Bian Cheng opened his eyes and looked at the dark grid pattern on the ceiling, was in a trance for a moment.
The past day had been full of ups and downs, and his logic had been knocked offline by the excessive sensory stimulation, only just rebooting now.
He placed his hand on his forehead, trying to clear his thoughts, and suddenly noticed a red mark on his ring finger, left by the temporary ring made in the cabin. The paper must not have been good quality, and the color had faded. Looking at the red mark on his hand, for a moment he felt like he had stepped into a parallel world.
He had actually married a man he had known for less than a day.
Marriage, at least in East Asia, was not a personal act, but a social act with a strong impact. Wen Di had mentioned his parents, and it was obvious that he cared about their opinions, so how did he plan to explain it to his family? Would he keep it a secret?
As for himself, even without considering his father’s feelings, there was also the elder—his grandfather. Moreover, his father’s reaction to this matter was still unknown. If it interfered with Wen Di’s life, it could bring him disaster from out of nowhere.
And…Bian Cheng turned his head to look at the young man who was sleeping soundly. They knew nothing about each other. What did the other person do for a living? Where did he live? How would they arrange their living situation after marriage?
Not to mention the various legal consequences that came with marriage: property division, support obligations,[footnote]抚养义务 is referred to as ‘support obligation’ or ‘maintenance obligation’, commonly meaning the responsibility to provide financial support, typically for children or dependents.[/footnote] tax filings—he hadn’t considered any of these things, yet he had gotten married?
As his rationality returned, he suddenly realized the absurdity of the whole situation.
Bian Cheng anxiously ran his hand through his hair. How could he have done something so utterly unreasonable?
Then a pale arm stretched over and wrapped around his waist. He looked down and saw a young face pressed against him. The delicate face was half-covered by messy hair, with the tips brushing against long eyelashes. The sight made him feel itchy for the other person, and he couldn’t help but reach out to smooth the hair to the side of his forehead.
The eyelashes fluttered a few times, and the arm dropped limply, clearly slipping back into sleep.
Bian Cheng suddenly felt an immense sense of regret.
If only they could live forever in the miracle of this one day. Las Vegas felt like a dream, but the duration of a dream was always short-lived.
Bian Cheng went over the practical issues in his mind, thinking that difficulties would lead to arguments, arguments would lead to the breakdown of their relationship, and the final outcome of that breakdown could be divorce. So, he decided to first go back and get money from Song Yuchi, take back the seven hundred dollars and the phone, and return them to the other party. That way, when discussing the future of their marriage, they would have a good starting point, reducing the possibility of arguments.
Bian Cheng gently moved the arm of the person beside him, got out of bed, and put on his clothes.
Suddenly losing the heat source, the person under the blanket complained, muttered a few unintelligible words, and rolled over, taking the blanket with them.
While buttoning his shirt, Bian Cheng looked at the sleeping face, hesitated for a moment, and then leaned down to gently kiss the forehead.
He walked to the hotel lobby and asked the front desk if they knew where his hotel was. The staff pulled out a phone and did a quick search for him. It was at that moment that Bian Cheng realized they had many ways to solve the problem of getting lost the previous night. They could have asked one of the still-open businesses, or gone to the police station, but in the end, he had chosen to walk a long distance.
Was it that his brain had shut down because of the alcohol? Or was it that he subconsciously wanted to keep going?
He returned to his hotel with confusion and knocked on Song Yuchi’s door. As soon as the door opened, Song Yuchi rushed up to him, holding his phone, grabbing him by the collar, his expression panicked, completely different from his usual self.
“Where did you go?” Song Yuchi demanded. “I called you so many times, why didn’t you answer?”
“My phone was lost, it’s a long story,” Bian Cheng replied. “What’s wrong?”
“Uncle had an accident!” Song Yuchi said. “You need to go back right away!”
Bian Cheng’s heart stopped for a moment. Song Yuchi helped him book the earliest flight, and he immediately grabbed his bag and headed out. On the way to the airport, Song Yuchi filled in the blanks for the missing twenty-four hours.
Last night, Bian Huaiyuan had suddenly collapsed on the living room floor due to an aortic dissection. Fortunately, he was rescued in time, preventing any serious complications.
After the emergency surgery, although the torn aortic lining had been repaired, Bian Huaiyuan had still not regained consciousness and remained in the intensive care unit under observation.
Last night…last night…
Bian Cheng suddenly broke out in a cold sweat.
Wasn’t that right after he had finished the call with his father?
He suddenly realized his hands were shaking. If… just assuming… if it really was something he said that triggered it…
There were too many things he didn’t dare to think about.
When Bian Cheng arrived, it happened to be visiting hours. The nurse opened the ICU door and gestured for him to go in.
Bian Huaiyuan lay under a clean hospital sheet, with ECG monitors, a blood pressure monitor, and a pulse oximeter on either side of the bed, the heart rate tracing arcs on the screen. In one corner of the room stood a ventilator, its tubes connected to his nose, the rhythmic sound of the airflow blending with the ticking of the monitors, creating a tranquil atmosphere in the quiet space.
Bian Cheng stood by the bed, and for a moment, it felt like time had stopped.
This man, his biological father, his mother’s husband, the builder and betrayer of two families, the man who once accompanied him to climb a 500-meter cliff with bare hands—he now appeared so fragile.
After leaving the ward, he met with his father’s attending doctor. The doctor informed him that there were many possible reasons for the coma, including insufficient oxygen to the brain, metabolic or electrolyte imbalances, or side effects from the post-surgery medication. They would continue with CT or MRI scans, cardiac function assessments, and blood tests to determine the cause of the coma.
Bian Cheng nodded.
The doctor continued discussing the post-surgery care instructions: infection control, pain management, medication management, nutrition and diet, and regular medical follow-ups. More importantly, they needed to maintain the patient’s mental health, avoiding extreme emotional fluctuations, including anger, anxiety, or excessive excitement. These emotional states could put additional stress on the heart and affect the recovery process.
Bian Cheng said, “Okay.”
“This is the follow-up treatment plan,” the doctor took out a document. “It needs a family member’s signature. Ms. Jiang mentioned she’s already divorced from Mr. Bian…”
“I understand,” Bian Cheng said. “Give it to me.”
He took the consent form, signed it, thanked the doctor, and walked out of the consultation room.
Outside the ICU was an empty hallway. The doors to the rooms on both sides were closed, and even during the day, the atmosphere was gloomy. The floor was spotless and shiny, reflecting the white glow of the ceiling lights. At the end of the hallway was a row of chairs, where a boy was sitting. Next to the boy was a backpack. His head was bowed deeply, with a notebook on his knees, and he was struggling to write something with a pen.
Bian Cheng turned the corner, and the boy looked up. Seeing him, the boy suddenly put down his pen and called out, “Gege.”
Bian Cheng was startled by this address, stopping in his tracks and turning to look at the boy.
The boy’s face lit up with excitement as he carefully placed the pen between the pages of the notebook, set it down beside his backpack, then jumped up and ran over to him: “Gege.”
Bian Cheng realized that this boy who had suddenly appeared to recognize his relatives was his half-brother, but he didn’t know how to respond. To him, this child was no different from a stranger.
“You know me?” he asked.
The boy excitedly ran to his backpack, rummaging through it for a moment before pulling out a photo—it was Bian Cheng’s undergraduate graduation picture. In the photo, Bian Cheng had not yet gotten rid of the childishness of adolescence, wearing a purple graduation gown with a serious expression, while beside him, Bian Huaiyuan was smiling happily.
“Dad kept it on his desk,” the boy said. “And told me to learn from you.”
Bian Cheng frowned. He didn’t understand why his father would use his ex-wife’s son to motivate his current son—oh, not his current son anymore.
The homework book was spread out on the chair. Bian Cheng picked it up and read the name on the name column on the cover: “Jiang Yu.”
The boy responded immediately.
On closer inspection, it was obvious that the character ‘Jiang’ had been added later, and beneath it, there was a faint trace of the character ‘Bian’ that had been erased.
There were more than one erased marks throughout the book—both the front and back had indented letters, and if looked at closely under the light, it could be seen that the same word was written—idiot.
Bian Cheng hesitated for a moment, then opened the notebook. The grid on the page was filled with crooked writing, but there was only one character: Yu.
The boy noticed Bian Cheng’s gaze and proudly said, “Other classmates have to write difficult characters, but the teacher said, I only need to write my name.” After a moment of pause, he looked a bit troubled. “It would be better if my name was easier to write.”
He told Bian Cheng that he could write characters like ‘一’, ‘土’, ‘人’[footnote]I’m keeping it like this but literally, respectively means ‘one’, ‘soil’, and ‘person’. Basically just the easy to write character[/footnote] very well, and he never forgot them once he learned them.
In that instant, Bian Cheng understood everything—He finds me embarrassing, and he finds my son embarrassing too.
“Isn’t today Wednesday?” Bian Cheng asked. “Why aren’t you at school?”
“My mom said I don’t have to go anymore,” the boy paused, looking a bit dejected, “I don’t have to go anymore in the future.”
“You dropped out of school?”
The boy nodded. Before leaving school, his mom took him to see the teacher, who seemed very happy. The class monitor said it was because he had been holding back the entire class. He didn’t quite understand what he meant. How could he have been holding back the whole class?
Recalling that, the boy’s mouth curled down: “I want to go to school.”
This was the first time Bian Cheng had heard a child of this age express a desire to go to school. “Why?”
The boy nodded: “If I don’t go to school, I can only watch TV at home. It’s so boring.”
“Don’t you go out to play?”
“Dad won’t let me. If I go out, he gets angry.”
“Why?”
“He yells at me,” the boy recalled, repeating, “Do you want the whole world to know I have an idiot son?”
Bian Cheng remained silent for a while and asked, “Has he always talked to you like this?”
The boy explained to Bian Cheng that, a long time ago, his father used to be quite gentle. He didn’t know why, but once he started school, his father’s attitude changed. After a few exams, his father took him to a place where there was a stranger who asked him a lot of questions and even gave him a score. He didn’t know what the score meant, but his father said it wasn’t good.
Gradually, his classmates stopped paying attention to him. They didn’t even call his name, just ‘idiot’. His mom told him that if others called him an idiot, he should be angry. But his father called him an idiot the most, so he couldn’t always be angry with his father.
Bian Cheng had originally planned to leave; he didn’t like small talk, especially with unfamiliar relatives. But in the end, he turned and sat down on a bench. The boy happily sat next to him—finally, someone was talking to him.
“Is school fun?” Bian Cheng asked.
The boy nodded vigorously. “I can clean the blackboard, take out the trash, and mop the floor when I go to school. Everyone is nice. When they see me come, they give me the broom and the blackboard eraser.”
Bian Cheng wanted to say something several times but stopped himself, finally asking, “Do you understand what’s taught in class?”
The boy shook his head and then immediately said, “The teacher said, if you don’t understand, you should listen more. If you can’t learn it, you should practice more.”
He took out a stack of homework books and Bian Cheng glanced at them. There were math, Chinese, and moral education exercises. When he opened them, the writing inside was messy and uneven. Looking closely, it was mostly a repetition of the questions.
The boy smiled sheepishly: “The teacher said that if I don’t know how to do it, I can still get points by copying the questions.” But he had tried to follow the advice, and it didn’t improve his grades. He added, “But I’m good at art.”
In art class, the teacher never marked his drawing with crosses. No matter what he drew, the teacher would put a little red flower sticker on it. Unlike other subjects, where he tried hard to write as much as possible, he always received papers full of crosses.
Bian Cheng closed the notebook and put it back into the boy’s bag. “What are you going to do next? Are you going to go back to school?”
“My mom said we’re going back to our hometown and I’ll go to another elementary school.” As he spoke, he sounded a bit down. “Then I won’t see my friends anymore…”
“I’ve told you many times, they are not your friends.” A woman’s voice came from behind the corridor.
Bian Cheng turned around and saw a woman walking towards them. Her long black hair was tied up in a simple bun at the back of her head. Her face was pretty, but there was fatigue between her eyebrows that could not be concealed, and fine lines appeared at the corners of her eyes.
The woman walked up to the boy, protectively wrapping her arm around him as if the whole world would hurt her child. “You’re Bian Cheng?” She gave Bian Cheng a cautious look.
“Yes.”
“I’m Jiang Yunruo,” she said, lowering her head and pulling out a stack of receipts from her pocket. The slips of paper were neatly organized by size and stacked carefully. “These are the expenses from before,” Jiang Yunruo handed the receipts to Bian Cheng. “The surgery, ICU, various tests—the money was covered by me…”
“Okay,” Bian Cheng took them. “Leave me a contact number, and I’ll transfer the money to you.”
Jiang Yunruo nodded, tore a page from the boy’s notebook, and wrote a string of numbers for Bian Cheng. She didn’t say anything extra, simply took the boy’s hand, put the backpack on her shoulders, and turned to leave.
Before she left, Bian Cheng spoke, “Thank you for getting him to the hospital.”
Jiang Yunruo nodded lightly: “I’ll leave the future matters to you.”
The figures of mother and son, one tall and one short, gradually grew smaller. In the hospital corridor, the sounds of coughing, groaning, and tossing and turning were heard one after another, while the stretchers from the operating rooms passed by. From time to time, the boy turned his head to look at the tall figure by the bench.
“What’s wrong?” Jiang Yunruo asked. “Do you like your gege?”
The boy nodded.
“Why?”
The boy thought for a moment, then said, “He called me Jiang Yu.”
T/N: Pretty sure this is not a spoiler, but in the later chapter, there’ll be chapter about Bian Cheng and Jiang Yu and istg, those chapters are my favorite ones!
Anyway, double update today! There’ll be another chapter after this
