Jiang Ran only stayed obediently in bed for five days before she began trying to get up and wander around the house. At first, she limped, hopping on her right leg like a red-crowned crane, using anything she could hold onto to get to the toilet or get out of bed for meals. Her movements were becoming increasingly agile…
She acted so mischievously that she could be called the liveliest patient in the entire orthopedic department—enough to make even a dog shake its head.
It wasn’t until Beijiao returned from school and opened the door to see her bouncing from one end of the bed to the other like a long jumper that she was finally forced back into bed.
“Planning to switch careers to track and field?” he asked sarcastically.
“I just don’t want to be treated like a cripple.”
Knowing she had been caught in a scene he clearly disliked, she hugged his arm and cooed, “Earlier, I said I needed to go to the bathroom, and the nurse actually brought me a bedpan—like I’m completely paralyzed from the waist down or something!”
He didn’t respond.
The nurse, who had been caught in the act, saw the new arrival when Beijiao opened the door and immediately packed up and left. At this moment, she was nowhere to be found.
Now alone in the hospital room, Jiang Ran, who had always maintained a cold and dignified demeanor in front of others, now clung to her pet dog and began to change the subject, chattering on about how her left leg felt numb or how her calf muscles ached…
Until he finally, with a cold expression, raised his hand to gently knead the areas she had complained about.
She leaned against him like a boneless creature the entire time. Whenever he pressed too hard, she would whine dramatically, “I’m so pitiful.”
Hearing this, Beijiao showed no sign of softening. He pinched her calf mercilessly until she gasped in pain before finally releasing her. “Learned your lesson? Still going to show off next time?”
She pouted, “Can you stop bringing up the past?”
Her leg was still wrapped in bandages—it wasn’t “past” at all.
Beijiao snorted coldly. Jiang Ran shivered at the sound and burrowed tightly into his arms, “Okay, okay, just talk normally. Don’t scare me like that. I just don’t want to use a bedpan—what’s so wrong with that!”
But he ignored her completely, only reaching out to hold her waist to prevent her from falling off the edge of the bed. Naturally, this silent treatment didn’t satisfy her. She grabbed his hand and placed it back on her left calf, demanding another massage.
He wasn’t very good at it. Why hadn’t he taken any elective courses in sports injury care?
Jiang Ran thought to herself. Didn’t he ever think of her when choosing his electives?
She got stuck in her own thoughts.
“You’ve been getting colder and colder toward me lately. Check if my left leg muscles have started to atrophy? I feel like the two legs look different in thickness these past couple of days.”
She had only been in bed for less than a week, including the time since her injury and surgery…
Atrophy? Please!
His hand moved away from her calf and gave her butt a slap—loud, but more of a warning than a punishment, so it didn’t really hurt.
Luckily, there was no one else in the room. Jiang Ran’s waist went weak from that slap.
“Jiang Ran.”
“Hmm? Don’t hit me—”
“Talk normally.”
“…”
Like hell I will.
“Beijiao, what exactly are you trying to say?”
Now her voice was normal again, no longer that nasal whine.
“Stop pretending. What nonsense are you planning now?” He had no patience for the act, “Stop talking in that fake, high-pitched voice. It doesn’t suit you.”
“Doesn’t suit me? Then who does it suit? Do you have some cute little female classmates who talk like that? Want me to ask Zhang Liang about it later—” Her eyes rolled around in thought before she continued, “Wait, I just got out of bed to go to the bathroom, not to play a whole football match. Why can’t you speak like a normal person?”
“What if you fall again? Do I need to remind you that your right foot is in a cast? The concept of a steel pin in your right foot is quite different from your left.”
His voice sounded cold, but his large hand remained on her, gently rubbing the spot he had slapped moments ago.
Jiang Ran, who had already stopped feeling pain, slightly furrowed her eyebrows and stopped pretending, “Take your hand off, it’s the middle of the day.”
Beijiao ignored her, but not completely—he just left his hand there without moving. He leaned close to her ear and bit her earlobe, “It’s so cold outside. Let me warm my hands.”
He didn’t let her act cute, yet he himself could easily lean in and whisper suggestively. What, was he so much older and wiser?
“You’re really creative, using my butt to warm your hands,” Jiang Ran said with a cold face, “Even an ancient tyrant would say you know how to have fun.”
Beijiao chuckled softly.
Seeing that his mood had improved, Jiang Ran tugged at his collar and pulled him closer, “Let’s talk about something.”
Now she was finally getting to the point. Beijiao paused and looked down at her.
“I think I’m almost ready to start rehabilitation.”
His gentle expression faded slightly. He calmly brushed her hand away, “Go ahead. I didn’t say you couldn’t. I’ve scheduled it for next Friday.”
“What? Today is only Tuesday!”
“Is that right?”
“…” His calm, slightly mocking tone made Jiang Ran hold back for a moment, only to realize she couldn’t contain herself any longer. “You’re quite the expert at playing dumb with me, aren’t you? What gives you the right to meddle in my affairs so much? Why should I have to tiptoe around and seek your approval just because I want to recover sooner?”
The more she spoke, the angrier she became, until even she found it absurd—
She’s completely out of her mind! Even if she recovers early, it’s not his signature on the hospital documents!
What’s the point of all this nonsense!
Why does she jump back three meters the moment he raises an eyebrow? That’s not how her status in the family should be!
Seeing that gentle persuasion wasn’t working, her eyes faintly smoldered with anger. Beijiao, however, knew exactly when to back off. Pretending not to notice her sudden outburst, he pulled her into his arms and patted her head. “No need to shout,” he said. “How about we move it up to next Monday instead?”
Counting on my fingers, it’s four days ahead of schedule—that’s what we call meeting halfway.
Jiang Ran raised an eyebrow, knowing full well that recovery couldn’t be rushed. It wouldn’t be worth it if impatience led to any lasting complications. So she decided to quit while she was ahead, her previously tense shoulders relaxing.
She reached up to adjust his collar and said slowly, “Then it’s settled. You’ll call the attending physician over later and speak to him in front of me.”
She was afraid he might go back on his word and try to outsmart her.
Bei Jiao curled the corner of her lips slightly and responded with a soft “Hmm.”
It’s settled then. With both sides taking a step back, the negotiation concluded at an astonishingly fast pace, skipping the usual bargaining process.
Holding her in his arms, Bei Jiao glanced at his phone to check the time. After a moment, he remarked, “You’ve improved. I thought it would take at least half an hour to argue with you, but now we can still make it for dinner.”
Jiang Ran rolled her eyes and kicked him with her uninjured leg.
……
Soon it was Monday of the second week, and Jiang Ran found herself in a state of both fear and excitement.
The surgery was indeed declared successful at the time, but this success was limited to having installed what needed to be installed and stitched up what needed to be stitched…
As for how well she has adapted to the new physical condition, such as post-operative recovery, everything remains unknown.
The fear of the unknown and the impending repair left Jiang Ran too excited to sleep until well past three in the morning. She kept talking to Bei Jiao, unable to settle down.
Finally, the conversation somehow veered off into the topic of pregnancy. That day, Jiang Ran had just woken up from anesthesia and was talking nonsense, which landed Bei Jiao in a lot of trouble. Later, she was too embarrassed to even bring it up again.
But by the end of the conversation, they had truly run out of things to talk about. They had gossiped about everyone around them, yet she still felt wide awake. Grabbing a drowsy Bei Jiao, she asked, “So what do you think about this baby thing? I won’t even consider it until after the Winter Olympics—you know that. Why haven’t you said anything about it?”
Beijiao was so sleepy he could barely keep his eyes open, yet he still had to listen to her unreasonable arguments. He knew she was being stubborn: some things she might not want or even never intended to have, but if you simply assumed not to give them, that would still be your fault.
“Just four years, and it’s not like anyone in my family is pushing for it,” Beijiao mumbled sleepily, speaking honestly without any pretense. “Besides, there’s still grad school after this. Even after finishing grad school, the first few years working in a hospital won’t be much better… Who knows if I’ll continue studying or what? How am I supposed to raise a kid without money?”
Jiang Ran was drawn into his strange rhythm, thinking to herself that formula milk was indeed expensive, and diapers also cost money.
She quickly realized that not only could she afford to raise one child, but she could even open a kindergarten if she wanted to.
She even remembered that she actually had private schools under her name.
She hesitated to speak, feeling deeply guilty towards Jiang Huaimin. After all, General Manager Jiang had worked hard for most of his life, yet his daughter actually thought that even diapers for the baby were a problem—what an utter humiliation…
But Beijiao said it so matter-of-factly that she wasn’t foolish enough to argue with him outright. Instead, she gently stroked his tousled hair and pulled him closer to her chest. She had been lying in bed every day recently, indulging in the housekeeper’s variety of nourishing soups, and had gained a little weight—her clothes had even become tighter. So, this could be considered a little reward and benefit for him.
“But by then I’ll already be thirty, you know? A high-risk pregnancy! Aren’t you the least bit concerned or worried about me?”
“Stop being crazy, Jiang Ran. Can you let me sleep?” He buried himself in the warm embrace and said weakly, “How many years has it been since the era when thirty-year-olds were considered high-risk mothers? Did you time-travel here from the 1960s?”
“……”
Jiang Ran thought to herself, “Oh, is that so?”
She still wanted to argue a bit more with the professional, but at this point, Bei Jiao was genuinely too exhausted. Patting her back as if soothing a child, he said, “Go to sleep now, or tomorrow you won’t be worrying about whether to have a baby—you’ll be struggling just to get out of bed.”
“What do you want now?”
“I don’t feel like doing anything. What’s going on in your head all day?” Bei Jiao said. “I mean, do you remember you have rehab tomorrow?”
“……”
This time, it was Jiang Ran’s turn to feel embarrassed. Thinking “Alright, let’s sleep,” she slid down, intending to sleep face-to-face in his arms like a family dog…
However, the moment the other party sensed her intention, they pressed down on her waist to prevent her from moving, burying their face even deeper into her embrace, and then pressing their nose against her.
“Don’t fall asleep,” Jiang Ran tugged at his ear. “I suddenly feel like eating strawberry cake.”
“Where am I supposed to get that for you in the middle of the night?”
Bei Jiao took a deep breath, nuzzling her soft, smooth skin with his cool nose, and let out a satisfied sigh. “There are indeed strawberries.”
Jiang Ran wanted to ask where, but he once again suggestively nudged at her collar.
“…Are you a hooligan?!”
“If you don’t sleep now, I can get even more shameless.”
Warm breath brushed against her skin.
Jiang Ran lowered her head, wanting to ask how she was supposed to sleep with this bastard messing around like this. But as she looked down, she noticed his eyes were tightly shut—he had actually fallen asleep.
Thinking of him having to get up early the next morning and travel across a district to make it to the first class, she had no choice but to keep quiet. With a grievance, she raised her hand to cradle his head and reluctantly closed her eyes as well.
……
Jiang Ran scheduled the rehabilitation sessions during Bei Jiao’s class time, which made him hesitate a bit. However, she waved her hand dismissively and said, “Aren’t you about to take the postgraduate entrance exam? Don’t keep asking for leave.”
So it came to be that in the rehabilitation department, while everyone else was brought by their family members who stayed outside the entire time, Jiang Ran was wheeled in by a nursing aunt.
It was completely different from the day of the surgery when a crowd of people stood densely packed outside the operating room…
The rehabilitation doctor in the rehabilitation department had heard about Jiang Ran early on and had been waiting there since early morning. They were somewhat surprised to see her come alone.
She imagined a melodramatic scenario of a lonely, pitiful wealthy heiress who had money but no family love or romance.
Jiang Ran seemed to see through the doctor’s strange look and smiled at him, saying, “I told them not to come.”
The doctor couldn’t help but ask why.
Soon he found out why.
The recovery process after trauma follows a fixed sequence: first restoring muscles, then gradually rehabilitating joints, and finally bones, incorporating weight-bearing training—
The first move Jiang Ran had to perform was a knee lift. However, as she leaned against the handrail, she realized that no matter how hard she tried, she could only raise her knee slightly. A thin layer of sweat formed on her forehead, and her expression gradually darkened.
As a seasoned skier, she knew all too well that even the slightest difference in foot movements during high-speed skiing could lead to dramatic changes in the entire sequence of maneuvers…
Scroll to the end, and you’ll see that beyond luck and mindset, the difference between masters lies in the details.
But one thing is certain: there won’t be any masters who struggle with even lifting their legs.
In the first round of rehabilitation, her left leg felt as heavy as lead. Despite countless attempts to lift it, she could barely raise it more than the height of a shoe sole off the ground.
Her heart sank uncontrollably, and her stomach seemed to drop to the soles of her feet. She stared blankly at the rehabilitation doctor, who had his hands tucked into the pockets of his white coat, repeating for the eight-hundredth time: “It’s normal, don’t panic, stay steady.”
Jiang Ran couldn’t hold steady.
She fell into anxiety.
This anxiety reached its peak during her second round of rehabilitation, when she attempted to walk normally while holding onto the handrail: as her left foot touched the ground, she experienced an illusion that it didn’t belong to her.
It was like a lump of flesh that had nothing to do with her had fallen to the ground, feeling slightly swollen and sore, even a bit itchy—but beyond that, there was no neural feedback at all. She tried to take a step forward, but her legs gave way, sending her tumbling headfirst.
Her heart skipped a beat. With both hands gripping the railing and the rehabilitation therapist grabbing her collar at the last moment, she managed to avoid a hard fall, landing instead on the soft cushion. The loose strands of hair at her temples clung to her sweat-drenched cheeks…
Her hair, tied in a ponytail, was messily stuffed into the hood of her hoodie. Silently and with difficulty, she climbed to her feet from the floor, feeling as if her left leg were controlled by someone else—not by her at all.
That was exactly why she had come alone.
It was just that her rehabilitation session had turned out to be a bit more pathetic than she had imagined.
The entire morning, Jiang Ran had been like a newborn baby, reacquainting and adjusting to her leg. Over and over again, she held onto the railing and walked from one end of the rehabilitation department to the other. After resting for just a minute, she gritted her teeth and walked back again.
When the rehabilitation session ended, she kept practicing by herself, watching other patients come and go for their own rehab.
The physical therapist watched her from the side. Since he didn’t tell her to stop, she didn’t either.
Around noon, after her eight-hundredth attempt to let go of the handrail, Jiang Ran fell onto the soft padding.
This time, she fell to the side. Before falling, she had been breathing normally, but upon impact, she bit her tongue hard.
Intense pain shot from her tongue and shoulder. Lying on the mat, she took deep, frantic breaths, and large drops of sweat rolled down her forehead.
Still lying there, she tried to lift her left leg. The response was delayed—her brain sent the signal, and only after three seconds did she feel any reaction.
She watched as her knee slowly lifted at the speed of an eighty-year-old, then froze stiffly at a relatively low height.
“…”
Afraid of blocking others, she dragged her uncooperative left leg and, using her right leg and arms, rolled and crawled to the shadowy area beneath the window and beside the railing.
She told herself to rest for a moment.
Her left leg was stretched out loosely on the wooden floor, long and straight just as she remembered. Her right leg bent freely and flexibly. Hugging her right knee, Jiang Ran’s mind was in chaos, her heart pounding rapidly. Despair surged through her body with her wildly rushing blood.
A buzzing sound filled her ears. Random, sudden thoughts pierced her mind—“Ah, I’ve tried so hard but haven’t improved at all. What if I’m like this forever?”
They say that the collapse of an adult happens in an instant.
Curled in the shadow of the railing, all the negative emotions she had accumulated since her injury surged up at once. She decided to let herself cry for a while.
Just a little while.
…
It was already lunch break. The physical therapist had just seen off his last patient when he turned around and saw the earliest arrival sitting in the corner, hugging her knees and crying silently.
Her tears had turned her light pink hoodie into a darker shade. He sighed, thinking she probably didn’t have the strength to get up and keep practicing for now. He planned to grab a bite to eat and come back to accompany her through more practice—
Before leaving, he hesitated, thinking about calling a nurse from the station to stay with her. But when he opened the door, he was surprised to see a young man in black hoodie and jeans leaning against the wall just outside the door, gazing blankly at the sky down the corridor.
He was startled.
The man by the door heard the sound and turned his head to glance at him. His dark eyes, visible beyond the mask, glimmered with unfamiliar but polite warmth.
The therapist looked back at the rehab room, then at the corridor outside the wall. He moved his lips, about to say something, but saw the young man in black raise a finger to his lips, signaling him to be quiet, and politely nodded, indicating it was okay.
The therapist walked away, glancing back repeatedly.
He couldn’t understand it. Normally a guy would rush in to hug his girlfriend and comfort her, so why was this one just standing outside the door?
… Oh right, how long had he been there?
…
Jiang Ran cried until a little after one in the afternoon. When she felt that if she kept crying any longer her eyes might actually go blind, and she herself had grown tired, she wiped her tears, hiccupped from crying, and slowly got up.
Then she continued trying.
Leaning on the railing, she stumbled through a few more rounds of walking until she calmly accepted the slow progress she had made. Only then did she approach the large mirror at the front of the rehab room to tidy herself up.
She washed her face, re-tied her messy hair. Her eyes were bloodshot. She closed her eyes for a while, even clearing her throat, making sure her voice wouldn’t betray her crying.
Once she was done tidying up, the rehab room door opened.
She originally thought it was the therapist returning from lunch, but when she turned her head, she saw a familiar face peeking in from the doorway, scanning the interior of the room, clearly looking for someone.
Leaning against the edge of the sink, Jiang Ran calmly called his name.
His gaze paused, and then he turned toward her. Their eyes met in mid-air. Beijiao said, “Since this morning? Impressive. Tired?”
“I went home to rest a bit before coming back,” Jiang Ran smirked. “What’s tiring about this?”
She beckoned him with a wave of her hand. Beijiao pushed the door open further and walked toward her—
As he got closer, she finally let go of the sink edge and casually leaned into his arms, hugging his waist, whispering softly, “Okay, maybe I am a little tired.”
“Mm.” A noncommittal sound came from above. One hand wrapped around her waist to steady her, while the other reached out to gently stroke her face. “You didn’t sneak off and cry secretly, did you?”
“…Cry? Like hell I did!” Jiang Ran swatted his hand away, frowning with a hint of disdain in her voice. “I didn’t even cry when I was stuck in bed a few days ago. I’m not that fragile!”
Beijiao chuckled softly, lifting her waist slightly.
Jiang Ran instinctively wrapped her arms around his neck, leaning against him to steady herself. Just as she was about to ask why he had returned or if he didn’t have class in the afternoon, she caught sight of a white box swaying in front of her. Through the box, the sweet aroma of cream and strawberries wafted into her nose.
She paused, her eyes following the box—probably a cake.
“Let’s go have lunch,” he said. “I’ll give you this after you eat.”
Jiang Ran silently tightened her arms around his neck.
“Hmm?” He lowered his gaze to look at her.
“Honey, I suddenly realized how much I love you.”
“…”
Beijiao froze for three seconds. His dark eyes deepened, almost turning pitch black and unfathomable.
“What did you call me?”
“? Honey?”
“Say it again.”
“Honey.”
“Tsk.”
“…What’s wrong?”
He gazed at her intensely.
This was exactly the moment when unspoken understanding was needed.
“Pervert.”
“…”
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