During the Spring Festival holiday, Sheng Yiqing and Chen Zhuan went back to their respective homes.
On New Year's Eve, the younger generation of the family took Sheng Yiqing, the only unmarried one, to the yard to set off fairy wands. Several children were running around in the yard. The niece who was in college looked at Sheng Yiqing and suddenly said, "Aunt, I think you are very good. You are good-looking, have a career, live alone in Beijing, and don't even need to buy a house. Your family can't control you, and let you be a single rich woman, which is very good."
Sheng Yiqing chuckled: "Don't you want to get married?"
"Of course not! I don't like three-dimensional men. However, my idol is an exception."
Sheng Yiqing smiled: "Marriage is not that bad. If you meet the right person, marriage will be as beautiful as love."
Coincidentally, at this time, the phone vibrated. It was Chen Zhuan who sent a message: "I made a decision that makes you feel bad."
"Hmm?"
"My mom asked me when I can take you home to see you. I said next Spring Festival."
Sheng Yiqing looked at her phone and curved her lips to remind her: "You still have to go abroad this year."
"When you are in China, I will definitely travel frequently. All the classmates who are going abroad know that I have a partner." After a pause, Chen Zhuan said, "I don't know why, but I want to let you out now and let the whole world see it."
However, just after the third day of the Chinese New Year, the Hong Kong Stock Exchange sent a letter. At that time, Sheng Yiqing was wrapped in her mother's old cotton-padded jacket, with a hair that had not been washed for three days, lying on the sofa with a dog, eating melon seeds and watching TV series. When she saw the mobile phone email reminder, she jumped up immediately, scaring the dog in her arms.
Since the end of last year, the Hong Kong IPO market has been booming. The people on the project are as busy as spinning tops, and the securities firms are even more busy. They are rushing to complete all the projects on hand before the first quarter during the Spring Festival holiday.
Sheng Yiqing's new projects: "Emerald", "Blue Sky", "Glory" and "Dolphin" have all started. So Sheng Yiqing spent the whole day of the third day of the Chinese New Year on the phone conference. She was busy until 12 o'clock, packed her luggage, and flew to Beijing on the early flight of the fourth day of the Chinese New Year.
Sheng Yiqing and Chen Zhuan only met once throughout the spring. She was either in a meeting or on the way to a meeting. She was either doing due diligence in Gansu, Guangdong, and Yunnan, or working on the logo in Hong Kong. She was so busy that she was dizzy. She had hypoglycemia several times and could only take a nap in the VIP lounge of the waiting room with a blanket. After getting off the plane, she had to cheer up and fight again.
When Sheng Yiqing went to Beijing again, it was already April. She arrived at T2 at 2 o'clock last night and sat in the company at 9 o'clock in the morning. She had just finished processing the emails here, and received more than a dozen group @s there. Mondays are the busiest time every week, especially in the past two weeks. Several consecutive meetings have made her head swollen. She only drank a cup of capsule coffee for breakfast, and skipped lunch directly - she didn't dare to eat carbohydrates, fearing that she would feel sleepy in the afternoon. After a lunch break of only ten minutes, she went to the bathroom and received a call from Mr. Xie asking her to come to the office for a meeting.
The bright afternoon sunlight shone through the floor-to-ceiling windows, dimming the computer screen.
Sheng Yiqing's head was full of stars, and she felt sleepy and hungry. She couldn't help but turn her head to the window. The dazzling blue sky made her feel a little strange, as if she was in the atmosphere.
The voices of the people around her were sometimes blurry and sometimes clear. With a burst of severe tinnitus, Sheng Yiqing shook her head. However, the next moment, she felt a sharp pain in her stomach, and she felt a surge of acid rushing up from her stomach. Her head went blank, and the English and Chinese on the screen in front of her became blurry, and the voice on the phone became a noisy noise.
Then, everyone in the conference room watched Sheng Yiqing fall straight down.
Sheng Yiqing only regained some consciousness when she was sent to the ambulance. She closed her eyes. In the rumbling car, the doctor gave her a routine examination. Various instruments pressed on her abdomen and wrists in turn. Then there was a vibration on her waist, which woke her up and scared the doctor. Then she remembered -
It was the alarm clock.
It was the alarm clock that needed to dial in another conference call in 3 minutes.
The alarm clock rang, and she had to steel herself, take a deep breath, and force herself to take out her phone.
This move startled the doctor, who asked, "What are you doing?!"
Sheng Yiqing was pale and breathless: "... I... I have a phone call..."
The scene was quiet for a while, and the doctor shouted angrily, snatching the phone: "Are you fucking going to die?! How much money do you make a month?! You don't want to die?! Are you afraid of making money but not spending it? No matter how much money you give me, I won't make it!!"
After a while, a nurse responded: "I saw a public account last time, saying that the year-end bonus in the financial circle is 100 months' salary."
The doctor stared at Sheng Yiqing, was silent for a few seconds, and persuaded in a soft tone: "Then let's deal with it later."
The doctor's diagnosis was acute gastritis causing shock. After being transported to the hospital, blood was drawn and an electrocardiogram was performed. He vomited several times in the next night and was unconscious. When Sheng Yiqing came back to life, it was already the afternoon of the next day.
In the single ward, the morning sun shone in through the warm yellow curtains, and someone placed a bouquet of fresh roses on the bedside.
When she moved her fingertips, she realized that someone had been pulling her hand.
Chen Zhuan lay on the side of her bed, as if he had been sitting there all night. Feeling the movement, he raised his head and interlocked his fingers with hers: "Are you awake?"
Sheng Yiqing looked at Chen Zhuan's face with big eyes, as if she didn't recognize him for a moment-
It's been a long time since we last met. This man actually dyed his hair silver, and wore a silver earring on each ear. He was wearing a black sweatshirt with a silver chain around his neck. Seeing her staring at him like this, his Adam's apple rolled and he touched his hair uncomfortably: "Ahem... When your company called me to say you were in the hospital, I had just come out of the barber shop. I had just resigned and was about to go to California, so I... I changed my hairstyle. Doesn't it look good?"
"Not bad." Sheng Yiqing smiled, stretched out her fingers, motioned Chen Zhuan to stretch his head over, and messed up his hair like petting her own golden retriever.
Chen Zhuan chuckled, grabbed her hand, and put his palm against his face: "Can you work less hard? You don't need to earn dowry, nor do you need to support the family."
"When the year-end bonus comes this year, I will save enough for the down payment and buy the house I live in now. The landlady has been waiting for me to buy it, hahaha." At this point, Sheng Yiqing reached out and pulled Chen Zhuan's ear, flicked his ear loop with her fingertips, and frowned: "You also pierced your ears?"
Chen Zhuan hummed, with a hairdo that was so trendy that it was outrageous, but his voice was gentle, "It's all David's fault They said that they should have a good hairstyle before going abroad. They just wanted to perm it, but they coaxed and tricked everyone into dyeing their hair. One of them had red hair and the other had gray hair, which made them look particularly silly. "
David is a classmate of this year's UCLA Film School, and he is also in Beijing. According to Chen Zhuan's description, he is a playboy with a dream of making movies. He has participated in several small web dramas before. After he formed a group, and Sheng Yiqing was busy, Chen Zhuan spent the whole day with the people from the UCLA Film School Beijing team, eating and drinking, and planning a carefree life after studying.
Fortunately, Sheng Yiqing's gastritis was not serious, and Hesheng's medical insurance was generous. However, she had no time to go to the hospital, so she took this opportunity to have a full-body physical examination.
Sheng Yiqing could only eat liquid food for the past two days. At dusk, Chen Zhuan went to the hospital and bought an inflatable bed for accompanying her and some items for hospitalization. Acute gastroenteritis was not serious, and Sheng Yiqing was staying in the international ward, so the doctors and nurses took good care of her. However, Chen Zhuan insisted on accompanying her, serving her tea and medicine. The nurse coldly watched the handsome man. Although he had silver hair, he was quite reliable. At the end, she whispered to Sheng Yiqing: "No wonder everyone loves sister-brother relationships now. It turns out that younger brothers are handsome, clingy and reliable."
Sheng Yiqing almost spit out the medicine and ruthlessly exposed: "He is 31. Two years older than me."
This sudden change in appearance made Chen Zhuan realize that Sheng Yiqing was staring at him more and more. After dinner, he took Sheng Yiqing for a walk in the corridor. Dusk came in through the window glass of the ward corridor. They walked slowly along the long corridor of the hospital. The sunset outside the window also sank little by little until they reached the end of the corridor. There was only a trace of gold outside the window, outlining the mountains and high-rise buildings in the west. That was the boundary of the night.
Chen Zhuan turned his face away, rubbed his ears, and asked uncomfortably: "Why do you keep looking at me?"
The gaze of a lover has warmth and weight.
But Sheng Yiqing said, "Kiss me."
He was startled, then smiled, leaned down, kissed her forehead, and slowly moved to the corner of her lips. Sheng Yiqing closed her eyes, her eyelashes fluttered gently, and she was actually a little nervous. Chen Zhuan paused, held her face, and looked at it carefully for a while, but the kiss did not fall.
Sheng Yiqing opened her eyes in surprise, only to see him looking at her, smiling: "Why are you blushing?"
"Cheating..." Sheng Yiqing opened her mouth and whispered, "You changed your look and kissed me, as if... I cheated."
"Ah?"
The next second, Sheng Yiqing buried Lian in his arms, as if she was savoring it, "Indeed, it's quite exciting."
"..."
Suddenly, a tight bell sounded in the ward, interrupting the hug of the young couple, and someone shouted "Doctor, doctor!". Chen Zhuan and Sheng Yiqing quickly stepped aside.
After a while, several nurses and doctors hurried over and rushed into the ward. The doctor and the nurse whispered something, and there were several beeps of equipment connecting and starting. Then, the doctor's words were heard from inside the room: "Your husband has passed away... Please accept my condolences..."
The next second, a huge, collapsed wailing sound that was not human-like broke out in the ward.
Sheng Yiqing stood there in a daze, her whole body cold. The two looked at each other at a loss, holding each other's hands tightly. She realized that they were in the hospital, a place filled with birth, aging, illness and death at all times.
The sunset completely sank, and it was dark outside the window, and no light could be seen anymore. The lights in the corridor turned the windows into mirrors, reflecting the various aspects of life in the wards: the pale girl wearing a woolen hat in the chemotherapy room; the old couple who supported each other to stand up; the middle-aged man who coughed violently and forced himself to stand up but could only spit phlegm into the thermos cup; the caregiver who plugged the pain pump for the patient in the bed and cleaned the urinal...
They walked to their own wards very quickly, lay on their own beds, holding hands, and after a while, Sheng Yiqing suddenly asked: "What do you think is growing old together?"
Chen Zhuan was stunned, held her hand, and scratched his silver hair: "I will grow old with you now."
In the dark, his eyes were as bright as stars, looking at her with a smile, and Sheng Yiqing also smiled.
At noon the next day, Chen Zhuan was called out by David, saying that he knew that Chen Zhuan was in this hospital with his wife, so they found a restaurant near the hospital and asked Chen Zhuan to come down. Chen Zhuan had no choice but to keep the appointment. They ate and drank together. When they parted, David bought another bunch of flowers and insisted on coming up to see her.
When the two entered the room, they saw that the doctors and nurses were in Sheng Yiqing's room, talking in low voices. When they saw the visitor, they stopped talking and turned around. Chen Zhuan was stunned and asked the doctor: "Is she okay?"
The doctor nodded, glanced at Sheng Yiqing and replied: "The gastroenteritis is almost healed. Just follow the doctor's advice for the follow-up."
David stood at the door, with a head of red hair and flowers in his arms. He waved to Sheng Yiqing and said enthusiastically: "Hello, sister-in-law!"
Chen Zhuan had no choice but to say: "He insisted on coming up to see you. He said he had something to tell you."
Sheng Yiqing seemed to be still asleep and her reaction was a little slow. She looked at David: "What's the matter?"
"Is that so? I plan to start a company in China after returning from UCLA. I pulled Chen Zhuan Together, I have seen what he filmed before, and I think he is very talented. Let him be our director in the future. There are also several other classmates. They have agreed that they will be the backbone of our company in the future. "
Sheng Yiqing smiled: "Very good."
"Hey! Right. But there is one thing. We will start school in September, but I have found a co-production project in Los Angeles, which will start in early May, which is next week. So, I thought that the people in our company could go there in advance, shoot some movies together, rent a house together, and go to class together when school starts. What do you think? "
Chen Zhuan was stunned and looked at David, "No, are you serious?"
"They have already agreed that you are the only one left. You are the only one in our group who has a family. I know it's useless to ask you, so I'll just ask your wife directly."
Sheng Yiqing looked at Chen Zhuan and then at David: "Are you all single?"
"Of course not, we are doing art! Nowadays, not getting married is the biggest performance art."
Chen Zhuan sneered and put his hand on David's shoulder, "You've had enough fun. Forget about leaving early. I promised Yiqing that I would spend more time with her. This project You go first, I'll come later."
"Oh, don't! Nothing is impossible for you! And this is a short film, which can be included in the film festival later. Don't you just want to make a movie?" David was anxious and looked at Sheng Yiqing again, "Sister-in-law, this is Brother Zhuan's dream! Dream! ..."
Before he finished speaking, he was dragged out by Chen Zhuan. David's voice echoed in the corridor: "Think about it again, think about it again, and discuss it with our sister Qing. I will send you the project introduction first..."
The lights were turned off very early at night in the hospital. Sheng Yiqing's body was almost recovered and she could be discharged the next day. Under the sheets was a stack of physical examination reports, which were the results just taken today. The paper was poking her, and Sheng Yiqing did not fall asleep.
She turned sideways and noticed a slight screen light. It was Chen Zhuan lying on the inflatable bed. He had his back to her and was flipping through the project introduction David sent to her page by page.
Sheng Yiqing pulled the corner of her mouth and suddenly said in the middle of the night: "If it would be a pity to miss it, go ahead. Don't leave regrets in life."
Chen Zhuan jumped and quickly locked the phone screen. He turned around and reached out to touch Sheng Yiqing's face: "You haven't slept yet?"
Sheng Yiqing handed the phone screen to Chen Zhuan. It was her business trip schedule for May and May. It was full: "Although you promised to accompany me until August, I will start all kinds of business trips after I am discharged from the hospital tomorrow. First go to Shanghai, then go to Hangzhou, and after I come back, I have to fly to Chengdu for two weeks in a few days..."
Chen Zhuan frowned: "You are so busy, what about your health?"
"I will take it easy. But what I want to say is that you don't have to accompany me. If this opportunity is so important, you should cherish it."
Under the moonlight, the two looked at each other. Chen Zhuan carefully looked at her face in the light. Sheng Yiqing looked serious, as if she was sincerely persuading him to go abroad in advance.
"...You don't miss me at all?" He was dissatisfied and pinched her face.
Sheng Yiqing also pinched him: "You stick to me every day these two days, I'm almost annoyed!"
"Okay." Chen Zhuan seemed to be relieved and looked at the ceiling: "I have been with Davi these days.
dThey were eating, and I was quite touched. I felt that they were very much like me in the past. After knowing that I got married, they were still very surprised and asked, "Then you can still go abroad?" I said that my wife is different. We are both independent and have our own goals. We are a bit like kites. Let it go, fly in the sky, and when we come back tired, we can still see each other. You asked me yesterday what it means to grow old together. Later, I thought that no matter how far you fly, when you look back, you are always there." After saying that, he looked at Sheng Yiqing, but found that Sheng Yiqing was not looking at him, but staring at the ceiling. It was not until she noticed his gaze that she turned her head and smiled at him gently. After an unknown amount of time, Sheng Yiqing suddenly asked, "Then Chen Zhuan, if one day I get a very serious disease... that is, a serious disease like your ex-girlfriend, what will you do?" Chen Zhuan paused for half a second, looked at her seriously, and asked, "Why do you give such an example?" "Aren't we in the hospital now? Some examples of illness are suitable." "Okay. I..." Chen Zhuan thought for a long time, "I will be very sad... But since we are married..."
"What if we are not married? If there is still room for regret, will you still marry me?"
"I..." Chen Zhuan thought for a long time, and finally looked at Sheng Yiqing, "Do you want to hear the truth?"
"You say."
He shook his head, "I don't know. I..."
Sheng Yiqing didn't say anything else, and she was discharged from the hospital the next day.
After being discharged from the hospital, she went directly to the company and applied to suspend all the work for the business trip next week. Mr. Xie was stunned and asked Sheng Yiqing: "Is there something wrong with your body?"
Sheng Yiqing calmly handed the test report to Mr. Xie: "This time because of hospitalization, I did a full body examination, including irregular nodules in the left breast, and the B-ultrasound diagnosis was 4b, with a 50%-19% chance of cancer. The doctor suggested that I go for another puncture. If confirmed, I should need to continue to take leave. But don't worry, I will hand over the work. I studied it and I should be able to take on some work during chemotherapy. "
Mr. Xie nodded solemnly and said, "Take care of yourself. We'll wait for you to come back." After a while, he tried to show concern again: "You are not in danger of life, right?"
"You won't die..." Sheng Yiqing pulled the corner of her mouth, then thought of a young girl who died last week in the newly joined breast cancer surgery group, and added, "If you are lucky."
Mr. Xie was relieved, "That's good. Take care of yourself. Let Xiao Chen take good care of you. "
Sheng Yiqing didn't say anything else.
The visa had been processed long ago, and Chen Zhuan went to the airport with David and others on Saturday afternoon. Sheng Yiqing looked at Chen Zhuan calmly, watching them enthusiastically imagining the future of the company in the car on the way to the airport, talking loudly about their ideals, with a radiant light in her eyes.
They are a kind of people, like kites, who need to soar into the sky. The only person who is most suitable to accompany them for life is themselves.
And what is living together forever?
Sheng Yiqing didn't know until she arrived at the hospital. It is unconditional recognition and tolerance after going through the daily necessities of life, and being willing to bear the other person's life, and, more importantly, his death.
It is to love her forever. A little bit of old face;
It is love for his no longer strong body;
It is willingness to accept each other's pain, darkness and paranoia no matter how many years have passed...
What does it mean to decide to accompany each other for life in the most beautiful year? Is it happiness? Absolutely not, marriage is definitely not a smooth road, it is narrow and full of thorns and stones. Every step after a couple decides to stay together is a downhill road to life - this is an increasingly dark road destined to death.
Under the cover of love, there are the facts of birth, aging, illness and death: it is the need to hold his urine when he cannot take care of himself, it is the need to clean his incontinent bed, it is the need to endure his painful groans all night, it is the need to clean his festering sores, You need to hold his vomit in your hands, and sleep with his breath stuck in his throat due to phlegm...
If all this goes through, what is left is death.
It is a skinny body, an increasingly weak body that has been drained of its soul. You need to look at his suddenly empty eyes, then gently close his eyes with your palms, send him to the funeral home, hand him over to the undertaker, look at her familiar yet unfamiliar remains, and then, after a fire, pick up her ashes bit by bit, carefully store them, and seal them together with the memory.
Then, you know that your life is also coming to an end.
You find that the word "accompany" is just like this. At the moment of death, you are still helpless and lonely.
This This is the essence of marriage. The moment you make a promise, you take on the weight of accompanying another life into old age. It is heavy, serious, and dark.
It is not suitable for Chen Zhuan.
And Chen Zhuan will never understand its weight.
The plane flew over the Capital International Airport. Sheng Yiqing made an appointment with a breast outpatient specialist at Union Hospital. The examination room was full of cancer patients and their families from all over the country, each holding a B-ultrasound bag from the local provincial hospital. Everyone was very quiet, giving up their seats to each other in a friendly manner, or talking quietly about their condition:
"I had an operation last year, and the pathology showed that it was invasive breast cancer... Later, I had chemotherapy for three months... I am still taking medicine now..."
"What about your partner?"
"I was dating someone at the time. We broke up. The other party's family would never agree. My cancer is hormonal, and I have to take medicine for five years, and I can't have children for at least five years. With this disease, I can live a good life, and I have let it go. What about you?"
"I was lucky, and the pathology showed that it was carcinoma in situ."
"No chemotherapy? "
"Well, just cut it off. But you need to check regularly... The ultrasound result was 4a at that time, I thought it was fine..."
"No chemotherapy, it's too torturous! It's like being tortured!" Another woman joined in, "I was thinking before, if I had chemotherapy, I would just jump off the tenth floor. I don't want to suffer."
"Yeah, I'd rather die than be tortured."
...
The women's voices were sparse, whispering to her ears, soaked in calm sadness. Sheng Yiqing sat alone, quietly holding the computer, arranging the handover of work one by one.
After all the work and inspections were completed, she opened the WeChat dialog box with Chen Zhuan and typed slowly: "I regret it a little."
She tried to make her tone a little more decisive.
"So, before you regret it, I want to tell you a new decision..."
She paused, wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes, and continued to type the remaining line: "Let's get a divorce."
Then, she deleted all of Chen Zhuan's contact information.