Li Shanqing believed there was nothing in this world he couldn’t achieve, except staying healthy at the right time.
The week-long school suspension ended, and on the night before he was to return to class, the wound on his mouth had healed, but he suddenly began coughing. Starting in the afternoon, his right arm became extremely itchy, accompanied by waves of burning pain.
A seasoned patient, Li Shanqing self-diagnosed it as an allergy and didn’t take it seriously. After taking painkillers and antihistamines, he hurriedly worked in the study to complete the biology group assignment Mo Zhongqi had sent him.
The past few days, he’d been busy preparing his resume and application materials, securing a recommendation letter from Professor Zhao, and refining his project for the science award competition, staying up late secretly for two nights.
When Mo Zhongqi asked about the assignment as the return to school approached, Li Shanqing realized he’d forgotten to do it.
Opening his laptop, he typed while researching, unable to resist scratching. By the time he finished the assignment, he noticed his arm was covered in bloody scratch marks and large red patches.
In truth, the painkillers likely numbed his skin, but Li Shanqing was convinced the pain and itching had improved.
Wanting to return to school and avoid the hospital, he kept quiet, and while Mary wasn’t looking, he took another painkiller from the medicine box and changed into a long-sleeved T-shirt.
But while he fooled Mary, he couldn’t hide it from his parents, who rarely came home to have dinner with him.
A few bites into dinner, his mother noticed his squirming posture, trying not to scratch. After a few glances, she asked, “Are you feeling unwell somewhere?”
“An allergy?” His father, more perceptive, got straight to the point. “Pull up your sleeve and let us see.”
With no choice, Li Shanqing rolled up half his sleeve, casually showing it off. Facing his parents’ visibly changed expressions, he pretended nothing was wrong, saying naturally, “I took allergy medicine and painkillers this afternoon. It feels much better. It only looks bad because I scratched too hard.”
Mary, coming out of the kitchen, gasped at the sight, nearly dropping the soup bowl. “Shanqing, what’s wrong with your arm?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” Li Shanqing said, pulling his arm back into his sleeve, playing dumb slowly. “It was a bit itchy, so I scratched a little.”
“Hiding your illness,” his mother muttered softly, calling the family doctor for a video consultation.
Li Shanqing shrank into his chair, insisting guiltlessly, “It’s really not serious. How is this hiding an illness?”
But Dr. Zhang, upon seeing him, diagnosed acute urticaria and urged Li Shanqing to go to the hospital immediately without delay. So, the family of three hurriedly ate a few more bites of dinner and rushed to Yiying Hospital.
On the way to the hospital, night had fallen, the sky a deep blue. The driver sped along, and Li Shanqing’s condition suddenly worsened. His skin grew itchier and more painful, his sharp mind clouded with feverish dizziness.
His mother held his hand to stop him from scratching. Feeling nauseous, he pressed and rubbed the itchy skin through his clothes with his palm, desperate for relief.
Each time his body’s ailments caused excruciating pain, he felt an urge to rip open his spine or chest, stuff in a lifetime’s worth of medicine, or scoop out his brain and place it in a healthy, perfect vessel.
When could he live a normal life? Why couldn’t he control his health? He loathed his weak, useless body with a near-hatred. It kept him from doing anything he wanted.
Dazed and delirious, Li Shanqing kept thinking, yearning to remake himself, his body tensing with pain, yet powerless to act.
“Baby,” his mother, seeing his distress, held him tightly with heartache, “don’t worry. Mommy and Daddy aren’t upset you didn’t tell us. You’ll be better tomorrow.”
Li Shanqing leaned his head on his mother’s shoulder, clenching his jaw. His father turned back, patiently comforting him, “Dr. Zhang called the hospital. Alice is waiting for us at the entrance.”
Alice, the hospital guide assigned to Li Shanqing for years, saw him more often than his school principal. She and a nurse had a wheelchair ready at the clinic building’s entrance. Unable to walk upon getting out of the car, Li Shanqing sat in the wheelchair and was taken for a doctor’s visit and blood tests.
As Dr. Zhang predicted, it was acute urticaria, severe enough to require hospitalization. So, Li Shanqing was wheeled back to the all-too-familiar VIP2 ward.
At fourteen, he’d spent an entire year in this ward, able to navigate it blindfolded. Passing the lounge, bathroom, and secondary bedroom, he entered the main bedroom, where there was a TV, a sofa set, khaki electric curtains, and an adjustable hospital bed. A nurse helped him onto the bed and set up an IV. The pain of the needle in his hand was intense, but he felt oddly numb, not flinching.
Time in illness passed both quickly and slowly, like melted soap stirring in his brain, churning out murky bubbles. As the first IV bag neared completion, he regained some clarity and saw his parents sitting by the bed.
“Mommy, what time is it?” he asked, his voice frail.
His mother touched his face, saying, “Past ten.” Her touch was gentle, her voice soft, as if he were a fragile spirit needing careful preservation.
Mary knocked and entered, dragging a large suitcase packed with his parents’ clothes. She checked on Li Shanqing, her eyes full of worry, then took the suitcase to the secondary bedroom.
A nurse came to apply ointment and offered to change his clothes. Li Shanqing insisted on doing it himself, and the nurse didn’t push. Everyone left his room.
The room’s light was pale yellow. Li Shanqing avoided looking at the scratch marks on his arm or the patches on his body, struggling to change into hospital clothes before stepping out. This was the life he was used to, yet each time it felt humiliating and torturous.
Thankfully, after the IV, his discomfort had eased considerably. After his parents went to sleep, Li Shanqing lay in bed, restless, and picked up his phone. He replied to a few classmates’ messages, informing them he couldn’t return to school tomorrow, then opened his chat with Zhuang Xu.
They’d spoken on the phone the previous night, and Zhuang Xu had promised to reply, yet today he hadn’t sent a single greeting. Did Li Shanqing really have to initiate for Zhuang Xu to think of him?
Everyone else cared about Li Shanqing, pitied his poor health, admired his intelligence, and liked him. No one was like Zhuang Xu.
Feeling indignant, Li Shanqing, who already enjoyed pestering Zhuang Xu, was now bored and emotionally vulnerable. He typed, “I haven’t bothered you all day. Don’t you find that weird?”
After twenty minutes with no reply, he turned off the light, closed his eyes, and fell asleep, a bit aggrieved.
At six in the morning, a nurse came to apply ointment, waking him. At eight, he ate breakfast with his parents in the lounge, and they left for work.
Mary came from home to stay with him, gently scolding him. Li Shanqing coaxed her, and they sat on the lounge sofa watching a terribly boring TV show.
Perhaps due to a poor night’s sleep, Mary dozed off soundly. After his morning IV, seeing she was still asleep, Li Shanqing quietly draped a blanket over her and slipped out to the small garden between the clinic and inpatient buildings.
Yiying Hospital’s garden was tiny, with no flowers—just trees, narrow paths, benches, and a glass dome overhead.
Few knew of it, making it quiet. Sunlight streamed through the dome, and with space to walk and sit, it was perfect for patients to clear their minds. During past hospitalizations, this was Li Shanqing’s favorite spot.
He strolled a few laps, then sat on a bench to rest and daydream, calculating when he could leave the hospital and return to school. A very thin woman walked in.
She seemed about his mother’s age, her face oddly familiar, dressed in black. Surprised to see someone in the garden, she paused upon spotting Li Shanqing.
“Hello,” Li Shanqing, skilled at charming elders, smiled at her. She nodded back, sat on the opposite bench, and said, “Not many people come here.”
“Yeah,” Li Shanqing agreed, adding, “but I’m a regular. There’s nowhere in Yiying Hospital I haven’t been.”
“What a coincidence, me too,” she said, her faint smile softening the heavy sadness she carried, making her seem gentle.
Then it hit Li Shanqing—he’d seen her in news about Weiyuan Biotech. She was Dr. Zhuang’s wife, Xu Yuanshuang, Zhuang Xu’s mother.
“I’m here for a follow-up,” she told him. “You?”
“Acute urticaria,” Li Shanqing replied. “I have a lot of health issues, so I’m here often.” He was plotting how to truthfully reveal he knew her identity and introduce his mother when a voice, barely containing anger, rang out.
“Li Shanqing!”
Zhuang Xu couldn’t believe Li Shanqing had tracked down his mother at the hospital where she was having a follow-up.
He wasn’t usually prone to intense emotions, but seeing Li Shanqing’s profile sparked near-fury. Normally, Li Shanqing’s constant messages annoyed him, but considering his intelligence, poor health, and being Lawyer Zhou’s son, Zhuang Xu tolerated it.
But approaching his mother crossed a line far beyond what Zhuang Xu could endure.
“What are you doing here?” Afraid of alarming his mother, Zhuang Xu restrained his volume, striding toward them, almost wanting to yank Li Shanqing off the bench.
Li Shanqing turned, startled by Zhuang Xu’s gaze, eyes widening. He let out an “ah,” shrinking back, saying, “No, it’s not like that.”
“You’ve got it wrong,” he said, surprised but calm, speaking softly. “I’m sick and hospitalized.”
He tugged up his sleeve with effort, revealing his left arm.
The back of his right hand was bruised yellow with a needle mark, and his left arm, slender and pale, was covered in red scars, some darkly swollen.
Zhuang Xu realized he’d jumped to conclusions and misunderstood Li Shanqing. Calming down, he noticed the light blue linen hospital gown under Li Shanqing’s gray cashmere coat.
“See, you wrongly accused me,” Li Shanqing said, not angry but smiling slightly. “Don’t think so badly of me.”
Zhuang Xu paused, rarely caught off guard. Thankfully, his mother interjected curiously, “Zhuang Xu, you know each other?”
“Auntie, I’m Li Shanqing, Lawyer Zhou Shuxue’s son,” Li Shanqing said eagerly, smiling brightly. “I met Zhuang Xu at my mom’s law firm. I’m probably too interested in Weiyuan Biotech and SyncPulse and keep messaging him, so he finds me annoying. I actually recognized you just now but didn’t get a chance to say before Zhuang Xu rushed over to scold me.”
His mother glanced at Zhuang Xu, who didn’t have time to respond before Li Shanqing’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He checked it, his expression shifting, and said hurriedly, “Oh no, my maid woke up and is looking for me. I need to get back to my ward. Bye, Auntie!”
He hurried toward the garden’s entrance, disappearing into the corridor.
The garden fell silent. Zhuang Xu heard his mother ask softly, “Why didn’t you mention him?”
“There’s nothing worth mentioning.”
Zhuang Xu answered briefly, avoiding her gaze, and took her arm to lead her toward the glass entrance.
“I’ve never seen you so angry,” his mother said. “He seems like a lovely boy, polite too. And he looks unwell—be kinder to him.”
Zhuang Xu didn’t bother explaining Li Shanqing’s knack for taking an inch and running a mile, so he just nodded and took her out of the hospital.
After dropping his mother home, Zhuang Xu had classes in the afternoon and went to school.
On the way from home to campus, he uncharacteristically hesitated over his wording before sending Li Shanqing a message: “Sorry, I misunderstood you earlier.”
The last message in the chat was Li Shanqing’s usual harassing text. Zhuang Xu had received it last night but didn’t open it. Thinking back, Li Shanqing was likely already in the hospital then.
Staring at his phone, Zhuang Xu realized he still didn’t understand what Li Shanqing was thinking. If Li Shanqing was just a spoiled teenager, why did he make a big deal out of small things but stay silent about being hospitalized?
Li Shanqing replied slower than usual, with fewer words: “Didn’t think you’d apologize.”
Given his unique personality, though Zhuang Xu had only known him a few days and exchanged few words, he could already imagine his tone—hoarse, slow, and drawn-out, sounding utterly carefree.
Perhaps his posture too: slouched in a chair, as if sitting upright and speaking properly would kill him.
“Wishing you a speedy recovery,” Zhuang Xu said, ignoring his passive-aggressive tone.
“The doctor says I need five more days in the hospital for observation,” Li Shanqing replied, quickly regaining his energy. “I really want to go back to school!”
He started rambling again. Zhuang Xu didn’t want to reply, but since he’d been in the wrong today, ignoring him outright felt inappropriate, so he let it sit. A while later, Li Shanqing sent another message: “I’m getting an IV in my right hand and texting with my left. Typing’s so tiring.”
Zhuang Xu knew what he was up to—bored in the hospital and wanting to call like last night.
But he didn’t understand why Li Shanqing was so fixated on pestering him and wasn’t inclined to engage, saying, “Then don’t text. I’m heading to the lab.”
After sending it, Zhuang Xu immediately regretted mentioning the lab.
As expected, Li Shanqing didn’t disappoint, replying instantly, “You’re so specific, but I’m hospitalized and can’t come find you. Next time, okay?”
Zhuang Xu swore he wouldn’t say another word to Li Shanqing next time and put away his phone.
