SWG Chapter 38
by VolareAs evening approached—
“Boss Ruan…” Xiao Wenyu looked at the person taking a boxed meal out of an insulated bag, her voice gentle, “You really don’t have to do so much, if you’re really unwilling.”
Ruan Shengyi paused, questioning, “Why would you think that?”
Why?
Xiao Wenyu curled her fingers, sighing faintly.
At first, she also thought that Ruan Shengyi was deliberately teasing her, playing around with her. After all, she had just had such an emotional outburst last night, and it was normal to be a little embarrassed. She could understand.
But a day had passed like this, and all Ruan Shengyi had said to her all day was: You should go out for a walk, you should eat, you should eat something to replenish your strength, you should go out for a walk. The rest of the time, she sat beside her with a cold, aloof face, looking at her phone, only humming a casual acknowledgment when Xiao spoke.
She hadn’t noticed her liking for her phone so much in the past.
Yes, she had never really spent a whole day with her before.
If there was such an unspeakable past, when the pain was numb, getting addicted to her phone was… normal.
Xiao Wenyu gently bit her lower lip, sighing softly, and said in a low voice, “It’s nothing, I’m just worried you’ll be unhappy.”
“Yeah, a little.” Ruan Shengyi heard the other person’s breathing suddenly become heavier, lowered her head, opened the lunchbox, and said gently, “I just realized today that my hair has faded a lot. Next time, I don’t want to dye Dark Tea Long Hair, it fades so fast.”
She secretly twitched the corner of her mouth, secretly happy to have successfully teased Xiao Wenyu again.
Xiao Wenyu paused for a moment and quickly realized that this person was really teasing her. She raised her hand and grabbed the person’s thin cheek, resentfully saying, “It seems that Boss Ruan accepts this matter very well. Then let me knead it.”
“No.” Ruan Shengyi looked at her calmly, raised her hand, gently grasped her hand, took it off her face, and pressed it on the table, “I don’t accept it, I’m still angry.”
“But you eat first.” She pushed the lunchbox in front of Xiao Wenyu, “You eat well, and I’ll reduce my anger value depending on the situation.”
Xiao Wenyu: …
Her good neighbor had been strictly following the requirement of eating small meals frequently since she had a detailed chat with Dr. Huang in the morning. The amount of food she ate at each meal was always very small. By the afternoon, it was more than just one meal. Like now, although there were only ten dumplings in front of her, there were also some fruits in the bag next to her, prepared as snacks for the two of them.
Xiao Wenyu was silent for a moment, then picked up her chopsticks.
Ruan Shengyi twitched the corner of her lips again.
That’s right, she should eat well.
It seemed that she had to put on a stern face to “intimidate” Xiao Wenyu.
After asking about Xiao Wenyu’s due date in the morning, she had checked it. It was only twelve weeks now. Normally speaking, Xiao Wenyu should have gained one to two kilograms at this stage. As a result, she had lost more than two kilograms. How could she have abused herself to such an extent!
This wouldn’t do. She had to coax and deceive her to replenish her body’s deficiencies before allowing her to go out and do other things. Otherwise, what if she fainted again? The doctor said that frequent long-term fainting would affect the development of Little White Loquat.
That Little White Loquat was so cute. Xiao Wenyu didn’t cherish it, but she did.
Okay, Xiao Wenyu also cherished it, but she cherished it more!
After all, it seemed like her past self, except that her mother hadn’t met a kind-hearted boss, but instead met a lifetime of disaster. The god of fate had given her another chance to meet Xiao Wenyu, so how could she not cherish it…
Ruan Shengyi’s long eyelashes hidden under her glasses trembled slightly, heavily suppressing her emotions before slowly raising her head again, suppressing the tears back into the depths of her eyes, and silently opened her own lunchbox.
Xiao Wenyu: “…Why can you eat so deliciously? And you have to eat in front of me??”
Ruan Shengyi looked at her inexplicably, “It’s not the first time. In the past, you ate bland food, and I ate these heavier flavors, didn’t I?”
Xiao Wenyu pursed her lips.
Her appetite had improved a lot after last night. It was even better to see a beautiful woman eating with her, but not only did she have to eat small meals frequently today, but Boss Ruan had already made her eat clear soup and plain water for a whole day.
How could she do this?
She wanted to eat meat.
She pointed to the chicken pieces floating in the red oil from across the table, “Boss Ruan, I want to eat this.”
Ruan Shengyi looked at her amusingly, gently propped her chin and suddenly leaned closer to her, whispering, “Teacher Xiao, are you acting cute?”
Xiao Wenyu: … Yes, she was. In short, she wanted to eat that.
But the merciless chopsticks gently pressed on the tip of Xiao Wenyu’s chopsticks. The woman curved her eyebrows and said softly, “You can’t.”
“Teacher Xiao, I’m still angry. You don’t want me to continue to be angry tomorrow, do you?”
“…Is that how you use that phrase?”
Ruan Shengyi raised her eyebrows, “Otherwise?”
“…”
Xiao Wenyu took a breath, lowered her head, and pulled her hair.
But Ruan Shengyi didn’t look angry at all. She had seen Boss Ruan’s angry look before. This time, she was clearly teasing her under the pretext of being angry, restraining her in every way.
Really.
A disposable chopstick picked up a piece of meat that had been rinsed in water and placed it in front of Xiao Wenyu, along with the woman’s rather helpless words of reluctantly parting with it: “Here.”
“It has no taste.”
“Your stomach isn’t good. It was originally medium spicy, you can’t eat it.”
Xiao Wenyu supported her forehead, resignedly said, “You shouldn’t be the younger one.”
Ruan Shengyi didn’t reply, just lowered her eyes and looked at her quietly.
She thought again of the conversation she had with Huang Zhiqi while Xiao Wenyu was asleep at noon. The core of the conversation was, regarding the depression she mentioned last night, did she need medication? Or how could she get better?
She could feel Huang Zhiqi’s helplessness even through the phone screen. Dr. Huang said, “It’s not really possible to use medication, many medications can’t be used. It’s the same as postpartum depression and also different. It’s more of a sudden hormonal issue and psychological problem. There’s no way to treat the symptoms, it’s more about psychological intervention therapy.”
“If her condition gradually improves, it means that companionship may be enough.”
Ruan Shengyi curled her fingers and asked, “But if some problems aren’t solved, they’ll always be nails stuck there. Even if the person is slowly getting better, what if they explode?”
Huang Zhiqi’s “typing” flashed for a long time, and finally said, “I’m not a psychologist, I recommend you ask a psychiatrist. But, everyone always has a scar in their heart, it can’t be cut off, nor can it be removed, so it’s better to slowly forget it.”
What a perfectly useless chicken soup.
But the annoying thing was that this sentence was right.
After all, the Xiao Wenyu from a long time ago was silent and taciturn, always looking like a living dead person, but recently she did seem to be slowly getting better.
If she brought up those troublesome things from the past at this time, inexplicably adding a few new strokes of blood to the scar in her heart, she felt that it was a loss, and might even be counterproductive.
But some of the things that those scars brought out were not only the thorns in Xiao Wenyu’s heart, but also the thorns in her heart.
For example, on the day they first met, what exactly did she want to do when she went back?
Ruan Shengyi ate the medium-spicy casserole chicken without tasting any flavor. When she finally put away the two people’s lunchboxes with slightly red and swollen lips, Xiao Wenyu leaned over to take a few glances, and said, “If you can’t handle it, don’t eat such spicy food, it’s not good for your mouth.”
“Xiao Wenyu.” Boss Ruan suddenly spoke.
The other person was stunned, “What’s wrong?”
“Are you happy today?”
Her gaze was raised before the words could be spoken, so before her eyebrows and eyes could curve, she saw a flash of confusion in Xiao Wenyu’s eyes, followed by warmth, raising her voice: “Happy.”
“Wasn’t Boss Ruan the one who was gloomy all day today?”
Ruan Shengyi sighed slightly in her heart, temporarily abandoning her plan to find answers, and sat to the side, “Then let’s rest for a while.”
“What are you planning to do?”
Ruan Shengyi took an apple out of the plastic bag, and said calmly, “Xie Yu gave it to me. She said that you must peel an apple when you accompany someone in the hospital, otherwise there won’t be enough of a sense of ritual.”
Sure enough, she made Xiao Wenyu laugh again. She leaned against the bed and said with a smile, “Then will Boss Ruan peel an apple skin without breaking it?”
“Of course.” Ruan Shengyi lowered her eyes, her fingers resting on the tip of the knife, peeling the even apple skin smoothly.
What a joke, this was a common trick she used to show off to customers. If she didn’t even know this basic skill, there was no need for her to run this bar.
Her breathing was steady, so the other person’s breathing gradually calmed down as well.
After a long time, Ruan Shengyi peeled off a waterfall of apple peel that was uniformly wide and thin. She put down the knife, wiped her hands, and raised her eyes, only to find that the other person had fallen asleep leaning against the bed.
The reawakening of appetite and the gradual recovery of drowsiness were all signs that a person’s body and mind were slowly recovering to health.
What’s more, she was good-looking enough even when she was asleep. Even with a completely bare face, her eyelashes were long and curled enough. Her gradually warming skin had a slight blush, as if she had hidden in a hat of hair.
Ruan Shengyi raised her hand and gently touched her cheek, but met a pair of somewhat dazed and blurry eyes.
She said gently, “Sleep, I won’t leave.”
She wouldn’t let her become so anxious that she would rely on reckless embraces to confirm the reality of her existence.
*
The next day’s examination was also very smooth. After the doctor got the results, she looked at them carefully and gave the two of them reassuring medical advice, but also told them, “If such a long-term fainting situation occurs again in the future, you will need to have some brain examinations done. At that time, you will need to use some instruments with radiation, so…”
She looked at Xiao Wenyu and said earnestly, “This time, don’t just promise everything and then ruin your body when you go back. You can always make things clear. Try to talk about it.”
Xiao Wenyu silently squeezed her fingers and agreed.
Ruan Shengyi also chatted with the doctor alone for a while, and finally came out with a bag, made slight eye contact with the person sitting at the door waiting for her, then looked away, and said in a calm voice, “Let’s go, let’s go home.”
Xiao Wenyu followed behind her, raising the corner of her lips, “Boss Ruan asked longer than I, the person involved. What did you ask?” Her gaze couldn’t help but fall on the bag.
“I asked about transferring hospitals. I don’t trust the county hospital. It’s better to transfer to the city hospital in Beishi.”
Xiao Wenyu was silent for a moment and said in a low voice, “I don’t have a car…”
“I have two, enough.”
“I’m not driving Chopped Chili Fish Head.”
“…”
Xiao Wenyu felt that she had read a sentence from this silence: You’re picking and choosing? Huh?
Thinking again about Boss Ruan’s usual speechless appearance, she became even more cute, so she lowered her voice and smiled.
Fortunately, it wasn’t Chopped Chili Fish Head today, otherwise Xiao Wenyu would have felt a little sorry for that little car.
The drive was taciturn, but Xiao Wenyu’s heart was comfortable and gentle. She sat in the passenger seat, feeling the car, which was smoother than usual, and a warmth rose in her heart.
Her good neighbor was really good.
Chuncheng was not big, and the drive from the county hospital to their commercial street was only ten minutes. Seeing the parking lot getting closer and closer, Xiao Wenyu prepared to take off her seat belt. The other person steadily parked the car on the side of the road, raised her hand and pressed on her hand, looking ahead, and said in a calm voice, “Xiao Wenyu, I have a question to ask you.”
…