Begging You
Survive
Losing all five senses, surrounded by pitch-black darkness, as thick as undissolved ink.
Too drowsy to open her eyes, her body kept falling, never reaching the bottom.
So tired.
An unprecedented exhaustion, not a single ounce of strength left in her body, too tired to move, too tired to think, letting her body fall.
It seemed like someone was calling out by her ear…
Unable to hear clearly, she lazily chose not to respond…
The call came intermittently, Lu Yinxi tried to start thinking, but her thoughts were like variously shaped Tetris blocks, unable to connect.
Thinking of Tetris, a childhood scene flashed by—she held a Nintendo game console, sitting in an empty home, playing the simplest block-stacking game.
The game console was a gift from her mother, the only birthday gift she ever received from her childhood to adulthood.
Fragments of memories were like scattered photos all over the place, disorderly, chaotic, a tangled mess, impossible to sort out.
She found her mother’s face among the chaos.
She hadn’t seen her mother in many years, not knowing if her mother was still angry with her…
“What’s there to be angry about? I’m not like you, always getting angry.”
“Who said I always get angry?”
“Whoever answers is who I’m talking about.”
“It’s just the two of us here.”
When was this conversation from?
The scene shifted, and she saw another familiar face, with cold and distant features.
What was the name again?
Jian…
“Simple (Jian) as in simplicity, clear (Qing) as in clear water.”
Someone had said this under the moonlight.
She had just been on the sofa, waiting for that person to come home.
Jian Qing…
Lu Yinxi struggled to move; just as she felt herself sitting up, the next second she felt her limbs heavy as lead, unable to lift them.
It was like being in a dream she couldn’t wake up from. She struggled desperately, punching and kicking, biting the tip of her tongue, trying to speak. For a moment, she thought she could move, but after a few seconds, she realized her body hadn’t moved at all.
Her soul seemed to be separated from her body, as if she had lost control over it.
She was quiet for a while, no longer struggling, letting her body sink into darkness.
In her heart, she kept silently reciting the name Jian Qing.
Jian Qing… Jian Qing…
Suddenly, a pair of hands pulled her out, dragging her from the darkness, like rescuing a dying fish.
Her sense of smell and touch returned, and an overwhelming wave of pain hit her. She smelled metal in her nostrils, something hard and metallic pressed against her throat. Nausea surged from her stomach, and her eyes instantly became moist.
It seemed she had regained control over her body. She moved her fingers, they could move. She immediately reached out to pull the foreign object from her throat.
“Don’t move! Hold her hands down!”
Someone shouted this beside her ear.
“We’re intubating you, don’t be afraid.”
Oh, she was being intubated.
She obediently stopped moving, opened her mouth, allowing them to manipulate her, and mentally reviewed the key points of tracheal intubation.
Tears at the corner of her eyes were wiped away by someone.
Her hearing returned, but it was somewhat unclear, too noisy.
She tried to open her eyes, but the bright white light was too dazzling, so she could only open a slit.
“She’s awake!”
Someone shouted this beside her ear, the shout deafening.
She furrowed her brows and saw more white: white ceiling, white walls, white uniforms…
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And she also saw a pair of familiar eyes, the same ones she had just seen on TV, eyes as clear as autumn water.
Now they were red.
Why were the eye sockets so red?
She reached out her hand, wanting to touch those eyes.
“Don’t move around!”
Someone beside her shouted at her again, fiercely…
She stopped moving and lay quietly on the bed, looking at those eyes.
Her consciousness gradually recovered, and her cognition slowly restored. She realized she was lying on a hospital bed, with many tubes and electrodes attached to her body.
—like a fish at the mercy of others.
Several people surrounded her, including doctors and nurses.
She stared at them, and they stared back at her.
A nurse asked, “Little girl, why were you so careless? You let your pneumonia get so severe before coming to the hospital. If you were any later, you would have kicked the bucket!”
Delayed?
She hadn’t delayed; she had only had a fever for a short time… How did it develop into severe pneumonia?
Or had the virus and bacteria been lurking in her body before tonight?
Lu Yinxi moved her lips, wanting to speak, but only managed a couple of hums before someone beside her spoke again: “Don’t talk, you have a tube inserted. Just lie down and rest well.”
They want to ask her questions but don’t let her speak…
Lu Yinxi closed her eyes, attempting to replay her memories—
She got caught in the rain on the playground, developed a fever after returning home, took some fever-reducing medicine, and drank a lot of hot water.
She clung to Jian Qing, wanting Jian Qing to stay with her a bit longer and not leave her alone in the empty room. But Jian Qing received a phone call and went out…
She sat on the sofa waiting for Jian Qing to return. Her head was drowsy, she wanted to sleep, the sound of the rain made her irritable, she was cold all over, sweating profusely, and even had trouble breathing.
Her chest ached in waves. Realizing something was wrong, she stood up to call 120 , but her legs went weak, she couldn’t stand properly, and she fell to the floor.
When she woke up, she was already in the hospital…
Who brought her to the hospital?
She felt like she had only thought for a few seconds, but when she opened her eyes, she found that she had already been moved to another ward.
The ward was somewhat familiar, but it wasn’t the second oncology department.
“Beep—beep—beep—boop—boop—”
All around were the warning sounds of ventilators, monitors, and other medical equipment.
She had been admitted to the ICU.
Earlier this year, she had been here to visit He Bei, and now it was her turn to lie here.
The ICU does not allow visitors, yet someone had moved a chair and was sitting by her bedside, keeping watch over her.
Usually, only patients who are critically ill and at risk of sudden cardiac arrest need a small doctor specially assigned to guard their bedside.
She rolled her eyes and looked over.
—It was not a small doctor.
It was Jian Qing, the associate chief physician from the second oncology department.
Seniority is highly valued here, because here, you could throw a brick and hit a bunch of PhDs. Those with research projects and papers get promoted quickly, but they lack clinical experience. So, low-seniority associate chief physicians don’t have much real power, caught in the middle, squeezed from both sides.
It was neither a small doctor nor a particularly senior doctor.
But it was her favorite doctor.
She looked at Jian Qing, hoping Jian Qing would look over with the same tacit understanding as usual.
Jian Qing didn’t look at her, instead lowering her head to read her test and examination results, her brows slightly furrowed.
She couldn’t help but want to reach out and smooth her brow. As soon as her hand emerged from under the covers and lifted slightly, it was caught by someone and placed back under the blanket.
Never letting go again.
The two of them held hands under the blanket.
She wanted to see Jian Qing’s expression, but Jian Qing kept her head down, refusing to make eye contact.
She recalled those recently reddened eyes.
Had she worried her?
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Lu Yinxi gently squeezed Jian Qing’s palm, and only then did Jian Qing raise her head. She first glanced at the monitor, then looked at the person on the hospital bed and asked, “Are you feeling uncomfortable?”
She handed over a pen and a magnetic drawing board.
Lu Yinxi gripped the pen, wanting to write some words on the drawing board. After struggling for a long time without being able to write a single word, she had to draw a trembling question mark, hoping that Jian Qing would understand her meaning.
Jian Qing looked at the question mark, remained silent for a moment, and said, “While I was walking, I thought your face looked a bit pale and felt I should listen to your heart sounds and lung sounds before going out. Wei Mingming happened to be returning to school from home, and I met her, so I asked her to check on you.”
“Fortunately…”
Fortunately, she let Wei Mingming go, otherwise…
After saying the word “fortunately,” Jian Qing lowered her eyelids and didn’t say anything more.
She was not good at expressing her inner feelings; many regrets, self-blame, worries, and anxieties piled up in her heart, and all that came out were the words “fortunately.”
Lu Yinxi used all her strength to squeeze Jian Qing’s palm.
Jian Qing only felt a slight, light force, like a feather falling on her palm.
She tightly held Lu Yinxi’s hand, glanced at the jumping electrocardiogram on the monitor, and softly said, “Don’t let your emotions fluctuate, I won’t talk to you anymore.”
Lu Yinxi then obediently emptied her mind, calmed her emotions, stopped thinking about anything, and listened to the ticking sounds around her, infinitely longing for that embrace on a rainy night.
“Female, 20 years old, usually healthy, developed a fever after getting caught in the rain…”
During the morning rounds the next day, Jian Qing’s figure was already gone.
Lu Yinxi guessed that Jian Qing had returned to work in the oncology ward and had teaching rounds today.
A crowd of doctors and medical students surrounded the bedside.
Lu Yinxi heard them discussing her case of septic shock pneumonia, moist rales in the right lower lung on auscultation, and how cultures revealed Streptococcus pneumoniae infection, with getting caught in the rain possibly being the trigger…
A teaching doctor asked the students, “Who can describe the clinical manifestations of septic shock pneumonia?”
All the students silently bowed their heads and looked at their toes, avoiding eye contact with the professor.
The teaching doctor directly pointed to one student, “You, describe it.”
The student tensed up and blurted out all the symptoms they could think of: “Uh… fever, cough, abdominal pain, vomiting, the time from onset to shock usually occurs within 1 to 3 days…”
When answering questions, as long as one isn’t too nervous to say anything, it is best to say as much as possible. This way, in the teacher’s eyes, one doesn’t appear to be ignorant.
Moreover, the questions and answers noted during these sessions are not easily forgotten even after three to five years.
Lu Yinxi recalled her symptoms from the previous night and mentally added: chest pain, pale complexion, cold limbs, cyanosis of the lips, irritability, drowsiness, cold sweats…
How did it suddenly become this severe?
She found it very strange but didn’t have the energy to think much about it. Her thoughts were blocked, and she couldn’t concentrate.
The teaching doctor asked what indicators should be particularly observed. A student answered: “Blood pressure.”
During internal medicine rounds, it’s easy to encounter a barrage of life-and-death questions.
The teacher and students engaged in a question-and-answer session while Lu Yinxi lay quietly on the hospital bed, serving as a teaching specimen.
Different teaching doctors have different teaching styles. Some are extroverted and can get along well with their students; some are gentle and maintain a proper teacher-student distance; some are strict, seizing every opportunity to ask questions and scolding if answers aren’t satisfactory; and some are irresponsible, merely going through the motions to accumulate teaching hours for promotion, either ignoring students or making them run errands and do chores without teaching anything.
Jian Qing… should belong to the strict category, but she doesn’t scold people. For those she is on good terms with, she would sarcastically remark once or twice about their lack of effort; for those she has an average relationship with, she would just stare at them coldly, making them blush with shame.
Lu Yinxi suddenly missed her very much.
Clearly unrelated matters, her thoughts took five or six turns and ended up thinking about her.
She also somewhat missed Gu Mingyu.
Lu Yinxi feared that she might die in this world without knowing why and would never see Gu Mingyu again.
On one hand, she missed her; on the other hand, she strongly denied it.
Having said that they had cut off their relationship, why would she still think about her?
She was no longer a child who hadn’t been weaned, who still needed to seek out her mother.
She deliberately tried to forget the longing for her mother she felt while in a coma.
Feeling utterly miserable all over, Lu Yinxi felt she had endured the entire morning, dozing off and waking up intermittently, until finally, at noon, she saw Jian Qing walk over in a white coat, placing the back of her hand on Lu Yinxi’s face, gently touching it.
“It’s the seventh day of the Lunar New Year.” She heard Jian Qing say softly, “It’s time for you to go to work.”
Lu Yinxi’s gaze was blank.
How did it suddenly become the seventh day?
She remembered that she was admitted on the night of the fourth day of the Lunar New Year. She thought she had only slept for a morning, but had she actually slept for three days?
She could hardly tell day from night anymore.
It seemed that someone in the next bed had left. The door of the ICU opened, and the anguished cries of family members could be heard.
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Most of the time, it was quiet here, with only the sounds of the machines operating. It was only when someone passed away that a burst of commotion would arise.
Hearing the cries, Lu Yinxi closed her eyes as if possessed, tears flowing along with them.
She suddenly remembered that one day she had asked Jian Qing—
“If one day, I leave this world, would you miss me?”
She hadn’t heard Jian Qing’s reply yet.
Now she didn’t have the strength to ask…
If she were to die in this unfamiliar world, would Jian Qing cry for her?
Or maybe not, better not to upset anyone for no reason…
“Lu Yinxi.”
In a daze, she heard someone beside her calling her name, full name, with an unprecedented gentleness in their voice.
She responded in her heart, “Eh.”
The tears at the corner of her eyes were gently wiped away, and a whisper, almost pleading, came to her ears:
“Survive.”
“I beg you.”
The author has something to say:
I marked it as “he” (happy ending). As a writer of sweet stories like me (feeling confident), how could I possibly write a “be” (bad ending) novel~~~
But I did indeed think about writing some “be” short stories to get back at society. As a result, that very night I had a nightmare. In the dream, “I” was happily dating a childhood friend, and suddenly, I died. The despair in the dream was overwhelming. When “I” woke up in the dream, I realized I had actually transmigrated into a Republican-era TV drama as a character in a yuri couple. Since yuri couples in domestic TV dramas aren’t allowed to have a “he,” the screenwriter wrote me to death. Dream-me was so angry that I immediately opened Jinjiang Literature City and started a novel titled “After Transmigrating into a ‘be’ Yuri Drama, I Achieved a ‘he’ (Quick Transmigration),” vowing to change all the “be” yuri couples! I’ll share the details with you all another day when I have time~~~