TF01 50

Ying Ming had heard before that sometimes, when people experience extreme shock, they can suffer from temporary voice loss.

He knew this could happen.

But he never thought it would happen to him. Especially since he didn’t even feel like he had reached that point.

He coughed for a while, struggling to make his voice sound normal. The harder he tried, the worse it got. In the end, his voice came out like someone who had been crying for three days straight. Feeling a little awkward, he looked at Shi Yi and forced himself to speak.

“How are you feeling now?”

Shi Yi was obviously taken aback by Ying Ming’s condition.

He stared for a moment, then frowned slightly. His hand instinctively lifted, wanting to touch his eyes, but he stopped before making contact.

“I’m okay, just a little dizzy.”

“The anesthesia just wore off.” Ying Ming paused for a moment. “Do you remember how you got hurt?”

“I do.” Shi Yi nodded. “I didn’t lose my memory.”

Just then, Kou Jing entered with the doctor. Ying Ming stepped aside to let the doctor examine Shi Yi. After confirming that Shi Yi was stable, the doctor turned to them.

“His condition is quite good. I’ve scheduled a full-body checkup for tomorrow. We’ll need to wait for the results to be sure, but from what I can see now, there shouldn’t be any major issues.”

After offering a few words of reassurance, the doctor wrote something on the medical chart before leaving. Before he walked out, he called Ying Ming aside.

The hallway was busy with people passing through. They moved to the side.

“Have you informed his family?”

“Not yet.”

“You should inform his family as soon as possible. They need to be aware of his condition.”

Hearing this, Ying Ming tensed up instinctively. “Didn’t you just say he’s going to be fine?”

“Yes, his overall condition is stable. But his eye injury is quite severe. Even after surgery, the damage to his cornea is not looking good. We can’t determine the full extent of the impact yet, but having his family around would be better for him.”

Ying Ming’s face turned pale. “Are you saying he’ll go blind?”

“Blindness is unlikely,” the doctor explained. “When he was injured, glass shards pierced his eye, causing a corneal rupture. The surgery was able to prevent complete blindness, but his vision will definitely be affected. How much, we can’t say yet. I asked you to notify his family because he needs to be mentally prepared for the day the bandages come off. Only he will be able to feel the extent of the damage.”

The doctor patted Ying Ming on the shoulder and left, leaving him standing in the hallway, stunned. His mind was completely blank.

When Haozi noticed Ying Ming hadn’t returned to the room for a long time, he came out to look for him. Seeing him standing there in a daze, Haozi frowned and walked over. “Ying Ming, what’s wrong?”

Ying Ming lowered his gaze without answering. After a long moment, he finally pushed open the door to the hospital room stiffly. Inside, Kou Jing was talking to Shi Yi. Both of them looked up at him.

Shi Yi, struggling to ignore the bruises on Ying Ming’s face, tugged at Kou Jing. “Has he even seen a doctor?”

They were in a hospital, yet he hadn’t even gotten himself checked out.

Kou Jing shrugged helplessly. “Tried convincing him several times. He won’t go. Nothing I can do.”

When it came to stubbornness, in this room, if Ying Ming claimed second place, no one would dare claim first.

“If he won’t listen, just drag him there. He must have a lot of injuries.” The ones who attacked them were clearly targeting Ying Ming, not him. Even just what he saw, Ying Ming had taken several direct hits. Who knew how many more injuries were hidden under his clothes? Now Shi Yi, the unlucky bystander, was lying in bed while the real target was still walking around like nothing happened.

Shi Yi’s refusal was met with nothing but an exasperated eye-roll from Kou Jing.

Ying Ming wasn’t in great shape. His exhaustion was evident. He barely managed to pull a chair over and sit down before turning to Kou Jing and Haozi. “You two, step out for a bit. I need to talk to Shi Yi.”

Kou Jing frowned and exchanged a glance with Haozi before nodding. “Call us if you need anything. We’ll be right outside.”

Once they left, the room fell into silence. Ying Ming let out a long breath, tilted his head back, and closed his eyes. He stayed like that for a while, unmoving.

Shi Yi knew he had something to say, so he didn’t rush him. He waited until Ying Ming finally opened his eyes again before asking, “What is it?”

Ying Ming took a moment to figure out how to put it into words.

“The doctor told me to notify your family.” He paused. “Give me their number.”

He wasn’t asking. He was demanding. Shi Yi hesitated for a moment, then answered with another question. “What happened?”

Ying Ming repeated himself. “Give me your family’s contact.”

This time, Shi Yi refused. “I don’t want them to know.”

Getting into a hospital because of a fight, even if it wasn’t his fault, was never something Shi Yi would willingly report to his family.

Ying Ming remained firm. “This is a big deal. You won’t be able to keep it from them forever.”

“Then I’ll keep it from them for as long as I can. I can handle my own family matters.”

Shi Yi felt like this conversation was going in circles. It was clear Ying Ming was hiding something. He insisted on notifying his family yet refused to tell him why.

That thought made Shi Yi suddenly stop and frown.

His gaze fell on Ying Ming, who seemed a little off. He raised a hand and lightly touched the bandages over his eye. “What happened to my eye?”

Ying Ming said nothing.

A heavy silence pressed down on the room. Shi Yi was already pale, but now his expression grew even more serious. He hesitated before asking, “Am I going blind?”

The word hit Ying Ming like a shock. He stiffened in his chair, then took a deep breath. “You won’t go blind.” He seemed to finally gather enough strength to continue. “The worst-case scenario is that your vision will be severely affected.”

“Severe?” Shi Yi repeated. “How severe?”

“It’s hard to say for now. We’ll have to wait until the bandages come off.”

As soon as Ying Ming said that, Shi Yi suddenly had the urge to rip them off himself. He forced down the frustration boiling inside him, staying silent for a long moment before nodding. “Alright. I got it…”

No one spoke after that.

Ying Ming had always prided himself on being someone who never ran from problems. He had long accepted that nothing in life would ever go smoothly. When faced with choices, one had to be prepared for success but also have the courage to face failure. Having unrealistic expectations was nothing but self-deception.

He had been through the ups and downs of his career and faced plenty of struggles in life. He thought he had already built up enough resilience.

Turns out, that was all bullshit.

Just a few words exchanged with Shi Yi felt like they had drained half his life away. Every sentence tugged at something deep inside him, making it unbearably painful. It wasn’t something he could even put into words. It felt suffocating. He wanted to smash something, to yell, to do anything that would exhaust him completely.

But this kind of mental hysteria only made his headache worse. In the end, he still sat right there in front of Shi Yi, both of them silent, forced to deal with whatever was churning inside them on their own.

A long time passed before Shi Yi finally spoke again, his voice slow. “For now… don’t tell my family. Let’s wait until after the stitches come out.”

By the end of his sentence, his voice had grown even quieter. This wasn’t something he could process so quickly. After saying it, he fell silent again, staring blankly at his blanket. Ying Ming frowned at him for a long while, but Shi Yi didn’t move.

In the end, Ying Ming could only get up and walk out of the hospital room.

As he closed the door behind him, he caught Kou Jing and Haozi’s questioning gazes.

The next moment, he swung his fist hard into the hallway wall.

“Fuck…”

With his head pressed against the wall, Ying Ming clenched his fists, trying desperately to suppress the overwhelming urge to scream. Cold sweat ran down the back of his neck.

Haozi, seeing that something was off, reached out to support him, but the moment he touched Ying Ming’s shoulder, the man collapsed onto his knees as if drained of all strength. His hand instinctively clutched at his chest, his face twisted in pain as he tried to endure it.

That punch must have aggravated his injury. He had already been badly hurt, and if not for Shi Yi, he probably wouldn’t have lasted this long.

Kou Jing rushed off to find a doctor, and the hallway was instantly thrown into chaos.

By the time the doctor arrived, Ying Ming had nearly lost consciousness. His face was drenched in sweat, his groans barely coherent, and in the next moment, he was being wheeled into the emergency operating room.

Haozi and Kou Jing stood outside, both shaken to the core.

“Shit! How did it suddenly get this bad?”

He had been fine in the hospital room just moments ago. How did he go from that to this?

Haozi had no words to respond to Kou Jing’s muttering. Both of them just stood there, staring anxiously at the indicator light outside the operating room, praying for it to go out soon. They could only hope that nothing serious had happened.

Shi Yi’s situation was already bad enough. If something happened to Ying Ming too, they’d lose their minds.

Thankfully, his injuries weren’t too severe.

After a while, a doctor came out to inform them that most of Ying Ming’s wounds were external. There was no internal organ damage, but the fracture in his right ulna would require a stabilizing procedure. They were instructed to complete the paperwork and schedule it as soon as possible.

When Ying Ming appeared from the operating room, he was even walking on his own.

Kou Jing had been ready to curse him out, but seeing that, he could only glare fiercely instead. “Your arm is fractured, and you still went and punched a wall? Are you out of your damn mind?”

Did no one want to live properly anymore? Why did they all have to make things worse for themselves?

Ying Ming barely had the energy to respond. He forced a weak, apologetic smile and shook his head. “I didn’t even know it was fractured.”

“I told you to get checked, but did you listen?!”

Kou Jing’s voice shot up, ready to go off again, but Haozi quickly yanked him back. He told Ying Ming they were going to handle the paperwork and then dragged Kou Jing away before he could say anything else.

Ying Ming watched their figures disappear down the hall. Slowly, he rubbed his forehead and carefully found a chair to sit on. Leaning against the wall, he closed his eyes, feeling the cold seep through his spine, invading every corner of his body bit by bit.

In this lifetime, he and Shi Yi were tangled up beyond any hope of sorting it out.