Bone-Attached Disaster - Chapter 23:

Chapter 23: Impulse

Lu Jie started the car, unsure where he wanted to go, only knowing he was agitated. Going home was out of the question; he probably wouldn’t want to go home for a while.

He drove aimlessly for a period. The night was deep, his phone showing 11:27 PM. When the traffic light changed and the car moved again, Lu Jie realized he had arrived at the entrance of the Municipal Second Hospital.

Why did I come here?

Perhaps it’s because I had a massive fight with my family over Fu Jia’an, and I want to come and settle the score with the main culprit. Yes, settling the score.

Lu Jie found a spot in the parking lot behind the inpatient building. After parking, he looked out the window. Tonight’s moon was a perfect full circle. There wasn’t a cloud around the moon; the surrounding air seemed clean and clear. Beneath the night sky stood the towering pear trees. The petals had long since fallen, leaving behind abundant green leaves clustered at the ends of the branches.

Spring had ended.

Lu Jie, who was here to settle the score, sent a message to Fu Jia’an.

Lu Jie: [Where are you now]

He stared at the screen, and Fu Jia’an replied quickly: [On duty at the hospital. What’s up?]

Lu Jie: [Come down. I’m waiting in the parking lot.]

This time, it took two minutes before the reply came: [Can you wait half an hour for me?]

Lu Jie: [Okay]

After sending the message, Lu Jie felt a pang of regret. He rubbed his temples and slumped over the steering wheel, wondering what exactly he was doing. What would he say when Fu Jia’an came down?

Besides, his family members were the ones who spoke ill of Fu Jia’an first. Was he now offering himself up to be scolded? Could he really blame Fu Jia’an for the argument?

But for some reason, Lu Jie always had a vague feeling that the tangled mess could find an outlet with Fu Jia’an.

His phone vibrated again. Lu Jie thought it was another message from Fu Jia’an, but when he opened it, it was his youngest cousin, Dai Yaoxi. His cousin had always been taciturn and had a peculiar way of thinking, a stubborn kid who mostly lived in his own world. Today, he was breaking the pattern by messaging him.

Dai Yaoxi: [Bro, do you know Fu Jia’an?]

Dai Yaoxi: [I need to ask you a favor]

Looking at those lines of text, Lu Jie felt like he was being haunted. He flipped his phone face down, not bothering to find out why Dai Yaoxi suddenly asked about Fu Jia’an. He just felt that this world was flawed. A person could disappear so thoroughly, yet his sudden reappearance could create thousands of inexplicable connections with his own life…

Fu Jia’an took ten minutes to take off his surgical gown, rush from the operating room back to his dorm, and another ten minutes to shower, blow-dry his hair, change into a T-shirt, and put on his white coat.

The last ten minutes were spent walking downstairs. His steps toward the elevator couldn’t look too hasty. He stood in front of the elevator door, pressing the “Down” button. He knew pressing it multiple times wouldn’t speed up the elevator, but he couldn’t help doing it anyway.

The hospital elevator always stopped on every floor, descending very slowly. Occasionally, familiar faces entered, and Fu Jia’an nodded to each one. Their faces were blurry, and their small talk passed through his mind without registering. Fu Jia’an kept a smile on his face, but his thoughts had long since flown away.

Outside, the cool breeze ruffled his hair, and his semi-dry scalp felt a touch of coolness. Fu Jia’an started walking, finding the moonlight bright as day. He walked toward the parking lot, feeling as if he were treading on clouds.

There weren’t many cars in the parking lot at night. Lu Jie’s car was parked prominently in the center.

Knock, knock, knock

He tapped on the car window. The driver’s side door suddenly opened, and Lu Jie got out.

“Sit in the back,” Lu Jie walked past him and opened the back passenger door.

Fu Jia’an caught a whiff of alcohol. Looking back, Lu Jie’s tall figure cast a long shadow on the ground. He appeared sober and normal on the surface, but his steps were slightly unsteady.

Drunk people have their own set of procedures. Lu Jie directed Fu Jia’an to the back seat first, then walked around the back of the car to the other side. In just those few steps, he had to steady himself against the car body, seeming genuinely unable to stand firmly.

When Lu Jie also got into the back seat through the other door, the strong smell of alcohol moved closer.

“What’s wrong?” Fu Jia’an reached out to touch Lu Jie’s face—it was burning hot.

“Drank it while waiting for you,” Lu Jie leaned against the back of the car seat. His legs actually felt weak, and his head was dizzy. He pointed to the front.

A plastic bag was piled on the passenger seat, containing several empty, crushed beer bottles. Lu Jie’s tolerance for alcohol wasn’t poor, but he had drunk too fast just now. He didn’t know why, but the half-hour wait for Fu Jia’an felt incredibly slow.

Lu Jie was restless, thirsty, and annoyed. He wanted to get out and walk, so he wandered over to a convenience store, grabbed some beer, and came back. He didn’t intend to get drunk, but one bottle led to another without him realizing it.

Lu Jie was quietly drunk, but he knew his reason was still intact. He was perfectly suspended at a light, tipsy threshold where he could say many things he couldn’t normally say, without the need for caution. He was always overly thoughtful, considering too many things, but now those unimportant thoughts were all cleared out.

Fu Jia’an smiled and looked into Lu Jie’s eyes. “What do you want to say?”

Lu Jie stared straight at Fu Jia’an. Since their reunion, he had rarely let his gaze linger openly on Fu Jia’an. He wondered why there was never a single flaw on this face.

Fu Jia’an seemed even more beautiful in the moonlight. His slightly damp hair was softly scattered, the longest strand sweeping past his brows, landing on the mole on his nose.

Who said he was a deity? He’s not. You can’t touch a deity. But Lu Jie could touch that mole. He was touching it right now.

The knuckle of his index finger brushed against the small mole, feeling the slightly raised texture. Lu Jie’s throat bobbed, and an indescribable satisfaction welled up in his heart. It was clearly within reach, and he couldn’t understand why it had taken him so long to get here.

“I won’t hold you accountable since you’re drunk,” Fu Jia’an seized the opportunity to play the victim, his nose tickling from the touch. “But you touched me, so now I’m touching you back.”

Lu Jie didn’t hear him. He leaned forward like a spoilt child and rested his head on Fu Jia’an’s lap.

“Hey… you’re heavy.” Fu Jia’an complained, but his voice couldn’t help but soften.

Lu Jie lay there, looking up at Fu Jia’an with a kind of worshipful gaze. “Someone told me… you’re only an adult when you can smile at people you dislike. But I can’t do that.”

“Hmm?”

“So I want to overcome it.”

Those eyes were both sorrowful and earnest.

Fu Jia’an asked, “Overcome what?”

“Overcome you.”

“……”

“Overcome it until my heart doesn’t clench when I hear the name Fu Jia’an.”

Fu Jia’an’s fingers gently brushed Lu Jie’s forehead, eyebrows, and nose, stopping just above his lips. He withdrew his hand. “Does meeting me again make you miserable?”

Lu Jie didn’t answer. He turned his head to the side, exposing a bright red ear to Fu Jia’an, and muttered to himself, “The person I hate the most in the world is Fu Jia’an. So I’ll start by overcoming him.”

The next morning, Lu Jie dreamed he had turned into a walnut, picked up by an evil hand and placed in a doorframe to be crushed. His head cracked open. He split into two halves, shattering into kernels, and the person picked up his “corpse” in their palm, looking very satisfied.

Fu Jia’an!

He woke up with a jolt, covered in cold sweat. The painful sensation of his head being crushed in the dream radiated across both sides of his temples. Memories from last night kept flashing back. Lu Jie slapped himself.

Didn’t wake up.

So it wasn’t a dream within a dream. He really went to the hospital and said those things to Fu Jia’an! Lu Jie slumped back onto the bed like a corpse. No, why didn’t I black out when I got drunk? If only he had forgotten. But every detail was clearly remembered, even the texture of that mole…

Wait, no. He couldn’t remember what happened after that. How did he get home?

Lu Jie sat up, threw on a T-shirt, slipped on his slippers, and, massaging his head, went to the kitchen. He opened the fridge, grabbed a can of ice-cold soda water, and chugged it down. His thirst was quenched, and he felt slightly better.

He took out his phone and called Jiang Yan.

“Hello? President Lu is awake?”

Lu Jie had a bad feeling. Jiang Yan must have seen his drunken state yesterday. He mentally prepared himself for a few seconds and asked, “How exactly did I get home last night?”

“Pfft,” an annoying laugh came from the other end of the phone. “Hahahahahahahaha. Wait, I’m sending it to you.”

His phone vibrated. Jiang Yan sent a video, several hundred megabytes in size.

While waiting for the video to download, Jiang Yan’s mouth didn’t stop running: “Fu Jia’an video-called me yesterday and asked me to pick you up. He said he was going to call a designated driver for you, but the emergency room called him, so he had to go first.”

“You have no idea what you looked like in the video. You were clinging to him like a dog,” Jiang Yan was laughing hysterically, the sound of him slapping his thigh came through the phone. “It’s a huge regret. I should have recorded that part.”

“Jiang Yan, do you have a death wish?”

“Alright, alright, I’ll stop. Just watch it yourself. You owe me one, by the way. I was in the middle of a romantic moment at one in the morning when I got called out.”

Lu Jie hung up the phone. Before clicking on the video, he felt he needed to brace himself against something, or he might faint.

The video was shaky. The camera captured a period of memory that Lu Jie didn’t have. He was being helped into the house by Jiang Yan, fussing about needing the restroom and claiming his bladder was about to burst.

It was already embarrassing enough up to this point, but after coming out of the restroom, Lu Jie suddenly dropped to his knees, then collapsed completely, splayed out on the floor like a capital “Dà” , meaning “big”).

In the video, Jiang Yan rushed over, genuinely concerned, asking, “Dude, can you get up first?” while struggling to hold back his laughter, making the camera shake uncontrollably.

Then Lu Jie saw his face pressed against the floor, and he mumbled blankly, “I’m too hot. This is cooler.”

“Lu Jie, can you… just… get up? I can’t take it, my stomach hurts from laughing.”

“You get Fu Jia’an to come here. If he doesn’t come, I won’t get up. Who allowed him to leave first? He abandoned me again…”

……

Lu Jie genuinely wanted to leave Earth.

As if guessing the time it took for him to finish the video, Jiang Yan messaged again: [By the way, a new tenant is moving in today. Take care of him for me.]

Lu Jie: [New tenant? That quickly?]

Jiang Yan: [Yup, he’s taking the upstairs room. Said he’d be here at 12 PM. Should be arriving soon.]

Just as he received the message, there was a knock on the door. Lu Jie walked over, opened the door, and saw Fu Jia’an standing outside.

“We’re roommates now,” Fu Jia’an said with a smile. “Want to shake hands?”