Peerless Beauty – Chapter 70

Comfort

Kiss her soft lips

The silent night is when cancer patients experience the most frequent pain.

In the ward, a quiet, warm lamp is lit on the bedside cabinet.

Next to the lamp, there is a red plastic bag filled with fist-sized oranges.

The fresh, sweet citrus scent spreads through the small ward, as Lu Yinxi sits at the end of Sangsang’s bed, meticulously removing the white veins from the orange segments.

She remembers that Jian Qing likes to eat oranges this way, peeled completely clean.

Zhang Yue stands at the head of the bed, giving Sangsang an injection of strong painkillers: “It’ll be okay in a moment, it won’t hurt later.”

The hospital bed is raised high, and Sangsang half-lies on the bed, her small body curled into a ball, her face showing a sickly yellow, her eyes filled with tears, softly describing the cancer pain: “It’s like many ants are biting my back…”

Cancer pain is what many cancer patients experience, pain so severe they can’t sleep and want to commit s*icide.

Zhang Yue stands by the bedside, looking at her, once again experiencing a feeling of helplessness.

He casually squeezes some hand sanitizer, then takes a candy from his pocket, hands it to Sangsang’s mother, and lets her peel it for Sangsang to eat.

He gently comforts her: “Eat a candy; it’s sweet, and slowly it won’t hurt anymore.”

In the face of illness, words of comfort are too pale.

Lu Yinxi peels an orange for Sangsang, then takes out her phone to find cartoons for her to watch.

She is actually very well-behaved and does not need coaxing. Most of the time, she is quiet. When doctors and nurses greet her, she will show a sweet smile. In front of her mother, she holds back tears, and only when her mother leaves does she nestle in the blanket and secretly cry.

She does not need coaxing, but they just want to help this little girl divert her attention a bit, so the pain is not so easily felt.

Sangsang’s mother also does not cry in front of Sangsang.

Like now, when she really can’t hold back her tears, she will say: “I’m going to get some hot water.” Then, carrying a thermos, she walks out of the ward and cries squatting in the corridor.

With her mother not there, Sangsang, holding a candy in her mouth, weakly asks Zhang Yue: “Can I be discharged tomorrow?”

Zhang Yue pushed his glasses and replied: “Not possible tomorrow.”

“I want to be discharged… I want to go to school… I want to play with my classmates…”

“Wait until it doesn’t hurt, wait until you’re a bit better, then you’ll have the chance to go to school.”

Going to school, studying, and playing with classmates are the most ordinary things for a child her age.

Knowing these are comforting words, Sangsang still smiled.

Zhang Yue took off his mask and grinned, showing his big white teeth, broadly smiling: “Then I’ll go back to the office first. If you feel uncomfortable anywhere, just pull that bell, find the nurse sister, find me.”

He is the ward doctor, the one who has the most prolonged contact with patients.

The admission record was written by him, the medical history was asked by him, the medical advice was given by him, and if the superior had any content to convey, it was mainly he who went to talk…

All the odd jobs and detailed tasks are undertaken by these young doctors still in their growth period.

Walking out of the ward, he saw the mother squatting on the ground sobbing, walked over, squatted down, and gently patted her back twice to show comfort.

Sangsang’s mother stood up and thanked Zhang Yue: “Doctor, it’s so late, sorry for troubling you.”

Zhang Yue said: “Auntie, take care of your health, there’s nothing troublesome about this, it’s all part of our work.”

After returning to the office, no longer maintaining the calm composure in front of patients, fatigue and depression surged in his heart. He took off his mask, threw it into the yellow trash bag, washed and disinfected his hands, then sat in front of the computer, staring dazedly at the thick 《Oncology》 book.

Jian Qing, after finishing resuscitating a patient, returned and saw Zhang Yue with his head drooping. She knocked his head with a pen and asked, “Why are you being a quail again?”

Zhang Yue wiped his face and closed the book: “Senior sister, I can’t save them. After all these years of studying, I can’t even save a 10-year-old child…”

In the two years in the oncology department, who can he save?

He can’t save anyone, just saying goodbye to one patient after another.

Jian Qing sat beside Zhang Yue, calmly looking at this junior and subordinate.

Many medical students study medicine with the belief of saving lives and healing the wounded, but only when they truly step into clinical practice do they discover the limitations of medical treatment.

Doctors are not gods; many times they are also powerless and can only watch one vibrant life after another pass away.

Especially in the oncology department, even the most optimistic and cheerful people are hammered by despair again and again until they shed a layer of skin, unable to resist self-doubting their existence’s value.

Numbness has become the best protective color instead.

But numbness is also a form of suppression, wrapping negative emotions layer by layer. It may seem bearable on the surface, but in reality, the last straw to break the camel’s back has yet to appear.

Many young doctors will repeatedly experience such feelings of disappointment, despair, and self-doubt. In the past, Jian Qing would not offer comfort, only coldly and mockingly say, “Either accept it or leave.”

Now, her temperament has softened a lot, and she gives her junior a bowl of encouragement: “Every late-stage cancer patient is likely to head towards death. Why do we waste time and resources on treatment and research? Because ten years ago, our country’s five-year cancer survival rate was 30.9%. Ten years later, it rose to 40.5%. Ten years, millions of medical workers, researchers, and volunteers worked day and night, resulting in nearly a 10 percentage point increase. Zhang Yue, on a micro level, you can’t save many people, but on a macro level, you can become part of the next decade’s survival rate increase by one percentage point.”

This is a field full of despair, a field that requires facing failure again and again.

Perhaps throughout one’s life, it is difficult to cure several patients, and one’s lifetime contribution only translates into a few percentage points of growth.

But modern medicine is like this; it is not a building constructed by one person. Doctors, nurses, patients… it is a group of people, one tile, one gravel, together forging a hall.

At 11 o’clock in the evening, Jian Qing changed out of her white coat and went to the ward to pick up Lu Yinxi to go home.

“Tiger, little white rabbit, hamster… finally, draw one, panda.” Black and white lines sketched round animals on thin A4 paper, the paper placed beside the pillow, accompanying the thin, weak little girl into sleep.

Sangsang, under the effect of the medicine, gradually fell asleep.

Sangsang’s mother was still softly telling stories of Sangsang’s childhood.

They say Sangsang is a left-behind child. In her childhood, her parents were working in other places, and they could only return home once a year during the New Year to see the elders and the child. If they had known this day would come, no matter how bitter or tired they were back then, she should have raised Sangsang by her side.

Now, there aren’t many days left to be together, and regret is of no use. She can only endure the pain and torment to get through each remaining day.

Lu Yinxi listened while scribbling and drawing on paper.

She was also a left-behind child in her childhood.

Thrown to the countryside by Gu Mingyu.

At that time, communication in the countryside was not developed. Unlike now, when everyone has a smartphone, there was only one landline phone in ten miles and eight villages. To call and hear her mother’s voice, she had to go to someone else’s home and say some good words.

Gu Mingyu would never call home; it was always the grandmother who called her, fearing to disturb her work and only daring to call during the New Year and holidays.

In those years when she left Lu Yinxi in the countryside, she only returned twice.

Once was in the winter, during the New Year. She brought New Year’s goods back and, seeing Lu Yinxi, squatted down, opened her arms, wanting to hug her long-unseen daughter.

At that time, Lu Yinxi could somewhat no longer recognize Gu Mingyu’s face, hiding behind her grandmother, timidly looking at that pretty and unfamiliar woman, unwilling to call her mother and also unwilling to be hugged.

That cold, hard, strong woman looked at her frost-cracked little face, turned away, and secretly wiped her tears.

At night, the three of them nestled together on one kang to sleep.

Lu Yinxi lay in the middle, sleeping drowsily, and vaguely heard Gu Mingyu and her grandmother saying that they had already settled in the city and wanted to take them there to live. The schools in the city were good, and staying in the countryside would delay her education.

The grandmother was not accustomed to city life and couldn’t learn Mandarin. She just wanted to farm and raise chickens in the countryside and only said, “You take Nannan away, I won’t go. You’re still young, find another man to partner with for life, and be good to Nannan.”

Gu Mingyu sighed and said, “I’m not looking; no matter how good someone is to her, it’s not blood-related. I’m not at ease, and she’s still thinking of her dad. Just let her stay with you a few more years, and when she needs to go to middle school, I’ll take her out.”

That time, when Gu Mingyu returned, she only stayed for three days.

During those three days, she was bullied by other children and finally could, through gritted teeth, say the sentence: “I want to go home and tell my mom!”

Usually, when she said things like that, she would be laughed at with “You don’t have a dad!” or “Your mom doesn’t want you!”

Only during those three days could she openly say, “I want to go home and tell my mom!”

On the morning of the third day, knowing that Gu Mingyu was leaving, she lay in bed pretending to sleep.

Gu Mingyu kissed her cheek and said goodbye to her. She did not respond, and only after Gu Mingyu had walked far away did she hide in the blanket, sobbing.

The second time she returned was to handle her grandmother’s funeral. She sat on the dirt ground in the yard, crying loudly, blaming Gu Mingyu’s coldness, hating that Gu Mingyu had not taken her grandmother to see a doctor earlier. Since then, the gap had deepened.

Lu Yinxi looked at Sangsang’s mother, and her eyes slowly turned red.

This mother, in the midst of remorse, aged quickly.

She thought, if one day she lay on a hospital bed, would Gu Mingyu be like this mother in front of her, regretting not having accompanied her from a young age?

If she stayed in this virtual world and could no longer see her in reality, would Gu Mingyu miss her, even a little bit?

“Tonight one of you became a quail, and the other became a rabbit.” After taking Lu Yinxi from the ward and returning home, Jian Qing gently touched the corner of her eye and asked, “Why become a rabbit?”

Lu Yinxi’s eyes were still somewhat red, and she countered, “Has Sangsang’s condition progressed?”

Jian Qing hummed in acknowledgment and calmly said, “Multiple metastases throughout the body.”

Bone cancer with post-surgery lung metastasis is already considered late stage. The original plan was chemotherapy to shrink the lung lesions, followed by surgical removal. Now, with the disease progressing and second-line treatment failing, there are no more drugs available, and her body really cannot endure any more.

“In a few days, I will have Zhang Yue ask them if they want to transfer to the third district’s palliative care ward¹ or if they want to go home.”

When it reaches the stage where no medication is available, doctors will discuss with the family whether to transfer wards or discharge.

Not all patients want to stay in the cold hospital; some people long to finish their last journey at home.

Lu Yinxi’s tone was almost questioning: “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Because I was afraid you would be sad.

Jian Qing didn’t say these words out loud, watching Lu Yinxi hold back her tears, her shoulders shaking, her fingers tightly gripping the edge of the sofa, so tightly that her knuckles turned white.

Hearing about a person’s death and witnessing a person struggling to die are two different feelings.

The latter is much more painful.

Jian Qing reached out to wipe away Lu Yinxi’s tears and held her in an embrace, wanting to tell her: in the future, don’t make friends with cancer patients.

After thinking about it, these words still remained unsaid.

Actually, Jian Qing’s mood tonight was also not too pleasant.

Tonight, she attempted to resuscitate two patients, both of which unfortunately failed.

In the hematology department³ and hospitalized for treatment. She had a boyfriend who had always stayed by her side, caring for her for the past two years. He was well-known and praised in the hematology department as an infatuated man. However, in the past few months, he suddenly lost contact and never appeared again.

The young woman said nothing, merely looking out the window day after day, until her death tonight, never seeing her boyfriend one last time.

There are too many such cases. The clinical separations of life and death gradually drained her emotions. Witnessing life and death, witnessing farce, witnessing human nature, her emotional threshold continuously rose, making it difficult to empathize, like a withering old tree.

Unlike the person in her embrace, who still sheds tears for others and possesses intense, abundant emotions, sensitive and delicate, young and beautiful.

She is willing to cherish this delicate beauty, not wanting to destroy this fragility anymore.

Jian Qing, holding Lu Yinxi, comfortingly patted her back gently and asked her, “On a sadness scale from low to high, 0 to 10, what level are you?”

Lu Yinxi blinked, and tears slipped from her eyes as she softly said, “Level 8.”

Jian Qing slightly loosened her embrace, looked at the tears on her cheek, and suddenly leaned in, placing her lips on her cheek.

Only touched for a second, then released.

A kiss like a dragonfly touching water, carrying freshness and softness.

Lu Yinxi froze, tears still hanging on her eyelashes, and asked blankly, “If… if it is level 10?”

Jian Qing said nothing, her gaze fell on Lu Yinxi’s red lips, reached out, cold fingertips pinched her chin, lifted it, slightly turned her face, and kissed her soft lips.

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The author has something to say:

Lu: If… if it is level 10?

Jian: Then you are exaggerating, wanting to trick a kiss.

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1. Palliative care ward: An inpatient facility for patients living with an advanced disease, such as cancer, for which curative treatment is not available, and their families.
3. Hematology department: A specialized branch within a hospital or medical facility that focuses on the study, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of blood-related disorders and diseases.², there was a young woman, only 24 years old, who had recently graduated from college. During her entry physical exam, she was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma²Hodgkin’s lymphoma: A type of cancer that originates in the lymphatic system, which is part of the body’s immune system, and is characterized by the presence of Reed-Sternberg cells (large, abnormal lymphocytes (a type of white blood cell)) in the lymph nodes.