Together Forever - Chapter 61
Volume 3, Chapter 61: Your Mrs. Gu (1)
The monitor, infusion pump, ventilator, micro-injection pump... Green lights flickered on the instruments, as doctors and nurses in isolation suits whispered to each other, checking the data on the machines.
These were all familiar to him.
This was the hospital where he and his mother had once worked, so there were no restrictions on his access to the ICU.
After the elderly patient fell asleep, he walked to the isolation changing room outside the ICU and removed his isolation suit.
"The condition of Mr. Gu is being monitored by the heads of various departments. Even Dong Changting from 301 Hospital has been invited by the nephrology department. He is considered an authority in the transplant center," said Dr. Liao, who had always been on good terms with him, in a low voice. "Although the situation isn't great, you've been in this field before, so you should take it lightly."
Today, when Dong Changting arrived, he had previously arranged to have dinner with him.
He stood him up.
For this person, he might have stopped holding a grudge after his teenage years. When he was young and returned to China with his mother, he still had some hope, but after repeatedly missing the chance to meet, he even felt some resentment.
But what lay hidden behind that resentment was actually an obvious sense of inferiority.
For a teenager, the word "father" itself carries an overwhelming power, and coupled with the fact that he was truly outstanding—so outstanding that it made him, an ordinary student from a missionary school, feel abandoned and inferior.
But after passing through that confused and uncertain age, the power of that word naturally faded away.
He didn't respond, handing the isolation suit to the nurse, feeling a bit of damp sweat on his body.
"Why hasn't your wife come over?" Dr. Liao also handed over his clothes.
"We're not officially married yet, so it's not very convenient."
"Back when we were interns together, you were considered the flower of our hospital. I never thought you'd be captivated by a young girl," Dr. Liao chuckled. "But this girl is really nice. Look at the divorce rate these days? It's not something you can just brush off by saying you want to move on. I always wondered why you never got married. What were you waiting for?"
"She hasn't graduated from university yet," he replied calmly, like water. "We'll get married once she graduates smoothly."
Dr. Liao made an "Oh" sound and pressed the control switch for the glass door.
As the door slowly opened, he finally caught on and patted him with a half-smile: "A post-90s kid?"
Hearing this, he was genuinely surprised.
When he got into the taxi and left the hospital, he thought of that term again.
From the moment he started teaching Tong Yan's class, he noticed that this generation of students was quite special. He didn't grow up in China, but looking at their attitudes towards life, they were vastly different from those students.
He clearly remembered one time when he saw a girl with pink hair and a sky-blue bow running into the office, begging the legal basics teacher to go easy on her. He suddenly felt the urge to laugh.
And then there were the pink, heart-shaped love letters he received while teaching Tong Yan.
Gu Pingfan saw them and once remarked that in the past, such things would have been anonymous confessions of affection, but nowadays, kids are practically shouting their love for the teacher from the rooftops...
After all, they're still kids.
He leaned back in the passenger seat, thinking of what she had said: "Having a child to accompany me while I miss you."
A big kid with a little kid?
It seemed like one wasn't enough. Apparently, foreigners in China don't have birth restrictions. But Pingfan also said that if both parents are only children, they should be able to have two.
So that would make three with her. Three kids to feed, clothe, and house, all on his own.
It actually didn't sound too bad.
Tong Yan left that sentence behind.
Afraid that her eyes would be too swollen, she called her grandmother and said she might be home late. Fortunately, it was winter, so the meat didn't need to be put in the fridge immediately. She carried a bag of bloody chicken and wandered to the KFC near the neighborhood for dinner. When ordering, the server glanced at her several times, perhaps because of the chicken or because her face was swollen from being hit.
At the sink, she soaked a napkin in cold water.
Then she picked a corner table and sat there, pressing the wet napkin against her face while munching on spicy chicken wings.
The glass in front of her faced the road and the entrance of the opposite neighborhood.
After finishing two chicken wings, she happened to see a taxi stop in front of the fruit shop. Her intuition told her it was him. Sure enough, the person who stepped out of the low car and quickly straightened up was Gu Pingsheng.
She held a chicken wing in her mouth, took out her phone, and quickly checked her face in the selfie camera.
Completely fine. She really was resilient.
In the distance, he was picking out fruits, and the fruit shop owner was chatting with him about something. Because of his height, he politely leaned forward slightly, listening to her.
Tong Yan sent him a message: "I got off work late. Poor me, eating junk food."
On the other side of the road, she saw him take out his phone from his pocket and look down at it.
She continued munching on the chicken wings, her eyes fixed on him.
Although the glass was a bit dirty, it didn't hinder the view of the beauty.
Gu Pingsheng put the change the fruit shop owner handed him into his wallet and phone back into his pants pocket, then placed the fruits he bought on the fruit stand.
Then he turned around and crossed the pedestrian crossing. Halfway across, he encountered a red light and stood patiently in the crowd, waiting for it to turn green.
Perhaps because she had just gone through something unpleasant, watching him walk over now, such a beautiful person forming such a perfect picture, made her heart race just by looking at him.
When he saw her, he didn't come in but stood outside the glass wall, looking at her with a slight frown.
Tong Yan wiped her mouth with a napkin and silently mouthed to him: "I was wrong. I won't eat junk food anymore."
She didn't know what he was thinking, but he didn't say anything.
Tong Yan then lifted the bag of chicken and smiled proudly: "Chestnut braised chicken."
Gu Pingsheng raised an eyebrow, a smile spreading in his eyes, but he still didn't say anything.
Just then, a car passed by, its headlights quickly sweeping past him. She was about to say something when he suddenly spoke, uttering just two words: "Go home."
She nodded, quickly put her phone away, and ran out of KFC.
This feeling of excitement was really like a child who had forgotten their keys, finally waiting for their parent to come home...
That night, as she stood under the shower, she wondered when she had become so open-minded. Something that had happened just a few hours ago now felt like a lifetime away. It seemed that anything unrelated to Gu Pingsheng was of no concern to her.
When she came out wrapped in a towel, Gu Pingsheng was sitting on the bay window reading documents.
When he first brought her to see the house, both of them had fallen in love with the large bay window in the bedroom. Laying down a thick wool carpet, placing a low table and some cushions, it became a cozy nook for reading and drinking tea.
Gu Pingsheng was wearing gray cotton sweatpants, sitting barefoot with his back against the glass window. Various documents were scattered at his feet and on the low table. Since he was working on an Argentine project, all the photocopied materials were in Spanish.
He was very professional, as all the projects he was involved in were confidential, so naturally, the documents he brought home were best left incomprehensible to others. She had seen a lot of them recently, and although she didn't understand the meaning, she could recognize the shape of the words.
She approached, and only then did he finally look up from the pile of documents.
"Being a native English speaker is such an advantage. You still have the energy to learn other languages," she said, mimicking his posture, climbing up barefoot and poking his foot with a smile. "Sir, do you need a foot massage?"
She had been practicing on him for several days, even holding a printed sheet, memorizing the techniques and acupoints. Now she had almost mastered it, looking every bit like a traditional Chinese medicine practitioner.
Gu Pingsheng couldn't help but laugh: "It's Friday night. How about taking a break?"
"No slacking off," Tong Yan said, pretending to be hurt. "Practice makes perfect. Haven't you noticed I'm not using the acupoint chart anymore? I'm telling you, you should be grateful. The other day, some judges at our court were complaining that foot massages outside are getting lazy, just using knuckles to press. Fewer and fewer people are using their fingertips like I do, you know?"
He surrendered, letting her, who was worse than an apprentice, practice on him.
"I want to learn how to drive," she said, following the steps meticulously, her fingers already a bit sore. She leaned against the glass window like him and suddenly thought of this. "That way, if there's an emergency at home and we can't get a taxi, there's someone who can drive."
"You don't need to deliberately learn how to drive. If something happens, there's always Pingfan."
He really wasn't being polite...
Tong Yan deeply felt that having such a younger brother must be quite a headache for Gu Pingfan: "What if Pingfan gets married one day? Or what if she's not in Beijing? She can't always be at your beck and call."
He finally gave in: "We can wait until the weather gets warmer."
But she was eager: "How about this weekend? While I'm still in my internship and have some free time."
Gu Pingsheng couldn't drive in China unless he retook the driving test, so she treated this as a mission. She studied harder than anyone at the driving school, but when it came to actual practice, she realized that Chinese driving schools were extremely unscientific. Basically, if she wanted to drive confidently, she would have to practice with Gu Pingsheng every night in some remote area.
Her instructor loved to chat and even asked about her boyfriend's job.
"He's a lawyer," she said with a smile. "Same major as me."
"That's good. I can introduce him to some cases. People these days love to sue. Several of my neighbors are always looking for lawyers to handle cases, like property disputes or alimony. People are getting more and more petty."
"He's not qualified to handle lawsuits... He's a non-litigation lawyer," Tong Yan struggled to explain. "When someone invests in a project, he helps review investment agreements, legal negotiations, and things like that."
She actually didn't fully understand what he did every day.
She only remembered one time when she went to wait for him after work. The department secretary explained that he was still in a video conference, a legal negotiation for a hedge fund investment. When she reached the door of Gu Pingsheng's office, the frosted glass door of the meeting room opposite opened.
Inside the meeting room were senior non-litigation lawyers, all in suits and ties, uniformly dressed in black. He stood with his back to her, his posture straight, his voice calm and steady in a way she had never heard before: "The modifications marked here do not conform to market practices. We refuse to accept such unreasonable demands..."
The rest of his words were cut off as the glass door slowly closed.
The negotiation went on late that night, and by the time she had finished all the biscuits in the office, the meeting finally ended. Gu Pingsheng returned to the office, took off his tie, and threw it on the table, sitting down exhaustedly.
Tong Yan felt really sorry for him, leaning against him and massaging his shoulders and arms. Seeing that he was still immersed in work, she casually brought up a trivial question to distract him: "I've never had an English name. What do you think would be a good one?"
He thought for a few seconds and smiled as he answered: "EVE."
"EVE?" Tong Yan thought about the meaning. "Evening?"
"Eve."
She was speechless: "That name... isn't really suitable for others to call me, is it?"
"If you stay in the court, you probably won't have a chance to use an English name," Gu Pingsheng said, finding it increasingly fitting. "This name can be used at home."
EVE, Eve. Because of the story of the rib, it became the most beautiful name...
Tong Yan gripped the steering wheel, continuing to listen to the driving instructor talk about various civil disputes, but her mind drifted far away.
Comments
Post a Comment