Chapter 24 Part 4

He threw up several times along the way, his stomach still churning. The stomach acid burned his esophagus, making his complexion look even worse. After a moment, he asked in a hoarse voice, “Am I infected?”

Lu Wenyuan didn’t answer. He asked again, “Then what about you and Chen Annan?”

Lu Wenyuan finally gently patted his back, using an extremely lighthearted tone, like soothing a small child. “It’s okay. The doctor hasn’t seen you yet. Don’t let your imagination run wild. What are you afraid of with your dad here?”

The hospital’s isolation area was heavily guarded, damp everywhere. The smell of disinfectant stung the nose painfully. “Caution: Wet Floor” signs were visible all over the ground.

Lu Wenyuan led his son in. After explaining the situation to the emergency doctor, father and son were immediately transferred away.

They stayed in the hospital the entire night. Waking up in the morning, Chen Annan habitually wanted to throw a leg over someone, but this time, he swung his leg onto empty air. Instantly, more than half his drowsiness vanished. He sat up in a daze.

Brother’s spot was empty.

He searched the whole house over and over but couldn’t find him. With that, Chen Annan’s world collapsed first.

At the hospital, after finishing his IV drip and seeing the sky brighten, Lu Qingyuan yawned a few times. While Lu Wenyuan kept vigil without having closed his eyes all night, a nurse came over to remove the needle. “Watch your diet when you go home. Eat light food. Having a fever at this critical juncture means you could get sent to quarantine.”

Lu Qingyuan’s fever was caused by acute gastroenteritis. Fortunately, the doctor who saw them was experienced and hadn’t isolated them first.

On the way out of the hospital, Lu Qingyuan suddenly asked, “Dad, did you tell Chen Annan?”

“…” Lu Wenyuan gave his son a deep look, slapped his forehead, and said, “This time, things really are a huge mess!”

Right now, Chen Annan was leaning on the windowsill, wiping away tears. The housekeeper stood behind him, coaxing him with difficulty. “Oh dear, little darling, don’t cry. Your eyes are swollen up like peaches. You won’t be pretty anymore if you keep crying.”

Chen Annan acted as if he hadn’t heard. Standing on a small stool, leaning on the window, his eyes kept peering down below, watching for his uncle and brother to come back.

So much so that the moment Lu Wenyuan walked through the door, the housekeeper latched onto him like grabbing a life-saving straw. “Oh my, this child of yours is truly hard to soothe…”

Lu Wenyuan chuckled softly. “A bit, yes.”

Seeing his brother return, Chen Annan quickly hopped off the chair and scampered over, sniffling. “What’s wrong… Brother, what’s wrong with you?”

“Just a minor ailment,” Lu Qingyuan touched his hair whorl and lifted him up. “Don’t cling. Just got back from the hospital, I’m dirty.”

Chen Annan, sniffling and sobbing, refused to let go, crying incredibly pitifully. Lu Wenyuan told them both to hurry up and disinfect, then come eat. They needed to eat their fill to have the energy to keep crying.

The housekeeper went to the kitchen to bring out mung bean congee and steamed buns, not forgetting to pour out her grievances. “When he couldn’t find his brother, he just sat here crying. I had no choice but to tell him you both went to the hospital last night to see a doctor. Well, that only made it worse! He cried even harder. Nothing I said worked after that… It’s all my fault, this old mouth of mine can’t speak properly. Look how frightened the child got.”

Frightened was indeed an understatement. Chen Annan became anxious and fearful because of his brother’s illness. He stopped sleeping well. Every day, whenever he had a free moment, he’d put his hand on his brother’s belly, lean down and listen for a while, then carefully ask, “Are you still uncomfortable? Do you still feel like throwing up?”

He’d also say, “If you feel unwell, just tell me. I’m right here with you.”

Lu Qingyuan said, speechlessly, “…Do you think I’m pregnant?”

Chen Annan opened his mouth awkwardly, an “Ah?” escaping. He was genuinely very worried about his brother. Being sick was a very scary thing. These days, the TV kept reporting deaths here and there. He was very, very scared.

So much so that the next morning, when Lu Qingyuan opened his eyes, he was met first with Chen Annan’s large eyes, staring roundly at him, not making a sound, his butt sticking up high—like a kitten stretching.

Lu Qingyuan stared for a moment, then asked, “…What are you doing?”

Chen Annan was instantly delighted. Innocently, he said, “Listening to see if you’re still breathing.”

“…” Lu Qingyuan reached out and nudged the child aside. Helplessly, he said, “Gastroenteritis isn’t fatal.”

Chen Annan patted his own chest. “That’s good, that’s good.”

Lu Qingyuan’s body recovered very quickly. He didn’t need any meticulous care at all. Still, Lu Wenyuan followed the doctor’s prescribed diet and had the housekeeper rotate dishes for him daily.

Chen Annan was even more over the top. This child’s care was a form of torment for Lu Qingyuan. Even though he’d said many times that he was fine, Chen Annan insisted on taking care of his brother.

Every day before bed, he delighted in covering Lu Qingyuan with his own pre-warmed little blanket. Yet, his blanket really was very small. It always either covered the head but not the feet, or covered the feet but not the head.

Most of the time, Lu Qingyuan had to pull over an extra quilt himself. Then Chen Annan would burrow into his quilt and, in an almost imperceptible voice, coax him, “Don’t be afraid. I’ll always be with you. When I grow up, I’ll take care of you for a lifetime, okay?”

He said it so earnestly, Lu Qingyuan couldn’t bring himself to say anything. He could only let the little guy gently pat him like a tiny adult. In the end, he patted himself to sleep first. The familiar scent brought a warm softness that surrounded Lu Qingyuan.

A month and a half passed in the blink of an eye. Just when he thought this little cub had finally stopped insisting on being a caretaker, that day, Lu Qingyuan received an unexpected gift.

A large gift box sat in the living room. Inside were a thousand paper cranes in every color. A full thousand!

Lu Qingyuan asked in astonishment, “Where did these come from?”

Chen Annan said happily, “Beautiful, right? I folded them. Auntie told me that if you fold a thousand, you can make a wish to the mountain god!”

Lu Qingyuan asked, stunned, “What wish are you going to make?”

Chen Annan clasped his hands together sincerely and devoutly, making a wish toward the heavens. “I wish for Brother to always be happy, healthy, and blessed. Please, Mountain God Grandpa, please, please, let Brother get better quickly!”

The simplest words. Lu Qingyuan had heard them from many places. But never had he been so deeply moved as he was in this moment. Chen Annan, in his heart, was like the ivy silently creeping up the small building—in a place no one noticed, it had already claimed a space all its own.

Lu Qingyuan couldn’t speak. He stared at those paper cranes for a very, very long time. In the silence, he heard the muffled thumping of his own heartbeat, mingled with a tiny bit of tenderness and affection. He couldn’t tell which weighed more.

But Lu Qingyuan knew, from this moment on, he wanted to give him the very best the whole world had to offer.

That day, seeing so many paper cranes, Lu Wenyuan couldn’t stop grinning. “You two make me look like the extra one.”

Then he spent several days helping them string these paper cranes together with needle and thread and tiny beads, hanging them up as a door curtain.

Days wore on, one after another. The sycamore boulevard once again linked up into a stretch of verdant, sky-covering green. The world, in places unseen, was riddled with wounds, slowly healing.

This season was saturated with sorrow. People left in wave after wave. Yet, new life was always being born here.

Like a scar branded on the world—mottled and jarring, yet filled with fresh blood.

In June, the head teacher submitted a letter of recommendation. Lu Qingyuan was ultimately accepted into that key middle school. Chen Annan climbed up to third grade. He was still that child who depended intensely on his brother and loved to act sweet and petulant.

However, Chen Annan wasn’t hauled out of bed an hour early as he’d imagined. Because Lu Qingyuan usually, after waking up, would first gently wipe his face and hands, change him into the clothes he was going to wear that day, and tuck the blanket back around him securely.

On the bathroom counter, there was always pre-squeezed toothpaste and mouthwash at the perfect temperature. Breakfast was always properly portioned according to his appetite—just right, neither leftover nor insufficient.

Under this meticulous care, Chen Annan boarded the little boat of time, swaying gently, yet stable and secure.

During this period, Lu Wenyuan moved with them once. Now, their home was a standalone small villa near Xuanwu Lake. Every day, pushing open the window, the wind swept across half the lake, carrying the scent of damp lake water, moisture-laden.

Cotton Candy had its own separate little bed now, but it still habitually slept at the foot of its little master’s bed.

Later still, Lu Qingyuan entered the city’s top high school as the number one scorer on the high school entrance exam. His excellence was still enviable.

Wind blew in through the window, causing the mirror on the wall to sway slightly, making Chen Annan’s reflection look like an inverted image in water. The ripples washed away his childishness and innocence, faintly revealing a nascent, unopened youthfulness.

When the wind passed and the mirror stilled once more, the face in the reflection no longer possessed that overly childish look of the past. Yet it was still remarkably handsome. His round eyes curved into soft little crescents when he smiled. Perhaps because he’d studied music for so long, an artistic aura imbued his brilliance, nurturing within it a subtle, indistinct trace of melancholy.

This made Chen Annan receive widespread attention as soon as he entered middle school.

In just one short year, he had become the acknowledged “Pretty Fool” of his grade, and even the whole school.