Intentions
An unmistakable declaration of intentions
The answer pointed clearly to herself. Lu Yinxi was stunned for a moment, the corners of her lips involuntarily lifted, but thinking about restraint, she pressed her lips together, suppressing the smile at the corners of her lips.
As soon as she suppressed her lips, the smile couldn’t be restrained from spreading to her eyebrows and eyes.
It was like walking alone in a dark alley, where suddenly a light was turned on, making the world instantly bright, and she couldn’t help but start running joyfully.
She doesn’t hold grudges. In an instant, she forgot the grievances and bitterness of the past two days. After eating a candy given by Jian Qing, she forgot Jian Qing’s warning to her, only wanting to be good to her wholeheartedly.
Lu Yinxi thoughtfully moved her long hair to the left side of her body, pulled the hood of her down jacket to the right shoulder, tugged at Jian Qing’s sleeve, and patted her shoulder, saying: “My shoulder is for you to lean on, no charge, though it’s thin, it won’t hurt you with a little padding.”
Jian Qing opened her eyes, expressionless, looking at Lu Yinxi.
In Lu Yinxi’s eyes, there was a bright light, tender as water.
Her gaze was too gentle and sincere, without the slightest hint of pretense. Jian Qing withdrew her gaze and let out a barely audible sigh.
Seeing her reaction, Lu Yinxi thought she was about to mock or warn her again. She awkwardly withdrew her gaze, blinked, and was just about to give herself a way out, when her right shoulder suddenly felt a weight.
—The person on the right rested their head on her shoulder.
Feeling the weight on her shoulder, Lu Yinxi instantly fell silent. She straightened her back and sat upright in her seat, staring at Jian Qing without moving.
Her gaze followed the long eyelashes, thin as cicada wings, down to her high nose bridge. Wisps of a delicate fragrance wafted into her nostrils. Her right arm pressed against Jian Qing’s soft body, feeling part of her weight.
Lu Yinxi turned her gaze away and smiled slightly.
In this moment, she was needed and relied upon, rather than being useless.
How wonderful.
Actually, she knew very little about Jian Qing. The other person seemed like a fairy with a thousand years of cultivation, effortlessly making her willingly give her heart.
She very much wanted to offer a sincere heart without reservation, to treat the person beside her wholeheartedly and earnestly, rather than being misunderstood as playing games or being insincere.
But she couldn’t offer more. All the joys she had now felt like they were stolen. She felt like a terminally ill cancer patient who, in the limited time left, fell in love with someone she shouldn’t have loved. Promises, companionship, responsibilities—these duties that should be fulfilled in an intimate relationship, she couldn’t offer any.
Lu Yinxi thought, if she were a person who lived for the moment, unbound by those illusory promises and responsibilities, not considering the future, only seizing the day, would she be more relaxed and free?
Maybe.
But she was destined not to be that kind of person. Her parents and grandmother in the real world, her friends and classmates, the education she received… the experiences of the past years have shaped her current character and temperament.
How could she let go of the trajectory of her life in another world and start a brand-new life in this virtual world without any reservations?
She couldn’t let go, nor could she do it.
What she could do was to treat the people around her as well as possible, so that when she leaves in the future, she won’t have too many regrets.
The train moved towards the suburbs, and the fewer the people in the carriage, the quieter it became. Lu Yinxi sat motionless like an old monk in meditation.
A day has 24 hours, and Jian Qing used one hour to coax her and trick her into coming to the university town.
In a professional course with over two hundred people, adding one more person would not cause a big stir. Some classmates, who are oblivious to the outside world, didn’t even notice.
The relationships among university classmates are not as close as they were in primary or high school. The distance and politeness between adults begin to show. Some people, after studying for four or five years, might not even recognize all their classmates’ names by graduation.
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Lu Yinxi found a medical mask in Jian Qing’s bag and put it on, covering most of her face, leaving only her bright eyes exposed. However, her outstanding temperament couldn’t be hidden, making her stand out among the students.
Fortunately, most of the students’ attention was focused on the podium. Only the students in the back row, occasionally pretending to look at the clock hanging at the back of the classroom, glanced at Lu Yinxi, showing astonished expressions.
Every time Jian Qing had a class, students would use the excuse of taking photos of the lecture notes to openly take out their phones and secretly photograph her from various angles. They would then post to their social media, boasting about their professional teacher’s temperament and appearance, making students from other faculties insanely jealous and eager to audit the class.
Jian Qing wasn’t the most caring teacher, but on Teachers’ Day each year, she received the most flowers.
In her first year of teaching, she was too young, and some students, lacking propriety, would openly pursue her.
Following the usual practice, the administrative leaders didn’t confront the troublesome students but instead talked to the teacher, pressuring her to focus on teaching and not dress too flamboyantly.
The claim of dressing flamboyantly was completely unfounded, but Jian Qing indeed didn’t put much effort into teaching. Her classes were mostly reading from the PPT or textbooks, occasionally mixing in one or two clinical cases that students, who hadn’t yet experienced clinical practice, loved to hear.
Lu Yinxi propped up her head, thinking back to her own student days when she also encountered teachers like Jian Qing who dryly read from textbooks.
Many of the teachers at the medical school were doctors from affiliated hospitals who took on teaching roles and were not professional teachers by training.
Some doctors, in their first couple of years of teaching, hadn’t even obtained their teaching certificates. They almost always taught first and took the certification exams later, so their teaching skills were inevitably lacking.
Moreover, excelling in clinical practice, research, or teaching is hard enough in any one of these fields, and doctors who excel in all three are almost nonexistent.
Looking at Jian Qing on the podium, Lu Yinxi thought to herself that with her being so good-looking, even if she were reading Buddhist scriptures instead of textbooks, she would still listen with great interest.
Class time was when Jian Qing spoke the most, and Lu Yinxi propped up her head, listening to every word without missing a single one.
At 5:30 in the evening, after three periods of class ended, the students, who usually scattered immediately after class, swarmed around Jian Qing, asking questions left and right. They pored over their textbooks, painstakingly coming up with questions to ask the teacher.
Lu Yinxi walked to the front and sat in the first row, watching the group of “diligent and inquisitive” students, quietly waiting.
She saw a tall and burly male classmate standing at the back of the crowd, looking eagerly at Jian Qing, seemingly planning to approach after everyone else had finished their questions.
Jian Qing seriously dealt with seven or eight questions and also noticed that male classmate.
“If you have any more questions, leave a message on the online course platform, and I will answer them.” She dismissed the remaining students and called that male classmate forward. “Do you need a consultation?”
The male classmate walked up, looking at Jian Qing, dumbfounded. “Teacher, do you have mind-reading skills?!”
Jian Qing gave a faint smile and did not answer.
She was just guessing. His expression was no different from the patients outside the hospital waiting room, peeking around with anxious eyes.
“I’m in the oncology department. Do you want a consultation with me?”
The male classmate hung his head. “Teacher, I suspect I have nasopharyngeal cancer…”1
Medical students have a common condition known as “medical student syndrome.” They learn about a disease and then identify it in themselves, feeling that their symptoms perfectly match.
Every year, there are always a few students who rush to the hospital, calling for teachers, seeking consultations, and requesting tests. Jian Qing was accustomed to this. She unscrewed the cap of a bottled water, took a sip, and routinely asked, “Where do you feel uncomfortable?”
“Teacher, in the past few months, I’ve been waking up with blood in my mouth. Sometimes I have a little nosebleed that stops quickly. At night, one of my nostrils is always blocked, and I can’t breathe through it. Sometimes I have migraines, and recently I feel like my hearing has declined a lot. I also have tinnitus and ear congestion! Teacher! Look, blood in the mucus, nosebleeds, nasal congestion, headaches, hearing loss, tinnitus—aren’t these symptoms of nasopharyngeal cancer?”
Jian Qing calmly replied, “Classmate, you are just in your early twenties.”
Nasopharyngeal cancer, like thyroid cancer, is known as a “happiness cancer.” It tends to grow slowly, has a good prognosis, a relatively long survival period, and a relatively high cure rate. Unlike diseases like lymphoma and leukemia that often affect young people, nasopharyngeal cancer predominantly affects middle-aged and older men over forty. The probability for a young man in his early twenties to get it is extremely low unless there is a family history.
The male classmate added, “Teacher, I am from Fujian. There are many cases of nasopharyngeal cancer in our area!”
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Malignant tumors have certain epidemiological characteristics. In China, Fujian, Guangdong, and Guangxi regions, as well as Southeast Asia abroad, are high-incidence areas for nasopharyngeal cancer.
Jian Qing asked, “Do you have a family history?”
The male classmate shook his head. “No, I don’t.”
“I’ll examine your neck.”
The male classmate pulled down his clothes to expose his neck for Jian Qing to feel.
From the neck to behind the ears, she did not feel any lumps.
Jian Qing asked, “Do you have chronic rhinitis?”
The male classmate blushed down to the roots of his neck and nodded.
“Now that the seasons are changing, your nose is more sensitive. You can wear a mask when you go out; stay up late less, avoid playing games on your phone with headphones on, and don’t overthink things. If you’re really worried and want to contribute to the affiliated hospital’s income, I can write you an order for a nasopharyngoscopy.”
Lu Yinxi stared at that male classmate, secretly cursing in her heart: What’s there to blush about?! Blushing just from being touched—what kind of mental fortitude is that!
Out of sight, out of mind, she simply turned her gaze away and stopped looking at them.
Suburban land is cheap, so the campus covers a vast area, with phoenix trees, ginkgo trees, and camphor trees planted along the roadsides.
Jiang University’s campus scenery is famously beautiful nationwide. Even the stray cats on campus are popular online. There is a dedicated volunteer association for stray cat rescue on campus, and doctors from the medical school even provide free spaying and neutering services for them.
Sometimes, doctors from the affiliated hospital would come an hour early, not to start work early, but to leisurely stroll around the campus and breathe in the fresh air.
After dealing with that male classmate, Jian Qing specifically took Lu Yinxi along a secluded path to avoid the peak crowd of people leaving class.
The roadsides were filled with ginkgo trees, with clusters of golden leaves as far as the eye could see. The asphalt road was covered with ginkgo leaves, leaving no empty space to step on.
A gentle breeze blew, and the ginkgo leaves fluttered down like snowflakes.
Lu Yinxi bent down to pick up a leaf. Watching this shower of ginkgo leaves, she recited a fitting poem: “Boundless falling leaves rustle down.”2
By some coincidence, Jian Qing was looking up at the falling ginkgo leaves and blurted out, “The tree is losing its hair.”
The words fell one after another.
The beautiful imagery was completely ruined. Lu Yinxi remained silent for a moment, playing with the leaf she had picked up, then lowered her head and laughed, “If you don’t want to talk, you don’t have to.”
It was quite nice for the two of them to stay quietly together.
Jian Qing then stopped speaking. They walked shoulder to shoulder for a while and saw a lake ahead. The water was as clear as jade, smooth like a mirror, with a pavilion gracefully standing in the middle of the lake.
Jian Qing looked at the lake, feeling a sense of understanding, and shared words that Lu Yinxi would like: “On the land across the lake, lychee trees and mango trees are planted. When summer comes, we can come and pick them.”
Lu Yinxi followed her gaze and smiled, “I’m afraid that before I get a chance to pick them, the students on campus will have already picked them all.”
Jian Qing also looked over, saying nothing, silently thinking that she would sneak out some fruits for Lu Yinxi to taste when the time comes.
“Let’s go; let’s check out the pavilion.” Lu Yinxi pulled Jian Qing towards the pavilion to enjoy the scenery, and added, “Do you remember the text we studied in middle school? ‘Watching Snow from the Pavilion on the Lake.’ After all these years, I only remember one line: ‘The sky, the clouds, the mountains, and the water, all are white.’ If it snowed now, it would probably recreate that scene.”
Jian Qing said, “I’ll bring you here to see it next January.”
Who knows if I’ll still be in this world next January… Lu Yinxi lowered her head, looking at the veins of the leaf, sighed, and asked Jian Qing, “Teacher Jian, did you initially think that I was very pretentious, fragile, sensitive, melancholic, and could go on and on just by looking at some flowers and the moon, so you didn’t like talking to me much?”
Jian Qing stopped walking and looked at Lu Yinxi.
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Lu Yinxi also stopped, meeting her gaze calmly.
After a few seconds of eye contact, a faint smile appeared in Jian Qing’s eyes.
She indeed had an inexplicable disdain for something too clean and fragile, like a piece of white paper that would tear at the slightest pull. She always felt the urge to destroy it, to defile it. Even if she couldn’t splash it with ink, she wanted to smear it with a bit of blood.
Lu Yinxi turned her head away, not daring to continue making eye contact with Jian Qing.
She felt that the smile in Jian Qing’s eyes was somewhat unsettling.
After a moment of silence, she mustered the courage and poured out her thoughts like spilling beans: “Being delicate and sensitive has its advantages too. When emotions are rich, just by looking at a tree, a flower, a leaf, or a piece of text, one can have a great emotional experience.”
Although she didn’t know what had happened in Jian Qing’s past to make her so cold and closed off now, nor what would happen in the next few months, she thought that any change, no matter how small, was worth it. At the very least, she didn’t want Jian Qing to go down a path of self-destruction.
Lu Yinxi handed the ginkgo leaf to Jian Qing, “Here, I give you a ginkgo leaf, Teacher Jian. Cheer up a bit, try to experience different emotions, and don’t always live so repressively. How about I tell you a few tongue twisters?”
The author has something to say:
Slowly uncovering the psychological shadows~~~
Side note: One time while riding the subway, I saw two beautiful girls holding each other and sleeping. My yuri radar went off. First, I looked at their hair, both had long hair. Then I looked at their nails, it seemed like they didn’t have manicures, but I wasn’t sure. They could just be really good friends. I silently shipped them for a while; it was truly a pleasing sight~~~
Footnotes
- Nasopharyngeal cancer (鼻咽癌): A type of cancer located in the nasopharynx, the upper part of the throat behind the nose.
- “Boundless falling leaves rustle down” (無邊落木蕭蕭下): A line from the poem “Early Autumn” by Chinese poet Du Fu.
