Walk Into Your Good Night

04

The next time I saw Tang Jingchuan was a week later. I was out on business for a week, swamped with work.

Sometimes I would doubt myself, believing that I was really not the type for operating a company. Yet, I was unwilling to give my father’s company away.

In the past, I only wanted to work for myself, but now I had to accept reality. I had to admit that none of us could live as we please.

My flight back landed at noon. I went back to the office to make some arrangements for later work, then drove home to get some sleep.

Out there, I didn’t sleep well. Not that I didn’t want to, but I couldn’t. Those so-called “business partners” didn’t let me put down my guard. To get the project, they kept gifting me things.

Such as people.

I didn’t do this sort of thing, whether in the past or in the future.

They sent a starlet [T/N: a celebrity with little popularity], who I vaguely remembered having seen before. She was very pretty and good at lip service. So, we sat opposite each other, smoking face to face for the whole night.

The later few nights were similar. I was very exhausted and just wanted to return home to sleep.

There was a bit of traffic on the way back. I followed the GPS navigation and somehow passed by The Third Hospital.

For hospitals this kind of place, especially for public hospitals, they were always chaotic and messy. I would not have given it more than a glance before, but when I drove here, I thought of Tang Jingchuan. I remembered that he had said before that his wife was still in the hospital. I wondered whether she had been discharged yet.

At the time I still didn’t know what kind of illness his wife had, but somehow I activated the turn signal, and drove into the hospital’s doors.

I just wanted to drive a lap around the hospital, as if by doing so I would have seen Tang Jingchuan. A silly thought.

Just like that, when I drove past the emergency department, I saw the person who had been frequently on my mind for these few days.

I stopped my car and ran over. Tang Jingchuan was running after the doctor into the building. I chased after him and spotted the woman on the stretcher.

She was Tang Jingchuan’s wife.

“What’s wrong?”

Tang Jingchuan didn’t hear my question. All of his attention was focused on his wife.

I followed behind, watching the doctor push the unconscious woman into the emergency treatment room.

Tang Jingchuan stood, unmoving, in front of the room. He looked at that close door, chest heaving with his ragged breaths.

I didn’t dare carelessly disturb him. I stood half a metre apart from him, staring.

He was wearing a smoke-grey cardigan, cut somewhere with some of its threads falling apart. It matched the owner.

Yes, from my point of view, Tang Jingchuan was like a damaged cardigan, distressed and lost, waiting for himself to be abandoned by the world.

However, even the most worn-out sweater had someone who cherished it. They attempted to carefully mend the sweater, only to find their efforts fruitless.

I was trying to be that person who mended him. Yet when I walked over and asked him as gently as I could about what happened, he took a glance at me once and collapsed in my embrace.

This sweater I cherished was full of holes.

But I could not throw it away, just like how I was unable to not care for Tang Jingchuan.

I called for a nurse, but in this shabby hospital there wasn’t even an empty sickbed. The nurse set up a temporary bed in the narrow and noisy corridor. He lay on it, face pale; I guarded over him that way.

That was the first time I could closely observe him without fear of being discovred.

The nurse asked me who I was. I said I was his neighbour.

She asked me for his name. I said I didn’t know.

That was our fourth meeting, and I still did not know what he was called.

I had a lot of speculation about him. I observed him from his eyelashes to his Adam’s apple. I wanted to kiss him, but I only thought about it; the most important lesson in life was learning self-control.

The doctor said he was fine and would wake up soon.

I also tried to ask about his wife, but because I seemed to have an unknown relationship with this family, they sealed their lips tight.

I knew very well that there were some things I shouldn’t stick my nose into. Yet, looking at this messy hospital, I felt my ears ringing from the noise and crying.

I called my secretary, and asked him to book a single room at Hekang Hospital. Hanging up, I waited for the person in front of me to wake up.

When Tang Jingchuan woke up, I was calling my mother. After my father passed away, she went abroad to live with my elder sister. She was having a good life, being concerned about her son and whether he had ruined the family business.

I was dealing with my mom. Then, I saw Tang Jingchuan sitting up on the bed, rubbing his forehead.

He looked at me, his gaze disoriented. I hung up, walked over and said, ”How are you feeling?”

”Thank you.” Tang Jingchuan was thanking me again, and then he got off the bed hurriedly. He was standing in front of the emergency treatment room’s doors once more.

I walked up to him, and asked, ”What happened? I can help.”

He shook his head, silent.

”The Third Hospital has the worse medical care. I asked, and there’s no beds available right now,” I said, ”After your wife is discharged she needs to recuperate. I know someone at Hekang Hospital who can transfer you and your wife there.”

”It wouldn’t be necessary.” He said, ”We can’t afford to stay there.”

T/N: sorry it’s late, i’m busy irl until around the middle of december, updates will be slower till then. hope you are enjoying the story so far. Please let me know if i can improve somewhere in my translation, as i’m not a professional.