mtlumby2d Chapter 367: Secret Love
Chapter 367: Secret Love
Gu Fanxing was chatting with Ling Jiuer in the ward when her phone screen lit up. It was a message from Pei's father from across the ocean: "Luonan is in your hands. The cooperation project here still needs Luo Chuan and I to personally monitor it, so we can't go back for the time being. Grandma is old and needs someone to be around. She needs Pei's mother to take care of her. I can only ask you to take care of Luonan first."
And last night, Ling Jiuer also asked her not to tell her family about her injury, as she didn't want to make them worry.
What's even more coincidental is that Pei Luonan's right-hand men Kong Haoyu and Shi Yunchen are also out of town. Now, Ling Jiuer and Pei Luonan have to be taken care of by herself. In this way, she can only take turns running between the two wards. Although the two wards are adjacent, which saves Gu Fanxing a lot of trouble, it still makes her a little overwhelmed.
As they were chatting, they heard Pei Luonan's suppressed groan from the ward on the left as he was changing the dressing.
So Ling Jiuer urged Gu Fanxing to go and take a look.
After a while, Gu Fanxing appeared in Pei Luonan's ward.
"Does it still hurt?" Gu Fanxing asked softly.
Pei Luonan forced a smile: "It's okay, go and see Jiuer, she's alone..." Before he finished speaking, he groaned in pain again.
Gu Fanxing's eyes were red, and she carefully wiped the cold sweat from his forehead: "Don't talk, have a good rest."
She knew that Pei Luonan always reported good news but not bad news, but the severity of this wound made her worried every time she changed the dressing.
The next day, after coming out of Pei Luonan's ward, Gu Fanxing dragged his tired feet to the next room.
Just as he was about to push the door open, he saw through the crack that Ling Jiuer was struggling to reach the water cup on the bedside table with her non-IV hand. Because of the head injury, every movement she made seemed particularly strenuous, and her face was as pale as paper.
Gu Fanxing was about to push open the door when she heard a familiar voice behind her.
"Fanxing?" Du Fei's voice came from behind. He was holding two hospital meals in his hands, and his black jacket was still stained with night dew. It was obvious that he had just rushed over from the company. "I heard that Brother Pei and Ling Jiuer will both stay in the hospital for observation?"
Gu Fanxing turned around, her eyes as red as a rabbit.
The fatigue from working non-stop for the past two days came up at this moment, and her voice was tired: "Du Fei, can... can you please take care of Jiuer? Uncle Pei and Luochuan are abroad, Aunt Pei has to take care of Grandma, Haoyu and Yunchen are not here..." She bit her lip, "Pei Luonan's wound needs someone to watch over it, I really can't spare the energy..." Before she finished speaking, there was a sudden crisp sound of a water cup falling from Ling Jiuer's side.
When the two rushed into the ward, Ling Jiuer was struggling to sit up. Her face was pale due to the wound on her head, and the fine beads of cold sweat on her forehead soaked the pillowcase.
Du Fei rushed over almost instantly and gently pushed her back to the headboard. "Don't move!" He quickly took out a tissue and wiped the sweat from her forehead. His movements were neat but with a rare flustered look. "The doctor said you shouldn't move around. Why aren't you listening?"
Ling Jiuer's eyes widened in shock at his scolding, and she turned her head away stubbornly: "None of your business." But when Du Fei put the cool towel on her hot forehead, the blush on the tips of her ears betrayed her inner panic.
Du Fei's fingertips accidentally brushed her earlobe, and both of them froze as if they had been electrocuted, with a subtle scent filling the air.
In the following days, Du Fei seemed to have become Ling Jiuer's exclusive caregiver.
In the early morning, he would appear with a carefully selected breakfast, blowing on the porridge until it was not too hot before handing it to her; in the afternoon, he would push his wheelchair to the window and read the newspaper to her softly. When he read something interesting, Ling Jiuer could not help laughing out loud, but would immediately cover her mouth and pretend not to care.
Once, Ling Jiuer wanted to eat the mung bean cake from the shop on the corner. Du Fei ran a long way under the scorching sun to buy it, but his face turned red from the heat.
While Ling Jiuer scolded him for being "so stupid, you can just buy it online", she secretly stuffed the sweetest piece into his hand.
When on duty late at night, Du Fei always dozed off in the accompanying chair, but kept a posture ready to wake up at any time.
When Ling Jiuer had a headache in the middle of the night, he would wake up immediately with just a slight groan, pour warm water, take medicine, and massage her temples, his movements so gentle as if he was treating a rare treasure.
One morning, Ling Jiuer felt someone tucking in the corner of her quilt while she was drowsy. When she opened her eyes, she saw Du Fei bending over and concentrating on tidying up the blanket that had slipped off her bed.
The moonlight outlined his profile, and his eyelashes cast a small shadow under his eyes. Ling Jiuer's heart suddenly began to beat wildly uncontrollably. She hurriedly closed her eyes and pretended to be asleep, but she heard her own violent heartbeat echoing in the silent ward.
Du Fei often gets confused.
He didn't understand why he would get inexplicably nervous when he saw Ling Jiuer frowning; why her words "You go and rest" would make him feel lost; and he didn't understand why every time he accidentally touched her hand, the warmth from her fingertips would stay on his skin for a long time and wouldn't dissipate.
Until one day, the nurse jokingly asked Du Fei, "How is your girlfriend recovering?" Du Fei and Ling Jiuer blushed at the same time. One hurriedly denied, "She is not my girlfriend," and the other turned his head away and muttered, "Who is his girlfriend?"
After the denial, both of them fell into silence, with some indescribable emotion flowing in the air.
Gu Fanxing saw all of this.
She watched as Du Fei would unconsciously wipe the rice grains from the corners of Ling Jiuer's mouth while feeding her.
It seemed that Ling Jiuer stared at the door in a daze for a long time after Du Fei left the ward.
The two of them clearly cared about each other, yet carefully kept their distance, like two little beasts with their thorns erect, eager to get closer but afraid of hurting each other.
She knew that this layer of window paper was just a matter of poke, and the story of Du Fei and Ling Jiuer had just begun.
In the early morning, moonlight slanted into the ward, casting a silver edge on Pei Luonan's bandaged arm.
When Gu Fanxing handed the warm water to his lips, she caught a glimpse of him staring at Ling Jiuer's ward in a daze - there, Du Fei was squatting beside Ling Jiuer's wheelchair, carefully tying her loose shoelaces. The morning light slid down the back of his neck and shattered into starlight at Ling Jiuer's red eartips.
"What are you looking at?" She followed his gaze and chuckled as if asking knowingly.
Pei Luonan retracted his gaze and swallowed the warm water: "I didn't expect that Du Fei, this wooden man, also has a gentle side."
He paused, his bandaged fingers unconsciously stroking the side of the cup. "Before, he always said that he was used to traveling around the world and that talking about love was a burden, so he never got involved."
Gu Fanxing sat down next to the bed and ran her fingertips over his wound: "Now he has become a twenty-four filial caregiver."
Pei Luonan's grip on the cup tightened slightly.
"It's not that I don't want to love." Pei Luonan looked at the sycamore leaves outside the window, his voice filled with sighs, "It's just that I haven't met someone worth stopping for."
He turned to look at Gu Fanxing, his eyes so gentle that they could drip water, "Just like me, before I met you, I also thought I could walk alone forever."
Gu Fanxing's cheeks flushed, and she gently patted his shoulder: "Stop talking nonsense."
She remembered that the day before, she saw Du Fei clumsily braiding Ling Jiuer's hair. Although his technique was obviously unfamiliar, he stubbornly repeated the movements. Ling Jiuer complained that it looked like a "bird's nest", but her eyes curved into crescents.
These fragmented images pieced together made her suddenly understand the emotion in Pei Luonan's eyes.
"I'll have to thank Ling Jiuer someday." Pei Luonan said suddenly, "You've warmed up this stubborn Du Fei." A smile appeared on his lips. "By the time he realizes he's trapped, he'll be at a loss."
The two smiled at each other. The wind outside the window blew up the gauze curtains, bringing the faint laughter from the next ward into their ears.
Pei Luonan held Gu Fanxing's hand, feeling the warmth of her palm, and suddenly felt that the most moving scenery in the world was watching the person he cared about slowly soften in love, and then break out of the cocoon and become a butterfly.