I Woke Up And My Girlfriend Was Gone - Chapter 28

Chapter 28

The dark night sky was hung with only a few scattered, lonely stars. Outside the window of the corridor, the rise and fall of sirens from passing ambulances sounded sharp and piercing.

The area outside the emergency room was deathly quiet. The words “In Surgery” glowed in a bright, taunting red above the door. Zuo Yin sat on a chair, her head hanging low, motionless.

Zuo Lan had suffered an acute gastric hemorrhage. No one knew how long she had been lying there alone. It was only when the neighbor, Butcher Zhang’s wife, came by to deliver some holiday pork that she found Zuo Lan collapsed on the floor and frantically rushed her to the hospital.

“I say, Xiao Yin, you’re on holiday—why didn’t you go home? What on earth happened?” Zhang’s wife asked, her brow furrowed.

Zuo Lan disdained socializing, but Zhang’s wife was a kind-hearted soul. Over the years, she was the only one who maintained a decent relationship with Zuo Lan, and Zuo Yin had received plenty of care from her growing up.

“It’s my fault, Auntie Zhang,” Zuo Yin said, her voice heavy with immense guilt.

Zhang’s wife, whose name was Zhang Xia, sighed. “Do you have any idea that Sister Lan has been waiting for you to come home?” Zhang Xia was a stout woman; after standing at the door for a short while, she sat down opposite Zuo Yin. “Back during Mid-Autumn, she’d drag a chair out and sit under the locust tree by the door. I asked her what she was doing, and she said the house was too hot. Then came National Day—she was standing at the door since the afternoon of the first day. When I saw her, she claimed it was ‘hot’ again. Tell me, how is this weather hot? If you don’t wear a coat at night, you freeze. Was she really hot? Anyone could see she was waiting for you.”

Hearing Zhang Xia’s words, an image of Zuo Lan sitting by the door surfaced in Zuo Yin’s mind. She imagined Zuo Lan leaning against the doorframe, sunflower seeds in hand. Once she finished the seeds, Zuo Yin would usually appear at the end of the alley, and Zuo Lan would leisurely walk over, take her bag, and lead her home.

This was a scene Zuo Yin had experienced every single day before middle school. Thinking of this, her heart throbbed with a dull, aching pain. She and Zuo Lan were the same type of person: stubborn to the core, refusing to back down, and ultimately only torturing themselves.

“So I told her,” Zhang Xia continued, “military training is over, and school has been in session for a while now. No matter how big the fight, a kid can’t just forget their mother, right? She felt sure you’d come back. She didn’t know what to get for you, so she ordered several pounds of the best pork from me and told me to hurry up and deliver it.” Zhang Xia’s face showed a hint of regret. “I told her that good meat is in high demand during the holidays and it would be a bit late. And that ‘late’ ended up being a trip to the hospital.”

“Xiao Yin, I brought that meat over tonight. The moment I stepped into the living room, there was blood everywhere. Your mom was collapsed on the floor. She’s so thin; I was terrified she’d bleed to death.”

“I don’t entirely blame you, but your mom was in the wrong too. I’ll give her a piece of my mind when she wakes up. But you know her—she loves to drink. The more trouble she has, the more she drinks. And she’s the type to keep everything bottled up.”

Zuo Yin sat on the cold bench, her hands clenched so tightly that her palms were ghost-white. Zhang Xia’s words might have been biased, but they left her drowning in remorse. She had relied on Zuo Lan since childhood; every aspect of her life had been arranged by her. Although the “crazy woman” spent money recklessly, she had never let Zuo Yin go without. She spent money where it needed to be spent. In fact, since Zuo Yin started learning oil painting, she hadn’t seen Zuo Lan smoke those expensive imported cigarettes for a long time.

“Child, I can tell your mom really misses you. Come back and see her more often in the future. Spend time with her. Her life has been bitter—it’s not easy for a woman to raise a child alone,” Zhang Xia said.

“Mhm,” Zuo Yin nodded, not daring to look toward the emergency room.

“And another thing…”

“Auntie, I wasn’t sure what you liked to drink.”

Just as Zhang Xia was about to continue, a bottle of warm milk appeared before her. Shen Qingzi, carrying a bag and standing with elegant grace, interrupted the “lecture.” Zhang Xia, for some reason, found her nagging words stuck in her throat at the sight of Shen Qingzi’s gentle smile.

She took the milk. “Oh, thank you, young lady.”

“You’re welcome,” Shen Qingzi smiled and sat down beside Zuo Yin.

Zuo Yin still looked so small—exactly as she had when Shen Qingzi saw her around the corner. Frail and fragile, she was wrapped tightly in the long coat Shen Qingzi had grabbed from the entryway for her.

Shen Qingzi pulled a glass bottle from her coat pocket. “Drink some warm milk.”

“Is there no coffee?” Zuo Yin asked. She didn’t want something to soothe her; she needed coffee to stay alert.

“No coffee for you,” Shen Qingzi said as she unscrewed the cap for her. “Calm down, Xiao Yin. I’ve already called a friend who works at this hospital. She just went in to assist with the resuscitation. Your mother will be fine.”

Zuo Yin gripped the milk bottle, the white liquid inside trembling slightly. Shen Qingzi reached out and held Zuo Yin’s shaking hand, whispering, “Trust me.”

Shen Qingzi’s hands were always warm, even in this chilly hospital corridor. Zuo Yin felt that warmth and allowed it to envelop her. In a moment of pure selfishness, she greedily sought the sense of security that only Shen Qingzi could provide.

Only her.

The smell of disinfectant, which had been off-putting when they first arrived, eventually became unnoticeable. Finally, the red light above the emergency room turned green. Zuo Yin stood up abruptly, staring at the closed doors.

A woman in a white coat and a mask walked out.

“The surgery was successful. Although she wasn’t brought in immediately, we managed to save her. She is out of danger. She’ll wake up in two to three hours once the anesthesia wears off,” the doctor said.

The heart that had been hanging in Zuo Yin’s throat finally dropped back into place. Zhang Xia nodded repeatedly, her gratitude overflowing. “Thank you, doctor, thank you.”

The doctor signaled it was her duty, then looked at Shen Qingzi. The two shared a small smile and a nod before the doctor left.

Soon, Zuo Lan was wheeled out by nurses. Her cheeks were sunken and her face was sallow; it was clear she had suffered greatly. Zuo Yin followed alongside the gurney, her heart wrenching with every glance. Tears welled in her eyes, but she forced them back.

By the time Zhang Xia helped transfer Zuo Lan to a ward bed, Zuo Yin’s eyes were completely bloodshot. Guilt and regret made the air in the room feel suffocating.

Suddenly, Zuo Yin felt an arm slip around her waist. She looked up blankly to find Shen Qingzi standing beside her, the hand on her waist gently stroking her back.

“Let’s go out for some air,” Shen Qingzi said.

“Mhm.” Zuo Yin nodded and followed her out.

The night breeze was cool. Zuo Yin stood by the window at the end of the corridor, her hair fluttering in the wind. Much like her thoughts, her heart wavered around Shen Qingzi.

Zuo Yin’s lips moved, and her first words were: “I was the result of an accidental pregnancy when my mom was eighteen, with a bastard of a man.”

Shen Qingzi didn’t show much surprise. She stood quietly, listening intently to the story Zuo Yin was about to tell.

“Zuo Lan eloped for love back then, but that bastard couldn’t handle a hard life. A few months after I was born, he abandoned his wife and daughter and vanished. Zuo Lan probably lost it after that. She took up drinking and smoking… I’ve seen old photos of her; she used to be very beautiful.”

Zuo Yin sighed. It was a pain Zuo Lan had experienced that she herself had never known. A girl who had lived in a utopia was blinded by love, eventually killed by it, and her proud back was bent by the weight of everyday survival.

“Maybe my grandfather found out somehow and took pity on his daughter, but the condition was that he had to ‘dispose’ of me.” Zuo Yin’s throat tightened, her voice choking with emotion. “So, on a snowy night, Zuo Lan just left me near some trash cans and walked away.”

Zuo Yin paused and looked into Shen Qingzi’s eyes with a bitter, mocking smile, yet one tinged with an undetectable trace of being moved. “It sounds unbelievable, but Zuo Lan told me that as soon as she took her first step away, I called out ‘Mama’ for the first time. Then she turned back and picked me up.”

Zuo Yin didn’t know if the story was true; it was just something Zuo Lan forced upon her whenever she was drunk. When Zuo Lan was wasted, she would ramble about these old memories over and over, as if she were fastening fragile chains onto Zuo Yin, using her own way to ensure her child would stay by her lonely side forever.

Deeply moved, Shen Qingzi asked, “And you? What kind of feelings do you have for your mother?”

Zuo Yin licked her dry lips and lowered her gaze, catching sight of the scabbed wound on her forearm. On that rainy night, she had been cursed by Zuo Lan and fled the home that didn’t welcome “him.”

“I don’t hate her. She threw beer bottles at me because she saw me as that man,” Zuo Yin said, bitterness surging within her. “She’s my mother. I know she hates the man who ruined her life, but I look too much like him.”

Zuo Yin looked up, showing the face that looked exactly like the man she had never met. “To Zuo Lan, I am an inescapable nightmare that follows her forever.”

The girl spoke every word with feigned ease, but they left heavy marks on Shen Qingzi’s heart. Suddenly, Zuo Yin felt a sense of weightlessness. Before she could react, she was pulled into a warm embrace.

The moonlight spilled through the half-open window, casting two intertwined shadows onto the clean floor.