He’s in My Heart, Killing Me (Final Part)

As the snow season neared its end after almost a month, the ice and snow began to melt. Professional team members would soon return to the dry snow airbags in major cities to continue their training.

Summer training would include additional components like physical conditioning, core strength, and trampoline exercises. Strictly speaking, it wasn’t any easier than winter training.

“We have no choice. The Beijing Winter Olympics are coming… It’s a competition on home turf. Who dares to miss it?” The voice from the phone carried a lazy, husky tone, as if never fully awake.

The ballpoint pen in her hand made a scratching sound as it moved across the paper. Holding the phone between her shoulder and ear, the girl lowered her eyes to write the answer to a challenging math problem from a previous year’s college entrance exam. Her pen paused.

She raised her head.

On the other end of the line, after complaining about the dread of summer training, the young man seemed accustomed to the person on this end writing problems inattentively, not expecting much response. He had turned on the speakerphone and was bustling about doing his things…

Neither could recall when they had developed this habit and way of talking on the phone.

Neither found it strange.

“Do you want to go to the Beijing Winter Olympics?” Shan Shan put down her pen, resting her chin on one hand as she gazed out the window.

“Ah… you were listening?” The voice on the phone came closer. “I thought you weren’t—Of course I want to go. Isn’t that why I came back to China? I missed Pyeongchang because my citizenship wasn’t settled in time. How could I miss this one three years later?”

As Shan Shan listened to him ramble on, she felt a bit dazed. She realized that Dai Duo’s tone and speech particles had completely lost the affected manner he had when he first returned from abroad…

No wonder they say Northeast China has a strong corrupting influence.

Looking at the phone screen, she smiled silently. “What are you doing?”

“What am I doing? Checking up on me?” he asked casually.

She blushed for no reason.

As usual, the person on the other end naturally continued his train of thought—

“Just finished eating, about to change clothes for afternoon training. The snow season is precious, got to make the most of it… What about you? Didn’t go home for lunch?”

It was now 12:15 PM.

“Didn’t go back. I’ll nap at my desk in a bit.”

“Oh, remember to eat.”

“What about you?”

“Changing clothes, training… I said that six seconds ago. Did a donkey eat your brain?”

“Is my brother going?”

“How could he not go?”

“Don’t boss him around again.”

“I’d be lucky if he doesn’t boss me around… Why are you worrying about this?”

The sound of fiddling with snowboard boot Velcro came through the phone. Shan Shan listened for a while, exchanged a few more words, then hung up.

…

After a drowsy nap, she still couldn’t quite focus during the first-afternoon class.

The first-afternoon class was chemistry. Around 3:10 PM, Shan Shan was yawning while balancing equations when the homeroom teacher hurriedly arrived at the classroom door.

She looked up briefly, then lowered her gaze disinterestedly.

It wasn’t until the chemistry teacher called her name that she raised her head, her gaze unfocused, confused, and flustered, asking, “What’s wrong?”

—For a high school senior to be suddenly called out of class usually wasn’t a good sign.

Shan Shan watched the homeroom teacher’s mouth open and close, her brain unusually slow, as if struggling to understand what was being said.

Shan Shan was one of the smartest students in the school.

But she was just an ordinary high school girl after all—

She had done many practice problems, but couldn’t answer well when it came to a loved one’s illness or death.

“My brother,” she asked a simple, blunt, almost crudely worded question, “Is he still alive?”

Forgive her for being unable to think clearly, only able to focus on the most crucial issue.

Her usually bright, dark eyes stared at the teacher before her, as if trying to see the doctor’s diagnosis through the teacher’s eyes, filled with desperate struggle. The atmosphere sank to its lowest point.

The homeroom teacher sighed with relief at her answer. She shook her head and said, “There’s no danger to his life.”

Then she saw the girl before she let out a breath, her tense back and shoulders collapsing. She seemed to suddenly shrink, curling back into her wheelchair, dazed for ten seconds.

“Okay.”

She took her phone from her school uniform pocket. Although it was warm now, her hands seemed stiff from the cold—

“Okay.”

There was nothing on her phone except a few missed voice messages from Dai Duo and a private chat from her mother that simply said: I’m going to the hospital.

She had thought her body was already cold enough, but at this moment her mind buzzed as if plunging into an ice cellar. The stark clarity jolted her entire body, reminding her that this was not just a nightmare she couldn’t wake up from.

… Back then, when she had her accident and was lying on the cold operating table, how did her brother feel rushing to the hospital?

Life knows how to play cruel jokes—

Even if siblings are connected at heart, did she need to experience the same feeling?

This kind of fairness, she didn’t want.

…

People often say that hospital walls have heard more prayers than the gods and Buddhas in temples and churches.

The light in the operating room was too bright.

Shan Shan sat in her wheelchair. Not far away were her parents. Sitting in chairs opposite were Shan Chong’s head coach Wang Xin and Dai Duo…

The whole family had nearly taken up all the chairs outside the operating room.

Since the surgery began, people had been coming and going, occasionally chatting with Wang Xin and inquiring about something. They would say “Ah,” look at the operating room, then turn their heads to look at Shan Shan—

But even in a hospital, a place accustomed to life, death, and suffering, at this moment, no one voiced the sigh “This family has it tough.” They would just look once, then kindly lapse into silence.

An unfamiliar auntie brought Shan Shan a box of milk late at night.

She was indeed thirsty and hungry.

As she opened the milk carton and pierced the plastic packaging with the straw, she felt she had made an unnecessary movement—

For instance, she had been sitting there, being good and not crying.

But in that second of pinching the straw, it was as if all the pain in her body had been activated.

Her heart gave a violent thump.

Her whole body froze.

Her mind was filled with baseless regret, that she hadn’t properly comforted Shan Chong when he failed in competition, telling him it was okay, to take it slow, that there would be many better Winter Olympics after Pyeongchang, that he was still one of China’s hopes in snowboard big air, that he could compete for many more years, that he was still the best brother in the world…

She hadn’t had the chance to say any of it.

The straw in her hand snapped with a “crack,” her eyes stung, and the “In Surgery” light before her became blurry.

At this moment.

The milk and straw were taken from her hands.

Although he often came to their house for meals, the young man who rarely interacted with her in front of her parents now stood beside her. He inserted the slightly broken straw into the milk carton, held it, and brought it to her lips.

She sniffled.

The straw lightly touched her somewhat dry lips.

“Shan Shan, go back and rest,” her mother looked over, her voice softer than usual, almost numb. “Dad and Mom will wait here for your brother. The doctor said he’ll be fine.”

Shan Shan didn’t want to leave. She just raised her hand to rub her red eyes and shook her head.

“I’ve waited so long,” she said, “I’ll wait for my brother to come out.”

Shan Chong’s surgery took longer than estimated.

When he was finally wheeled out, it was already early morning of the next day.

Not a single person outside the operating room had left. More people had arrived—his teammates and leaders from the national team…

When they arrived, there was no small talk. They just asked, “Not out yet?” and then sat down in silence one by one.

When the operating room doors opened, everyone stood up in a rush, startling the orthopedic surgeon who was walking out while removing his mask. He had probably never seen such a large crowd outside the operating room in the early hours of the morning.

…

Shan Chong was wheeled into the observation room. Only two family members were allowed to stay—Shan’s father and Wang Xin remained, as men had the strength to help if needed.

Shan’s mother left to rest at the hotel. As she left, she wasn’t as composed as she appeared—

She had forgotten to call for Shan Shan.

Shan Shan washed her face in the bathroom. Upon returning, she found only Dai Duo standing in the hallway, hands in his pockets, leaning against the wall.

Hearing movement, he turned his head and glanced at her.

Her wheelchair, previously moving forward, came to a stop—

In the empty pre-dawn hospital corridor.

Under the harsh, weak fluorescent lights.

Sitting in her wheelchair, the girl’s shadow stretched long.

“Dai Duo,” she called his name.

Then, he heard her say—

“Let’s go.”

The young man didn’t move, merely raising an eyebrow slightly.

He watched her turn her wheelchair. Having not eaten, she lacked strength, making her movements slow and labored. His hands twitched at his sides, but unlike usual, he didn’t help her.

Standing at a distance, he observed.

She turned around, backing towards the wall, and then as if completely drained of energy, she parked her wheelchair in the corner of the corridor and lowered her head.

Loose strands of hair cast shadows, hiding half of her face.

“I don’t want to blame anyone. After all, no one can truly look after someone else perfectly,” she said, her voice thick with nasal tones.

“But who else can I blame?”

It seemed like she was talking to herself.

Staring at where her feet should have been, she faced the corner of the hospital wall. Before her were stark white walls and faded green paint. In the adjacent room, the rhythmic, cold beeping of monitoring equipment provided the only response to her words.

Standing not far from Shan Shan, Dai Duo heard her whisper, “I’m sorry.”

It wasn’t clear who she was apologizing to. He looked up to see her curled up in the corner as if trying to disappear into the shadows.

Small and helpless.

Her hands were crossed, fingers interlocked, resting on her amputated thighs. Her knuckles had turned white from gripping too tightly.

“Blame me. It’s better to blame me,” she said. “I shouldn’t have asked for prosthetics. It’s as if all the misfortune started the moment I made that request. Everything was fine before, everything was fine—”

She drew in a sharp breath.

A tear fell, landing on her intertwined thumbs.

“Maybe I’m a jinx?” she choked out. “So, you should stay away from me.”

The person behind her approached.

He stood behind her wheelchair, his shadow enveloping her.

In the quiet hospital corridor, the young man stood in the corner, listening to the sobs from the wheelchair. His usual irritability was replaced by unprecedented patience and calm.

He reached out, turning the wheelchair around with unexpected gentleness. The person in the wheelchair looked up, her wet cheeks sticky with loose strands of hair, appearing somewhat disheveled—

Her mind must have gone blank.

Staring at him with unfocused eyes, she only repeated: “Maybe you should stay away from me.”

She didn’t want prosthetics anymore.

She only wanted her brother, whole and able to chase his dreams on the competition stage.

She could spend her entire life in a wheelchair.

What difference would it make?

The tears she had barely held back in front of the operating room finally broke free under the calm gaze of the boy she liked. Besides him, no one else saw…

Although she had always been a crybaby.

Raising his hand to wipe her tears twice, Dai Duo thought distractedly that her face was too small, barely the size of his palm. With one hand cupping her chin, his palm could cover most of her face.

His slightly rough fingertips brushed across her cheeks, not particularly gently—

“The doctor said Shan Chong’s surgery went well. He’ll likely be able to walk normally and even return to competing,” Dai Duo’s voice, after being silent all night, sounded unusually hoarse. “Why are you crying?”

She raised her hand, using the back of it to push away his hand, now wet with her tears.

He impassively swatted her hand away.

After a moment’s hesitation.

His fingers slid from her cheek, tentatively touching the hair near her ear, and then, in the second his fingertips brushed her hair—

Perhaps on an impulse.

His five fingers threaded through her hair, his large palm cradling the back of her head, drawing her into his embrace.

“It’s okay,” Dai Duo heard himself say. “Whether Shan Chong can continue competing in the future, win prize money, save up… The prosthetics were my suggestion, so I’ll handle what comes next.”

He felt the head he was holding against his chest struggle to look up.

She gazed up at him, their eyes meeting.

“The money, no matter how much it ends up being, I’ll help save up.”

“…”

You see.

Hospital walls have indeed heard more prayers than the gods and Buddhas in temples and churches…

But at the same time, at death’s door, they’ve witnessed countless most sincere vows that are least likely to be broken.

…

The fluorescent lights in the hospital corridor remained harsh.

Yet outside the window, tree shadows seemed to sway, a rustling breeze stirring. In the suffocating cruelty of the night, someone was trying to find a glimmer of hope in their struggle to survive.

The moon hung high, pure and aloof, seemingly forever devoid of warmth.

Cold and indifferent.

But who could have imagined?

At a certain moment.

At an unexpected certain moment.

Moonlight broke through the clouds, gently bathing her and her alone.