Wild Fire Bids Farewell To Summer Chapter 25

Xiaoxue

9:47.

Wei Mingyuan walked in front carrying the iron bed head.The metal collided with his shoulder blades, making a hollow sound.The hospital bed is an old item that was discarded from the county hospital. The paint on the surface of the white iron pipe peeled off, revealing reddish brown rust.

Huang Jinye followed behind, carrying the folded bed board on his right shoulder.Made of plywood, the edges have dents caused by lying down for a long time, revealing the true color of the wood, which is amber in color.His steps were heavy and light, and his right knee did not dare to bend. The bed board swayed with his gait, and hit the voice-activated light switch in the corridor. With a click, the light came on.

The art classroom door is open.Wei Mingyuan entered sideways, and the iron pipe on the bedside scraped against the door frame, leaving a white mark.He walked towards the northeast corner, where there were piles of plaster statues of Venus, with stains of ultramarine and ocher deposited on the surface, forming circles like growth rings.The base of the plaster statue rubbed against the ground, roaring, and dust rose up, suspended in the light pillar.

Huang Jinye put the bed board on the ground.The panels hit the terrazzo, and the echo shook the window glass.He straightened up, his right knee clicked, and the water sloshed in the joint cavity, making a muffled sound.

Wei Mingyuan assembles a hospital bed.The iron pipe at the head of the bed was inserted into the slot of the bed board, and the metal collided with a click.The iron pipe at the end of the bed encountered resistance when being inserted, and rust blocked the interface.He pressed down, and the iron pipe deformed, making a dry friction sound.The hospital bed stands in the northeast corner of the classroom, forming a fifteen-degree angle with the wall.The mattress was brown and yellow, with old brown stains on the edges, which were traces of blood oxidation.

Wei Zhiheng stood at the door.The gray sweater is too big, and the cuffs cover the palms, leaving only the fingertips exposed.His face was pale and his eyes were black and blue.He walked towards the hospital bed and touched the ground with his right heel first. The dull impact echoed in the empty classroom.

He stopped by the bed.His left hand touched the iron bedside bar.Ice cold.The metallic chill passed through the skin and into the ulna.

Huang Jinye dragged the easel from the back row.Pine wood, tripod structure.Three easels are arranged in a Z-shaped pattern around the hospital bed, forming a semi-enclosed space.There is an unfinished sketch paper on the easel, open in quarters, with gray marks left by the wiring on the surface.

Wei Zhiheng sat on the edge of the bed.The mattress sank, collapsed in the center, and lifted at the edges.There was a dull pain in my waist, and there was a grinding sensation of rotating steel needles deep in my ilium.He arched his back and held his left hip with his right hand, pressing on the piece of purpura that had not subsided. It was the size of a coin and the center was so purple that it turned black.

The nurse came pushing the treatment cart.The rubber wheel bearings are aging, whining when rolling, and the frequency is slow.She was wearing a white coat with old yellow-brown stains on the cuffs.He held a blood bag in his hand, which was dark red, made of plastic, and had wrinkles on the surface.The blood bag is suspended from the top of the infusion pole. It is made of iron and is two meters high, forming a vertical drop from the heart.

“Type O, platelets.”

Wei Zhiheng stretched out his left hand.A rubber tourniquet was tied tightly around the upper arm, and light blue blood vessels bulged under the pale skin.She wore milky white rubber gloves with traces of talcum powder on the surface. The smell was pungent and sank to the ground.

Needle penetration.Dark red blood instantly poured into the infusion tube.In the transparent plastic tube, the red liquid flows upward and crawls.

Tick ​​tock.Once per second.

The liquid is clear and the temperature is lower than body temperature.The cold spread from the back of the hand to the arm.The coldness of the iron bed was transmitted to the back through the brown bandage, forming a counterpoint to the coldness of the infusion.

Huang Jinye sat in front of the easel on the right side of the hospital bed.Pick up the pencil, 2B, yellow hexagon.The pencil sharpener scraped against the wood, making a rustling sound.Sawdust curled and fell, yellowish, piled up to the knees.He stared at the infusion tube on the back of Wei Zhiheng’s hand and took shape.The lines go from left to right, showing the natural arc formed by gravity.

He painted the pipe walls reflective.The pencil is applied sideways, the graphite powder accumulates, and the gray gradient occurs.The liquid in the painting tube is dark red and left blank, allowing the true color of the paper to represent blood.

The nurse stood aside and moved gently.She adjusted the drip rate regulator, the wheel turning, the plastic teeth rubbing dryly.The rubber gloves made a subtle rustling sound as they made contact with the plastic.

Wei Zhiheng closed his eyes.There is a fixed dark shadow and retinal hemorrhage in the upper left part of the visual field.He heard the ticking of an IV tube, counterpointed by the squeaking of a ceiling fan.The ceiling fan has three iron blades, white with rusty brown edges.The bearings are starved of oil and the metal groans from fatigue with every revolution.

The smell came up.The smell of talcum powder in rubber gloves was chemically pungent; the rusty smell of blood was sweet but astringent; and the sweet rot in his own mouth, rotten apples mixed with rust, the smell of ketoacidosis, settled in the lower part of the nasal cavity.

Huang Jinye drew the part of Murphy’s dropper.The drip pot is made of transparent plastic and is enlarged.He painted the surface tension of the liquid in the dripping pot and the curved liquid surface.His right hand was shaking, and the muscles under his skin were trembling slightly, starting from the inside of his wrist, jumping one after another.

He put down his pencil and took out the eucalyptus candy from his pocket, wrapped in tinfoil, with green stripes and already softened.He didn’t peel it off, just held it in his hand, and the edge of the tinfoil cut into the skin.He picked up the pencil again and continued drawing, rustling.

Wei Mingyuan stood at the door of the classroom, with his back to the hospital bed.He holds a woodworking plane in his hand and is trimming the corners of a picture frame.The plane pushed and pulled, and the wood chips curled out from the cutting edge and fell to the ground.He didn’t look back, listening to the ticking behind him, which coincided with the push and pull of his plane every fourth time.

The back of Wei Zhiheng’s left hand was already cold.He stared at the infusion tube, watching an occasional bubble flash through the transparent liquid. It was round and had a reflective surface. It moved downward with the flow of liquid and was filtered and burst silently as it passed through the Murphy’s dropper.

He moved his fingers and the infusion tube swayed.Huang Jinye’s pencil paused for a moment with this shaking. The line left a dot on the paper and the ink dot expanded.

The nurse approached again.She checked the remaining volume of the blood bag. The dark red liquid had dropped by half.She tapped the drip pot, making a hollow sound as her fingers made contact with the plastic, and the bubbles rose and burst.

Huang Jinye finished the sketch of the infusion tube.He erased the excess lines with an eraser. When erasing, the black graphite powder was rolled up and the paper fibers were rubbed with rough edges.

He put down the drawing board and looked at Wei Zhiheng.Wei Zhiheng had his eyes closed and his face was as pale as limestone.His right hand hung down on the sheets, his fingernails glowing lavender.The infusion tube extends upward from the back of his left hand, and a transparent line is connected to the hanging blood bag. The blood bag is deflated, wrinkled, and its color changes from dark red to dark brown.

Wei Zhiheng felt severe pain in his waist.He curled up, his knees pulled up to his chest, his back arched.This movement moved the IV tube, and the needle moved inside the back of the hand, causing a sharp sting.He frowned, but made no sound, just a hissing sound of air squeezed from his throat.

Huang Jinye stood up.The kneecaps made a dry grinding sound.He walked to the left side of the hospital bed, bent down, and tucked the cuffs of Wei Zhiheng’s dropped sweater under the sheets.His fingers brushed Wei Zhiheng’s wrist, and the skin touched – Huang’s hand was hot, Wei’s wrist was cold.

The nurse changes the blood bag.The old blood bag was deflated, wrinkled and dark brown in color.She hung up a new blood bag, dark red and full.She adjusted the drip rate and the liquid began to drip again, tick, tick.

Wei Zhiheng opened his eyes.He looked at the new blood bag, dark red liquid sloshing inside the transparent bag.When he blinked, the blood bag looked like a bottle of turpentine, and the dark red platelets looked like ultramarine paint.He blinked, and the blood bag returned to the texture of a medical device, cold and functional.

Huang Jinye returned to the easel.He began to draw the iron frame of the hospital bed.White iron pipe, rusty.He used a hard pencil to draw the straight lines of the iron frame, and the lines trembled.He drew the contact point between the iron frame and the ground, and the rubber feet pressed against the terrazzo floor, leaving ring-shaped extrusion marks and dust being squeezed out.

Wei Mingyuan stopped the plane.He turned around and looked at the hospital bed and the space enclosed by the easel.He did not speak, but hung the plane on the nail on the wall. The metal collided with the wood, making a crisp sound.

The light in the classroom is changing.The sun was setting, and the shadows were lengthening, casting the shadow of the easel on the wall, forming a huge, distorted silhouette.The liquid in the blood bag continued to drip, tick, tick, in sync with the squeaking sound of the ceiling fan.

Wei Zhiheng closed his eyes and listened to the voice.Huang Jinye sat in front of the easel and did not move.He stared at the drawing paper, holding a pencil in his right hand. His knuckles were white and there were white stone powder on the edges of his fingernails.

The nurse packs up the treatment cart.The wheels rolled and the rubber whined against the ground.Her movements when pushing the cart were half as gentle as when she was sweeping the floor.Her white coat disappeared at the door, and the fabric rustled against the door frame.

The only sounds left in the classroom were the ticking of the IV tube, the squeaking of the ceiling fan, and two sounds of breathing—one shallow and fast, one deep and slow—intertwined in the space enclosed by the easel.

Outside the window, the sunshine of Xiaoxue’s solar term is pale.