, sit down, and I'll show you."
"Master Zhang..." Chen Mingsheng moved from the wheelchair to the bench, his right leg resting stiffly. Dr. Zhang frowned and said, "Oh, it looks swollen, what did you do?"
Chen Mingsheng said in a low voice, "I did it by accident."
Yang Zhao stood aside, feeling a little complicated.
It should have been drenched in the rain yesterday, she thought. If he hadn't sent her home, probably the leg would have been fine. Moreover, when Yang Zhao was helping him just now, he noticed that Chen Mingsheng's clothes were still damp. It's no wonder that he didn't have any problems after wearing wet clothes all night.
Yang Zhao recalled that last night she threatened Chen Mingsheng's disability to go home with her to avoid the rain. Although the method was bad, she felt that it was a wise decision at the time, otherwise it might have been worse if she had been drenched in the autumn rain all night.
Doctor Zhang brought a plate of alcohol cotton and sat opposite Chen Mingsheng.
"Come on, pull it up and let me see."
"..." Chen Mingsheng pressed his hands on his trouser legs, he raised his eyes and glanced at Yang Zhao, obviously hesitating for a moment.
Dr. Zhang followed his gaze, suddenly remembered, and asked Yang Zhao, "This is..."
After asking, both of them fell silent.
What should I say
friend? Obviously not.
A chance acquaintance? It doesn't seem to count.
That is the relationship between the creditor and the debtor, but this cannot be said.
Chen Mingsheng opened his mouth, and Yang Zhao said before him, "I'm his neighbor."
Chen Mingsheng glanced at her and closed his mouth.
"Neighbor." Dr. Zhang had no doubts. He picked up a piece of disinfected surface with tweezers, and then said to Chen Mingsheng, "Come on, let me check it for you first."
Chen Mingsheng glanced at Yang Zhao again, the latter obviously didn't understand what he wanted her to dodge for a while, Chen Mingsheng sighed and let go of his hand.
Doctor Zhang raised Chen Mingsheng's leg, and Yang Zhao tried his best to make himself look calmer.
It is impossible to say that there is no shock.
Chen Mingsheng's leg... Or in Yang Zhao's eyes, it was no longer a leg. It only has a short tailbone left, and the muscles at the base of the legs can be seen to be a little shrunken, but they are red and swollen due to swelling.
There was a long scar on the face of the amputation, and Yang Zhao felt that the scar hadn't fully healed—in fact, she felt that if a person had such a wound that was still bleeding, he should not go anywhere except the hospital.
Doctor Zhang clicked his tongue twice, and took a sterile cotton ball to clean up near his wound. Yang Zhao felt pain just looking at it, but Chen Mingsheng kept his head down and didn't make a sound.
"You are so poor!" Dr. Zhang commented viciously, "You have only completed half of your physical therapy, and then you don't take good care of yourself when you go back. If you continue like this, it will get worse and worse!"
I don't know if Chen Mingsheng couldn't speak because he was enduring the pain, or if Dr. Zhang's words made him unable to refute, anyway, he sat quietly against the wall.
"Go to the hospital, it's already infected." Dr. Zhang finally concluded.
Only then did Chen Mingsheng react. He said, "No need, I'll just go back and raise it myself."
"Don't take your youth as capital!" Dr. Zhang was a little angry. "You didn't do physical therapy at the beginning, so you said you went back to raise it. What happened? You don't have any common sense in nursing. I'm not scaring you. Cut it off!"
Chen Mingsheng was silent.
Dr. Zhang might feel that his words were a bit harsh, so he softened his tone and said, "Hospitalize and take good care of it. You can't just apply some medicine like this." Then, Dr. Zhang suddenly turned around and said to Yang Zhao, " You persuade him too! He is stubborn!"
Yang Zhao was suddenly drawn into the conversation, and was taken aback. She looked at the round-eyed Doctor Zhang, nodded in agreement and said, "Ah... yes, you should be hospitalized, and someone will take care of you so you can get better sooner."
"Look at how sensible this lady is." Dr. Zhang found an ally, and felt that the chances of attacking the fortress were much higher. "You don't need to stay for a long time, about a month is enough. This is your own body, and the discomfort is your own."
Chen Mingsheng was silent for a while, and finally said in a low voice, "No, just prescribe the medicine for me."
"Oh..." Dr. Zhang patted his legs and sighed. He probably knew Chen Mingsheng's temper, so he didn't continue to persuade him. "I'll get you medicine, you wait here."
After Dr. Zhang left, Yang Zhao stood where she was. She looked at Chen Mingsheng who lowered his head enduring the pain, and suddenly felt that this taxi driver was a little different from ordinary people.