Before receiving the phone call, Jiang Ran had been sitting in the brightly lit living room, watching as Qiu Nian carefully wrapped bandages around her minor scrape, layer after layer, until it looked like her skin had been peeled off entirely.
During this time, the warmth gradually returned to her body, and her runaway rationality also came back. She raised her hand to touch her face, relieved that she hadn’t cried. She hadn’t really wanted to cry anyway—anger was more dominant, and bursting into tears out of rage would have been too pitiful.
Glancing at her emotionless reflection on the TV screen, she wondered, what should she do with Beijiao now?
He had made the same mistake repeatedly.
He shouldn’t have even had a third chance, yet she couldn’t help but wonder if she had been too strict.
What were young men in their early twenties usually doing? Excelling academically, looking great, perhaps not the best in personality but very good at winning people over, dominating sports like no one else at their age—basically unbeatable.
They enjoyed the thrill of park terrain and the exhilaration of carving at high speeds.
A teenager’s nature couldn’t be suppressed.
He simply loved having fun, listening to half of what she said and ignoring the other half. What could she do?
That was the annoying part of having a little boyfriend.
The moment she chose to date a younger guy, she had accepted his clinginess, his endless energy, his beautiful face and perfect physique—even his peak physical strength during his prime years.
But at the same time, she had also accepted his youthful nature.
Impulsive, reckless, acting without considering the consequences, and possessing an unbowed soul and excessive pride.
All male creatures under heaven were probably like this. People used to say, “A man only truly grows up when he has children.” Later, her father Jiang Haimin, with his beer belly, told her, “Nonsense. Men remain boys until the day they die.”
She had understood this when she chose him, so naturally, she wouldn’t be surprised now—
Therefore, she was only angry at being deceived, annoyed at his immaturity, and frustrated at his dishonesty.
But she had been mentally prepared.
Jiang Ran hugged her knees, expressionless.
At that moment, Qiu Nian was contemplating whether she had wrapped the bandage too tightly and was struggling with how to tie a neat, symmetrical bow on Jiang Ran’s foot. Just as she was about to look up to consult Jiang Ran, she unexpectedly caught sight of his icy expression. Startled, she accidentally jabbed his foot.
Fortunately, the bandage was thick enough that Jiang Ran didn’t react at all.
Qiu Nian looked up into Jiang Ran’s dark brown eyes: “Did you get too much of a shock and finally go crazy?”
“…Why ‘finally’?”
“Because I always thought you were on the edge of driving yourself crazy, Jiang Ran. This isn’t a huge issue, but it’s not small either,” Qiu Nian said seriously. “Tugou did something wrong—he promised you he wouldn’t take risks but then broke his word by hugging Hongshu and attempting to climb a wild mountain… but fundamentally, he was just being playful and didn’t dare to tell you.”
She paused: “Generally speaking, he wouldn’t dare to lie to you.”
A Ju nodded beside her: “Right, when he called me just now, I could feel his soul flying out of his mouth even from so far away…”
Li Xingnan: “He’s not bad at heart.”
Jiang Ran tilted her head slightly, saying nothing, and no one knew whether she had listened.
After a long while, she asked in a light voice: “Am I crazy or are you all sick? Why are you all defending him?”
Qiu Nian lowered her head and continued tying the bow.
She didn’t dare to meet Jiang Ran’s eyes, tugging at the edge of the bandage, hesitantly asking: “So… are you going to break up?”
This question was bold, instantly drawing the attention of both Li Xingnan and A Ju.
Jiang Ran responded with a confused “Hmm.”
It almost scared Qiu Nian out of her wits.
“It’s not because of him that we couldn’t have had this conversation if we were in Xinjiang, after all, you always avoid us when you’re free,” she mumbled. “Besides, I think you seem quite happy with him. It’s been a while since I’ve seen you smile as much as you have recently…”
Her voice gradually faded until she stopped talking.
Jiang Ran thought for a moment and asked: “A lot?”
Qiu Nian: “A lot.”
Jiang Ran touched her lips, thinking, oh.
Did she like him?
Of course she did.
She had never been casual about relationships. If she simply threw him away, it would probably be a joke for the century for herself.
It had nothing to do with Beijiao.
She had always been like this. Asking her to easily admit she had misjudged him would be worse than killing her.
“We won’t break up.”
So far, she still thought Qiu Nian was overthinking. At least she hadn’t even considered the word “breakup” for a single second.
She just felt that Beijiao had been disobedient, repeatedly making mistakes, seemingly ignoring her words and acting behind her back, so there should be a serious talk, because she was really disappointed—
The first time, she patiently explained, even reflecting on herself for merely forbidding wild snow without explaining the reasons.
The second time, she calmly accepted it. She didn’t scold him nor did she force him to delete that video of him flying off a jump without a helmet, only telling him that if it happened again, she would be angry.
He said, “I understand.”
Then did he take it to heart?
No.
Jiang Ran couldn’t help but wonder if her tone had been too soft that time, making him not take it seriously at all.
All these thoughts swirled in her mind, and she might need to ask Beijiao himself what was going on inside his head… but she hadn’t figured out how to start that conversation yet.
“But will just talking make him realize he was wrong? This isn’t the first time.”
“He should,” Qiu Nian, hearing her answer, slightly relaxed, her tone becoming lighter. “With how serious you were this time, anyone with a heart would reflect deeply.”
“What if he still doesn’t realize he was wrong?”
“He’s so smart, he can’t not know. If he still doesn’t, then it means he only thought he loved you deeply, but in reality, he never truly cared about you…” Qiu Nian paused. “If that’s the case, then cut him off.”
“…Cut off where?”
“Cut the robe and sever the bond.”
She was idly twirling the extra thread from the bow Qiu Nian had tied around her finger, not really paying attention, thinking about what the first words she should say to Beijiao when he came home would be, and whether she would even let him in…
At that moment, A Ju’s phone rang again.
This time, however, it wasn’t Beijiao calling, but Datou.
…
At this time, the general background was still the early stages of the pandemic, advocating for minimal regional movement, rather than mandatory lockdowns.
There were no health codes or travel record apps yet, and nucleic acid tests weren’t required to enter or leave hospitals.
Everyone just started wearing masks.
When Jiang Ran stepped into the ambulance, she was reminded to wear a mask. Looking at the nurses wearing masks inside the ambulance, she hesitated for a moment, then took out a mask from her bag, put it on, and adjusted the metal wire along the bridge of her nose uncomfortably…
Back then, masks were mostly worn by doctors and nurses, but now it was different.
Jiang Ran wore the mask uncomfortably, feeling it stifled her breathing, but she didn’t have time to dwell on it. She sat down, and only then, as if reluctantly, did she look down at the unconscious young man on the stretcher with a somewhat dazed expression—
He looked terrible, pale-faced. His usually handsome face showed no visible injuries… yet the way he furrowed his brows without a drop of blood seen was unsettling.
Jiang Ran temporarily lost her ability to think. She reached out and gently wiped the cold sweat from his forehead—but as soon as her fingers touched his sweat, it was like an electric shock, and she quickly pulled her hand back.
“It’s okay,” the nurse, seeing her dazed expression, couldn’t help but comfort her. “Who are you to the patient? Don’t worry too much; he’ll be fine.”
Speaking gently, she pointed to the various instruments around Beijiao. The screens displayed regular patterns and reassuring green numbers, indicating that the patient’s vital signs were stable at this moment, with no life-threatening conditions.
Jiang Ran stared at the machines without speaking.
“But he definitely has a concussion, possibly a fracture too. Every winter, the hospital admits many skiing injuries. He must have been going pretty fast, crashing into a tree… Fortunately, he was wearing a helmet and protective gear. Without them, the impact might have caused more than just a concussion. Helmets can save lives in critical moments—”
The nurse’s voice was right beside her ear.
“And it has to be the traditional safety helmets. We had a case recently where someone wore one of those baseball-cap-style helmets with a bit of helmet structure inside. They call it a soft helmet. It looks good, but on the slopes, if someone bumps into you, you could end up with a cracked head—what’s the point of wearing that? It’s just fooling others and yourself…”
Jiang Ran didn’t respond, her gaze still fixed on the machines, somewhat dazed.
From the moment she got into the ambulance until now, she had only glanced at Beijiao once, and then she hadn’t dared to look at him again.
More than a year ago, she couldn’t even get onto the ambulance because there had been too many rescue personnel on board, scrambling around… Later, she kept thinking that if she had been on that ambulance, at least she wouldn’t have had to walk partway to the hospital, only to find a lifeless, cold body waiting for her after getting off.
But now she was on the ambulance, and it still felt useless.
She couldn’t even bring herself to look at him.
Then, in the middle of the ride, Beijiao woke up once. Dazed, he saw a familiar figure sitting beside him. At first, he thought it was a hallucination, but then he thought, if it was, he was fine with it.
His hand, which could still move slightly, gently tugged at her sleeve.
He wasn’t fully conscious, his head throbbing painfully. For a moment, he even wanted to ask himself where he was and why his head hurt so badly—he couldn’t remember the entire process of getting injured at all.
He looked at the woman sitting beside him—the one he had been anxious to see just a second ago. Because of his tugging at her sleeve, she responded, lowering her gaze to meet his, her expression solemn.
Maybe he wasn’t dreaming after all.
The oxygen mask over his mouth and nose fogged up as he hurriedly tried to speak, and the nurse said, “Patient, don’t try to talk.”
She lowered her eyes, her long lashes hiding the clarity in her gaze.
“If taking Hongshu up the mountain secretly was the third time.”
Her voice was calm.
“Then recklessly speeding down the wild snow was the fourth time.”
She saw his fingers twitch at his side, so she leaned closer, neither scolding nor questioning, just staring at him.
“If you knew you were wrong the third time, then what were you thinking the fourth time?”
Looking at his face, she asked softly.
It was more like talking to herself.
From the moment she received the phone call until she entered the ambulance as a family member, a half-hour had passed, and she had been in a numb, stunned state the entire time…
At this moment, her mind was filled only with her earlier conversation with Qiu Nian—
【What if he still doesn’t realize he was wrong?】
【He’s so smart, he can’t not know. If he still doesn’t…】
【Then he only thought he loved you deeply, but in reality, he never truly cared about you.】
Jiang Ran’s lips couldn’t help but twitch.
Finally, at this moment, she opened her mouth, but only let out a simple sound before an overwhelming sense of distress engulfed her.
Admit it—
She had misjudged him.
Too confident, she had stumbled in shallow waters.
She saw him trying to say something under the translucent oxygen mask… but the next second, probably another wave of painkillers hit him, his eyelids gradually drooped, and slowly closed.
As his eyes shut and the world before him disappeared into darkness, he missed the final scene—
The woman leaning over him finally lost her voice. She blinked, and a tear rolled down.
…
Beijiao was pushed into the operating room in a daze. At first, the pain was unbearable, tearing his heart apart. Then he felt himself being moved around…
And then the pain stopped.
He fell into a deep, sweet sleep, swallowing the dream whole. In the dream, Jiang Ran slapped him, swelling his face, and he cried while hugging her, apologizing…
Then there was no more.
When he woke up, his right collarbone had already been fixed with steel pins, immobilized and unable to move.
His anesthesia hadn’t fully worn off.
He vaguely heard the hospital staff wheeling the bed with a creaking sound and the surrounding conversation—
“Family member!”
“Are you Jiang Ran?”
“Oh, the surgery went well. He was calling your name just before the anesthesia put him to sleep, asking what you wanted to eat tonight.”
Beijiao thought, I didn’t say anything that stupid!
And before he could even open his mouth to protest, he was wheeled back to the ward.
The ward was warm, the smell of disinfectant on the bed reassuring. After returning, he couldn’t resist falling asleep again under the lingering effects of the anesthesia. When he woke up, his shoulder wasn’t as painful anymore, but his head buzzed with a dull ache, as if someone had hit him hard with a hammer through a burlap sack.
It was dark outside. He didn’t know the date, only that he was lying in a single room. The ward environment looked good, with a small lamp glowing by the bedside.
Under the dim light, Jiang Ran was sitting, flipping through a magazine. Hearing the rustling sound of him trying to turn over, she raised her head and looked at him. Their eyes met unexpectedly.
—It was their first face-to-face encounter after his “crime” (as far as Beijiao was concerned), and his mood was very complicated.
Shame, disgrace, guilt, the urge to apologize, the urge to kowtow…
A rush of emotions surged in all at once.
He didn’t know which one to say first.
Jiang Ran was the first to break the silence, “The doctor said it’s better not to move around much right now.”
Her tone was calm, without the fury or something worse he had imagined—
Yet this simple sentence made Bei Jiao feel something was off, though he couldn’t pinpoint exactly what. Something was just not right.
His thinking ability hadn’t fully returned, but a sense of unease had already begun to rise instinctively in his heart. What could he say, though? He couldn’t just ask directly, could he? Why won’t you scold me? Why won’t you hit me? Where’s the script from my dream? In my dream, that slap hurt so much that even in my sleep I felt it so real.
He rolled over, looking at her with a mixture of expectation and fear—
But she wasn’t looking at him anymore. After glancing at him briefly when she first heard him wake up, she resumed flipping through the fashion magazine she had been reading halfway.
“Jiang Ran,” he called her name. His voice, unused for so long, sounded weak and hoarse. “I’m thirsty.”
The room was well-equipped. Upon hearing him speak, she set the magazine aside with one hand, got up, poured a cup of warm water from the thermos using a disposable paper cup, and then looked for a straw.
Bei Jiao watched her face the entire time, only now realizing for the first time that he couldn’t read anything from her expression.
He blinked his eyes, beginning to feel anxious.
He leaned closer. The boy’s already pale face appeared almost bloodless against the white hospital bedding and the dim lamplight. His lips were dry and chapped.
Jiang Ran’s gaze flickered briefly over his lips, then she adjusted the straw slightly, placing it in a more convenient position for him.
Because of this motion, she finally came closer to him. The familiar sweet scent enveloped him, and every pore in his body seemed to scream out: Yes! This is it!
…How much he wanted to hug her.
The boy blinked, then felt a surge of frustration realizing that he could only lift one arm right now, unable to perform such a simple act as hugging.
He gulped down the entire cup of water. As the water moistened his throat, he regained a bit of his energy—his pupils became almost as bright as usual. When he drank the last drop, the straw made a sound of sucking on empty.
Still holding the straw in his mouth, he made a soft whimpering sound and reached out for her nearby wrist.
But before he could even touch her, she stood up. His fingers feebly grasped at the air, missing her completely. He was stunned.
Looking up at her, he found her expression completely natural, as if she hadn’t noticed what he was trying to do, or deliberately avoided him.
His hand fell limply, swinging helplessly at the edge of the bed.
He watched Jiang Ran casually toss away the disposable paper cup and straw.
His heart trembled again.
Maybe it was the anesthesia’s side effects, or something else. Right now, everything he saw seemed like a comprehension question in a Chinese literature class—
Reader: The three trees in front of the author’s house represent the past, present, and future, expressing the author’s nostalgia for the past, indignation toward the injustices of modern society, and yearning for the future…
Author: I really just planted three trees.
…Let’s hope that’s all it is.
“Why did you throw it away?” He couldn’t help but ask.
Jiang Ran gave him a strange look, “It’s disposable, the paper cup and straw both. What else would you do with them after using?”
She was speaking normally to him, not ignoring him.
And she was here.
But why did his heart still twist painfully when she said that?
Bei Jiao glanced at the time—it was now early morning, almost dawn. She must have stayed the entire night—
She was here.
If she were angry, she wouldn’t have stayed the night.
He kept trying to convince himself with these thoughts, yet the more he thought, the more his unease and anxiety refused to subside.
The boy slowly pressed his lips together.
He felt all the negative emotions intensify even more than before…
Staring at the discarded cup in the trash bin, he thought for a moment. When he felt a bit more strength return, he used the arm he could still move to push himself up halfway—
The movement was determined but shaky, his breathing heavy. Yet Jiang Ran merely said, “Didn’t the doctor tell you not to move around?” without coming to help him. Instead, she casually pulled the magazine she had previously set aside back over.
Bei Jiao paused but said nothing, didn’t dare to complain. He struggled up by himself, his eyes never leaving the woman by the bed. When he finally managed to sit upright, he called her name again.
“Jiang Ran.”
This time his voice carried a hint of clinginess.
Every time he did something reckless or made a mistake, he used this tone to call her name. Usually, it would earn him a resigned and indulgent response.
And the story would move toward a happy resolution.
He waited anxiously for a moment, seeing she didn’t respond and was just flipping the magazine page, he spoke again, “My head hurts.”
“Your head hit a tree,” Jiang Ran’s hand pressed down on the magazine as she finally looked up at him. “A concussion, of course it hurts.”
She finally brought it up herself. For Bei Jiao, it was both feared and anticipated, like a long-awaited shoe dropping. He exhaled deeply, his chest rising and falling. “I didn’t mean to. There was heavy fog on the mountain, and I was in a rush to find you… Right before I hit the tree, I suddenly remembered the board under my feet was the one you gave me. I had already broken one RX board, I couldn’t ruin this red mangrove one too.”
He voiced his thoughts at that moment. Since it was genuinely what he thought, at that moment, he felt like he was standing on the edge of a cliff, and it was reasonable to try to gain some favor.
He watched closely for any change on her face, but apparently there was none. She didn’t show any sign of being moved, instead, she seemed to find something amusing and smiled—
That kind of smile made Bei Jiao wonder if he had said something wrong.
“Why would you think that I consider a board more important than your life?”
She tilted her head, her gaze gentle as she looked at him, softly questioning, sounding genuinely puzzled.
After a while, as if she had thought of something else, her eyes curved slightly, her smile becoming more apparent as she scoffed, “Oh, of course you would think that.”
Usually, people tend to project their own thoughts onto others, assuming others must think the same way they do…
So when she heard his reason for the collision—that he thought it was worth getting hurt to protect the board—she didn’t even feel like getting angry anymore.
Bei Jiao didn’t understand.
He saw a flash of mockery on Jiang Ran’s face for a moment, but before he could see it clearly, that emotion disappeared, as if she had put on a mask again.
What did that mean?
Why would I naturally think that?
What are you talking about?
“…What do you mean?” He asked.
“Nothing.”
A third wave of bad feeling surged in, and Bei Jiao instinctively closed his mouth without continuing to press, because he had an instinctive sense that this might be a dangerous topic.
The room fell into a strange silence.
Eventually, Bei Jiao couldn’t stand it anymore and broke the silence.
“My head hurts really badly,” Bei Jiao said. “Rub it for me… Okay?”
But Jiang Ran didn’t move.
Instead, she leaned forward slightly and asked, “Headache? Should I call the nurse? The doctor said if the pain is severe, you can use a pain pump.”
Bei Jiao had heard “The doctor said” countless times since he woke up, as if the person sitting in front of him wasn’t his girlfriend but a human medical notice board.
“I don’t want the pain pump.”
He reached out and tugged at her sleeve, wanting to hold her hand.
“I know I was wrong. Don’t call the doctor, don’t use the pain pump… I just want you.”
Suddenly, Jiang Ran’s lips pressed a little tighter.
At that moment, the hospital room door was pushed open, interrupting their conversation.
Ju Jie poked her head in: “I thought you hadn’t slept all night, so I came early to relieve you when the hospital opened… Oh! Big mutt, you’re awake!”
No one responded to Ju Ju immediately.
Bei Jiao stared blankly at his hand again failing to reach her. Thinking: the second time.
The second time he failed to hold her hand.
At the same time, Jiang Ran closed her magazine, her foot in leather boots landing with a “thud” as she stood up from resting it casually on the edge of the chair.
“Then I’ll be heading back,” she said to Ju Ju, then turned to Bei Jiao, “Get some good rest. I’ll come see you next time.”
With that very formal farewell, she turned and left without waiting for his reply.
In the hospital room filled with the pungent smell of disinfectant, there had been a faint lingering sweetness from her presence…
But with her departure, that last trace finally vanished completely.
So it wasn’t out of concern that she stayed alone through the night. It was just a shift rotation, and she happened to be on duty when he woke up.
Bei Jiao still turned his head, staring at the direction Jiang Ran had left.
In the hospital room, the oblivious Ju Jie was still fiddling with the breakfast she had brought. “Are you feeling unwell after waking up? Are you thirsty? Hungry? The doctor said you can eat something now. Erche made some lean pork with mustard greens and egg porridge—would you like some? Does your head hurt? For your concussion, I think you should have pig brain porridge—”
“Ju Orange.”
“Eh?”
“Did you notice?”
The boy slowly turned his head back, his dark pupils devoid of light, asking in a dazed and fearful tone, “She doesn’t let me touch her anymore.”
Tai Sui Yellow Amulet Paper FuLu Taoist Love Talisman Traditional Chinese Spiritual Charm Attracting Love Protecting Marriage