Xu Huaisong and Ruan Yu stayed at the hospital for several days in a row.

Xu Yin had begun receiving treatment for environmental transition two months prior, and because the preparatory groundwork had been thorough, his physical condition was more optimistic than anticipated. He rarely spoke, but he hadn’t developed much aversion toward the new caregiver either. After three initial days of non-cooperation, he gradually settled into accepting her care.

On the occasional moments when he was uncooperative, a little coaxing from Xu Huaisong was enough to bring him around.

Even so, the two of them didn’t dare let their guard down. As it happened, Xu Huaisong still hadn’t fully adjusted from the jet lag, so he and Ruan Yu took turns sleeping while keeping vigil at the hospital room.

The day Tao Rong was preparing to come to Hang Shi happened to coincide with the day Wei Jin’s murder case was being heard at court in Su Shi. Xu Huaisong went to observe the proceedings and picked her up afterward on his way back.

That left only Ruan Yu and the caregiver, Nurse Wu, at the hospital.

Ruan Yu was a little anxious at first — whenever Xu Yin showed the slightest change, a brief furrow of the brow or a rub of the stomach, she would rush over to check with the doctor. After lunch, seeing that he seemed to be in reasonably good spirits and that Xu Huaisong would be back soon, she settled down somewhat.

Seeing that Xu Yin hadn’t immediately fallen asleep after lunch, Nurse Wu turned on the television in the hospital room and switched it to a children’s channel broadcasting cartoons.

Even though Xu Yin could no longer follow what was on television, the sight of all the bright colors would often make him smile contentedly.

Ruan Yu picked up a glass, poured some hot water to keep nearby for him, then sat down beside the hospital bed and asked, “Uncle Xu, would you like some apple? I can peel one for you.”

Xu Yin glanced at her — he didn’t seem to fully understand what she was saying — but since he was in a good mood, he nodded with a smile.

Ruan Yu picked a few apples from the fruit basket and headed for the tea room down the hall to wash them.

Nurse Wu hurried forward. “Let me do that.”

Ruan Yu waved her off. “It’s fine, I’m not doing anything anyway.” She turned back and noticed the cartoon had finished and advertisements were now playing. “Could you change the channel for him?”

“Of course.”

Ruan Yu carried the fruit dish out the door. After washing the apples in the tea room, she saw that a WeChat message had come in.

Huaisong: I’m in the parking garage downstairs. Everything all right this morning?

She began walking back toward the hospital room, fruit dish in one hand, typing a reply with the other — and just before she pressed send, she heard a sharp crack, unmistakably the sound of a glass shattering.

Immediately after, Nurse Wu’s startled cry rang out.

Ruan Yu jolted to a halt, ran forward, and pushed the door open — and found Xu Yin, who had been perfectly calm only moments ago, now in the grip of a sudden outburst. Without a word, he had smashed the glass, and was not done yet — he kept on throwing: the pillow, the bed sheets, the medicine bottles, until he swung his bare feet over the side of the bed and climbed down.

The room erupted in a cacophony of crashing sounds.

Nurse Wu tried to talk him down from beside him, but to no avail, and turned to press the call button.

Ruan Yu was alarmed. Watching Xu Yin about to step on the shattered glass scattered across the floor, she rushed over and grabbed hold of him. “Uncle, Uncle, be careful of the glass!” She turned to Nurse Wu at the same time. “What happened to him?”

“I don’t know — I only changed the channel, and he suddenly just—”

Ruan Yu looked back at the television. In an instant she saw a courtroom scene — it appeared to be coverage of the Wei Jin case. The moment it clicked, she understood, and she gripped Xu Yin’s arm, trying to pull him back toward the bed. “Uncle, don’t be afraid — the case is already—”

She got only halfway through the sentence when Xu Yin, the moment he heard the word case, seemed to be seized by something — and wrenched his arm away from her with a violent jerk.

Ruan Yu stumbled from the force of it and fell. Her hands instinctively shot out to catch herself, and she landed with half her palm pressing into the shattered glass on the floor.

She pushed the pain aside, scrambled up, and went to steady Xu Yin again as he lurched about knocking things over.

The on-call doctor arrived at a sprint at precisely that moment, helped ease Xu Yin back onto the bed and get him under control, and called back over his shoulder to the nurse at the door, “Bring the sedative injection!”

Ruan Yu let out a breath of relief, gasping hard where she stood nearby.

The nurse came in and administered the sedative to Xu Yin, then stayed to offer calming reassurances until he grew still. Turning around, she noticed Ruan Yu’s hand and was visibly taken aback. “Miss, your hand—”

Before she finished speaking, Xu Huaisong and Tao Rong arrived at the door in a rush. They had likely caught a glimpse of the flurry of doctors and nurses going in and out as they came up the corridor, and had hurried over.

Tao Rong stood frozen in the doorway, shaken by the state of the room.

Xu Huaisong saw the blood on Ruan Yu’s palm. He strode forward immediately — before he could even ask what happened to my father — seized her other hand, and walked her straight toward the door. “Nurse, please come and attend to her injury.”

Ruan Yu was still caught in the aftermath of the chaos and hadn’t fully come back to herself. She walked along with him for a few steps before it registered, and she said, “Go see Uncle first — I’m fine…”

Xu Huaisong said nothing, bringing her toward the treatment room, glancing down at her hand as he walked. The veins at his temples were visibly taut.

The nurse followed them into the treatment room, switched on the light and drew the curtain around the bed, brought over the medical supplies, and put on gloves. She sterilized the tweezers and spoke to Ruan Yu as she worked. “Sit up here on the bed. It’ll hurt a little — try to bear with it. Here now, give me your hand.”

Ruan Yu sat down on the edge of the bed and felt the sharp sting in her palm for the first time — the realization delayed until now. She extended her hand and turned her face away, teeth clenched.

Xu Huaisong stood to one side, drawing her against his chest with one arm and covering her eyes with his other hand.

As the tweezers worked at each shard, pulling against skin and flesh, she hissed with pain, her lashes fluttering continuously against his palm.

He held her closer and gently patted her back. “It’ll be quick. It’ll all be out very soon.” Five minutes later, watching the nurse set down the tweezers, he asked carefully, “Has it all been removed? Could you please check once more?”

The nurse confirmed again and said, “Don’t worry, every piece is out. Now I need to disinfect the wound — a little more patience.”

Ruan Yu nodded, her cheek pressed firmly against Xu Huaisong’s abdomen — but the moment the antiseptic touched the wound, her whole body gave a violent shudder, and tears slipped free all at once.

Xu Huaisong shuddered in turn. After a brief silence, he extended his own hand close to her mouth. “If it hurts, bite me.”

Ruan Yu shook her head and mustered a pained, light-hearted remark through the discomfort. “You still have to go get a vaccine shot after this.”

Knowing she was trying to redirect her own attention, he picked up her thread and asked the nurse, “Does a person need to get a rabies vaccination after being bitten by a little white rabbit?”

The nurse laughed and joined him in coaxing Ruan Yu along. “Rabbits are rodents — the rabies vaccine isn’t generally required. Though I think I’ve been force-fed so much second-hand sweetness I’ll need some digestive tablets.”

Xu Huaisong smiled. “We’ll cover the medical expenses.”

Ruan Yu laughed despite herself, and by the time she remembered to feel the pain again, the bandage was already wrapped and done.

The nurse gathered up her tools, gave them both instructions about when to change the dressing and what foods to avoid, and wheeled her cart out.

Xu Huaisong sat down on the edge of the bed, bowed his head, and gently cradled her hand in both of his, carefully avoiding the wound as he touched it. Then he looked up and said, “I’m sorry.”

“I’m the one who should be apologizing — I didn’t look after Uncle properly… He lost control because he saw Wei Jin’s case on the television…”

Xu Huaisong nodded. “It’s all right. Episodes like this happen fairly often. The new caregiver just doesn’t have enough experience yet — back in America, he could usually be calmed down without sedatives.”

“Aren’t you going to go check on him?”

He shook his head. “The doctor is there. And my mother happens to need exactly this kind of moment — let them have some time alone together. They’ll call us if anything comes up.”

Ruan Yu understood in a flash. “So you’re engineering things for your mother too.”

Xu Huaisong gave a faint smile and didn’t answer directly. His gaze remained on her, still aching with concern. “Does it still hurt?”

She shook her head. “It’s not too bad.”

“You’ve been through a lot today.”

“What’s so hard about it — your family is my family too.”

Xu Huaisong’s expression flickered almost imperceptibly for a moment. He was quiet briefly, made a soft sound of acknowledgment, and pressed his lips to her forehead.

When the two of them returned to the hospital room, the floor had already been tidied and cleared.

Xu Yin was sleeping. Tao Rong sat in the chair beside his bed and looked up when they entered, her expression shifting to one of apology when she saw Ruan Yu’s bandaged hand. She spoke quietly to Xu Huaisong. “Yuyu doesn’t look well. Why don’t you take her home to rest? I can keep watch here.”

Xu Huaisong was silent.

She gave an awkward, tentative smile. “Don’t worry. I’ll ask the doctor and Nurse Wu everything I need to know about caring for your father.”

Xu Huaisong nodded. He took Ruan Yu home to the apartment, and on the way in, stopped at the mailbox downstairs, unlocked it, and retrieved three envelopes.

They were from America. They had arrived that day.

Ruan Yu glanced at them and noticed that although all three were addressed to Xu Huaisong, each envelope had a different name noted in the corner.

The other two were meant for Xu Huaishi and Tao Rong respectively.

Once they were inside, Xu Huaisong took her through to the bedroom and asked her to lie down and rest. Then he went back to the living room, sat down, and opened the letter his father had written for him.

It was unmistakably Xu Yin’s handwriting — though somewhat uneven, the brushstrokes wavering and drifting, as though his physical state had not been well at the time of writing.

The first line read: Son, by the time you read this letter, Father may no longer be in this world.

Despite having mentally prepared himself, Xu Huaisong was still shaken by that opening. He paused for a moment before reading on.

I never told you — when Father first arrived in America, he was diagnosed with a severe cardiovascular and cerebrovascular condition. So you may feel that Father’s passing came very suddenly.

But the truth is that in the past three years, Father has been rushed to the emergency room twice. When I am writing this letter, I have only just returned from the edge of death not long ago — so I have long since made my peace with it. You need not grieve for me, and you need not feel guilty for having known none of this beforehand — because Father kept it from you deliberately.

If I did not wish to say it, how would you ever have known? Just as three years ago, when I told your mother that I had grown tired of her and tired of this family — she never would have known that I was lying.

Father’s mouth has always been far too stubborn. Which is why when you, at eighteen years old, confronted me and demanded to know whether I was aware that my client had killed someone — I said nothing. I said nothing because I knew that even if I had spoken, you might not have truly understood. And you, having chosen to become a lawyer, would sooner or later find your own answer to that question.

But that said — Father never actually wanted you to become a lawyer. Or at the very least, not a criminal lawyer. As a criminal lawyer myself, I have hoped deeply to see more and more young people walk this path — to love it, to believe in it, to pour their hearts into it, to make its existence shine. But as a father, I could not bear the thought of my own son suffering for it, being blamed because of it, meeting the world’s sidelong glances on account of it, and becoming the way I became.

And so, when you were weighing which area of law to specialize in, Father did something he should not have done. I communicated privately with your professor and asked him to advise you against it — to interfere with your choice. I hope you will not hold it against Father for this.

But if you do harbor resentment, then choose again according to your own heart — because this is your life after all. Father only wishes to tell you this: no matter what kind of lawyer you become in the end, no matter what you achieve, you are Father’s greatest pride. Though it is a great regret that Father will no longer be there to see it.

The letter ended abruptly there — it did not read quite like a final testament settling affairs, yet it had said so very, very much.

Xu Huaisong’s vision slowly blurred. When he took off his glasses and wiped away the drops that had gathered on the lenses, he suddenly heard soft footsteps behind him.

Ruan Yu had come out of the bedroom at some point without him noticing. She appeared to have been standing quietly behind him, watching him for quite some time.

He turned and looked back at her. He gave a light, composed cough, and his expression was briefly unguarded.

She walked over to him and pulled him into her embrace — and she didn’t ask what the letter had said. She only said, “Tomorrow will be good. It will be very, very good.”

Yes.

What had nearly been lost was, in the blink of an eye, still here beside him. This was not a true final letter. It was not the final ending. And so tomorrow — tomorrow would surely be very, very good.

Author’s Note: What to say today? I think I’ll say nothing at all — the moment I open my mouth, I’ll ruin the atmosphere.