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墨書 Inktalez
"Shu Han, Cheng Tianhong is dead."
Cheng Qiuyi's words made Liu Shuhan's heart skip a beat.
This person was Cheng Qiuyi's blood relative, and he died on the family reunion night of New Year's Eve. Liu Shuhan didn't know how to comfort Cheng Qiuyi; should she just say "my condolences"?
So she said, "Qiu Yi, wait for me."
She didn't have time to explain to Xu Ruyun or pack any luggage; she just grabbed her coat and phone and left.
In the early hours of New Year's Day, there wasn't a single figure on the street. The leaves on the roadside trees had all fallen off, and the bare branches stretched out into the cold air like dry claws. The snow fell heavier and heavier, and Liu Shuhan's thick down jacket could barely fend off the chill. After a long wait, a taxi finally arrived. Liu Shuhan got into the car, feeling the warmth inside, trembling as she breathed into her palms. Her lips turned pale from the cold, and the snow on her clothes melted into water, sliding down onto the seat.
"Driver... to... the high-speed train station..." Liu Shuhan's teeth chattered, her voice barely audible.
At four-thirty in the morning, Cheng Qiuyi sat in the hospital lobby in a daze. The large hall was empty except for two on-duty doctors chatting in the distance. She wore a black coat with only a thin wool sweater underneath; although the temperature in the hall wasn't very high, she didn't feel cold at all.
Dying on New Year's Eve was indeed retribution. Cheng Qiuyi sneered; she was unhappy.
Cheng Tianhong was dead; she couldn't understand what there was to be unhappy about and could only attribute this unusual emotion to not having witnessed his death with her own eyes.
Cheng Boming had cried himself to sleep next to Cheng Qiuyi. She glanced at the chubby boy and felt an inexplicable disgust. The closest blood relation she had in this world was such a little thing.
So she lifted her booted foot and kicked Cheng Boming to the ground.
Cheng Boming shouted angrily at her, "What are you doing?"
He was fed up with Cheng Qiuyi's mood swings. His father had just died today; why couldn't Cheng Qiuyi show a little sympathy? What else did she want?
"Let the driver take you home. Don't embarrass me here."
"I'm not going back!" Cheng Boming exclaimed, agitated. "I want to stay here with my dad! I'm not going anywhere!"
His voice was too loud, drawing the attention of the On-Duty Doctor, who kept glancing over.
Soon, the On-Duty Doctor's attention was captured by another person.
That person rushed into the hospital, breathless, with their hands on their knees, exhaling white puffs of air. From the knees down, their pants and shoes were covered in mud, leaving two dirty footprints on the floor that shone like a mirror. They were almost completely covered in snow, with a layer of ice formed from head to toe, even their eyelashes glistening with white snow.
Cheng Qiuyi's pupils suddenly constricted as she hurried over to that person, her heels making heavy clacking sounds on the floor.
"Are you crazy? It's snowing so heavily outside! What are you doing here?" Cheng Qiuyi embraced the already cold and soaked Liu Shuhan and said weakly, "Shu Han, what are you doing here..."
"Qiu Yi, Happy... New Year..." Liu Shuhan's teeth chattered, and even her breath felt cold. "I came... I came to wish you... a Happy New Year..." The ice on her hair melted and dripped down into Cheng Qiuyi's collar, burning her heart and making her eyes well up.
There were no cars on the road as Cheng Qiuyi took Liu Shuhan home. She pressed the accelerator to the floor, and when she braked, the tires screeched against the pavement, creating a harsh noise.
Cheng Qiuyi half-pushed and half-carried Liu Shuhan into the bathroom, stripping off her dirty clothes and trying to get her into the bathtub for a hot soak to chase away the chill.
As soon as her toes touched the water, she immediately jumped back, exclaiming, "Hot! So hot!"
Cheng Qiuyi tested the water temperature and found it just right, not hot at all.
Liu Shuhan felt extremely cold and thought her toes were about to be burned by the steaming water.
Cheng Qiuyi gently reassured her, "It's not hot now. Shu Han, be good and take a bath first; you need to be careful not to catch a cold."
Liu Shuhan hesitantly dipped one foot into the water, but the temperature made her face scrunch up. Seeing Cheng Qiuyi's worried expression, she steeled herself and submerged her entire body into the water. After a while of adjusting, she finally felt warmth and shivered slightly, finally starting to relax.
Cheng Qiuyi knelt beside the bathtub and poured water over Liu Shuhan's shoulder. "You came all the way here during the New Year; do your parents know?"
"I told them, but judging by my mom's expression, I’ll probably get scolded when I go back," Liu Shuhan recalled Xu Ruyun's face before she left and felt anxious.
She asked Cheng Qiuyi to hand her phone over and discovered it had already shut down from getting wet. No wonder she hadn’t received any calls on the way.
"Hurry up! Give me your phone!"
Liu Shuhan snatched the phone from Cheng Qiuyi's hands and quickly tried to contact Xu Ruyun.
"Mom... I have a friend here with some urgent matters... really urgent! Huh? You're coming to see me? Didn't you say you weren't going to visit anyone for New Year? Mom... Mom? Mom!"
Cheng Qiuyi checked the water temperature again; it had cooled down enough. She told Liu Shuhan to stand up and wrapped her in a large bath towel. "When is your mom coming over?"
"I don't know..." Liu Shuhan leaned against Cheng Qiuyi like a rag doll. "My mother..." Suddenly, she let out a thunderous sneeze.
"Alright, you." Cheng Qiuyi pinched Liu Shuhan's bottom. "Go cover yourself up in bed. You're the only one silly enough to run out on a snowy day."
Cheng Qiuyi brought two duck down blankets and covered Liu Shuhan until only her eyes were visible. "You sleep first; I'll go buy some cold medicine."
"Qiu Yi." Liu Shuhan grabbed Cheng Qiuyi's wrist.
"Yeah?"
"Don't be sad."
Cheng Qiuyi smiled. "Silly, I'm not sad."
"Cheng Tianhong is dead, so my past grievances with the Cheng family are settled. I'm happy."
"Qiu Yi, I'm here with you; you're not alone."
"I know."
Liu Shuhan froze in the snow for most of the night, and sure enough, she caught a cold the next day, with a fever reaching 38.5 degrees Celsius. Wrapped in two blankets, she still shivered and refused to go to the hospital no matter what.
Cheng Qiuyi ruined most of the kitchen trying to make half a bowl of ginger soup for her. "No way, you have to go to the hospital with me."
"I won't go!" Liu Shuhan coughed a few times intermittently. "Going to the hospital on the first day of the New Year means I'll have to stay in the hospital all year long. It's bad luck!"
Cheng Qiuyi couldn't help but laugh at her frustration. "Why don't you say that getting sick on the first day of the New Year means you'll be ill all year?"
"Spit, spit, spit! That's bad luck!"
"Stop talking nonsense and get dressed."
"Qiu Yi, I really don't want to go to the hospital..." Liu Shuhan, seeing that her stubbornness wasn't working, decided to play the pity card. She looked pale with tears in her eyes, as if she had suffered some great injustice. "I really don't want to go to the hospital, Qiu Yi..."
Cheng Qiuyi was particularly susceptible to Liu Shuhan's act, and her heart softened immediately. "Alright, alright, if you don't want to go, then you won't." If she didn't go to the hospital, couldn't she just bring a doctor home?
With a fever, Liu Shuhan's mind was foggy. She lay there in a daze all day, unable to wake up or sleep soundly. She kept holding Cheng Qiuyi's hand; whenever Cheng Qiuyi went to get a glass of water, Liu Shuhan had to open her eyes to check if she was still there. Cheng Qiuyi simply crawled into bed to sleep alongside Liu Shuhan.
The coolness from outside the blanket made Liu Shuhan shiver slightly, but she still leaned over and hugged Cheng Qiuyi, which helped her sleep more soundly.
After an unknown amount of time, Liu Shuhan's breathing finally calmed down. Cheng Qiuyi pressed her forehead against Liu Shuhan's to check her temperature and found that the fever seemed to have subsided. She quietly got out of bed, tucked Liu Shuhan's blanket in more securely, and went to tidy up the messy kitchen.
Liu Shuhan hadn't eaten anything since last night. Cheng Qiuyi carefully measured out rice with a measuring cup and added water according to the porridge line marked inside the rice cooker, cooking a pot of plain rice porridge.
Cheng Qiuyi felt quite useless; with Liu Shuhan sick, she couldn't even manage to make her a proper meal.
She sat on a small stool in the kitchen watching over the pot of porridge when suddenly a call came in from an unfamiliar number. The caller ID showed it was from City Z.
City Z.
Cheng Qiuyi's expression darkened slightly. "Hello, may I ask who this is?" She tried to make her tone sound more relaxed, less cold and rigid.
"May I ask... is Liu Shuhan there?"
"Are you Shu Han's mother? Auntie, Shu Han is resting. I'll have her call you back when she wakes up."
"Oh, you are..."
"I'm Shu Han's friend. My surname is Cheng, and my name is Cheng Qiuyi."
"Oh, so you are Qiu Yi! Our Shu Han used to talk about you all the time when she was in school, saying you were outstanding in both character and academics! That's great, I'm relieved that Shu Han is with you! Well then, let her rest well, and I'll visit you both another day."
"Okay, goodbye, Auntie."
Cheng Qiuyi felt a bit amused, wondering how this mother would feel if she knew her daughter had been taken away by the so-called outstanding child.
Liu Shuhan had a good sleep and woke up with a big appetite, finishing most of a pot of porridge by herself. "Not bad, not bad, Qiu Yi, your porridge is really delicious." It was just plain white porridge; she didn't know what was so good about it.
"Your mom called my phone earlier while you were sleeping, so I answered it."
"Ah?" Liu Shuhan put down her empty bowl. "She didn't say anything, right?"
Cheng Qiuyi smiled meaningfully, "She did say something."
"What did she say? Is she going to break my legs?"
"She said... she said you have always loved to mention me since school." Cheng Qiuyi pressed Liu Shuhan down onto the bed. "Shu Han, am I that famous in your family? Why didn't you tell me?"
"Why should I tell you?" Liu Shuhan blushed and glared at her. "I just knew you'd laugh at me if you found out."
Cheng Qiuyi leaned closer to Liu Shuhan's lips, gently licking away a grain of rice that had been forgotten at the corner of her mouth. She savored it for a while and realized that her cooking had indeed improved; the porridge she made this time was unexpectedly delicious.
"Shu Han, now that you've eaten my cooking, isn't it time for me to eat you?"
"I have a cold... it's contagious..."
"Then hurry up and infect me, so you can take care of me..."
Cheng Qiuyi's fingers were icy cold, yet they felt like fire as they roamed over Liu Shuhan's body, causing her skin to flush pink wherever they touched. Liu Shuhan felt both cold and hot, unwilling to back down as she stripped Cheng Qiuyi bare.
"Shu Han, you're getting more skilled at this," Cheng Qiuyi praised.
"Not as good as you, big pervert."
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