While waiting for the verdict on Jian Boyu and Ruan Qiuning, I was anxious for them as if I were a close family member involved in the situation. Yan Yan showed the same concern. We stood solemnly in a corner, nerves taut, and I didn’t even put the phone back into my pocket, frequently glancing down at it…
Another twenty minutes passed, and Yan Yan, increasingly anxious, said to me, “Zhaoyang, why don’t you call again to ask? It’s almost been half an hour!”
I tried to comfort her: “I’m just as anxious as you are, but before the verdict is released, no matter how many times we call, it won’t make any difference!… Don’t worry, once there’s a result, they will surely call us immediately.”
Yan Yan nodded. I gently patted her shoulder to comfort her further, then went alone to the smoking room, lit a cigarette, and tried to relieve the anxiety caused by the pending result.
When I came out of the smoking room, Xiang Chen had somehow already arrived at the hospital. He stood beside Yan Yan. It had been several months since he last visited; he had only come to the hospital when Jian Wei first had the accident. Later, perhaps pressured by Chu Xinrui, he hadn’t come again, but today he was back!
As I approached, he asked me sorrowfully, “Zhaoyang, has there still been no improvement in Jian Wei’s condition?”
Having gone through countless disappointments and hopes, I simply replied, “We should be patient enough with her. Believe she is just sleeping, and one day she will wake up!”
The brutal reality was evident to all, leaving no room for doubt. Xiang Chen simply nodded, then pushed open the door to the ward and walked in…
…
The phone finally rang in my hand, and I instinctively answered it. Yan Yan beside me looked at me with a tense expression. After waiting for several hours, an insider finally gave us the verdict on Jian Wei’s parents. Jian Boyu had been sentenced to six years for commercial crimes and bribery, while Ruan Qiuning received a ten-year prison sentence for embezzlement and dereliction of duty. This outcome was almost exactly as legal experts had predicted. Although I felt a pang of emotion, I quickly accepted it calmly. Then I relayed the result to Yan Yan. She merely hesitated briefly, as if letting out a sigh of relief, saying, “It wasn’t as severe as we imagined. If Uncle and Aunt can reform themselves during their imprisonment and get the opportunity for a reduced sentence, they will soon regain their freedom…”
I nodded. If life is a journey with a final destination, at this moment I had passed another station platform, rushing toward the next with this newly received news. And I hoped that the next station would be the moment Jian Wei wakes up… I truly hoped she would wake up in the next moment, so that we wouldn’t always be immersed in the melancholy of our past with her…
Yan Yan and I entered the ward together. I saw Xiang Chen gazing at the now drastically changed Jian Wei with tears in his eyes. She had become increasingly thin, and the beauty that had once drawn admiration from everyone was fading further away. Where her soul had gone seemed to have become a mystery, and her lonely body could only wither away like this. Indeed! The soul and the body are like deeply loving lovers; when the soul disappears without a trace, the body no longer has any reason to be beautiful.
Standing between Mo Zishi and Xiang Chen, I finally spoke to her in a deliberately light tone: “It’s been so long! You still haven’t shown any sign of coming back, yet time continues to push the world forward and bring many changes… Do you know? Today, the verdict for your uncle and aunt came out, not as bad as you might have imagined… Uncle received six years, and Aunt ten years. They’re still young, and there will be many chances for them to be by your side in the future… I think this is probably what you wished for most after they got into trouble!… I know you’re a woman who gets lonely easily, but you’re truly not lonely at all. All of us have had our hearts tied to you during these days. In this very ward where you’ve been staying, many familiar people have come to visit. They were all worried about you and left many blessings… So, come back quickly. Time has changed a lot, but as long as you return, those things that once seemed insurmountable won’t happen anymore… You must believe me, believe in the power of time!”
After I finished speaking, no one else said anything. Everyone in the ward fell into a sorrowful silence, not believing that Jian Wei would actually wake up from this speech.
Suddenly, Yan Yan screamed, trembling as she said, “I… I just… I just thought I saw Wei Wei’s fingers move!!…”
Everyone’s gaze focused on her. Mo Zishi, being a neurologist, reacted first. He leaned close to Jian Wei’s ear and asked, “If you can hear me, move your fingers…”
Our eyes all focused on Jian Wei’s fingers again, but after Mo Zishi repeated his request several times, Jian Wei’s fingers remained completely still in their original position.
This phenomenon filled Yan Yan with disappointment, and she said to Dr. Mo again, “Dr. Mo, I really saw Wei Wei’s fingers move just now…”
Mo gave up calling out to Jian Wei and replied, “It could be that her fingers moved just due to a reflex, or maybe you just thought you saw it… Without tests, it’s hard to make a conclusion. I’ll do a PET scan on her right away, and I’ll contact you once I have the results!”
Instinctively, everyone made way for Mo, and then two nurses wheeled Jian Wei’s hospital bed to another building in the hospital.
…
It was already noon, and no one had the appetite to eat. Everyone stood downstairs at the hospital waiting for Dr. Mo’s news, especially Yan Yan, whose anticipation had reached an extreme. She instinctively tightened her grip on my arm. These past few months, she had been taking care of Jian Wei day and night, and no one could understand the hardship she had endured better than she did!
Finally, the two nurses wheeled Jian Wei past us again. She still looked exactly as she had when she left. Dr. Mo walked behind and stopped when he reached us, his voice filled with excitement as he said, “The PET scan was completed just now. I gave her some stimuli, and there was blood flow change in specific parts of her brain, something that’s never happened before. I believe her consciousness is gradually recovering… However, we can’t yet determine whether the areas of the brain responsible for cognition, perception, memory, and will have been damaged or to what extent, but compared to before, this is a big step forward!… Perhaps Dr. Hong’s acupuncture treatment worked, or maybe some other coincidental factors have led to this change…”
Dr. Mo kept talking excitedly, then left us to follow Jian Wei again, already taking out his phone, probably to inform Dr. Carter, who had returned to China, and Dr. Hong about the current situation…
Yan Yan looked up, facing the glaring sunlight, and tears uncontrollably streamed down her face, as if all her efforts had finally paid off at this moment. It had been almost four months, and this was the first time we had heard good news, like a refreshing rain falling on our parched hearts.
Because of this momentary relief, Yan Yan slumped down onto the roadside curb, bowing her head and sobbing. Xiang Chen waited until she had calmed down before taking a check from his briefcase and handing it to her, saying, “Yan Yan, I don’t know what else I can do to express my feelings, and I can’t come to Shanghai often anymore. I feel so guilty…” He paused, lowering his head, and after a long while, he continued, “…So you must take this money. I know you don’t lack for money now, but I really want to contribute something!”
Without giving Yan Yan a chance to refuse, he directly placed this one-million-yuan check in her hand, then turned and quickly walked toward the hospital parking lot, seemingly disappearing from our sight in an instant as he drove off in his black Range Rover.
…
That evening, I returned from Shanghai to Suzhou to deal with the backlog of work from the day. I was so busy that it was deep into the night before I returned to my old house, exhausted to the point of not even wanting to wash up. Still, I forced myself to sit on the bed. Now, I had developed a habit: no matter how busy I was, I would send a microblog post every day. Sometimes the content was about my artistic path, sometimes just sharing a song, but most often expressing my longing for her. I always felt she would follow my microblog, and maybe at this very moment, she was thousands of miles away, waiting for my daily microblog post before lunch.
As I thought about what to post, I took off the butterfly pendant necklace she had given me. Every time I felt unbearably lonely, I would take this necklace out from under my collar to look at it, and at those moments, I felt as though we had never drifted apart. The image of me singing “If You Want Me” to her in the square felt like it had happened just yesterday.
I found my headphones, opened a song-recording app, and sang that song again with the deepest longing in my heart, then shared it on my microblog…
Although it was already late at night, there were still many people who couldn’t sleep. The replies to my microblog increased by the second, too many for me to read one by one. Among these replies, most praised me for singing the song with unique emotion, considering me a man with a lot of life experience. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be so committed to an artistic path that only brings reputation but little profit, nor would I sing such a nostalgic song with such feeling…
Yes, they were right. When I sang “If You Want Me” again, I thought of that rainy night, and of the square where only the two of us remained. We had embraced fiercely there, thinking recklessly about our future life together. Although later we didn’t end up living the life we had envisioned, it didn’t diminish the deep place that night and that song held in my heart!
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