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Chapter 64: Low Fever

When Bai Luochuan came back at night, he saw that Mi Yang was already asleep. There were two beds in the room. Mi Yang was sleeping in the one by the window, his whole body curled up in the quilt. The mattress was slightly indented, making it look as if the bed had also softened. He was sleeping soundly, and Bai Luochuan felt that he was also sleepy, as if it would be very easy to fall asleep.

Bai Luochuan went around and tucked him in again. A small lamp was left on in the room. The light was dim, but he could still see a corner of something Mi Yang was holding in his hand. Bai Luochuan reached out and rubbed it. The touch was all too familiar. Mi Yang had never left his side since he was a child, and this little pillow was naturally also seen every day. Although it was just a pillowcase now, the person could sleep very soundly with it in his hand.

Bai Luochuan quietly went to wash up, then turned up the air conditioner in the room a little before going to sleep.

Mi Yang’s biological clock was very accurate. He woke up early the next morning. Seeing that it was about time, he called the young master Bai to get up, squeezed some toothpaste for him to brush his teeth. Bai Luochuan was a little grumpy in the morning and looked unhappy, but the toothbrush was already in his mouth, and Mi Yang was urging him on, so he could only wash up and go to breakfast with him.

When they went down, the other two classmates who had come with them had also arrived. They were a little surprised to see Bai Luochuan. One of the girls smiled and said, “This is really rare. I’ve been to so many competitions with you, and this is the first time I’ve seen you get up for breakfast.”

Bai Luochuan casually said “mm” and sat there, waiting.

The female classmate was about to ask him why he wasn’t getting his food when she saw Mi Yang come over with two plates. He placed one in front of the young master Bai and whispered to him, “No coffee, right? How about milk? I saw there’s hot milk over there.”

Bai Luochuan nodded, his tone a little better. “Okay.”

Mi Yang brought over two glasses of milk. Neither of them felt that anything was wrong and sat down to eat.

The female classmate’s gaze shifted from Bai Luochuan to Mi Yang. She probably felt that Mi Yang was more approachable and had a gentle way of speaking, so she whispered a few words to him, “Are you Bai Luochuan’s little brother?”

Mi Yang shook his head. “No, we grew up together.”

The female classmate said, “No wonder. You’re very close, right? I see you’ve been taking care of him. You’re so good to him.”

Mi Yang smiled. “He’s also very good to me.”

The female classmate couldn’t quite imagine it. She had been participating in competitions with Bai Luochuan for more than half a year. Individual competitions were fine, but in team competitions, the young master Bai didn’t treat her like a girl at all. He would assign tasks as he saw fit, and if she didn’t do well, he would have a dark face. But if she had to say, he was even stricter with the boys.

In the time it took for the female classmate to talk to Mi Yang, Bai Luochuan had interrupted twice. The first time was to have Mi Yang pass him the sugar cube box, and the second time was to complain that the box contained brown sugar, his brow furrowed tightly.

Mi Yang added another piece for him, stirred it to dissolve, and said in a low voice, “It’s the same. Drink it.”

Only then did Bai Luochuan drink it.

The female classmate stole a couple of glances from the side. Her gaze met Bai Luochuan’s, and she immediately looked away and focused on her own food, not daring to talk to Mi Yang anymore. But she was also muttering in her heart. It was hard to tell who was in charge of whom. Bai Luochuan had a big temper, but Mi Yang didn’t seem to be afraid of him at all.

The first day of the competition went smoothly. When they came back at night, Bai Luochuan didn’t say anything in front of the others and still had a calm expression. It was only when it was just him and Mi Yang that he couldn’t help but show off that he had guessed the question type correctly. Hearing Mi Yang praise him, his tail was about to stick up to the sky.

They ate together that night, and Mi Yang also went along. The few classmates who were competing with Bai Luochuan were chatting. Someone joked, “I heard that a TV station is coming to film the experiment tomorrow. I wonder if it will be broadcast. We might even be on TV.”

Bai Luochuan was listening in a desultory way, but his eyes were on the female classmate who was talking to Mi Yang. The girl had probably talked to Mi Yang in the morning, and she had also sat down and greeted him in the evening, and was now chatting with Mi Yang in a low voice. Bai Luochuan vaguely heard Mi Yang say “I have a little sister at home,” and then he saw the female classmate opposite him look as if she had suddenly understood. She said with a smile, “So that’s how it is. No wonder I felt so relaxed when I was talking to you. Do you usually treat your little sister very well? Are you so gentle with all girls?”

Before Mi Yang could answer, he heard a “hiss” from the side.

Bai Luochuan covered his mouth and frowned. “It hurts. I think I bit it. Can you help me take a look?”

Mi Yang glanced at it, wiped it with a tissue, and saw a trace of blood. The bite was not light. He poured him a glass of water. “How did you bite your mouth?”

Bai Luochuan said vaguely, “It was an accident. It still hurts. Take another look. Is it a big cut?”

He kept having Mi Yang look at it. Even when Mi Yang said it was fine, he wouldn’t let go, insisting that it hurt. It was only when Mi Yang was only talking to him that he quieted down. When the two of them were talking, he was not shouting that it hurt as loudly as before, and his speech was also much clearer.

After a while, the female classmate came over and interrupted them. Bai Luochuan was very impatient. “What is it!”

The female classmate was very embarrassed. She held a book and picked at the corner, whispering, “It’s nothing. I just have a question I want to confirm the calculation steps with you…”

Bai Luochuan said, “You’re only thinking of this now? What were you doing before?”

The girl’s face flushed, and she stood there, not knowing whether to stay or go.

Mi Yang said, “It’s not too late now. Isn’t there still a competition tomorrow? You can go.”

Bai Luochuan said, “Then what about you?”

Mi Yang said, “I’ll go back to the room and wait for you. Anyway, I have nothing to do. I’ll just read a book or something.”

Bai Luochuan thought for a moment. He saw out of the corner of his eye that the female classmate was looking at Mi Yang and immediately subconsciously moved to block her. He nodded. “Alright then. Don’t come out again after you go back. It’s cold outside. Be careful not to catch a cold.”

Mi Yang agreed and got up to go back to the room.

After he went back, he first searched in his suitcase. Every time he went out, Cheng Qing would prepare a small medicine box for him with some common medicines. This time, since it was a long trip, the preparations were even more complete. Mi Yang took out a bottle of watermelon frost spray. This was for treating mouth ulcers, and it could also be used for Bai Luochuan’s bitten lip.

After putting the medicine on the table, Mi Yang picked up the book he had been reading yesterday and continued to flip through it. This book was also something Mr. Wei had found for them. Mr. Wei had followed them from the border town back to Shanghai and had been tutoring them diligently. Bai Luochuan had more talent, but he relied more on this good teacher. Without Wei Xian, he probably wouldn’t have achieved what he had today.

Being reborn did not mean that many things would naturally be known.

Mi Yang had seen many classmates in the school in Shanghai. Many of them were already far ahead of ordinary children at the starting line, either with outstanding talent or a superior family background. But they also worked much harder than ordinary people. Mi Yang considered himself to have ordinary talent, but he had the rationality and calmness of an adult, which allowed him to calm down and do things diligently. Therefore, when Wei Xian was tutoring him, he always put in ten percent of his energy to study hard and listen hard.

The book he was reading was also something Wei Xian had found for him. After Wei Xian came to Shanghai, he had gotten a lot of good things from his professor friend, and he had even found a set of book restoration tools for Mi Yang. What Mi Yang was reading now was a manuscript that the professor had compiled and was preparing to publish. It was a record of his team’s trip to Xinjiang to rescue folio rubbings and silk paintings. Many photos had been taken, and this was the compiled version that was being sent to the publisher. Wei Xian had made an extra copy for Mi Yang to have a look at first.

Mi Yang had always been very interested in books about specific cases of restoration. In his previous life, he had been self-taught and had had little contact with the field. Now, it was as if a new world had been opened up to him. Just by looking at it, he wished he could go to the Turpan Museum and see those things with his own eyes.

Around nine o’clock, Bai Luochuan returned. Mi Yang put down his book. “I’ve found the medicine.”

Bai Luochuan was taken aback for a moment before he remembered his injury. “Oh, no need. It’s almost healed.”

Mi Yang said, “How can such a deep cut heal so quickly? Come over and spray the medicine. Otherwise, you’ll be saying it hurts again tomorrow morning and refuse to eat.”

Bai Luochuan wanted to hide, but the room was so small that he had no choice but to be caught and have his mouth sprayed with medicinal powder, which made his face wrinkle from the bitterness. He was about to speak when Mi Yang said, “Don’t talk. Just hold it in your mouth like this. It’ll be fine by morning.”

The young master Bai practiced silent Zen for a whole night, tossing and turning, unable to sleep, feeling very uncomfortable.

The next morning, just as he was about to leave, Mi Yang called out to him. Mi Yang watched as he sprayed the medicine himself, then nodded. “Okay, you can go.”

Bai Luochuan put on his scarf and said vaguely, “You wait for me to come back. I won’t have much to do at noon. We’ll go out to eat, and I’ll go shopping with you in the afternoon.”

Mi Yang handed him his gloves. “Mm, good luck.”

Bai Luochuan grinned, and made a two-fingered gesture at his eyebrows. The young man’s appearance was fresh and arrogant, full of spirit.

Mi Yang read for a while in the morning, then lay in bed and also slept for a while. When he woke up, he felt that the room was particularly cold. He looked and saw that the air conditioner had indeed stopped. There was only a little residual warmth from the heating, and he felt cold even wrapped in the quilt.

He got up and put on thick clothes, then called the front desk. The person at the front desk said apologetically, “I’m so sorry. The whole city is short on power, and there’s nothing we can do. The elevators have also stopped. We will restore it as soon as possible. Would you like us to send another quilt over?”

Mi Yang was staying on the 17th floor, and he had already asked for an extra one yesterday, so he didn’t have them send another one.

He put on all his clothes and was about to drink some water when he found that there was no hot water in the room either. He could only force himself to drink a little cold water and vaguely felt a little uncomfortable in his throat.

The sound of an ambulance came from outside. The most recent one had even stopped at the hotel entrance. Mi Yang stood up and looked out the window. Medical personnel in full protective gear were carrying a person out of the hotel on a stretcher. Someone was also holding an IV bottle, and they were hurriedly sent to the ambulance. But only one ambulance left. The other ambulance remained in place, and people were constantly going in and out. Some people were running out in a panic with their suitcases.

This scene was all too familiar. In Mi Yang’s memory, it even overlapped with some scenes he had seen on TV. Two words suddenly appeared in his mind—SARS.

SARS, a severe acute pneumonia that was highly contagious and could lead to sudden death. What was even more terrifying was that its pathogen had not yet been identified, so it was called “atypical pneumonia.”

In Mi Yang’s impression, it had occurred in the summer, and the earliest report was around May. At that time, he was in Shanhai Town, and the school had been on vacation for more than two months, so he had been at home all the time. He didn’t have a very deep impression, only remembering that everyone had stayed at home that summer, and there was the lingering smell of disinfectant and steamed vinegar.

He watched as the medical personnel outside had already started to disinfect and pull up a cordon, his brow furrowing even more. Perhaps because he had relied too much on the memories of his previous life, he had not taken precautions early on. He had been too careless.

The phone in the room soon rang. It was the hotel front desk, asking him to stay in his room. “A guest from Hong Kong suddenly had a fever and has been sent to the hospital for treatment. Please don’t panic. Please stay in your room and wait for the medical personnel to take your temperature. After confirmation, we will handle your check-out, and the hotel will bear the losses…”

Mi Yang listened to her finish and said calmly, “Okay, I understand.”

He first called Bai Luochuan. His phone was off. He probably hadn’t finished the competition yet, and he didn’t have their teacher’s phone number. He could only send him a message first, briefly explaining the situation, and then repeatedly reminded him, “Don’t come back to the hotel. Go straight back to Shanghai.”

After sending the message, he called Cheng Qing. “Mom, listen to me. There’s a ‘flu’ in Beijing. Someone in the hotel we’re staying at had a fever and was sent to the hospital. I’m fine, so don’t worry. It’s just that I need to be quarantined for a while for confirmation… Yes, I’m in the hotel. I’m very safe now. You can wait for me to come back in Shanghai.”

Because there were no news reports emphasizing the seriousness of the virus, everyone just treated it as a new type of flu, which occurred every spring, just that the quarantine was not so severe. Cheng Qing hesitated for a moment and asked him, “Yangyang, do you want me to come and be with you?”

Mi Yang refused. “You stay at home and be with Xiaoxue. I’m fine. I can take care of myself.” He paused for a moment, then added, “If possible, get another batch of medicine. Banlangen and Xiaochaihu granules, and also disinfectant, masks, and such. You must take good care of yourselves, and don’t let Xiaoxue go to kindergarten.”

Cheng Qing said, “Xiaoxue is much healthier than you. You catch a cold every spring. This time you went to the north, and it’s so much colder… Are you sure you don’t need Mom to come and be with you?”

Mi Yang said, “No need. You stay in Shanghai. Don’t go anywhere.”

Only after Cheng Qing agreed did Mi Yang hang up the phone.

He placed the back of his hand on his forehead to test it and felt that it was slightly hot.

There was a thermometer in the medicine box he had with him. He took it out and measured it. After a few minutes, he took it out and looked at it. 37.5 degrees, a low fever, but still a fever.