Work Text:
The sound of his alarm clock is not particularly shrill, but Gu Yiran sticks his arm out from under the blanket to silence it even before he opens his eyes, a movement that has become a muscle memory acquired across many days of going for a morning run hours ahead of Zheng Bei’s wake up time. It takes his brain a few foggy seconds to remember he is alone in the flat. That the flat has remained largely empty for the past two weeks, except the few nights when Gu Yiran was chased out of the hospital by Zheng Bei’s parents, who insisted that he go home and let them take the night shift by their son’s bed.
Gu Yiran cracks open one eye and closes it again, turning his head away from the light streaming through the window. It’s an unseasonably warm October in Halan, he is informed by what feels like every local in the city. It would never occur to him, of course, as he has not seen Halan in October before. He wouldn’t call it warm — Halan thinks any temperature in two digits Celsius is warm — but he likes it. The yellowed leaves underfoot, daylight hours already getting visibly shorter, and the crispness in the air in the mornings and evenings that will soon make his breath come out in white puffs when running. He hasn’t gone on a run once in the last week, however. He is not going today, either.
He goes through the motions of his morning routine still half-asleep, and dresses himself for work. The hour is still early, so there aren’t many people in the area. It would have been a good run, in weather like this, he thinks, but can’t muster the energy to care.
“Good morning, a-yi,” he nods to the auntie who is already frying up youtiao at her stall on her regular street corner. Usually at this hour he sees her setting up; she a bit earlier than usual, he notes absently.
“Good morning, Gu-laoshi,” she says, and waves him in before he can cross the road and be on his way. “Come here, come.”
He pauses by her stall, and watches, a bit confused, as she piles a generous amount of fried dough into a bag and hands it to him energetically. “I know old Zhang is not opening his restaurant early today, and you need something to eat before you go. You are going to the hospital, aren’t you? Tell them I’ll fry up some fresh ones as soon as they get here. This is for you, Gu-laoshi.” Gu Yiran finally wakes up enough to say thank you and reaches for his wallet, but she brushes him off like he suggested something ridiculous. “What are you saying, Gu-laoshi. We look after our own. Just give a word if you need anything.”
Gu Yiran smiles, and chooses simply to thank her. He has learnt not to argue with Halan about some things. Something about what she just said nags at his brain, though, and he asks, feeling graceless in his emulation of the way — of the local customs. “Is all good with you, Auntie? Do you need a hand with anything?” It feels clumsy, unnatural, when he says it. Zheng Bei would have known to ask about her children and grandchildren by name, of course. Picked up any conversation with anyone in his city as if he had just paused it, even if he’d last spoken to them a year ago.
“All good, all good, can’t complain,” the auntie says. “Old Liu, however” — and she points to the spot across the street, which is Gu Yiran’s best clue that she likely means the cobbler, who can be seen there on most days, chain-smoking together with his friends who may or may not be his customers — “he has been saying something about a letter he received the other day that he can’t make sense of. A government letter of some kind. Aiyo, what business does he have that the government would write him letters? We’re not much better than him, but —”
“I can have a look at it, of course,” says Gu Yiran, a little relieved. He interrupts the profuse thanks politely but firmly, telling the auntie he can look at the letter as soon as he is back if Old Liu brings it with him today; he really needs to be on his way now. He polishes off half of the youtiao in the bag by the time he makes it to First Public Hospital. Freshly fried dough is so much better than whatever he could have gotten from the hospital cafeteria at this hour.
He walks all the way to the left wing on the third floor, the route more familiar to him now than he would have liked, and opens the door to the room where Zheng Bei is sleeping. His parents are there, by his bed, sipping tea from the old thermos they always bring with them. He hopes they have only just woken up and not spent a sleepless night on the hospital cot, looking at their son.
“Auntie, Uncle.” Gu Yiran closes the door quietly behind himself. “You should go home, rest a couple of hours before you start work at the restaurant. I’ll sit with him.”
“We are not tired,” says Zheng Bei’s father, and then immediately gives a huge yawn. His wife rolls her eyes, not unkindly, and rubs his shoulders. They both must be feeling pretty stiff, Gu Yiran thinks, and no wonder. He’s nowhere near their age, and spending time slumped across hospital chairs and cots is giving him a bad back. But he doesn’t say anything: they keep coming here every day. So does he.
“Did you see Auntie Wang on the way here?” Zheng Bei’s mother asks, and Gu Yiran remembers about the bag in his hands and tells her about the vendor’s offer to give them fresh breakfast, too.
“It’s really kind of her,” he says. The youtiao is no longer piping hot but still good, and he’ll finish the rest off in the next hour or so.
“They are all good people,” Zheng Bei’s father says. “It’s good that you accepted. It wouldn’t do to be too polite. We’re not like that, in Dongbei.”
“I’m learning that,” Gu Yiran says, with a small smile. “When in the village, follow its customs.”
Before leaving, they fuss a little over him, offering to bring him more food and drinks, and telling him not to sit here too long.
“You are always doing overtime, don’t add to that,” Zheng Bei’s mom says, with a line of worry between her eyebrows. She is not wrong, but that’s not material.
“I’ve brought some work with me,” Gu Yiran points to his work bag. “I can work on my reports here.”
Placated enough or too tired to argue further, they eventually make their way out. Gu Yiran settles on the same cot next to Zheng Bei’s bed they had occupied, and makes no movement to retrieve the papers from his bag. Instead, he picks up the board with the nurses’ notes clipped to the foot of his bed, and leafs through it. All measurements stable. No change in medication regimen. No change in vitals. Zheng Bei remains sleeping as his body heals. Now that there is no one else in the room, Gu Yiran looks at Zheng Bei’s face closely, scrutinizing the color of his bruises (still too lurid), the state of the gashes on his face (still too many), checks his pulse (weak but steady) and counts his breaths, quiet and slow. Carefully, Gu Yiran inspects the bandages he can see and glances at the places where needles have gone under his skin repeatedly. No surprises there, he tells himself for assurance.
Zheng Bei’s is in a worse state than Gu Yiran has ever seen him before, but it’s nowhere near critical, now. He’s been out of intensive care for a week now, and his wounds are healing at the rate that they should. He has even woken up a few times, never when Gu Yiran was around, but always gone back to sleep after answering one or two of doctors’ questions. So he is not in a coma. He just sleeps through his days and nights. The doctors say it’s a sign of extreme and chronic exhaustion. Gu Yiran thinks that perhaps Zheng Bei just doesn’t want to wake up.
He aborts this thought before it goes any further and reaches for the draft reports in his bag, preparing to settle in for a few hours of uninterrupted work.
By the time the nurse comes into the room to do her rounds, he has made decent enough progress with the reports; discipline at doing boring, scrupulous work has never been his issue. She greets him by name and, without being prompted, gives him a recap of Zheng Bei’s state — nothing he hasn’t inferred from the notes by his bedside, but he thanks her with a smile all the same, not letting any disappointment show.
Before his thoughts can turn back to the draft reports, he hears a familiar voice from the doorway that has just closed behind the nurse, now opening again. “Her name is Xiao Lin,” Uncle says, entering with a heavy limp. Gu Yiran immediately makes to stand and let him have the guest cot, but Uncle waves him off, so Gu Yiran settles for sweeping his papers out of the way so that there is enough room for the two of them to sit side by side. “Her mother is the head nurse in the neonatal ward,” Uncle continues. “Used to be an absolute troublemaker in her young days, not that you can tell by her strict manner now.” He gives a fond laugh and shakes his head. “Xiao Lin takes after her father, though. More timid. But still a hard worker, and a bleeding heart at that. If you want any nurse on the ward to do you a favour, or keep a close eye on someone, Xiao Lin’s your person.”
This is so startlingly similar to the kind of running commentary that Gu Yiran is used to getting from Zheng Bei, or inferring from his casual chats with seemingly everyone in the Jiangtie district, that his stomach swoops. The kind of remark that gently bridges the gap of knowledge that he doesn’t have as an outsider, pointing out the names of the people and quietly profiling them, and at the same time indirectly scolds him for not trying to be a little more personable, more familiar, like Halan likes people to be. That creates room for Gu Yiran to integrate himself, while recognizing him for the person he is. Resigned in advance that he would still probably choose to put himself behind the walls of etiquette.
“I’ll remember that, Uncle,” he says, and he even means that. Given the frequency with which the members of the Special Task Force, himself included, end up getting to the First Public Hospital both as patients and as visitors, it’s really the kind of information that he is surprised hasn’t come up before. Uncle gives him a look which is a little too sharp to be casual, but the impression is fleeting, dissolved without a trace in the face of an amiable old man, everyone’s Uncle, ready to dish out food with one hand and scoldings with another. Gu Yiran gives an amused, near-silent huff. In all the ways that count, Zheng Bei takes after his shifu rather than his father, a much more straightforward man. “I didn’t think you were coming today. Didn’t Yao Yao say she wanted to swing by after lunch?”
Uncle barks out a laugh. “Director Gao has sent her to the banking authority to request more data on financial flows, and she has asked Guozhu for help with preparations, taking it seriously instead of crying that her head is not made for these kind of matters. Zheng Bei likes to act like without him the whole Special Task Force would devolve into a kindergarten,” — here he gives a long stern look in Zheng Bei’s direction, as if challenging him to continue an old argument, and disappointed that his sleeping state deprives him of this chance — “but I’ve always told him that when parents are not around, children have to step up and grow up.”
“Do you mean yourself and Zheng Bei, too? After your injury.” The words come out of Gu Yiran’s mouth before it occurs to him that it may not be the most sensitive thing to ask.
“That, too,” Uncle says, without mincing words. “That boy… In the three years after I was taken out of commission, he did a lot of growing up, and fast. Thinks he knows everything now, though. Hah! What a joke.”
Gu Yiran thinks about how to word his next question. “It’s hard for me to imagine Zheng Bei having to grow up like Yao Yao or Guozhu,” he says. “Didn’t you tell me before that he was everyone’s big brother even as a kid? Always feeling responsible for everyone else, looking after everyone.”
“That he was,” Uncle says. “And he has always had a cool head, but he was a young kid then, too. Had a cute side to him.” Uncle’s voice is both fond and grouchy. “Had a bit of hero worship for his senior colleagues.” The image Gu Yiran’s brain is trying to paint trips over the memory of Zheng Bei cheekily sassing back Director Gao, and politely joking with Director Zhao outside the command room in a way that would be comically flirty from anyone else, but comes across as earnest and filial from him. “Used to follow me around like a tail, when he just joined the police force,” Uncle continues. “Even after his promotions he kept coming to talk things through with me, way more than he has ever needed to.”
Gu Yiran guesses that after Uncle’s injury, Zheng Bei stopped that to spare his mentor’s feelings. Gu Yiran knows Zheng Bei cannot abide the thought of burdening someone he loves, and would always choose to carry that load himself before they can ask for it. Take the Lucifer case. Gu Yiran did notice that over the last six months of working on the case, Zheng Bei did not lean on his mentor for advice even once, though Uncle has always been by their side; instead he nagged Uncle good-naturedly about his health and similar matters. At the same time, Zheng Bei never excluded his mentor from any case discussion when Uncle wanted to participate. Typical Zheng Bei: accepting only as much as the other person is willing to give and no more, and always prepared to do everything by himself.
“I could see that,” says Gu Yiran instead, and offers to pour Uncle some tea.
* * *
By the time he wraps up work, it’s already dark, but it’s a sign of autumn rather than a late night at work. He manages to get in a good few hours of work at his desk at the Bureau in the second half of the day, after Uncle chases him out of the hospital, and only packs up to leave when Guozhu and Yao Yao return, hands full of financial statements that need cross-checking. Guozhu talks about how worried he is, how many days it has been that Zheng Bei has been asleep, and asks Gu Yiran how he feels. Gu Yiran tries to answer with honesty, but quickly enough proclaims himself tired for the day and leaves. Guozhu calls himself a coward, but Gu Yiran is quietly terrified of his ability to talk openly about his feelings, good or bad. Especially bad. After the stabbing incident, Gu Yiran has never managed to shake off the feeling that he owes Guozhu to try and meet him at his level. He still tries, and still isn’t much better at it.
He walks home, at a brisk enough pace to shake off the settling chill, lost in thought. When he is nearly home, and someone calls out his name, it startles him — it’s the cobbler from across the restaurant. Gu Yiran had forgotten that the youtiao auntie brought him up in the morning. Gu Yiran waves apologetically and backtracks to the man. “I’m sorry, Uncle, I — “
“Ah, no apologies needed, Gu-laoshi, what are you saying,” the man interrupts him right away, nodding in thanks all the time. Gu Yiran feels even more awkward now.
“Did you have to wait long? Your usual customers seem to have gone home,” he says.
The cobbler laughs, his smile revealing a glint of a worn-out golden crown on one of his front teeth. “There is a game on the television today, they are all watching it at old man Luo’s. I’ll join them later, after I show you the letter.” He rummages in his pockets and retrieves a type-written letter on official-looking paper, and presents it with both hands. Gu Yiran scans through it quickly, and looks closely at the stamps and signatures. Oodles of bureaucratic cliches, and a little unusual in nature, but by the looks of it, legitimate.
“Uncle, did this get addressed to your house?” He doesn’t know the cobbler’s name, and doesn’t ask: seems fair to assume he is who the letter is addressed to, Gu Yiran thinks a little defensively. If his inner voice that laughs at him for it sounds like Zheng Bei, it’s no one’s business.
“It’s in my name, but it’s not close by,” the cobbler says, looking uncomfortable. “A neighbour there got it and posted it to me. Is this something serious?”
Gu Yiran shakes his head. “Is the flat at this address over a restaurant of some kind? This letter requests an inspection for fire safety reasons — it’s really an inspection of the restaurant, but they want to make sure the fireproofing and ventilation and other things work as they should in the flat as well. In case there is a carbon monoxide leak or something.”
The cobbler tenses. “Am I in trouble if their inspection finds something?”
Gu Yiran scans the letter again to confirm his understanding, and says, “No. It would be the restaurant that needs to fix things if they are not up to scratch.”
Relief washes over the old man’s face, and he slaps his own legs with joy. “Thank heavens, thank heavens, I have no money for anything like this… Thank you Gu-laoshi! Thank you!”
Gu Yiran spends another minute fruitlessly telling the man he should really not overthink this, but he doesn’t seem to run out of effusive thanks and promises to repay him some day, if Gu Yiran would only tell him how, or by mending and polishing all of his shoes. Eventually, Gu Yiran decides to divert his attention. “You can call them back at this number and agree on a date that works for you to be present for the inspection. Can you do it, or would you like some help with that?”
“Oh, I can do that. I’ll walk by the hairdresser’s, you know, where Nan Nan works, and ask to use their phone.” He stops to think for a moment, chewing on his lip uncertainly. “Gu-laoshi, do you think… The place is about an hour drive away, and the chicken van is in working condition, right? I would have asked Zheng Bei or Xiaoguang, of course… Do you think you could come with me there?”
Gu Yiran must have given him a strange look, because the cobbler starts backtracking, and launches apologies for causing so much trouble, so Gu Yiran makes an effort to calm him down and explain himself. “No, it’s not the time, it’s just that I don’t have a driving license.”
That halts the cobber’s words in his tracks entirely. “Really? But — aren’t you all, in the police…”
Gu Yiran shrugs, feeling a bit uncomfortable, but not apologetic. “I never had a use for it. There were courses at the police academy, of course, and most people get their license there if not earlier, but it wasn’t mandatory and I didn’t need the extra credits.” The truth is a little more complex. He didn’t think that he would need to drive; Huazhou is warm all year round so he could bike anywhere, anytime. He had no plans to join any detective task forces and do field work with other policemen. He didn’t think he would ever leave Huazhou. “I’m sorry, uncle, I can’t give you a lift. But I can ask someone at the station, maybe Guozhu or Yao Yao can help.”
Maybe he should send Yao Yao actually, for further character building in interacting with other official bodies, he thinks as he finally extricates himself and walks towards the flat.
* * *
Two days later, Gu Yiran descends the steps to the flat at the same early hour and makes a direct line to Auntie Wang, who’s already prepared a bag with piping hot youtiao for him. Gu Yiran feels something warm and heavy in his stomach, like the weight of a hearty breakfast, when he thinks about her starting the day half an hour too early just to look after him. He has not come up with anything better to do than simply accept her care. What else is he meant to do, wake up even earlier to leave the house before she is ready? He’s not that absurd.
Auntie Wang hands him a small thermos this time as well — “Warm soy milk, the days are getting colder,” she says, and Gu Yiran agrees with her on that, because he can feel the tip of his noise redden in the morning chill — and he thanks her and starts walking off on his own way. He doesn’t manage more than a dozen steps, because one of the cars parked by the curb honks, and then honks again, until he pauses and looks at it.
“Gu-laoshi!” It’s a heavy-set man in his forties, maybe, and one Gu Yiran is reasonably sure he hasn’t seen before. He gets out of a Lada that looks like it has seen better days, one of those Russian-made cars that he never used to see back home in the south but are commonplace enough in Dongbei. “Heading to the hospital or to work? Either way, get in, get in, we can get some practice on the way. I know you are a busy man.” Gu Yiran, stupefied, watches him and makes no move to get into the car.
“Excuse me? I can walk, it’s fine,” he says, aiming for polite but firm. The man appears to ignore him completely. He pulls a big learner sign out of his car boot, and attaches it on top of the car. “Are you a driving instructor?” Gu Yiran asks, and the question sounds inane even to his own ears.
The man finishes affixing another learner driver warning sign to his back window and only then grunts affirmatively. “My dad sent me,” he says, as if it explains anything.
“Your dad? The cobbler?” Gu Yiran hazards a guess.
“No, that’s one of my dad’s friends. Come in, Gu-laoshi, we can get half an hour of practice at least.”
Gu Yiran has lived in Halan long enough to realize that he doesn’t really have a choice here. He could break into a sprint, but the most likely outcome of that is that the man will just tail him in his car, probably honking all along, until Gu Yiran is too embarrassed to continue. He sighs and gets into the car.
“This is the passenger seat,” the instructor says, in the voice of a man who sees people make stupid mistakes at all hours of the day and is paid to correct them, but not to be too courteous about it. “Driver’s seat is behind the wheel.” Gu Yiran opens his mouth to state the obvious — that he isn’t a driver, and he has no driving license, and that he has not, to his best recollection, ever expressed any desire to learn to drive — and closes it. He spots the second set of pedals that lead to the passenger seat, and feels a small measure of relief that he is not just being unleashed onto city streets without any back-up. “The streets are empty at this hour,” the driving instructor says. He probably has had this exact conversation in a million variations already, Gu Yiran thinks as he gets into the driver’s seat. The thought is both a little reassuring and a little humiliating.
The instructor, whose name turns out to be Luo, gives Gu Yiran a concise explanation of the mechanics of starting the car and changing gears, and without much ado tells him to pull out into the street and start driving. Gu Yiran has no problem following the instructions, and he has a cyclist’s awareness of the roads to help him, but he is very grateful that at this hour there isn’t too much traffic. By the time they pull up to the gate by the bureau entrance, he can feel his shirt sticking a little to his clammy back. It has been the longest hour of his life, he thinks, and cannot believe his watch when it tells him it has only been thirty minutes.
He doesn’t get to celebrate his escape from the hostage situation at this point, though, because the security officer on duty happily waves the car in with a too-cheerful “Jiayou, Gu-laoshi!” and when Luo-jianlian asks about the possibility of using the parking lot of the station to practice some driving maneuvres, generously gestures them in. For the next thirty very humiliating minutes, Gu Yiran practices parking — very badly — in full view of the entire Halan Public Security Bureau. He does not appreciate pointers inviting him to consider relative distances in relation to the knuckles on the windshield wipers or lengths in the mirror or the planetary alignment of the day. He knows how he learns, he is good at learning, but this is not how he learns. He needs hours of practice in relative privacy, where he can analyze and correct his own mistakes, which this is emphatically not.
Another excruciating half hour later, during which every minute felt at least five minutes long, Luo-jianlian mercifully lets him escape the confines of his car. “Bad but I’ve seen worse, son,” he grunts instead of a farewell. “I’ll see you at the same time in two days.” Gu Yiran asks about payment, but the instructor just rolls his window back up and drives away, giving a single thank-you beep to the security guy.
His heart full of petty tar-like blackness, Gu Yiran resolves to take his revenge before their next class. He knows where the keys to the chicken van are kept in their flat, and he can get some practice time on it before he takes the night shift at the hospital tonight. He does not like the feeling of being demoted to the bottom of the class register.
In their office, Gu Yiran shares his breakfast with Guozhu and Yao Yao, and goes over the analysis of financial reports that she was working on for the last couple of days to soothe his nerves. By the end, he no longer feels like a cat stroked against its fur, and is impressed with the cleanness of Yao Yao’s work. “That’s a very thorough job you’ve done,” he says. “Well done.” Yao Yao, who usually responds to praise like a balloon filled with hot air, gives him a bleak look of grim despair. “Thank you, Gu-laoshi,” she says, uncharacteristically polite, and offers him a martial salutation. “Can you reward me by sending me to beat up some thugs now, please? Pleee-a-se! Gu-laoshi! My brain has bruises now, I swear! Or cramps!”
Watching her martial posture dissolve into puppy whining, Gu Yiran sighs and offers to treat them all to lunch today. All snivelling immediately stops, and she says, full of suspicion, “Why are you so kind today, Gu-laoshi? Did you get any good news? But I suppose you’d have told us, if you had… ”
Gu Yiran’s heart squeezes, but he gives her a stern look. “Is this you saying you don’t want a free lunch?” Without waiting for a string of nos and other nonsense, he turns to his own report papers on his desk, and pretends not to hear Guozhu whispering to Yao Yao behind his back. “Uwaah, that was exactly like Bei-ge. Don’t you think he misses him, that’s why the free lunch? Bei-ge often gets us food…”
Gu Yiran misses him like a limb, but that’s not the reason. If he has a newfound perspective from this morning on how it feels to practice a skill so far outside your comfort zone that it gives him more sympathy for Yao Yao’s struggles, that’s his personal insight and does not need a public service announcement.
* * *
The next day, Gu Yiran leaves work on time. He grits his teeth and thinks about the chicken van practice, motivating himself by thinking about how much it would suck when he sees Luo-jianlian tomorrow morning without having done any homework.
The question of who has the stronger willpower — himself or the chicken van, temperamental as an aging opera diva and with abandonment issues worse than his own — remains unanswered for the day, however. Before he can retrieve the car keys, one of the uncles who he recognizes as a restaurant regular calls out his name, and Gu Yiran obediently trots in his direction, wondering what kind of errand the community of Halan might want of him today, in the absence of their load-bearing pillar.
Turns out it is fixing household appliances. “Xiao Bei has a way of coaxing the old TV alive, the cursed thing listens to him like a charm,” the uncle — Lao Dai, apparently — says, dragging him to his flat, which is in the building next to Zheng Bei’s family’s. Gu Yiran doesn’t have any particular affinity for electrical engineering, and tries to tell Lao Dai that, but the man is cheerfully deaf to any rational argument. “Anything you young ones can do to it is better than what I can, which is to hit it until it does something different. Twenty years in our house, and it still does not recognize me as its owner!” Twenty years may be exactly why the TV is so temperamental, Gu Yiran thinks privately, but doesn’t say anything.
When they arrive at the flat, it has about five of Lao Dai’s friends sitting in the living room, waiting for the TV to be fixed, and Lao Dai’s wife with a knitting project in her lap. Gu Yiran sighs and without much hope asks if they have a manual for the TV. Of course there isn’t a manual. Of course it was naive of him to expect he could try to fix it without a peanut gallery of onlookers.
He spends the next hour squatting and kneeling in front of the TV, trying to fix it anyway, with every one of Lao Dai’s friends cheerfully offering unsolicited, frequently contradictory advice. Gu Yiran tries telling them again that he is not an expert on electrical circuitry, especially from twenty years ago and cursed with such a temperament, but his audience just cheers him on more energetically. When he reaches a point when Lao Dai’s strategy of hitting the thing repeatedly seems like the most sensible option, he stands up and shakes the dust off his knees. “I’m really sorry, it seems like I’m not much use,” he says, rueful but not surprised at the outcome. The cursed television probably misses Zheng Bei as well, he thinks; it should very well get in line.
Lao Dai’s wife offers him some dinner as a thank-you for his efforts. Gu Yiran politely refuses, thinking of her clearly arthritic fingers, but is betrayed by the loud grumbling of his stomach. The mistress of the house smiles like she expected nothing less, and Gu Yiran thinks he should have probably expected that attitude from a person who is stubborn enough to knit with such swollen knuckles and resilient enough despite sharing her roof with cursed household appliances. When Lao Dai’s wife rises from her chair, however, her legs give under her and she falls back heavily into her seat.
Gu Yiran is at her side in a flash, taking her pulse and pulling gently at her eyelids to check her pupils. “Bring me her medicine box,” he barks, and her husband passes him a round metal cookie tin with shaking hands. As soon as Gu Yiran spots insulin syringes in the box he says, “Most likely it’s a hypo. Her sugar levels have gone very low. When was your last insulin injection, a-yi?” he asks.
It’s Lao Dai who answers, “Just three hours ago, Gu-laoshi. It can’t be that yet, it’s too soon. Are you sure it’s not something else? Her blood pressure is no good, too high most days… ”
Gu Yiran looks between the blood glucose reader and the blood pressure monitor on the bookshelf in the room and reaches for the blood glucose meter. “Someone go call the ambulance. And bring me a sugar cube or something and have it at hand,” he orders without looking back, focused on pricking the woman’s finger and dabbing the test strip with a drop of her blood. The reader works slowly, but when it settles on a number, Gu Yiran nods. Hypo, definitely. He coaxes the woman to open her mouth a little and take a pastille from the packet her husband reluctantly brought him. He gently wipes the sweat off her face and watches colour slowly return to it.
As they wait for the ambulance, Gu Yiran goes through the medicine box again, looking for any useful information to tell the paramedics. Nothing jumps out at him. After a small consideration, he asks, “A-yi, is that all your medication?” She nods, so he tries the question differently. “Did you take anything new recently? Something similar to what you have, but perhaps not sold on prescription from your own doctor?” At that, the old lady’s face brightens, and she pulls out half a blister pack from somewhere in her pockets. Sure enough, it came from someone else. “My sister’s husband also has high blood pressure, and he swore by these new drugs, and gave me a couple to try. They were so effective at keeping my pressure low, too!”
Gu Yiran firmly takes them away from her, and puts them on the table. “Show them to the paramedics, and then bring them to your doctor, when you go to the clinic next time. This is a non-selective beta blocker, a high blood pressure medication that lowers the effectiveness of insulin to the extent that it can mask hypoglycaemia symptoms.” He looks at the old woman, notices the slight tremble in her fingers, and says, making an effort to sound kinder. “It may be a very good medication for your relative, especially if he has no diabetes. For you, your doctor would have never prescribed it, at least without strict supervision. You can’t change your drugs just like that, a-yi. Please, trust that the doctors know what they are doing.”
He looks at his watch and decides to stay until the paramedics arrive. Forget about the chicken van, all he has time for is to pop by the restaurant to see Zheng Bei’s parents and maybe grab some food in a thermos before he heads to the hospital again. It’s fine. He is glad he could help, even if it’s not the thing he was asked to help with.
* * *
He doesn’t see anyone from Zheng Bei’s family in the restaurant. There are a few customers, but to his surprise, the kitchen is manned by Uncle, who looks quite at home on the other side of the counter. Before Gu Yiran can process what this means, Uncle nods like he had expected him, pulls out a heavy-looking bag with some food and hands it over to Gu Yiran. “You’ll want to dash to the hospital right away, but grab this with you. It’s enough food for a few people. Xiao Lin called the restaurant not so long ago — you remember Xiao Lin, do you? — to say that Zheng Bei has woken up properly now. His parents are probably in the hospital already; I was here when they got the call and told them to leave the place to me.”
Gu Yiran grabs the bag and leaves the restaurant before he has finished saying his thanks properly. He throws his money at the nearest taxi driver and tells him to get to the hospital as fast as he can. He doesn’t correct the driver when he gives him a cheerful look and says, “Will get you there like the wind, son. Is that the first birth in the family?” Gu Yiran doesn’t have much thought to spare for the driver and whatever he saw on Gu Yiran’s face, but he does hand him a few more bills when he gets him to the hospital after breaking quite a few speed limits.
The route to Zheng Bei’s room has never felt so long, and Gu Yiran doesn’t know if he is getting winded because the distance has stretched so much, because of the bag of food that seems enough to feed a dozen people, or because he doesn’t quite know what he will see on the other side of the door. He pauses there, with a hand on the door knob, and steels himself for a moment. The voices of Zheng Bei’s family are coming through faintly, even Zheng Nan’s, whom he barely ever sees outside Xiaoguang’s room these days. Should he have given them more time as a family, he suddenly wonders, and come here a little later? He nearly talks himself into stepping back, when he hears the sound of his own name in Zheng Bei’s voice, but not much else of his sentence. Before he can change his mind, Gu Yiran pushes the door open and steps in.
Zheng Bei is still in his hospital pyjamas on the hospital bed, looking too beat-up for Gu Yiran’s liking, more gaunt than he has ever seen him. But of course he’s already back to looking after others, Gu Yiran thinks: he has Nan Nan’s handkerchief in his hand and is awkwardly wiping the tears off her face. Zheng Bei’s mother’s face breaks out in a smile when she sees Gu Yiran, or possibly the bag in Gu Yiran’s hand. “Come on, old man, come, Nan Nan. Help me sort the dinner out, let them catch up too. We can have the meal in the common room on this floor, they have some proper tables,” she says, and whisks the three of them, and the food, out of the room before Gu Yiran manages to get a word in. His eyes are on Zheng Bei, and Zheng Bei is looking at him with a small frown, like he wants to scold him.
“How do you feel?” Gu Yiran asks, when they are alone in the room. That only gets him a bigger frown from Zheng Bei, so he asks, defensively, “What is it?” He tries to think what he may have done recently that Zheng Bei may know about, and wisely resolves not to volunteer any information before he has more to go on. Is this going to be about stowing away on the boat with stolen meth again?
“Come here, don’t just stand there in the middle of the room. Sit down,” Zheng Bei orders him like a dowager empress, patting the side of his bed. Gu Yiran comes closer and sits at the very edge of the bed, his weight barely on it. He is close enough to touch Zheng Bei’s face if he stretches out his hand, Gu Yiran thinks, and tries to tamp down on the impulse. Zheng Bei is still giving him a solemn look. “Dad tells me you’ve been getting driving lessons from Old Luo’s son,” Zheng Bei says eventually, taking Gu Yiran completely by surprise.
“Ye-es?” he offers. “I wasn’t hiding that I don’t have a driving license.”
“I know you didn’t have a driving licence,” Zheng Bei says, impatient. “I read your dossier.”
Gu Yiran blinks at him, then blinks again when Zheng Bei reaches out a hand and grabs him by the wrist instead. “Why didn’t you ask me,” Zheng Bei asks in a mournful voice, “I would have taught you how to drive. You could have done this anytime. Why don’t you ever ask for help, you stubborn man?”
Gu Yiran feels his body shake before he realizes it is laughter that is coming out of him, quite uncontrollably. Zheng Bei’s frown first gives way to something like a pout, and then his lips stretch out in a smile, and then it’s a full-sized grin, and he is laughing too. A small part of Gu Yiran wonders if, had Guozhu been here, he’d have something to say about how laughter can be a pressure valve for pent-up fear, or something similarly insane and true that Gu Yiran could never say.
He wants to tell Zheng Bei about the last few weeks. He wants to tell him how much hard work it is to try and fill his shoes even a little, and how he doesn’t want to do it by himself ever again. How everyone wanted him back, even the cursed TV.
“I’ve missed you,” he says instead. “Welcome back.”