How Can Two People From Different Sides Ever Fall in Love? - Chapter 22

Chapter 22

◎ They vanished together into the same night, carrying such a relationship ◎

“Thank you, Hollis.”

In the hospital’s open-air parking lot, Raven hurriedly unbuckled his seatbelt. Before getting out, he finished his thanks and turned back to enjoin Hollis: “It’s very late; you should go back first. There’s work tomorrow. If anything happens, we’ll contact each other by phone.”

Just before bed, Annie Li had called to say that Li Lan had taken a fall and was now at the hospital.

The specifics of the injury required a series of checks, and a few words over the phone couldn’t make it clear. Raven dropped a sentence saying “I’ll be right there,” hung up, and got out of bed to change.

In his haste, he even buttoned his shirt into the wrong holes. He tried to undo them and re-button, but his hands were in a flutter; the more he panicked, the messier it got. It was Hollis who pulled a hoodie out of the closet and pulled it over Raven’s head: “Hands up.”

Raven’s head poked out from the collar, his hair a mess and his face full of bewilderment, yet he obediently raised whichever hand he was told to raise.

The grey hoodie was large enough to hide the mismatched buttons. But before leaving, Hollis was truly uneasy and insisted on driving Raven over.

Having successfully “delivered the Buddha to the West,” yet seemingly suffering the treatment of “killing the donkey once the grinding is done,” Hollis wasn’t angry. He remained worried, saying: “Do you want me to go with you? If needed, I can lend a hand; two people are better than one for looking after things.”

Raven thought about it seriously, effectively clearing the suspicion of “killing the donkey”: “It’s enough. Two adults—I’ll do the physical labor, and Annie is there for the inconvenient matters. Besides, work needs people; you can let me know promptly if there are any developments.”

Hollis had no choice but to let him go: “If you need anything on your end, let me know promptly as well.”

“Okay.” With that, Raven hurried out of the car, his figure vanishing into the vast night of the hospital.

He had considered everything and held no selfish motives, yet he uniquely overlooked Hollis’s thoughts.

A relationship that was inconvenient to reveal before elders, an affection that could not be made public, and in the middle of the night—how to explain the identity of this suddenly appearing stranger?

Colleague? Friend? Or lover?

Hollis restarted the car, driving in the opposite direction from Raven.

They vanished together into the same night, carrying such a relationship.

By the time Raven reached the door of the consultation room, Li Lan had finished her examination. She sat on a chair outside the room with her injured arm in a sling, surrounded by people, “battling the crowd of scholars.”

“I told you to live with us, but you just wouldn’t listen. Now look—a fractured arm in the middle of the night.”

The speaker was Li Lan’s son, Jack Li. As the senior among the “scholars,” he stood with hands on hips, occupying the center stage—standing before Li Lan with an expression both angry and anxious, yet having to control his tone, making him sound strange and funny.

Li Lan was not to be outdone. Even sitting down and surrounded on three sides, she displayed a startling presence: “Am I your mother, or are you mine? It’s not your turn to lecture me here!”

She had commanded the Chinese district of the Olo Republic for decades; how could she let a second-generation reprimand her like a third-generation in front of the third-generation?

The actual third-generation, Annie Li, stood to Li Lan’s right with her arms crossed. She had no intention of joining the blood and wind of the two older generations. In her boredom, she sensed someone approaching, looked up instinctively, and happened to see Raven.

She freed a hand and waved it at him: “You’re here.”

Li Lan was still wondering who had arrived. She turned her head, saw Raven, and in the next second, called out her granddaughter’s full name: “Li—An—nie.”

“No shouting in public places.” Annie Li had recently moved in with the old lady and had accumulated many tricks for dealing with her.

The old lady cared about face; in public, she always felt she represented the national image, being more law-abiding and observant of rules and regulations than they were.

Sure enough, as soon as she spoke, the old lady immediately silenced herself.

In a blink, Raven utilized the advantage of his long legs, covering the distance to the four of them in a few strides.

After greeting each person face-to-face, he hurriedly asked: “Uncle Jack, Annie, Paul, how is Laolao? What did the doctor say?”

The patient had been strong-willed her whole life, accustomed to doing things herself, and insisted on being the spokesperson for her own condition: “I just bumped my arm. They made a mountain out of a molehill and called you here in the middle of the night. You have work tomorrow!”

Facing this elder, Raven was sometimes quite helpless. He silently looked away and exchanged glances with the other three juniors.

Paul Li had been silent for half his life, fearing most to make decisions for his grandmother.

Jack Li took after his mother. For decades, whenever the mother and son spoke, eight out of ten sentences were sarcastic jibes at each other. The remaining two were either calling someone over to judge or using status or age to pressure the other.

“Am I your mother, or are you mine!” —”I can’t talk sense into an old lady like you!”

In the end, it was Annie Li who shouldered it all: “Your Laolao didn’t turn on the light when she got up at night. The hand she used to steady herself on the nightstand slipped, and with a clunk, didn’t she just go and fracture her arm?”

Jack Li seized the opportunity to chime in: “If Annie hadn’t been worried about your Laolao and insisted on moving in with her, who knows what would have happened in the middle of the night? Talking about calling so many people and making a scene—if we don’t gather now, when exactly do you expect us to gather?”

Raven felt a headache coming on; in this family, concern could be voiced as if it were a grudge.

And Li Lan always settled a grudge on the spot. As she spoke, she used her good hand to pat the armrest of the chair: “Hey, you brat, you’re actually lecturing your mother now!”

“Yes, yes, yes,” Jack Li perfunctorily brushed her off with middle-aged impatience, “you are my mother.”

Raven, who couldn’t get a word in at all: “…”

Seeing a family drama about to play out in the hospital, Paul Li seized the chance to interject: “Um, it’s very late. Should we head back first?”

He hadn’t said a word until then; an outsider might have thought he was a mute.

Annie Li picked up the diagnostic report and followed after her brother: “Let’s go, you two elders. If you haven’t argued enough, shall we continue when we get back?”

She then successfully attracted all the fire.

“I forgot to mention you, didn’t I!”

“The older you get, the more out of line you become. How are you talking to your father and your grandmother?” Jack Li grew more energetic as he spoke. “I’ve said it before—not getting married when you should, you just don’t act like a junior!”

It went in Annie Li’s left ear and out her right as she carried the medical CT bag, walking briskly at the front.

Arriving at the parking lot, Li Lan couldn’t stay idle and directed the personnel: “All of you go back. Annie can just take me.”

Raven finally found a chance to speak: “Uncle Jack has to open the shop tomorrow, and Paul’s child is still small; his wife is home alone taking care of things and worried about the situation here. It’s best if they go back. I’ll go with Annie to take you.”

Jack Li ran a Chinese supermarket in the city. The father and son managed it together, and there were many details to watch; they often couldn’t be away.

“Alright, Laolao, I’ve already requested leave from the leadership; you don’t need to worry about work.” Raven interrupted the Li Lan who wanted to argue. “Just as well, I didn’t drive, so I might have to trouble you to give me a lift.”

At the hospital gate, the two cars drove in different directions.

Annie Li gripped the steering wheel. In the night, her voice was faint, as if coming from a distance: “You took a taxi over?”

Raven was startled, as if waking from a dream: “Ah, yes.”

“You got here pretty fast. It shouldn’t be very easy to get a taxi in the middle of the night.”

Raven gave a light laugh: “I probably had good luck.”

Having a driver appear right when something happened and accompany him out—was that not good luck?

Annie Li was non-committal. In the gap while waiting for the red light to turn green, she suddenly shared her view on Raven’s attire: “Changed your style? I haven’t really seen you wear a hoodie before.”

Raven wore a three-piece suit year-round. When casual, he switched to a casual three-piece suit. It wasn’t that he didn’t have T-shirts or sneakers like normal people, but he was rarely seen wearing them.

A hoodie was even rarer, and the size seemed a bit too large.

The collar was loose, revealing the shirt collar underneath, like the “oversize” trend popular in recent years, commonly known as the “boyfriend style.”

Raven usually wore T-shirts in a fitted, structured style. No matter how you looked at it, this hoodie didn’t look like his clothes.

“You only see each other a few times a year; how would you know what clothes are in his closet?” Li Lan was getting older and slept less. Bored in the back seat, she poked her head out to join her grandchildren’s conversation.

Raven managed to escape answering, listening with a smile to the grandmother and granddaughter’s banter.

However, it was one thing for Annie Li not to mention it, but once she did, he thought of the still-misaligned buttons beneath the hoodie.

Like a distorted centipede crawling along his abdomen, he suddenly felt itchy all over, yet he couldn’t move and had to maintain a smiling face.

On the other side, after Hollis returned, there were only a few hours left before wake-up time. Worried that Raven might call and also harboring a faint sense of expectation, he gave up on catching up on sleep and sat woodenly on the sofa until dawn.

Consequently, when Silver arrived at the office and saw Hollis resting his eyes at his station, she was slightly surprised.

His face was grim, his lips were pale, and there was a hint of dark circles under his eyes.

She knew this look well. When she pulled an all-nighter for “CP shipping” and still had to get up early the next day, she looked much like this.

“Morning.” Silver asked carefully. Someone lacking sleep was a powder keg; one couldn’t tell when they might explode.

Hollis opened his eyes and nodded toward Silver with a solemn expression: “Morning.”

“Where’s Raven?” Silver put down her briefcase and asked casually but with a bit of curiosity: “He’s not seen yet at this hour?”

She was a master of arriving just in time. Usually, when she sprinted into the office at terminal velocity, Raven would already be sitting at his station, smiling and clapping for her victory.

Though she walked into the office today, it wasn’t much earlier than usual.

Hollis’s gaze was wooden as he answered: “He’s on leave. His Laolao fell and fractured her arm last night.”

“Ah?” Silver said urgently. “How is the elderly lady?”

“He said it’s nothing serious, just needs good rest.” In the morning, Hollis had called to check on the situation and received this response from Raven.

Silver then asked about the cause and effect, and Hollis recounted the main points.

“Fortunately someone was home, otherwise falling at that age…” Silver didn’t dare think further and stopped herself in time.

Hollis expressed deep agreement: “Yes.”

After these few exchanges, the relationship between the two seemed to have moved a step closer. In situations where Raven wasn’t present, they could also share a few simple words.

Hollis took this opportunity to ask a question that had troubled him for a long time: “There is something I would like to ask your advice on.”

Silver was overwhelmed, her hands waving like windshield wipers, saying “I wouldn’t dare” several times in a row.

Hollis waited patiently for her panic to subside before speaking slowly: “What is a ‘CP’?”

Support