Life is Like a Journey – Chapter 109
by Little PandaVolume 3: Transition
Fighting
I love you, including your dark side
Lu Qingshi clenched her teeth, barely managing to pull herself away from that drowning, suffocating sensation.
Her hands were still shaking. Just thinking about having held that child moments ago – his child with his new lover – made Lu Qingshi feel nauseous.
She wiped her trembling hands on her white coat, walking forward without a word. Her steps grew faster and faster until she unconsciously broke into a run.
Fu Lei handed Peipei to the pursuing Jiang Jing and chased after her: “Qingshi, I came because I need your help. I admit I wronged you in the past. If possible, I wouldn’t want to ask this of you, but I really have no choice…”
As the elevator arrived, Fu Lei covered the buttons. Lu Qingshi watched helplessly as the elevator slipped away, the numbers changing rapidly. Finally unable to endure it anymore, she screamed: “Get lost!”
Fu Lei stood frozen, looking at her now – the familiar features were the same, but with added coldness. Her eyes were red, and her expression, gritting her teeth, looked as if she wanted to tear him apart.
He remembered the scene of Lele on the operating table and unconsciously stepped back. Peipei broke free from her mother’s arms, grabbed his pant leg, and excitedly swayed back and forth.
“Papa, papa, this auntie helped me find you! Papa, do you know her?”
Fu Lei held the child’s small hand, the soft warmth making his heart melt. Even though the words were difficult to say, he had to try for his child’s sake.
“Peipei, call her Auntie Lu.”
The child’s sweet smile bloomed: “Auntie Lu, thank you.”
Looking at those eyes so similar to Lele’s, so similar to Fu Lei’s, Lu Qingshi felt her heart being torn apart, pain exploding in her mind like a tidal wave.
“Qingshi…” Fu Lei squeezed the child’s soft hand, hesitantly speaking: “I came to ask you to save Peipei…”
Lu Qingshi withdrew her hand from the wall, her gaze moving from the child’s face to Fu Lei’s earnest eyes, and finally landing on Jiang Jing, her lips curling into a silent, sarcastic smile.
“How fitting… karma truly comes full circle.”
This girl called Peipei had somehow gotten the same illness as Lele, a disease with odds of one in ten million, and he had encountered it twice in succession, both times with his own children.
Lu Qingshi felt like laughing, and so she did laugh, finding the situation utterly ironic.
“You…” Fu Lei stepped forward, but Jiang Jing gently held his wrist and spoke softly. Only then did Lu Qingshi notice that Peipei not only resembled Fu Lei but shared identical features with this frail woman.
“Sister Qingshi…”
Lu Qingshi raised her head, bloodshot eyes fixed on the woman, bitter hatred crawling up her spine like a parasitic worm.
“Shut up. You don’t deserve to say my name.”
Startled by her glare, Jiang Jing steadied herself: “Fine, I’ll address you differently. Doctor Lu, we’re here today simply as ordinary patients seeking a doctor’s help. Please show mercy and save Peipei, she’s so young…”
By the end of her words, her reddened eyes seemed genuine, but it was precisely this sincerity that made Lu Qingshi sick – sick to her stomach, sick to the point where her scalp tingled and limbs trembled. She feared staying any longer would make her lose control and attack them like a madwoman, pulling at her hair and driving them away.
Lu Qingshi’s hand in her white coat pocket clenched into a fist, nails digging into flesh, using pain to keep herself lucid.
“Anyone in this world can come ask for my help, and I’ll save anyone, except you,” she lifted her chin slightly, casting a contemptuous look across the woman’s face, “and you.”
Looking at Fu Lei, still dapper in his suit, she curved her lips into a cold smile: “You two don’t deserve it.”
“As for this bastard,” her gaze fell on the little girl clutching Fu Lei’s pant leg. Peipei hugged her father’s leg tighter, her large eyes confused and innocent, looking up at her timidly from an unusually pale, sickly face.
“I wouldn’t save her even if it killed me.”
Fu Lei clenched his fists as Lu Qingshi turned to leave. She seemed drained of all strength as the harsh fluorescent lights in the hallway shone down. She squinted, and Fu Lei persistently chased after her, speaking urgently while looking at her pleadingly, grabbing her sleeve.
“Qingshi, please, I’m begging you! For the sake of our past relationship, please save Peipei! Jingjing is right, she’s so young. I’ve already lost one son, I can’t lose Peipei too…”
He pleaded earnestly, a grown man abandoning his pride and humbling himself, his eyes even turning red. How similar it was to her past self, when she had begged him to save Lele, running from department to department to plead with experts and professors, even kowtowing before her grandfather.
Although it had been willingly done, it didn’t mean she could forget that humiliation.
Almost instantly, she violently yanked her arm away from his grip, her eyes red, voice trembling.
“What relationship do we have?! We cut all ties when we divorced! No, we had no relationship left the moment you were sleeping with this woman while I lay awake all night worried about Lele’s condition! You go your way, I’ll go mine, don’t you dare disturb me again!”
After her hysterical outburst, no one saw clearly how Peipei ran over, nor whether it was intentional or not, but the moment she raised her hand, Peipei burst into loud tears. Lu Qingshi stared at her own hand in confusion and dismay as Peipei’s fair face turned bright red.
Fu Lei felt rage surge to his head. He never hit women, but without thinking, he grabbed her collar and lifted her up: “Lu Qingshi, are you sick in the head?! If you have issues, come at me! She’s just a child and a patient, why are you taking it out on her?!”
“Let me tell you, the divorce had nothing to do with Jiang Jing! It takes two to tango – you say I did nothing for Lele, but what did you ever do for me, for this family?! All you cared about were your surgeries! Your patients! When Lele was born, it was my mother who took care of him! An elderly woman with bad legs, carrying Lele up and down stairs, playing with him, getting up late at night to change his diapers, turn him over, feed him formula! You didn’t even breastfeed for one day because you wanted to recover quickly for surgery! What right do you have to be a mother! You don’t deserve it!!!”
The child wailed loudly, Jiang Jing’s anxious attempts to mediate, and the murmuring crowd’s discussions pulled Lu Qingshi back to that helpless, isolated state.
Like a spotlight shining down, she had nowhere to hide. Outside the transparent glass dome stood a crowd pointing and whispering. She wanted to run away, wanted to shout to them that it wasn’t true, wanted to tell the crying child she didn’t mean it, but there was no way out in any direction – even if she crashed until her head bled, she couldn’t escape. Fu Lei kept shaking her collar while his never-before-spoken resentments gushed out like a geyser, piercing her completely.
“From the first day of our marriage, I never made you do housework – you couldn’t even cook! You were busy with surgeries and research, but wasn’t I busy too, working in the same hospital, same department?! Every late night when I came home, I had to wash your clothes, change Lele’s diapers, and prepare your breakfast for the next day! Lu Qingshi, are you even human?! You’re not just unfit to be a mother or wife, you’re unfit to be a human being or a doctor!”
After he finished shouting, the air froze for two seconds. Lu Qingshi’s eyes welled with tears, her lips trembling, something caught in her throat as something brushed past her cheek, causing a strand of hair to float to the ground.
Suddenly her collar was released, and warm blood splattered on her face as Fu Lei fell backward. A black figure pounced forward.
“F*ck you!!!” Gu Yanzhi slammed down a punch, blood spraying from his nose, while the child screamed and Jiang Jing shrieked desperately.
Somehow, the long-held tears finally broke free. Lu Qingshi lunged forward to pull her back: “Gu Yanzhi!”
With eyes red from fighting, she shook off everyone, including Lu Qingshi, and ruthlessly landed another punch. Front teeth flew out as Fu Lei’s face became covered in blood, and he groaned in pain.
The unexpectedly pushed doctor fell to her knees, pain making her vision go dark. When she looked up again, she saw another punch heading toward Fu Lei’s temple.
Lu Qingshi scrambled up, stumbling toward her, and hugged her from behind around the waist: “Stop… stop… don’t hit him… don’t hit him… Gu Yanzhi…”
Tears fell steadily, her softness pressed against the other’s back, hot tears dropping into the hollow of her neck. Gu Yanzhi paused, lowered her hand, the bloodshot look fading from her eyes.
She pressed her lips together, still somewhat unwilling to stop.
Lu Qingshi tightened her hold on her waist: “I don’t want… don’t want you to go to prison… stop fighting… stop… let’s go home… home…”
The hands locked around her waist were so fair and slender, a doctor’s hands, with distinct knuckles, unusually nimble.
Gu Yanzhi looked down, released her fist, and held those hands to help her up, interlacing their fingers together.
“Let’s go home.”
She picked up her scattered clothes from the ground, throwing them over one shoulder with one hand while holding her girlfriend’s hand with the other, striding away under the harsh fluorescent lights amid various gazes.
No one looked back. Before leaving the hospital entrance, Gu Yanzhi draped her coat over her shoulders, opened the car door to help her in, then sat in the driver’s seat and shifted into gear.
While driving, she glanced at her occasionally. The other person was quietly curled up in the seat wrapped in her coat, silently staring out the window with an unfocused gaze, her eyes and nose still red from crying.
Gu Yanzhi’s heart ached terribly.
Every internal organ ached.
Fang Zhiyou didn’t know how to bring up this matter with Yu Gui. With the national championship preparations imminent, she had to devote considerable energy to training. Even when visiting the hospital during free time, she couldn’t find her. She knew Yu Gui was avoiding her, while An Ran grew more dejected day by day, like a withering flower.
Fang Zhiyou couldn’t bear it, but some things needed to be said. She finally found her on the rooftop one weekend evening.
This was Yu Gui’s secret spot where she came whenever she had troubles. Besides Teacher Lu and Hao Renjie, few people ever came here. So when she appeared on the rooftop, Yu Gui was momentarily stunned, pulling back her fingers that held a cigarette.
The flickering flame hurt her eyes – she had never smoked before.
Yu Gui smiled: “The pressure is too much.”
Indeed, it had been busy, extremely busy. The new director’s appointment hadn’t come through yet, Lu Qingshi was bearing the main responsibility, and everyone below was running around frantically. She still had to find time to prepare for exams, and even this brief rest period came only after pulling two all-nighters.
Fang Zhiyou looked at her appearance – hair messily tied up, strands falling down to cover her eyes red from lack of sleep, looking somewhat haggard.
Her heart softened: “Let’s go home.”
“No,” Yu Gui extinguished the cigarette on the railing. The wind was strong on the rooftop, making her white coat flutter loudly.
“I have a surgery tonight.”
As she spoke, she turned to walk down, but Fang Zhiyou grabbed her wrist: “Xiaogui, I didn’t agree to her request.”
Yu Gui closed her eyes – but you kissed her.
When she opened them again, there was a bitter smile on her face: “Whatever choice you make would be right. I shouldn’t compete with someone who doesn’t have much time left – it’s meaningless. But have you thought about it? If she lives another day, you’ll stay with her that day; if she lives another month, you’ll stay with her that month; what if she lives forever…”
Fang Zhiyou’s heart tightened: “Of course I don’t want her to die, but staying forever – that’s impossible, I couldn’t do that.”
She looked at her with sincere love in her eyes: “My heart only has you in it. I just want to properly accompany her during her final days.”
Yu Gui raised her voice slightly: “Why does it have to be you accompanying her? What are you to her? Doesn’t she have any other friends?”
“She’s like me, without friends,” Fang Zhiyou released her wrist. “You have your Teacher Lu, your Sister Haoren, your senior colleagues, your coworkers…”
“I have nothing. She’s my only friend.”
She still remembered after her mother’s death, when she was drowning in inescapable grief, it was An Ran who lit up her night sky with fireworks.
It was different from being with Yu Gui. Because it was Yu Gui, she was considerate of her feelings, forcing herself to stay positive, not allowing herself to cry or be sad. Back then, it was another person who provided warmth and support with her light and heat.
And there were those times of help in need – An Ran would lend her money without asking why, never asking for repayment, always saying she’d deduct it from her salary, but when the end of the month came, not a penny was missing.
These kindnesses, she would remember in her heart for life.
Yu Gui gritted her teeth: “And you’re my only girlfriend!”
Without notice, snow began falling again. This was the last day of the calendar year, meaning it would be the year’s final snowfall.
Lu Qingshi drew the curtains and walked to her side with a peeled egg, crouching down.
Gu Yanzhi obediently extended her hand, neither of them speaking as the smooth egg rolled back and forth across her hand.
It wasn’t clear how much force she had used to beat Fu Lei that badly, but her own hand was severely swollen.
Lu Qingshi put down the egg and carefully applied medicinal paste on her hand, the scent of mint spreading through the room.
Hamburger sneezed and ran out of the bedroom to chase French Fries.
She watched her profile – her half-dried hair tied up after showering, revealing her white neck, collarbones peeking out from her strapped dress, eyes still slightly red, not having spoken since returning home.
Gu Yanzhi moved her lips: “I’m sorry…”
The pressure on her hand gentled as Lu Qingshi shook her head: “You did what I’ve always wanted to do.”
She smiled bitterly, looking up: “But he wasn’t wrong, I really did fail to…”
“No,” Gu Yanzhi shook her head, leaning slightly forward, withdrawing her hand from her palm to cup her face.
“How can it be failing when it’s willingly given? When he did those things for you, you thought he was willing, not knowing he had long harbored resentment… Qingshi, in my view, it’s tasteless for couples or spouses to bring up such things to mock and hurt after breaking up.”
“He’s not a man, or more precisely, not a man worth entrusting your life to.”
Because her face was being held, she couldn’t lower her head, could only let tears gather in her eyes. Everything Fu Lei had done for her, Gu Yanzhi was now doing too. She suddenly felt afraid, afraid that at some unknown point, she too might harbor resentment.
“What about you… will you become resentful? I’m not very good at housework… always making a mess of the kitchen… even though I’m older than you, I always need your care… am I too terrible? I’m afraid that one day you’ll also…”
The fire instructor firmly shook her head again, interrupting: “To be honest, the first soup you made for me was quite unpalatable, but I still drank it all because I knew it came from your heart. You must have been even more nervous and careful than me while making it. What reason would I have to reject such kindness?”
“I also know that later you secretly looked up recipes and learned to cook for me. After I wash clothes, you’re the one who irons them perfectly flat and hangs them in the closet, even spraying them with fragrant perfume. Every day I go out clean and fresh-smelling.”
“When the chemical plant exploded and the roller door was falling, you were the one who held it up with your hands.” Gu Yanzhi took her hand and, despite the medicinal ointment, kissed it gently.
“You once said a surgeon’s most precious possession is their hands. You used your most valuable asset to save me.”
“Qingshi, do you know why it’s me who ended up with you, and not Fu Lei?”
Lu Qingshi blankly shook her head, biting her lip, her eyes misty.
Gu Yanzhi kissed her forehead gently, tenderly, like many times before, like a feather brushing across the heart, like spring breeze blowing over ruined walls.
Lu Qingshi heard the sound of falling snow and blooming flowers.
“Because I saw your hidden side that others don’t know. I love you, including your dark side.”
LP: Where’s my Gu Yanzhi?!
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