EWH 2

Although this patient had no family, the men who came to visit him never looked the same from day to day. All of them wore black suits and had close-cropped hair. One glance and you could tell they were gangsters.

But only two or three people came each day at most. This patient probably wasn’t anyone important in the gang. Probably just a low-level thug.

On the thirteenth day of Yang Moshou giving him massages, Room 250 suddenly had a flood of visitors.

A dark crowd filled the hallway outside the room. All of them wore stern faces and had cold, sharp expressions.

Yang Moshou walked over with a book and some food in his arms, just like he always did. But before he could get close, probably twenty or thirty meters from the door, a hospital staff member stopped him.

The staff whispered so quietly it was barely audible. “They’re a bunch of dangerous men. What are you trying to get close for? Stay as far away as you can.”

Yang Moshou’s eyelid twitched hard.
“Did he wake up?”

“Wake up? He’s not waking up. If a vegetative patient doesn’t regain consciousness within six months, it’s already rare. This one’s been out for two years. He’ll probably spend the rest of his life in that bed. All this fuss is just because someone came to see him. Once they’re gone, everything will go back to normal.”

Yang Moshou didn’t say anything else. He stood quietly at the edge of the crowd, watching the commotion near the doorway.

A handsome man stepped out of the room. His aura was gentle, and his delicate features made it hard to look away.

Yang Moshou watched as the man was escorted away by the others.
“Who is he?”

“Who knows. Whoever he is, he’s not someone good. Just focus on doing your job and stop poking your nose into things that don’t concern you. Wait until they’re all gone before you go in.”

The hospital staff walked away, leaving Yang Moshou standing alone, arms full of things. He stared blankly at the man, who turned slightly toward the people beside him and gave a faint, tight-lipped smile.

Nobody else in the hospital seemed interested in this kind of scene anymore. Except for Yang Moshou.

So he became the only figure of white in a sea of black. Standing at the edge, watching as they gradually dispersed, leaving not a single one behind.

The entrance was empty again.

Yang Moshou stepped through the door, placed the things on the bedside table, and glanced at the man on the bed.

Same as always. A dead man’s face.

One of the gang members came in carrying a basin of warm water. When he saw Yang Moshou, he smiled and offered,

“Dr. Yang, here to give him a massage again? Perfect timing. Why don’t you help wipe him down too? I’ve seen how careful you are with things…”

Yang Moshou stared at him for a moment.
“Alright. Just leave it here.”

“Thank you so much. I’ll step out for a smoke and be back in a bit.”

Yang Moshou didn’t respond. He lowered his head and pulled back the blanket, starting to undo the patient’s buttons.

The more buttons he unfastened, the more his hands began to shake.

Across the chest, stomach, and waist were more than a dozen knife wounds. Each scar was about five centimeters wide, the edges jagged and rough, the texture fragmented and gruesome. They told the story of something brutal.

His pale fingers slowly traced the uneven patches of damaged, necrotic flesh. Finally, they stopped at the scar just below the man’s heart. A chill crept up inside him.

“You almost died… If that had gone any higher, it would’ve pierced your heart.”

The man lay still on the bed.

Yang Moshou straightened up, wrung out a towel from the basin, and began wiping down the man’s body while talking to him.

After all, vegetative patients still respond to auditory stimulation. And since no one usually talks to him, Yang Moshou figured chatting with him, telling a few stories, might help in waking him up.

Even though… after all this time, the chances were slim.

“Who was that guy just now? Looked pretty damn good…” Yang Moshou lifted one of the patient’s arms and carefully wiped it down.

“Is he your boss? Looked like someone important, walking in with a dozen people following behind him.”

After finishing the arm, Yang Moshou moved to the legs. “Did you get stabbed like this because of him? Otherwise why would a guy like that bother visiting you…”

Then he stared at the man’s body for a moment, muttering to himself, “Don’t tell me he’s the one who did this to you. Maybe you were the real boss, and he staged a coup or something…”

Once the legs were done, Yang Moshou supported the upper half of the man’s body and gently turned him over. “That’s not very likely. If he was the one who tried to kill you, he wouldn’t have come to visit all high and mighty like that. And judging by how you look, you’re probably not a boss. Maybe just a bodyguard.”

“Seriously, you look like you’re in your twenties at least. What the hell are you doing in the mob…”

“When you wake up, go get a proper job. Find a wife and settle down. All that killing and fighting every day is no way to live.”

“If you don’t want a wife… a man’s fine too. You’re so skinny, no muscle at all, probably a bottom. Just find yourself a good man who’ll treat you right…”

After wiping him down, Yang Moshou glanced around. No one was there. He leaned close to the patient’s ear.

“How about you be my wife. I’ll treat you well. I mean, I like them tall and beefy, but at least you’ve got the height. Once you wake up, I’ll take you to the gym, help you do muscle recovery training. Won’t take long to bulk up…”

After saying all that, Yang Moshou suddenly felt like he had no medical ethics at all. He sounded like some pervert fantasizing about a comatose patient. But then he thought, if this actually managed to wake the guy up, maybe that would cancel out the sin.

When everything was done, Yang Moshou finally remembered the pancake he brought. He hurried to grab it and realized it had already gone cold.

He sat on the edge of the bed and started eating, shaking his head as he chewed.

“Yeah… food really is best when it’s hot…”

—

The days that followed with the vegetative patient weren’t much different from before.

Still the same daily massages. But aside from that, Yang Moshou began spending more and more time in the room. Even when he wasn’t on duty, instead of going back to the office, he’d come straight here to read or take a break.

The room had air-conditioning, a proper desk, everything he needed. Most of all, it was quiet.

His coworkers got used to it too. Whenever they needed something, they’d just come here to find him. The gang guy assigned to watch over Room 250 also seemed pretty pleased. Watching over a vegetative patient all day was boring as hell. Having a doctor around meant he could sneak off to smoke or slack off for a bit.

Yang Moshou was perfectly content. Out of all the chairs in the room, he never picked any. He always sat right by the bed. Read, ate, talked nonstop to the comatose patient.

The patient would occasionally react. A twitch of the fingers. A furrow of the brow.

Yang Moshou especially liked that expression when his brows pulled together. It looked like a kind of helpless anger.

The weather was nice that day. Clouds stretched across half the sky. A light breeze swept through, none of the usual muggy heat and suffocating humidity.

Yang Moshou had overslept and barely clocked in on time. He didn’t even bother with his white coat. Holding a shredded flatbread in hand, he ran up the stairs.

Staff were disinfecting the stairwell, and the smell of cleaning fluid was sharp in the air.

He ran two steps at a time, long legs carrying him upward, chest rising and falling with breath, beads of sweat forming on the tip of his nose.

Even so, by the time Yang Moshou reached Room 250, his hands were still cold.

The guy inside looked tired.

“Dr. Yang, you’re here early today.”

Yang Moshou took a few moments to catch his breath. “Oh, you were on night duty?”

The guy nodded and pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. “Good timing. I’ll step out for a smoke, clear my head a bit.”

Yang Moshou nodded. Once the man left, he wrapped the pancake bag in a clean towel and tucked it under the blanket.

Then, feeling how cold his own hands were, he slipped them under as well.

The pulse beneath his palms was strong, steady, and firm.

Yang Moshou grinned, revealing a mouthful of straight, white teeth.

Yang Moshou grinned wide, flashing a row of neat white teeth.

“They say the fingers are connected to the heart. Do you think this counts as heart to heart?”

Yang Moshou wasn’t sure if it was just his imagination, but he felt like the pulse under his hand had quickened a little.

He pulled his hands out and, like always, sat at the edge of the bed and began eating his breakfast.

The flatbread was crispy on the outside, soft inside, golden and fragrant. Most importantly, it was steaming hot. Just the way he liked it.

Yang Moshou liked hot things. He also kind of liked this warm-bodied vegetative man. Liked warming his hands on him, warming his food on him, examining every scar on his body, imagining the story behind each one. The thought made his heart skip.

He didn’t know if he was just too bored or if he had gotten too attached to this vegetative patient.

Yang Moshou chewed absentmindedly on the flatbread when a shocked voice came from the doorway like someone had just seen a ghost.

“Xu… Xu-ge…”

Yang Moshou turned his head. “My surname is Yang.”

The guy at the door froze, glanced at Yang Moshou, then pointed beside him.

Yang Moshou tore off a piece of the flatbread and followed the man’s gesture.

The vegetative patient on the bed had his eyes open, staring straight at him.

The piece of flatbread hanging from his mouth dropped onto his pants, staining the fabric.

Yang Moshou had grown used to seeing that man in deep sleep, and he had even imagined how he might look if he ever woke up.

But now, staring into them, he felt the heat he had come to associate with this body stopped abruptly. Like boiling water suddenly frozen into hard black ice. Those eyes gleamed cold, filled with unmistakable anger and disgust.

It felt dangerous, as if before he had only been watching a fire from across the river, and now the flames were right in his face.

Yang Moshou stepped down from the bed, clutching the flatbread and backing away.

The man looked furious, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t sit up.

Only then did the guy at the door snap out of it and rush over to help.

“Xu-ge… holy shit… I’m not dreaming, am I… you’ve been out for two years… fuck… someone get over here! Xu-ge’s awake!”

Xu Wanhe’s body was weak as hell, his face drained of all colors. With both hands braced on the edge of the bed and his underling supporting him, he finally managed to sit upright. Then he raised a hand and pointed straight at Yang Moshou.

The guy turned to Yang Moshou. “Xu-ge, what do you need?”

Yang Moshou stared at him, then handed over the flatbread in his hand. “You actually woke up? Do you want this?”

Xu Wanhe lifted his head slightly and took a deep breath.

“…Motherfucker… get this goddamn chatterbox out of here!”