Peerless Beauty – Chapter 81
by Little PandaAccompanying You
I have come to accompany you.
The third hospital have fixed visiting times every week, and family members can only visit patients in the closed ward during those times.
Normally, Jian Qing would come here to visit Ruan Sheng during the first or second week of the month.
Now, two weeks have passed, and Jian Qing hasn’t come. Ruan Sheng thought of her, wondering if she was blaming herself and didn’t want to see her anymore.
Lu Yinxi held Ruan Sheng’s hand and gently explained, “In the neighboring province, several counties experienced an earthquake, and she went to the disaster area. It’s not that she doesn’t want to see you.”
Ruan Sheng, upon hearing this, said blankly, “She’s still so young, what is she doing there?”
Her memory was very confused, sometimes lingering in her childhood, and other times seemingly returning to the present.
Lu Yinxi, smiling, said, “Not young anymore, she’s 29 or 30. She’s now a doctor, and doctors have to go save people. Once she’s done saving people and comes back, she can visit you.”
“She became a doctor? She used to say she wanted to grow up and help grandma treat her illness, and she really became a doctor…” Ruan Sheng reminisced about the past, showing a faint smile. As she smiled, she asked Lu Yinxi, “Xiaoxi, what about you? What did you do? You used to point at the TV and say you wanted to become a beautiful actress and perform for your mom…”
As if by a fateful coincidence, Lu Yinxi indeed became an actress.
She nodded and told Ruan Sheng, “I am an actress, and I recently filmed a drama. After it airs next year, you can see me on TV.”
Ruan Sheng reached out, tentatively, and gently touched Lu Yinxi’s head, asking: “Xiaoxi, when will you bring mom back home? Mom has been here for a very long time, mom misses you and wants to go home…”
Lu Yinxi had no way to give a definite answer to this question, and only said: “I’ll wait for sister to come back and ask her.”
The elderly person, like a child who cannot get candy, murmured complaints: “Again, ask her… you always have to ask her for everything, even though I gave birth to you, you are always closer to her than to me…”
While complaining, she took a pen and added Jian Qing’s figure to the remaining drawing paper.
She had forgotten her own eldest daughter, forgotten for many years, and only recently remembered.
After remembering, she filled in her eldest daughter’s figure on the drawing paper, one by one, as if compensating for the years that were missing.
At the appointed time, Lu Yinxi took Ruan Sheng back to the ward and handed her over to the nurse to be taken back to her room.
The elderly person looked at her reluctantly and said: “Xiaoxi, you must come see me again next month. I will wait for you to take me home.”
Lu Yinxi responded affirmatively and promised: “I will definitely come next month, together with sister.”
But she did not promise to take her back home.
This is not something she can decide.
She went to find Fu Yuan to understand Ruan Sheng’s situation and inquire about the discharge process.
Fu Yuan was still distressed over the matter with her sister Fu Jianshu, somewhat listless, but still dutifully answered: “Whoever handled the admission must handle the discharge, and her guardian is Jian Qing. Only Jian Qing can discharge her. Aunt Ruan has currently regained a certain level of self-awareness. Based on my simple evaluation, there should be no risk of harm to others or self-harm. Once she passes our hospital’s test, she can be discharged. Of course, if she doesn’t pass the test but Jian Qing strongly requests to discharge her and is willing to bear all risks, she can also be discharged.”
Lu Yinxi nodded in thanks, left the third hospital, and drove back to Jiangzhou City to prepare for the departure arrangements.
She thought of the medical record Jian Qing had once given her, and combined with Ruan Sheng’s intermittent conversation today, she roughly understood Jian Qing’s past.
A past that is not very beautiful, full of scars.
Scenes flashed through Lu Yinxi’s mind: Jian Qing’s silence, Jian Qing’s faint and gentle smile, and in the darkness, Jian Qing curled up in a corner…
That person, she seems very accustomed to enduring pain, with scars and pain from the past, never thinking of confiding in anyone, never shedding tears in front of others, only silently enduring.
In the pile of ruins, an eight-year-old little girl, her legs tightly pressed by a prefabricated slab, looked at Jian Qing with longing eyes, her voice hoarse, shouting: “Sister…”
“Sister, you are really beautiful, like an angel…”
Jian Qing cleaned the dust off her face, holding her dusty little hand, looked into her eyes, and responded: “Have you seen an angel?”
“No… the teacher said that those wearing white clothes are white-clothed angels…” The little girl’s eyes were dark and bright, “Sister, I want to get out, please save me…”
“The canteen’s uncle also wears white clothes.” Jian Qing said lightly, which amused the little girl, making her grin. She continued to comfort her, saying, “Don’t be afraid, everyone is rescuing you, you will come out.”
The People’s Liberation Army soldiers in camouflage uniforms were cutting the prefabricated slabs piece by piece. Jian Qing, afraid that the cutting sparks might splash onto the little girl, took a towel and covered her body.
More and more troops were stationed in the disaster area, with helicopters dropping supplies at low altitude every day. A narrow path was cleared on the mountain road in the disaster area, just enough for small cars to pass through, allowing for the transport of the wounded.
“Sister, my classmate is over there…” The little girl pointed to a victim in front and to the left, who was already stiff, her voice timid with a trace of tremble.
Jian Qing took another cloth and covered the victim’s body.
The rain fell on them again. These days, everything seemed gray and cloudy, as if there would never be a sunny day.
The little girl, too weak to open her eyes, murmured: “Sister, how much longer, I’m so sleepy, I really want to sleep…”
Jian Qing patted her cheek: “Don’t sleep, absolutely don’t sleep, you’ll be out very soon.”
The People’s Liberation Army soldiers around also advised: “Little girl, hold on, absolutely don’t sleep.”
Once asleep, she might not wake up.
The little girl said: “I’m really so sleepy…”
Jian Qing said: “I’ll chat with you, just don’t sleep.”
The little girl responded with a soft “hmm,” trying hard to keep her eyelids open, looking at Jian Qing.
Jian Qing, not good with words, took a few seconds to organize her thoughts, and said: “I used to have a younger sister the same age as you, named Ruan Xi, with the ‘Xi’ like in ‘creek’.”
The little girl asked: “Which ‘Ruan’? I haven’t learned this character yet. The ‘Xi’ in ‘creek’ has so many strokes, I don’t like writing it.”
Jian Qing wrote the character “Ruan” on her dusty palm, stroke by stroke: “An ear radical, and a ‘yuan’ like in New Year’s ‘yuan’. When my sister was in school, she also disliked writing the ‘Xi’ character because it had too many strokes. She would always write the pinyin, ‘Ruan xi’, and then get scolded by the teacher, and come home crying to me.”
In her childhood, she lived with her divorced mother, Ruan Sheng, in the Shu region.
At that time, she had a stepfather, and her name was Ruan Qing. Later, she had a younger half-sister, named Ruan Xi.
Her mother hoped that the sisters would be like a stream meandering through the mountains, clean and cool, free and unrestrained.
The little girl said in a childish voice: “I also don’t like names with many strokes. That day when we were writing, there were so many strokes in my name, I hadn’t even finished writing. I didn’t know why, but the more I wrote, the uglier it got, all crooked and slanted. I was afraid the teacher would scold me, so I looked, and it wasn’t my hand shaking, it was the table shaking, the floor shaking, back and forth. The teacher told us to hide under the table and wait until it wasn’t shaking so much, then she told us to run outside. My deskmate and I couldn’t run, she ran out, then ran back to hold me, and then the building collapsed… Sister, where is my teacher?”
Her teacher had already died.
When the People’s Liberation Army found her body, they saw her lying on top of several children, using her body to tightly protect the children in her arms.
Jian Qing said: “The teacher went to meet even more beautiful angel sisters in the sky.”
Speaking in fairy-tale-like language.
The little girl didn’t speak, and after a while, asked again: “Sister, where is your sister?”
Jian Qing was silent for a moment, then calmly said: “My sister went to become a star, turning into a bright star in the sky.”
During the questions and answers, the rescuing People’s Liberation Army moved away the cut prefabricated slabs and dug out a hole around the little girl.
Medical personnel brought over a stretcher, and Jian Qing used a cloth to cover the little girl’s eyes. The rescue team lifted the little girl onto the stretcher and sent her to a temporary medical treatment point.
The little girl, lying in the tent at the treatment point, continued to ask: “Why did she become a star?”
Jian Qing didn’t have time to answer, as she was called to the next ruin to assess the vital signs of the injured.
This ruin was a kindergarten. On that initial night, everyone could still hear cries for help and sobbing coming from the ruins, but they were buried too deep, making rescue impossible.
Even now, there are parents holding their children’s worn clothes and favorite dolls, sitting day and night at the edge of the ruins, singing children’s songs to the children beneath.
Upon seeing a child lying on the ground, Jian Qing still habitually warmed the stethoscope’s probe with her hand before placing it on the child’s chest.
No breathing, no heartbeat.
No pulsation in the carotid artery.
She attempted several sets of cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
The child still showed no response.
The rescue team members looked at her with earnest gazes, and she shook her head toward them.
A seven-foot man from the rescue team squatted down and wailed: “This one was only 4 years old! Just now, he was still shouting ‘Uncle, save me!'”
Jian Qing did not cry, she silently returned to the treatment point and looked at the little girl who had just called her sister.
The little girl’s family was all gone, making her an orphan from the earthquake.
There were many more orphans here, their faces all showed blank expressions, sometimes just sitting in a corner all day, motionless, their eyes vacant.
Many of the first batch of medical personnel and rescue workers who came in also became silent, apart from the rescue work, they almost didn’t speak all day, didn’t communicate with people. At night, once they closed their eyes, they saw the human purgatory they encountered when they first arrived, with the scattered victims along the roadside, the mournful cries for help, only able to hear and see, yet unable to save them, feeling helpless…
Individual medical personnel noticed this situation and reported it to the superior department, requesting additional psychological professionals to come in for psychological intervention.
At night, Jian Qing slept and dreamed of Ruan Xi.
These days, she always dreams of Ruan Xi.
Perhaps it is because she has seen too many corpses of children the same age as Ruan Xi.
Jian Qing dreamed of the year she was thirteen, when her mother’s illness began to subtly manifest. At work, she would always unreasonably suspect others of wanting to harm her, and at home, she could always hear inexplicable voices and would even hit people.
Jian Qing dreamed of her stepfather, that beast in human skin, who, taking advantage of her mother’s inattention, sneaked into her room, wanting to sleep with her.
She placed a knife under her pillow, telling him that if he dared to come in again, she would cut off his genitals and throw them at his workplace, scaring him away.
She dreamed of Ruan Xi, only eight years old, being pressed on the sofa by that beast, with the intent to defile her, and she caught him when returning home from school.
Without a word, she grabbed a wooden stick, struck the beast on the back of his head, then went to the kitchen, took a knife, slashed his neck, chopped off his genitals, and threw them in the roadside garbage bin. She then carried her sister Ruan Xi and left home to go to the hospital for a check-up.
At the hospital, her sister said she was hungry, and in the moment she went to the small shop at the hospital entrance to buy a piece of bread, her sister disappeared.
She cried and searched for a day, reported to the police, but they did not find her sister; instead, they detained her.
That beast died from excessive blood loss, and since she was not yet 14 years old, she did not need to bear criminal responsibility.
When she came out of the detention center, she saw her biological father Jian Zhenghe and received the news that Ruan Xi had drowned in a river.
Facing death during the day and repeatedly having this dream at night, Jian Qing became increasingly silent.
After the fifth batch of the Jiangzhou First Affiliated Medical Team was stationed in B County, the first batch of the medical team received notice to withdraw to the M City field hospital.
The field hospital was also a tent-constructed temporary hospital, set up beside the city sports stadium.
In the sports stadium, hundreds and thousands of disaster victims lay.
She was assigned to the internal medicine department, taking charge of twelve patients’ beds. The medical equipment and supplies here are more complete than at the frontline, and the atmosphere of death is not as overwhelming.
Finally, she no longer sees scattered corpses, no longer faces the direct impact of death, and no longer smells the stench of decay. Yet at night, she still has the same nightmare.
Communication has already been restored here, but she did not actively contact anyone. Apart from work, she remained silent day after day.
On this day, after completing her rounds in the simple tent and closing the medical records, she had just walked out of the tent when she ran directly into an embrace.
Lu Yinxi, regardless of Jian Qing wearing a white coat, tightly hugged her neck: “I have come to accompany you…”
The author has something to say:
Lu Yinxi (seeing the silent and gloomy Jian Qing): It took so much effort to make her a bit more cheerful, and now she’s back to square one QAQ.
🥺