What else could be done? What else could be done?!
Jiang Shiyan took a deep breath and sat up straight.
Tang Yang saw his dark expression and felt like laughing. Out of consideration for his face, she only twitched her lips twice, then handed him the phone and went to open the door.
Earlier, Tang Yang had mumbled a name to him, but Jiang Shiyan hadn’t heard it.
He put the phone to his ear, and Feng Weiran’s boastful voice immediately came through: “Just remembered you haven’t eaten yet. I’ve ordered food for you both and left it at the nurse’s station,” Feng Weiran’s tone was playful and suggestive, “If you get tired midway or—”
Jiang Shiyan hung up the phone, his face ashen.
At the door, the nurse handed the items to Tang Yang: “I saw this food left at the nurse’s station during my shift change. It had Jiang Shiyan’s name on it. It’s getting cold quickly, so I brought it over for you.”
“Thank you for your trouble,” Tang Yang politely thanked her.
“No need,” the nurse said, “Just press the call button if you need anything.”
Tang Yang leaned against the doorframe and chatted briefly with the nurse before closing the door and coming back in.
“I didn’t expect Feng Weiran to order porridge for you too. I’ll put it in the mini-fridge. You can heat it in the microwave tomorrow morning,” Tang Yang said as she took out the food containers and put them away, then habitually folded the plastic bag into a square and threw it in the trash. She then asked, “By the way, what were you trying to say earlier? You kept calling out but didn’t speak.”
Tang Yang could probably guess what he wanted to say, so she brought it up with a bit of mischief.
Since Yang Yang had asked so directly, what could he say now?
Jiang Shiyan stirred his porridge spoon by spoon, feeling increasingly unsettled. “Nothing,” he answered glumly.
He even childishly tapped the bottom of the bowl hard with his spoon.
Tang Yang was amused by this action: “Haven’t gotten your kindergarten diploma yet, have you?”
“Kindergartens don’t have diplomas,” Jiang Shiyan said, then paused. “Who are you calling a kindergartener?”
Tang Yang handed him a napkin, blinking with a smile: “Look who I’m looking at.”
So should I feel honored? Wait a minute…
Jiang Shiyan casually took the spoon out of the bowl and smiled back at Tang Yang.
Tang Yang felt wary: “What are you planning to do?”
“Kindergarteners don’t eat properly,” Jiang Shiyan said with a smile, enunciating each word as he reasoned with Tang Yang, “You have to feed me with the spoon.”
He looked so smug and punchable.
Tang Yang’s ears heated up slightly. She mimicked his smile and asked word by word: “Do you want me to feed you with my mouth?”
Jiang Shiyan almost blurted out “Yes,” with a million little people carrying “I do” signs running through his mind.
But seeing the hidden blade in Tang’s smile, little Jiang cleared his throat and meekly picked up his small spoon.
————
After all the commotion, it was nearly 8 PM by the time Jiang Shiyan finished eating.
Tang Yang consulted with the doctor, and with the help of a caregiver, they put Jiang Shiyan in a wheelchair and pushed him downstairs for a walk.
The emergency building had four floors, but the elevator was packed. The stairs were a gentle slope, so Tang Yang pushed Jiang Shiyan down, pausing at each turn.
“I think you could cosplay as Stephen Hawking,” Tang Yang said. “Experience the thrill of a body confined but a mind soaring free.”
Jiang Shiyan turned his head to ask her: “What do you think?”
“What do I think about what…” Tang Yang wasn’t much taller than Jiang Shiyan in the wheelchair. She took a second to understand this and, in a democratic spirit, asked for his opinion, “Do you want me to let go with my left hand or right hand first?”
Jiang Shiyan pointed outside: “I meant tonight’s weather. It’s hazy, no clouds, just one or two stars hidden in the treetops, like…”
Tang Yang chuckled and gently flicked his earlobe.
Boss Jiang successfully avoided a medical accident with his poetic musings, feeling quite pleased with himself.
As they chatted and laughed, they reached the first floor. Two people in a hurry bumped into Jiang Shiyan from the side.
Seeing Tang Yang, Chen Zhang Gang asked, “Manager Tang, have you seen Chen Qiang?”
“No, what’s wrong…”
Before Tang Yang could finish, Chen Zhang Gang had already turned and left.
Jiang Shiyan’s expression was complex: “This person is quite…”
It was hard to describe.
Tang Yang understood his feelings: “At noon when several colleagues helped him take Chen Qiang downstairs, he didn’t even say thanks. When Branch Manager Shen tore off two squares of napkin at his house, he got glared at. The loan hasn’t been approved yet, but he keeps asking about bad debts,” Tang Yang recalled, “Strangely enough, the calligraphy hanging on his wall was quite good, just the content was a bit extreme.”
“A street-level malcontent with half his edges worn off,” Jiang Shiyan summarized accurately.
Tang Yang thought it made sense. Zhang Zhilan and her children were a minority in the neighborhood, and often gossiped about, and so was Chen Zhang Gang’s family, which is why the two families were somewhat closer.
However Tang Yang didn’t know much about Chen Zhang Gang’s family, so her comments were limited to facts.
The hospital garden was very lively after dinner, with children’s laughter, adults’ conversations, and the sound of wheelchairs on the stone path creating a multi-decibel symphony.
The night seemed to have drawn a thin edge around the buildings and shrubs.
Before Tang Yang and Jiang Shiyan left the building, they saw a corner crowded with people.
Once outside, they both fell silent.
The firefighter Tang Yang had only met once at noon appeared again, laying out green soft mats below.
On the fourth-floor roof, a one-armed young man with high-level paraplegia sat in a wheelchair, slowly turning his wheels towards the edge.
Before seeing Chen Qiang, Tang Yang had thought all truck drivers were big and burly. Meeting Chen Qiang, she realized there was also a gentle and refined option.
Now, Chen Qiang had removed the black-framed glasses he usually wore. His eyes were probably half-closed, or maybe not. The commotion about “someone jumping” around him seemed not to be about him. With an extremely calm and decisive attitude, he turned his wheelchair towards the edge of the roof.
Three meters, two meters, one meter…
The fourth floor was divided into a roof platform and a slightly higher terrace. Chen Qiang was on the terrace, and firefighters had climbed to the roof platform but dared not approach rashly.
“Chen Qiang!” A woman’s tearful shout came from the terrace entrance.
“Chen Qiang!” “Qiangzi!”
The firefighter handed her a megaphone, and her heart-wrenching cries pierced the night.
“Turn around and look at Mama, come back…”
Perhaps it was the familiar way his mother called “mama” that made Chen Qiang pause, then slowly turn his wheelchair towards the back.
Chen’s mother was held back by a firefighter, tears and mucus streaming down her face: “Chen Qiang, come back, be good, come back first, it’s windy on the roof…”
The wind rustled their clothes.
“Come back?” Chen Qiang seemed to hear an unfunny joke. He stiffly tugged at the corner of his mouth, “Come back so you can keep saving me? Save a useless person?”
Chen’s mother didn’t understand what her son was saying: “How could we not save you? You’re our only child!”
“You should read more books, and learn about the rational economic man,” Chen Qiang said calmly. “If you hadn’t saved me the first time, you’d have a house, a shop, a hefty compensation contract, and retirement savings. But you saved me, and now you’re in debt with a son who’s a burden, burning through money on medical expenses.”
“You’re not a burden.” Chen’s mother could barely stand, leaning on Chen Zhanggang for support. “Chen Qiang, be good, come back first…”
“Right, I’m not a burden,” Chen Qiang thought of something and smiled again. “A burden can at least contain something, but what can I do?”
As he spoke, Chen Qiang struggled to stand up with his crutches and prosthetic limbs: “Look, I have no legs.”
Chen Zhanggang tried to rush forward while his son was standing.
Chen Qiang took a sudden step back, leaving only half a meter between himself and the edge.
Chen Zhanggang and the nearby firefighters all froze in place.
Chen Qiang smiled again, lifting his empty left sleeve: “I don’t have a hand either.”
Chen’s mother clasped her hands above her head: “You’re a good child, our good child. Everything we do is for you. Mom knows treating burns is painful, but be strong, hang on, and don’t be afraid. We’ll get through this if we endure a little longer, really, just a little longer.”
Downstairs, Tang Yang and Jiang Shiyan stood at the edge of the police line.
The surrounding clamor had long since quieted, and every choked syllable from Chen’s mother upstairs seemed to be carried down by the wind.
Tang Yang’s palms were sweating with nervousness. Jiang Shiyan gently held her hand.
Chen Qiang seemed to be moved a little. He put his crutches on the wheelchair and stood behind it, with nothing but the edge behind the wheelchair.
Chen’s mother crouched on the ground, inching forward one small step at a time: “You’re our only child this lifetime. Mom loves children.”
Three meters, two meters, one meter.
Chen’s mother said: “Mom is greedy. Let mom be a mother for a little longer. Please, do this for mom.”
Chen Qiang looked at his mother and continued to smile: “I want to be selfish.”
Tired of being incomplete, tired of being broken, tired of the endless days.
So selfishly, I want to let you have a better life.
Just a little bit…
Chen’s mother pleaded through her sobs: “Don’t be selfish, be good, come back first…”
Chen Qiang pushed the wheelchair forward and stumbled backward.
Chen’s mother said: “Be good…”
Chen Qiang’s foot left the edge of the roof, and he fell straight down like a bird with broken wings.
Upstairs, Chen’s mother fainted on the spot.
Downstairs, the firefighters quickly judged the landing point and rushed towards the safety cushion.
Tang Yang and Jiang Shiyan watched as Chen Qiang fell straight onto the cushion in front of them, his back towards the ground.
A muffled thud, like the sound of a cricket finding release.
After Chen Qiang landed on the cushion, doctors and nurses quickly surrounded him. There was a concussion but no visible bleeding. They swiftly checked and verified his vital signs before rushing him into the emergency building.
“He didn’t die, didn’t die, how boring.”
“The last one was even more boring, didn’t even jump.”
“Remember the one before? Climbed up there himself, then got too scared and called the firefighters to save him.”
“…”
The onlookers chattered among themselves before dispersing like monkeys.
Tang Yang stood rooted to the spot, the image of Chen Qiang’s fall replaying in her mind, her little finger trembling unknowingly.
Jiang Shiyan didn’t speak or move.
He very gently held her hand, released it, held it again, and released it again.
With this gesture, he comforted her, telling her he was there.
The brainstem at the back of the head controls breathing, heartbeat, and all vital functions.
How resolute must one be to smile and jump with their back to the ground?
His warmth transmitted through the skin to the back of her hand, and Tang Yang’s heartbeat and emotions gradually calmed.
The night enveloped them. She lowered her eyelids and slowly pushed Jiang Shiyan back.
“When I was very young, a teacher at my mom’s school died by jumping from a building,” Tang Yang said. “That teacher was talked down the first time but succeeded the second time. I really couldn’t understand why someone would climb up there again after being talked down once.”
“My mom told me then that suicide not influenced by external factors is like greed. Once the seed is planted, it grows like weeds until finally, the person can neither control nor bear it.”
The street lamps were dim, their meager light columns propping up the space between heaven and earth.
Tang Yang and Jiang Shiyan’s figures entering the building were tiny dots in the vast space.
Tang Yang didn’t speak, and neither did Jiang Shiyan.
In the silence, Tang Yang’s mind was in turmoil.
Why are there people we want to save but can’t, like Min Mu and Min Lin’s father who died for his beliefs? Why are there people who seek death but can’t find it, like just now…
Back in the hospital room, Tang Yang first pushed Jiang Shiyan in, then turned to close the door.
“Click.”
The sensor light came on.
“What do you think we live for?” Tang Yang suddenly asked.
After asking, Tang Yang probably felt the question was too abstract, too much like a sensitive teenage girl seeing emotions in the weather. She smiled awkwardly, “That’s a bit beyond our scope. I guess I’ve reached the stage where I should be worrying about midlife crises, hair loss, anti-aging, promotions, future school district housing for kids…”
“Tang Yang.” Jiang Shiyan called her full name, very seriously.
“Hm?” Tang Yang tilted her head, trying to avoid his deep gaze.
Jiang Shiyan placed his hand over hers on the wheelchair.
As he warmed her cold hands, Jiang Shiyan spoke in a steady voice: “You’re not young anymore, and neither am I. You have pressures to go on blind dates, fall in love, get married, and so do I. You have feelings for me, and I have feelings for you.”
Jiang Shiyan said: “We’ve known each other for fifteen years. We understand each other, support each other, trust each other.”
“I’m thinking,” Jiang Shiyan paused, “Can we take a small step forward?”
Tang Yang had mentally prepared for this countless times, but when Jiang Shiyan said it, she was still stunned.
Jiang Shiyan wasn’t in a hurry. He gazed at her with calm eyes.
“Just a small step,” Jiang Shiyan said. “If we find anything amiss, if either of us develops feelings for someone else, falls in love at first sight, or any special circumstances arise, we’ll separate and sincerely wish each other well.”
“Tang Yang,” Jiang Shiyan called her name for the second time. Looking at her bewilderment and flushed cheeks, he spoke clearly and calmly, “I want to accompany you in a more appropriate capacity. I don’t want to just tell jokes or send gifts when you’re sensitive or upset.”
Countless moments like just now.
Tang Yang didn’t speak.
Jiang Shiyan didn’t back down or equivocate. He took Tang Yang’s hand and gently pulled her in front of him, looking into her eyes tenderly and seriously.
Jiang Shiyan said: “I want to hold you tight.”