Spring Night of Misty Rain - Chapter 39

The hospital room was a single, private ward with an en-suite bathroom; all one needed to stay was a sofa bed. Regardless of Shen Zeyu’s objections, Xu Luosu grandly invaded her territory.

Shen Zeyu was currently trapped in a depressive period, waking up every day with an unpredictable temper. While she was in the bathroom brushing her teeth, Xu Luosu’s assistants were helping her install the sofa bed. Shen Zeyu was so furious her whole body trembled, and the force of her brushing intensified.

Putting aside how utterly ridiculous the “family member staying over” excuse was, based on the reality of her condition, was it really necessary for Xu Luosu to live in the hospital? Was Xu Luosu bankrupt? Could she not stay in a hotel nearby? Did she absolutely have to squeeze in here?

Even with air conditioning and heating, a hospital ward in the dead of winter could never be as comfortable as a hotel. What was Xu Luosu trying to do? Was she ever going to work again? Were the TV dramas not being filmed? Was the movie not being moved forward? Was she just going to let the business of such a large company go to waste? She used to be so busy; why did she suddenly have time to join her in the hospital?

Was she the one with mental illness, or was it Xu Luosu!

Shen Zeyu trembled with rage, her mind filled with a fierce internal monologue. But she was the type of person whose mind grew more rational the more her emotions surged. Even as a psychiatric patient, the upbringing bred into her bones wouldn’t allow her to hurt others with her words.

She endured it again and again, splashing her face with cold water until she finally forced herself to calm down and walked out of the bathroom.

The bed belonging to Xu Luosu had already been installed next to Shen Zeyu’s. Currently, the girl was sitting at the coffee table, opening takeout boxes and preparing for lunch. Seeing Shen Zeyu finished with her morning routine, Xu Luosu greeted her: “Senior Sister, are you eating?”

Shen Zeyu was fed up. “No!”

She gave a cold reply and sat down on the edge of her bed. Seeing the medication for the afternoon on the bedside table, she grabbed it, tossed it into her mouth, and swallowed it in one go. Then she threw back the covers and went to sleep. If she couldn’t do anything about Xu Luosu, could she not at least act as if she didn’t exist?

After all, Xu Luosu had said it herself: she would do her thing, and Shen Zeyu could ignore her.

However, Shen Zeyu hadn’t been lying down for long before the rich aroma of tomato beef brisket floated in front of her. The medication hadn’t kicked in yet, and she was lured into opening her eyes by the scent. She saw Xu Luosu sitting by her bed with a bowl of tomato beef rice, her eyes sparkling. “Want some, Senior Sister?”

Shen Zeyu gave a silent “Pah!” in her heart, mentally reciting “I will not eat the food of pity.” She simply turned over, keeping her back to her as if she had seen nothing.

Xu Luosu looked at her back and let out a soft sigh. “Sigh, alright, alright. I’ll eat it myself.”

Shen Zeyu slept until the afternoon. When the nurse came for rounds and discovered she hadn’t eaten lunch, she gave her a thorough scolding. After finishing with her, the young nurse looked at Xu Luosu with an air of disappointment: “If she won’t eat, you should at least make her have a little. This medicine is very hard on the stomach; how can she stand it without food!”

Xu Luosu accepted the lecture humbly. Once the nurse left, she turned to Shen Zeyu: “What do you want to eat, Senior Sister?”

Shen Zeyu didn’t really want to talk to her and simply lay on the bed in a state of total “rotten” surrender. “I don’t want to eat.”

But a person has to eat eventually. Xu Luosu thought about it and simply went to the inpatient department to get a meal card and bought a hospital dinner for Shen Zeyu. Hospital food is terrible—eating it is almost like a form of abuse—and Xu Luosu didn’t want to eat after two bites. Yet Shen Zeyu, that difficult woman, actually took the meal Xu Luosu brought back and, surprisingly, ate a few mouthfuls. But it was too unpalatable; she set the lunch box down after eating barely half of it.

Xu Luosu hurriedly cleared it away for her, taking the box with a sense of lingering fear. “The skill level of the hospital cafeteria chefs truly needs improvement. I’ll have someone deliver food tomorrow instead.”

Shen Zeyu didn’t say yes, nor did she say no. She simply took the medication the nurse had left on the nightstand and drained it with warm water.

For a psychiatric patient, being overly energetic is very dangerous. Therefore, most of their treatments involve a certain amount of sedatives or drugs that inhibit neurotransmitter activity to reduce the “vibrancy” of their thoughts. This was exactly what Shen Zeyu needed. Thinking of the past made her depressed; thinking of the future made her anxious. Only in the present could she avoid losing herself.

But her “present” was merely a calm illusion maintained by drugs. If she thought one step further, reality would reveal its hideous ugliness. Before her mind collapsed, she suppressed her thoughts—she simply wouldn’t think, choosing instead to use a tactic of complete indifference toward Xu Luosu.

She didn’t respond, sliding back under the covers and closing her eyes to sleep again. Xu Luosu wasn’t annoyed by her silence. She sat by the bed in quietness for a minute before raising her hand to pat Shen Zeyu’s blanket. “Goodnight.”

She slept until the middle of the night. In her slumber, Shen Zeyu vaguely heard the sound of Xu Luosu’s footsteps in the room, the soft clicking of a keyboard, and the sound of her on the phone. The hospital environment was so quiet that even the slightest noise was infinitely amplified.

Shen Zeyu wanted to lose her temper, but her body had no strength. So, in that state between dreams and wakefulness, she cursed Xu Luosu to high heaven in her mind.

By the time the drugs had circulated through her body and her mind cleared, it was already the latter half of the night. The sky outside the window was a hazy gray, like solidified gas glowing with a ghostly blue—as if a single spark would ignite the entire sky.

Shen Zeyu sat at the head of the bed, looking down at Xu Luosu lying on the sofa bed beside her, her brow furrowed. In the dim world, the girl wrapped in a silk duvet was lying on her side, her fine brows slightly knit, looking as though she wasn’t sleeping well.

Shen Zeyu pondered with a frown, then got out of bed and walked to Xu Luosu’s side. Crossing her arms, she studied her carefully for a long time. In the darkness, the girl’s fair face tucked in the blankets was so translucent it seemed to glow.

It wasn’t that Shen Zeyu was adding a filter; anyone seeing Xu Luosu’s sleeping face couldn’t help but think of an elven princess sleeping in a forest—beautiful and exquisite, yet with a hint of exotic danger. At least in Shen Zeyu’s eyes, she was very dangerous.

Perhaps the gaze was too blatant, as the sleeping Xu Luosu soon sensed something was amiss and woke up hazily from her dream. She opened her eyes, looking blearily toward the side of the bed, and immediately saw the thin figure standing there.

Xu Luosu’s heart skipped a beat. She rubbed her eyes and sat up, her voice raspy: “Senior Sister, are you awake? Why are you standing here? Do you want some water?”

As she said this, she threw back the covers to get off the bed. “I’ll pour you a glass.”

The moment her feet touched the floor, her wrist was grabbed. Shen Zeyu held her hand and pulled her up, giving a final ultimatum while suppressing her emotions: “Move out tomorrow. Don’t come back.”

Being kicked out in the middle of the night put Xu Luosu in a bit of a bad mood as well. But she was more stable than Shen Zeyu, so she let out a sigh and looked up at her. “Can I ask why you’re so resistant?”

“Me being here doesn’t disturb you, and I can be a living, breathing creature to stay with you. Why can’t you just accept it?”

Shen Zeyu held her wrist and leaned down to look at her. In the darkness, those amber pupils had a non-human, eerie quality. “First of all, you do disturb me.”

“The footsteps, the phone calls, the keyboard, the breathing… every single sound is amplified in my ears. I find it very distressing.”

Her words were hurtful; with every sentence, Xu Luosu’s presence seemed to shrink a bit, leaving her with no room to argue. She hung her head, biting her lip in silence.

But Shen Zeyu didn’t let her off; instead, she doubled down: “Secondly, I don’t need anyone to stay with me.”

“Having you by my side makes me feel truly uncomfortable. Because according to the original plan, you should be preparing to join the set for the second season of Night Languor right now.” She gripped Xu Luosu’s hand, forcing her to look up. “Miss Xu, prioritize correctly. If I am sick for the rest of my life, are you going to stay in the hospital with me for the rest of your life?”

“Every one of us has our own life and the responsibilities we each bear.” In the darkness, she stared straight into Xu Luosu’s eyes, her tone very grave. “Please stop wasting your time on me. Go enjoy your own life.”

Xu Luosu took a deep breath, gripped her hand back, and looked up with stubbornness. “You keep saying I’m annoying you, but the core of it is just that you think I should be handling work instead of being here with you.”

“From your perspective, I should put my career first, right?”

Shen Zeyu gave a light laugh, her tone slightly mocking. “Is that not the case?” To love others, one must first love oneself.

Xu Luosu looked up at her, her voice slightly choked. “But I told you from the very beginning—or at least showed you—that whether it’s the TV show or the movie, everything is centered around you.”

“I want to enter your life, regardless of the capacity.” She grabbed Shen Zeyu’s wrist and pulled her over, pressing her forehead against her chest. “I just don’t want you to be here all alone. Even though you say you can do it, I simply can’t bear it.”

“It’s because of that reason that I came here. Heartaching for you and taking care of you is also to make my own emotions feel better.”

“Can I not even stay here for that reason?”

Warm tears dripped onto her chest, the heat making Shen Zeyu tremble all over. In truth, she wasn’t actually that resistant to Xu Luosu, but she was afraid of her. Out of that fear, she wanted to be as far away as possible. But they had already established a connection, a connection like the Earth and the Moon. Getting closer caused tides that might tear both apart; drifting further away made them both dim.

Shen Zeyu didn’t know what to do either. The person in her arms was sobbing softly, a sound she couldn’t stand to hear. She let out a sigh, raised her hand to the top of Xu Luosu’s head, and gently rubbed it, her tone carrying a hint of self-abandonment. “Fine, since you’re already here. Anyway, your ‘White Knight Syndrome’ is quite severe; you might as well find a doctor and get treated together with me.”

Xu Luosu was left dazed by her words and looked up at her. In the darkness before dawn, her eyes were watery, like a little lamb jumping through the grassland under the stars.

Shen Zeyu couldn’t stop herself; she used her fingers to carefully wipe away the girl’s tears, saying nonchalantly: “If it’s just a flare-up of your White Knight Syndrome, then I’ve already enjoyed a bit of the fun of the princess-knight roleplay.”

“But if you want a different kind of relationship, I advise you to consider it very carefully.” After wiping away the tears, she stood aside with her arms crossed, giving a cold, self-deprecating snort. “I am a very difficult person to deal with, and being with me will be very exhausting. You’d better give up sooner rather than later.”