“I know everything now. You…… you always used to say I was the foolish one,” Lin Weixia said between sobs — she’d cried so hard her nose was blocked and she could barely breathe. “You’re the biggest fool of all.”

Lin Weixia walked forward and stood behind Ban Sheng. The moment she drew near, the familiar, clean scent of him reached her — soft and undone, the kind that made her want to cry again. She did. She wept with restrained, careful sobs, tears falling steadily, her heart aching with a grief she couldn’t name, and a deep regret.

Why hadn’t she found out sooner.

Ban Sheng’s hand lay flat against the seam of his trousers. His long fingers curled and then released. He turned around, his tall frame casting a shadow over her. He raised his hand and wiped her tears away, voice hoarse:

“The reason I couldn’t tell you was this. I can’t stand to see you like this.”

Lin Weixia cried until she was hiccupping, her vision completely blurred. Her eyes, her nose, were both red. She blinked and said in a muffled voice:

“Don’t even think about making me leave.”

Just as Ban Sheng was about to say something, the door opened. A nurse came in with the medication cart, her movements practiced and efficient as she tore open a blood-draw needle and spoke:

“Family members, please step outside for a moment.”

A nurse came forward and guided Ban Sheng back to the bed. Lin Weixia stepped out into the hallway, hand on the door handle — and through the narrow gap she’d left, she could see Ban Sheng lying in the hospital bed, his pale face utterly worn and blank. The needle went into the pale blue vein at his arm, and blood moved through the collection tube.

It was like someone had taken a shard of broken glass and drawn it slowly across her heart.

Lin Weixia counted. Ten tubes in total.

After the door closed, Lin Weixia made her way to the hospital bathroom, turned on the faucet, and splashed water over her face — again and again. The first wave of cold water made her flinch. After a while, sensation faded from her face entirely.

Only then did she stop.

In the mirror, a composed and distant face looked back — controlled — but the eyes and nose were still red. Lin Weixia stood there, breathing in and out, slowly and deliberately, until the tide of her emotions ebbed.

“Lin Weixia, from now on you cannot cry in front of him.” She said it seriously, and as she finished, one tear dropped quickly onto her arm, then dissolved into her skin.

People with depression live in an atmosphere of emotional volatility, anxiety, and pessimism — they are already in a low-energy space. What Lin Weixia could do was be the one who pulled Ban Sheng out of it — who brought him into sunlight and made him feel that everything around him was giving him something good back.

After washing her face, Lin Weixia went to speak with Ban Sheng’s attending physician. The doctor sat at his desk, opened the patient’s file on his computer, and spoke in a measured tone:

“We’ll start with medication and psychological therapy, and phototherapy. Going forward, we’ll adjust based on the patient’s response and physical condition — and determine whether to proceed with MECT — modified electroconvulsive therapy — or electroacupuncture. But his most significant issue is the psychological one.”

“Understood. Thank you, Doctor.” Lin Weixia took a moment to come back to herself.

After returning home, Lin Weixia resigned from the part-time work she had been doing with Song Yihang. Beyond her classes, the place she spent the most time was the hospital.

She frequently ate with Ban Sheng, accompanied him on the activity sessions downstairs. When she noticed that his appetite was declining, she started waking early — rising in the grey haze before dawn — to make a packed lunch, then bringing it to the hospital.

Lin Weixia made the lunches strictly according to the dietary guidelines for depression patients, but she also quietly asked the people around him what his favorite foods were, and noted them down carefully.

Friday. Noon, twelve o’clock. Lin Weixia and Ban Sheng were eating together in the hospital canteen. Sunlight came in from the southeast-facing glass and fell across the table and across Ban Sheng. His state was somewhat better — he had the easy, devil-may-care air back about him again.

Lin Weixia opened the lunch box and passed him his chopsticks and spoon. Ban Sheng raised his eyebrows slightly. Everything in the box was something he liked.

“I’m sorry — I didn’t know you didn’t like celery,” Lin Weixia said, sounding genuinely contrite.

Ban Sheng smiled faintly and looked at her. “That’s making too big a deal of it. I didn’t like it at first, but after enough of it, I grew to like it.”

A small, quiet smile came to Lin Weixia’s lips. The two of them sat across from each other, eating in comfortable silence, chatting a little now and then. Lin Weixia had thought of a funny story she wanted to share with Ban Sheng to cheer him up, and was just about to say something when her gaze fell on something across the room — and her pupils contracted sharply.

She could clearly see a girl sitting behind Ban Sheng, eating quietly. Without warning, the girl took the spoon in her hand and drove it hard into her own wrist. Blood welled up immediately.

The canteen erupted into chaos. Her family beside her and the security guard patrolling the room rushed over to intervene. The girl let out a shattering scream.

As the girl’s eyes swept the room, they collided with Lin Weixia’s. In that girl’s eyes, Lin Weixia saw an unwavering, absolute resolve to die.

Her heart lurched.

She was terrified of losing Ban Sheng.

Ban Sheng showed no reaction to any of it. He turned his face slightly, his gaze skimming across the scene with utter blankness, then pulled back. He went on eating, unhurried.

Lin Weixia’s eyes moved anxiously to the spoon held in his hand. She asked softly: “You wouldn’t do something like that. Right?”

Ban Sheng chewed slowly, waiting until he’d swallowed before he spoke. A quiet laugh. What he said came out with complete indifference:

“I tried it before, during a previous hospital stay.”

He said it so casually. Then he registered something was off. The atmosphere went still. Lin Weixia’s dark lashes dropped, and she prodded at her rice absently with her chopsticks without eating, the ache in her eyes hidden just below the surface.

Ban Sheng set down his spoon and raised his hand to pinch her face. He arched a brow, his tone relaxed: “I’m joking. Don’t take it so hard, little girl. Who would hurt themselves with a spoon? I’m just messing with you.”

“Really?” Lin Weixia’s eyes shifted a little, some life returning to them.

“Really.” Ban Sheng said it clearly.

The midday sun was generous, bright and warm on everything it touched. After lunch, they went back to the room. Lin Weixia, seeing the weather was mild, pushed open the balcony door, carried two chairs out, and pulled Ban Sheng out with her to sit in the sun.

Ban Sheng leaned back in his chair with his eyes lazily closed. Lin Weixia sat beside him, her hand drifting over to rest next to his, absentmindedly comparing hand sizes in the sunlight.

Then the young man reached over and covered her hand with his. He opened his eyes and laughed. “Baby, let me borrow your phone.”

Since his admission, Ban Sheng’s phone, lighter, cigarettes — all of it had been confiscated.

“Sure.” Lin Weixia pulled the phone from her pocket and handed it to him without ceremony. “Use it however you like.”

Then, without warning, something came to her. She stood up abruptly from the chair, went back to the room, picked up a cup, and walked to the water dispenser. Hot water streamed from the blue tap. And then she remembered — turned off the hot water, set down the cup, and called out to the figure on the balcony:

“Wait!”

Lin Weixia crossed the room quickly. Ban Sheng had leaned forward slightly, the ridge of his spine stretching visible in the sunlight. But it was already too late — his thumb had stopped on the screen, his gaze had gone still, and it hadn’t moved.

The page Ban Sheng was on was the school’s official website — the notice announcing the suspension of his laboratory project.

“The school is already investigating. The results will be out soon. Just think of the people who smeared you as rabid dogs.” Lin Weixia said it gently.

Besides, the school had also quickly found out about Ban Sheng’s hospitalization — she hadn’t told him, not wanting it to weigh on him.

Ban Sheng handed the phone back to her, smiled slightly, and spoke in a leisurely tone:

“I’ve had this illness all along. The worst of it was during those two years abroad — that’s when I started going in and out of the hospital constantly, getting medication from my attending doctor. But I wouldn’t accept psychological counseling. Wouldn’t listen to him. Wouldn’t give up smoking or drinking. Didn’t want to talk to anyone about my situation — nothing worth saying. When the illness got bad, I’d increase the dosage.”

The anonymous reports — Ban Sheng had known about them from the very beginning. But the accusers had gotten one thing wrong: what he was taking wasn’t a prohibited substance. It was standard antidepressants and anti-anxiety medication.

Everything else they said — that part wasn’t entirely off. Because Ban Sheng’s mood swings were constant, and because he had been taking medication for so long, he had developed a dependency on it. Sometimes after taking a dose, he’d see everything in vivid, shifting colors — and then the hallucinations would come, in which he could see formulas and concepts with startling clarity.

During those states when his mind was running at full speed, he’d hole up in the lab and work through whatever his supervisor had given him.

“And you — less cursing,” Ban Sheng added, reaching over to pinch her face again.

Lin Weixia muttered under her breath: “Fine. But they had no right to do that to you.”

Ban Sheng’s eyes stilled for a moment. Then a very low laugh came out of him. “Look at that. Someone in my corner now.”

Ban Sheng’s condition moved in cycles — better, then worse — and most of it was tied to how he slept and what he dreamed.

Every day after his blood pressure was checked and blood was drawn, he was watched over and taken through prescribed psychological therapy sessions and various CT scans.

In those periods, Ban Sheng’s temper was terrible. He felt like a prisoner stripped of all dignity — everything on him confiscated, forced to repeat the same drills over and over.

During his time at the hospital, Ban Sheng grew thinner and thinner. His whole frame sharpened to something that looked like little more than bones and angles, with only his eyes growing darker and darker, shot through with a concentrated, dangerous hostility. To meet his gaze was like looking into an abyss.

Sometimes Ban Sheng’s throat itched terribly — desperate for a cigarette — but he had not a single one. His moods would then swing sharply, and when the volatility hit its peak, a pale palm appeared in front of him, a small dried plum candy resting in it. Above it, a pair of smiling eyes:

“Ta-da! Quit-smoking candy. I’ll bring you one every day from now on.”

“Silly,” Ban Sheng laughed at her — but took it anyway.

After his medication and doses were sorted, Ban Sheng had been lying down long enough and wanted to get some fresh air outside. But his condition was poor — his complexion pale, his entire bearing spent and heavy, his expression tired and indifferent.

Lin Weixia’s lips moved, wanting to say something. She stopped herself.

“Have some water before we go down.”

She picked up a clear glass and walked to the dispenser to fill it. Once the hot water was ready, she turned around and held it out. Her cold fingertips made contact with his hand. His palm closed around the cup.

Then Lin Weixia released it. Ban Sheng took the cup — and his hand trembled without warning. The cup tilted, and then — crack — hit the floor, shattering into pieces that scattered sharp and bright.

Ban Sheng stood still. A splash of hot water hit the back of his hand. His face held no expression, and he felt no pain.

Lin Weixia heard the sound and turned immediately. She took his hand and checked it carefully for any cuts. Satisfied that he was unhurt, she crouched down to clean up the mess, picking fragments of glass off the floor and dropping them in the bin, talking as she did: “Should we go play basketball later? I’ll go with you……”

She was mid-sentence, still picking up pieces, when Ban Sheng bent down and gripped her arm, trying to pull her up, his voice coming out low and rough:

“Lin Weixia.”

“Mm?” Lin Weixia looked up with a smile.

Ban Sheng’s voice was heavy, the words rolling out slowly from deep in his chest, like they cost him something:

“Could you stop worrying about me.”

Someone like me, right now, isn’t worth your feelings.

Ban Sheng often felt like a useless thing — nothing he tried would work, nothing he tried was any good. His self-control had crumbled, and his emotions had slipped beyond his reach. Sometimes in the deep of the night when sleep wouldn’t come, he’d wake from a dream and feel himself like a speck of dust in a subway tunnel — invisible to everyone around him, untouched and untouchable, harmed and not causing a ripple in anyone’s world.

He wanted to hide himself away. Or disappear entirely — that would be fine too.

Other times he felt like a piece of chewing gum stuck fast to a carpet, stubborn and adhesive. A vacuum cleaner strains with great effort against the carpet and still can’t get rid of it. The owner, exasperated, crouches down and pries the blackened gum loose with their fingers, drops it in the trash without a second thought.

Finally rid of it. A small smile tugs at the owner’s lips.

The silence in the room was absolute — only the clock on the wall ticking steadily. Lin Weixia looked up at him. She took in his gaunt, sharp-featured face, and her nose went tight — but she held it back, held herself together. She reached out and wrapped her arms around him, pressing her face against his chest, and kept saying, quietly:

“It’ll be okay. Things will get better.”

Ban Sheng’s hand rose, hesitated, then came to rest on the back of her head. He said nothing. Lin Weixia felt something — a single tear — fall against her neck, cold and wet.

After his emotions had settled, and after the medication made drowsiness come quickly, Lin Weixia carefully covered him with the blanket and eased the door shut.

Lin Weixia went down to the flower bed in front of the hospital building, pulled a cigarette from her pocket and pressed it to her lips, lit it with practiced ease, and let a thread of white smoke drift past her calm, cool face.

She took out her phone, scrolled through her contacts, and her finger stopped on Cheng Wusuan’s number. She hesitated, then dialed. The line rang for a while before it connected, and a pleasant female voice came through:

“Hello?”

“Senior, it’s me. It’s like this — Ah Sheng has been admitted to hospital.” Lin Weixia spoke quietly, cigarette in hand, and told her everything.

She held the phone against her ear and continued, her voice steady: “Back in high school, I made him a promise — that I would help him find his mother. But I don’t have any contact information for his family. When I thought about it, you’re his distant cousin on his father’s side, and the two of you grew up together.”

A cold wind swept past. The sky had gone dull and grey. Lin Weixia looked down at the dead leaves on the ground. Her voice paused for a moment. “Senior, I want to help him find his mother. Do you have any leads? Do you know where she might have been?”

Even if hope was slim, she still wanted to try.

A long silence stretched from the other end of the line, as though it were squeezing the breath from the air between them. Cheng Wusuan hesitated for what felt like a long time, and then said:

“Ah Sheng’s mother passed away when he was ten years old.”