Chapter 50

Jiu Ma also says “Yes, his work is too dangerous.”

Yet Jiu Jiu notices something wrong in her face. He asks: “What happened today?”

“I saw Song Yan. There’re people who wanting to jump. He came to rescue them. He almost fell down from 21st floor.” Xu Qin says.

Jiu JIu and Jiu Ma are surprised: “Then?”

“He’s okay.”

“What about the others?”

“Everyone is okay.”

“Then it’s great.” Both of them sigh.

“That time I felt so afraid.” Xu Qin closes her eyes and stirs up the soup. “If he fell down…..”

There’s a silence.

“Don’t be afraid ah.” Jiu Ma strokes her hand: “He is full of a sense of propriety. He would protect himself and his group members. Actually I and your Jiu Jiu also talked to him about it, but he couldn’t let go his group members. His group is the most discipline one, there’s no one ever die in his group. They are trained by him.

The words seem to not comfort her, but she says nothing. She stays silent for a while and then asks: “Why did he choose this profession?”

Jiu Jiu and Jiu Ma look at each other for a while. Then Jiu Jiu says: “You should know that guy doesn’t like to study, he refused to accept to be supervised and controlled. So we just sent her to be solider. But….. we have no way, so he just be firefighter.”

Xu Qin lowers her head and plays with her spoon: “Em.”

Looking at this, Jiu Ma couldn’t sit still any longer. Her lips move, she looks at his husband; Jiu Jiu glares at her.

Jiu Ma just calms down and speaks up: “Qin Qin ah, I know my nephew somehow looks coarse, but he is careful and caring. Everyone might enjoy their youth. But he, he was abandoned when he was young. He was alone. He wants to have a family, he always pampers his family members. He is that kind of man. Jiu Ma doesn’t say this because my love toward him, understand?

Xu Qin: “Em.”

She says nothing else.

Jiu Ma wants to say something else. Jiu Jiu says: “Qin Qin is tired right? After eating this, just rest up early.”

Xu Qin returns to her bedroom.

Jiu Ma tidies up the bowls and spoons. She sighs: “This child has something weighing on her mind?”

“They should solve their own matters. Don’t worry.”

“How could I not worry. He wouldn’t be like is Mama right?”

“You are getting out of line. Okay, let’s sleep early.”

…….

In the dark.

That night, there’s no moonlight. The room is so dark.

Xu Qin lays down on the bed, she looks at her phone. There’s a missed call, four messages. Those are from Song Yan.

The missed calls were made this afternoon at 04:40 p.m., after the rescue of those who threatened to jump off the building.

The first and second messages were sent close to each other:

“Where are you?”

“You start working?”

The next message is at a distance of five minutes:

“I’m leaving. Don’t worry about me. Take care and be safe.”

The next message is at night around 11:00 p.m.:

“When you are walking home after work, don’t walk alone. Jiu Jiu would pick you up. If you don’t see him, call him.”

In the darkness, Xu Qin looks at those messages for a long time. Her eyes turn teary.

She raises her arm and covers her eyes.

After a while, she also doesn’t reply his message.

Xu Qin forgets to set her alarm for the next day so the next day she wakes up late. She wakes up fifteen minutes before her working time start.

She takes her phone to call the taxi, but she notices that the traffic is bad. She has been late for fifteen minutes so she just decides to take the subway.

There’s a long queue to get the ticket. When it’s her time, the machine couldn’t draw the ticket. She looks around, then someone behind her yells: “Press the ‘enter’ button. Why are you standing there stupidly?”

Xu Qin just notices that there’s a button. She presses it and the ticket comes out.

This time is a peak hour as everyone is rushing to get to work. The station is so crowded. She remembers what Song Yan told her previously about not to pass the yellow line.

Even the platform is full of people.

The time the train’s door opens up, everyone start to get inside. People needs to push each other around to get inside.

Xu Qin gets inside the train. She is pushed inside and almost falls down.

There red light is on and there’s a sound.

She feels that her arm is squeezed, she couldn’t move her arm.

“My hand!”

The car starts to close, Xu Qin starts to pull her arm. She screams: “Let go!”

The people around her are acting indifferently.

A gentleman inside the notices and helps her to take her back.

The door is closing.

She feels her arm is in pain. She couldn’t make a sound. She seems at loss for a while.

She is lucky that it’s her left hand.

She bites her lips.

“Are you okay?”

She nods and stands up straight. She holds her left arm with his right hand. She doesn’t dare to to move her wrist recklessly.

The time she arrives at the hospital, she feels that she is so in disorder state. Her clothes and hair are messy.

She starts to move her wrist slowly. The pain is gone but it’s still a bit aching.

She is relieved.

Luckily she doesn’t have a sprain.

She goes to wash her face and brushes her teeth. She returns to her bedroom and hears Xiao Nan is worrying. “What kind of job I should find for him? I couldn’t let him be a security guard?”

Xiao Xi is shocked: “Your boyfriend is going to change his job?”

“Sooner or later he needs to, he shouldn’t do this for his lifetime. Yesterday it’s too shocking for me. I almost be a widow.” Xiao Nan is still terrified for what happened to Tong Ming yesterday: “Luckily he would be discharged soon.”

Xiao Dong: “You are going to obtain a marriage certificate with him?”

“Right. Now we are considering about his job. I don’t know what is suitable for him. I need to ask my father. Whether he could help Tong Ming to do business related to fire safety. I’m having a headache”

Xu Qin goes to the side and opens up the messages from Song Yan. She reads it and then replies: “Okay, I get it.”

There’s no reply. This time, Song Yan should be busy training.

Xu Qin doesn’t wait for his reply. Both of them are busy so they use to this way of communication.

She puts away her phone and she feels a pain on her wrist.

She also feels something in her heart.

That day she seems to be in a gloomy mood. Yet she knows that she should try to calm her feeling as her job needs a full concentration. But she couldn’t help but to feel down-spirited that day.

That night she dreams that there’s a fire in a large area and the fire is so great. A lot of firefighters come over to extinguish it. They are injured and tired. Song Yan and friends are going inside, she wants to stop him but he didn’t stop. She watches him disappeared. She doesn’t have a good feeling about it. She wants to call after him. Then there’s a big explosion, the whole factory collapses…..

Xu Qin wakes up alarmed. All around her is dark. Her whole body is sweating feeling. Her heart is beating so fast. The bed is full of his scent, but he isn’t here.

She is so anxious. She takes her phone and calls Song Yan’s phone.

It’s unanswered.

He should be out on business. If not, he would answer her call.

She thinks about her dream before. She is nervous, she calls the vice-captain and just knows that there’s no fire alarm. There’s only a drunk man, who has his head stuck on the fence of the bridge. Song Yan and his team goes over to rescue.

She just be relieved.

She lays down on the bed and daydreams.

This time she just realizes that after being with him, she is stuck with him. She couldn’t control her emotion that well. She keeps on thinking of him. She couldn’t leave him.

She wants to wait till he is back, she wants to hear his voice. She wants to talk with him so she could be worry-free.

Yet she doesn’t know when he would come back. She waits and waits till she falls asleep.

The next day morning, at 06:55 a.m., her phone rings. It’s Song Yan:

“Are you awake?”

“You clearly know that I wake up around 07:00 a.m. every morning.” She is a light sleeper, she hasn’t regulated her breath. She is panting and flipping her body.

Hearing her movement, he laughs lightly: “So I want to chat with you for five minutes….. Last night I finished working late. I was worried to disturb you…. So I didn’t call you. Why weren’t you sleeping at 02:00 a.m.?”

She remembers the feeling again.

She says: “I had a nightmare.”

Song Yan pauses for a second: “What kind of nightmare do you have?”

“There’s an explosion and you die.”

It’s a silence for a while and he laughs bitterly: “Stupid.” He says: “I would be okay.”

Xu Qin covers her eyes with her arm and says nothing.

Song Yan notices her mood, he says with a low voice and asks: “Why are you not saying anything?”

“……..”

“Em?”

“I don’t know what to say?” Xu Qin says in low spirits.

This time Song Yan also says nothing else. Both of them are silent. Perhaps they are helpless.

Song Yan says: “That day on top of the building, you were surprised right?”

Xu Qin is still covering her eyes and says nothing.

“Xu Qin?”

“Em?”

“You were scared?”

“Em.” Her voice is so low and shivering.

Honestly, that day he was so scared too.

Though he believes in Xiao Ge’s quick response, yet that moment because of her presence, he was scared too.

Afterwards he looked at her too, she was too terrified that her lips were pale too.

After that matter, everyone was so busy. Only she was standing still there, she watched him.

That moment, Song Yan suddenly realized that if he really fell down that day on top of the building, everyone would keep on living their life, the sun would still rise up like usual.

Only she wouldn’t wake up.

Her life is tightly bound to him.

He think that if he fell down, she would jump too.

That moment, how could he not be afraid?

Song Yan lowers his head and rubs his nose. He has thousands and thousands words. At last he sighs and says: “I would take care of it, I would be okay.”

She still says nothing.

He feels so defeated. He could imagine how lonely she is right now, how she looks like curling up under the blanket.

He couldn’t bare about it anymore. He just says: “You forget, I haven’t recovered well. I am an instructor for now. I couldn’t do anything hard. I wouldn’t get into the fire scene.

She moves for a while.

He could hear the rustle noise under the bed.

He continues to coo her: “Tonight I would go back home and accompany you for the weekend. You should get off the work peacefully. After getting off work, I would be at home.”

She just says: “Em”. Then she is excited: “You are off for two days?”

“Em, two days.”

“It’s great.” She says lightly. I already ask my colleague to change schedule so these two days I’ll be off.” She laughs.

Song Yan also smiles and say: “Okay, go to work early. Don’t get into the traffic jam, don’t be late. Take taxi, don’t take the train. There are lots of people during peak hours. You would be in a hard time.”

Xu Qin is startled and nods. She hasn’t told him about what happened on the train last time. “Okay.” She flips her body and says: “Song Yan.”

“Em?”

“I miss you.” She says softly.

Song Yan’s heart is melting. “I also miss you, I miss you very much.”

……….

That morning call seems to be a small antidote for her, it makes her mood turns much better.

She doesn’t act so depressingly anymore.

Today it’s a rare day as there’s no major accident. In the afternoon, she goes to Professor Xu to discuss about a research question.

At 06:00 p.m. the time she gets off the work, she receives a message from Song Yan. He says that there’s a kid stuck in the revolving door. He would be late to come home.

Xu Qin understands his situation.

Anyway she has arranged her working time so she would have two days off, so tonight she needs to be on duty.

Yet after an hour, the time she opens up to read research journal. She hears rush footsteps.

“Doctor!” Several sloppy and dirty men come inside: “Help us!”

Several people with green-army top and orange pants come inside the emergency room.

But this time, Song Yan wears no mask, his face is dirty. He has burn on his shoulder.

Xu Qin notices him.

Their eyes meet each other.

Xu Qin understands what is going on, suddenly her face just turns cold.

Song Yan is at loss, he didn’t expect that she is still working. He didn’t expect that the first time he lied to her, he would be exposed. He didn’t expect that he would be hurt on the day he promised her that he would be okay.

Yang Chi notices Xu Qin is unhappy: “Doctor, our Dui Zhang (Leader), he is ——“

“You guys go out first.” Xu Qin says.

“His injury——“

“Go out.” Xu Qin wears her surgical mask.

Everyone is startled. Ay? Aren’t we closed with each other? How could Xu Yi Sheng (Doctor Xu) be as col as before? They take a look at Song Yan. Their leader is sitting on the side with his head hanging long, he says nothing. He doesn’t look like their leader.

Everyone notices that something is wrong, they look at each other for a while. Then they just leave.

The room turns quiet.

Song Yan lifts up his head and glances at Xu Qin.

She is wearing her surgical mask so he couldn’t really see her expression. Her eyes are cold. She goes to wash her face while putting forth her strength and says:

“You forget, I haven’t recovered well. I am an instructor for now. I couldn’t do anything hard. I wouldn’t get into the fire scene.”

then she says: “Rescuing a little kid, who is stuck on the revolving door. I would be late for a while.”

Song Yan immediately feels numb. He knows that he is doing well. He wants to stand up.

“Xu Qin….”

“Sit down.”

Song Yan doesn’t move.

“You also say,” She releases her breath and wears her gloves: “I’ll take care of it, I’ll be okay.”

She goes to take tweezers, clippers and throws it to the tray.

She seems to be venting her anger so calmly.

Song Yan sits down behind her, he just watches her skinny figure. He notices that she is so angry that she is trembling.

He frowns and says: “I’m sorry.”

She stops.

“I’m sorry, Xu Qin. I just don’t want you to worry.” He says hoarsely and sounds a bit exhausted.

Her back is trembling, she shakes her head and lowers her head. “Not this. I don’t want you to say I’m sorry.”

“….. I don’t want you to say sorry to me.” She says: “Don’t feel sorry to me.”

Both of them turn silent.

The room turns quiet.

“Song Yan,” Her back is facing him, she doesn’t look back. She just asks with a low voice: “Have you ever thought…. of changing your job?”

Song Yan is still frowning. He shows no expression, he is about to say something.

She suddenly turns her body and cuts him off: “It’s better for us to talk later on when you are back at home. Now it’s working time.”

Yet he is clear that she is afraid and confused, she wants to avoid this topic. She is afraid that he is unwilling to change his job so she just dodges off this topic.

He pursues his lips.

She examines his wound. She cuts his top skillfully and when she just wants to treat his wound, she sees that his body is full of wounds.

There are new and old wounds.

Her hand is trembling, her eyes are red.

She is not a noble and might person, she doesn’t believe about being deeply conscious of the righteousness of a cause. She is a selfish person, she just knows why should her most beloved person bear these all?

Why?

Her lips are trembling.

In a next moment, she sees the longest scar on his back.

On October for rescuing the car accident, he pushed her and let him get injured. He still has the scar on his back. It shows how it should be so painful.

In a flash, she just stays completely still.

Song Yan also doesn’t need to lift up his head, he just knows what she is looking at and what she is thinking.

He also wants to say something but in a flash, he also doesn’t want to do anything.

He suddenly lowers his head and hugs her.

He buries his face on her chest.

He closes his eyes and feels so tired that he wants to sleep.

Her embrace is too soft and gentle. He could smell the disinfectant on her doctor’s robe.