Bone-Attached Disaster - Chapter 39:

Chapter 39: The Physician

That doctor came every day, but at different, very random times. He came more than once; it seemed he would come over whenever he had free time, staying for a shorter period during the day and longer at night.

Zhan Qionglou knew he didn’t have many days left to live. His indifference to the world grew daily. Even so, he couldn’t help but be curious about this physician: Does he never rest?

Zhan Qionglou was very uncooperative with his treatment. He had caused trouble several times after admission, creating quite a commotion. Once, after knocking over a medicine tray, he heard a young nurse cry softly next to him, and then she didn’t dare approach him much, which was fine with him. However, besides being a patient, Zhan Qionglou was also a prisoner, and his antics couldn’t go unpunished. Thus, he was handcuffed to the bed, his left and right hands pulled to either side, making it impossible to even turn over.

More than discomfort, it was humiliation. He was forced to eat, drink, and relieve himself all while confined to this bed from morning till night. Zhan Qionglou thought of himself as a piece of rotting flesh. Every time the headache tormented him into unconsciousness, he prayed not to wake up again, or better yet, to lose consciousness and be reincarnated as ignorantly as a paramecium. No, don’t reincarnate. He didn’t want to be born again in the next life.

But he kept waking up. Many times, when he opened his eyes, he could make out a person’s silhouette through his blurred, frosted-glass vision.

That person would say, “Zhan Qionglou, you’re awake.”

No need to ask; he had just undergone another rescue.

Zhan Qionglou was exhausted. He didn’t understand the point of saving him anymore. After four days, he spoke his first sentence: “No need for treatment. They’ll all get what they want if I die.”

The doctor sat down next to him: “Then do you have any family or loved ones you can’t let go of?”

A specific figure flashed through Zhan Qionglou’s mind, a figure that was distorted by the mountain-crushing, rock-splitting pain in his cranium. Zhan Qionglou knew he had long been unqualified to think of anyone. He gave a cold laugh and said very decisively, “No.” He seemed to be mocking the doctor’s naïveté. Was the doctor trying to redeem a killer?

The doctor lowered his voice, speaking as if he were a close friend sharing a secret: “Since you have no attachments, can you benefit me just this once? At least die on the operating table, so my name can be on the news headline with yours?”

Zhan Qionglou turned his head, staring at the doctor with unfocused pupils. His knife-like face radiated sinister coldness. “You’re messing with me.”

The doctor didn’t seem afraid at all. “Do you ultimately want to live or die? There’s a way to treat you if you want to live, and a way to treat you if you want to die. Let’s negotiate first…”

Before the doctor could finish, Zhan Qionglou instantly gripped the other’s throat, like a rattlesnake striking a vital spot with lightning speed. It was the doctor’s fault for being so arrogant, insisting on unlocking his handcuffs only when he came to the ward. Was he pretending to be kind and fearless? Or did he simply look down on Zhan Qionglou, thinking a monster tormented by illness posed no threat?

But the doctor didn’t dodge or struggle. Before the surrounding security guards could rush over, Zhan Qionglou’s own muscle exertion stimulated a cranial nerve, causing a wave of intense nausea. He quickly began to vomit, and the grip on the doctor’s throat naturally loosened.

The vomit splattered onto the doctor. The doctor neither dodged nor showed disgust. He calmly instructed the nurse to prepare the IV medication, while he himself leaned in to comfort Zhan Qionglou’s back until he finished vomiting, then meticulously cleaned up the mess little by little.

After changing his clothes, Zhan Qionglou lay flat on the bed, and the doctor still hadn’t left. Zhan Qionglou closed his eyes, lacking the strength to be angry. He simply gave up, saying, “Give me a quick death.”

“Alright, I understand,” the doctor’s tone was both sincere and insincere. “The surgery is scheduled for next Sunday. Until then, can you cooperate with the treatment? That will make you feel a little better.”

“I want to die right now.”

“I can’t end your life right now without anyone knowing. Otherwise, I’ll end up in prison too.”

The implication was, is there a way to operate once we are in the operating room? Zhan Qionglou felt that a man nearing death truly encounters the strangest things. So now, a doctor was promising a patient that he would definitely treat him to death?

What a dark joke.

“Why are you suddenly smiling?”

Zhan Qionglou didn’t answer the question. “Aren’t you going to handcuff me again?” You almost died just now.

“I discussed it with them. Whenever I come, your handcuffs will be unlocked. I’ll bear any consequences.”

“You have your own motives for doing this,” Zhan Qionglou said calmly, his eyes closed, lying like a body in a coffin. He pointed out the doctor’s intention, “You want me to depend on you.”

This doctor was too clever, Zhan Qionglou had to admit. After spending these few days together, the person’s voice had turned into a white-glowing symbol. When he appeared, his hands would be briefly liberated. To a prisoner who had lost his sight, suffered from constant splitting headaches, had no entertainment, and lost connection with the outside world, this was undoubtedly the only ray of light in a dark room.

While Zhan Qionglou clearly recognized he was being mentally manipulated, he couldn’t stop hoping for his appearance every moment. He wanted to kill him, yet he wanted to keep him. It was a contradiction.

Forget it. Zhan Qionglou no longer had the strength to guess what the doctor was planning. He was a dying, hopeless invalid. What did it matter if he became dependent on someone? Things couldn’t get any worse than they were now.

Even if the person in front of him was a poppy, would plunging into it make him feel better?

Zhan Qionglou asked, “What is your name?”

“Fu Jia’an.” After saying it, he probably realized Zhan Qionglou didn’t know which characters those were, so he patiently explained, “The Fu as in master  , the Jia as in commend (Jiājiăng), and the An as in peace .”

Zhan Qionglou subtly raised the corner of his mouth. He rarely smiled; the weight of life seemed to have crushed that lip line. However, this small, negligible smile finally made him look less like a corpse on the bed.

He reciprocated the introduction: “Zhan Qionglou. Zhan as in azure ( , and Qionglou as in a lofty jade palace .”

“Well, it looks like you’re the one standing by him, just like before.”

Shen Rufei didn’t express any dissatisfaction with Lu Jie’s failure to deter Fu Jia’an. He just sighed and hung up the phone. Lu Jie didn’t intend to dwell on the implication of that statement. Instead, he immediately called Jiang Yan, asking him to help figure out if it was possible to replace the Second Municipal Hospital’s security staff with people from the Jiang family.

Jiang Yan readily agreed without needing much explanation. “The security team at the Second Municipal Hospital, as far as I know, aren’t officially salaried positions. It’s easy to manage. Leave it to me. It’s just a matter of swapping in two of our own, right?”

Two?

How did Jiang Yan know there were two hospital security guards stationed outside the special ward? Extrapolating further, Lu Jie easily surmised that Shen Rufei had already communicated with Jiang Yan. Perhaps Shen Rufei never expected Lu Jie to actually dissuade Fu Jia’an.

So, what was Shen Rufei’s true intention in calling him? Was he reluctantly accepting this outcome, or was his true goal from the start to test Lu Jie’s sincerity and push Lu Jie toward Fu Jia’an’s side?

Shen Rufei’s calculation was likely to prevent Fu Jia’an from being so isolated. He wanted someone who could openly protect Fu Jia’an and wouldn’t be pushed away, and that person was Lu Jie.

This conjecture sent a chill down Lu Jie’s spine, but he chose not to dwell on it. It was already Tuesday, and Zhan Qionglou’s surgery was this Sunday.

Thinking of Fu Jia’an sleeping on his shoulder the night before, Lu Jie pulled out the access card from his wallet. He hadn’t actually taken a good look at it yet.

The one-inch photo on the card was likely from his university days. It was a youthful period of Fu Jia’an that Lu Jie had missed. His hair was long, reaching his shoulders, and his obedient bangs covered his eyebrows.

His skin was fair, and his cheeks finally had a little more fullness than when he was sixteen. His appearance already showed a hint of his future handsomeness. The small mole on his nose bridge was slightly obscured by overexposure, but he still spotted it right away.

After staring for a while, Lu Jie couldn’t maintain his patience. He had originally planned to visit Fu Jia’an after work tonight, but he felt uneasy. It was 3 PM now. He decided to drive to the Second Municipal Hospital first, check on things, and then return to the company to work overtime.

When he arrived at the hospital, the moment he showed Fu Jia’an’s access card, Lu Jie was treated like a VIP member and was immediately escorted to a very discreet building. The nurse then pressed the elevator, taking him directly to the fifth floor.

“Dr. Fu and the others are in Ward 503. Just walk straight ahead.”

…

Fu Jia’an finally managed to get a Braille book for Zhan Qionglou. He stayed by the bedside, reading it with Zhan Qionglou page by page.

There were four days left until the surgery. Zhan Qionglou’s physical strength was declining, and his cognitive abilities were slowing down. His absorption of the Braille wasn’t smooth either. His hand, covered in needle marks, trembled slightly as he traced line after line, dot after dot, reading each row repeatedly and carefully.

Judging purely from his demeanor, Zhan Qionglou remained composed. He sat like an ice sculpture, his lips thin and pale. If anyone got close, they would surely be frostbitten or cut.

Having lost his sight, his hearing had become sharper. He stopped the hand that was about to turn the page and said to the air, “Someone sent you a message.”

Fu Jia’an naturally knew he was talking to him. “Yes.” He quickly typed on his phone.

“You’re very happy.”

“Mhm,” Fu Jia’an didn’t hide it. “Someone very important to me is coming to find me. I’ll need to leave for a moment.”

“Is it your lover?”

“Mhm… Not yet.”

Fu Jia’an was about to get up when his arm was seized. Zhan Qionglou leaned against him like a collapsing building. He rested his head on Fu Jia’an’s shoulder. All his degraded senses twisted into an instinct for survival. He enveloped Fu Jia’an with his body, like holding onto a piece of driftwood.

He was too panicked and couldn’t even form a coherent sentence. He just couldn’t let him leave. He didn’t want the shackles placed back on him.