Chapter 29 - Abandoned Hospital (13) (2/2)

Xie Yuan Huai lowered his eyes and he quietly stood in the same place. For a long time, he didn’t move.

…………….

In the middle of the night when the ward was completely quiet, the boy laid in bed staring at the ceiling. He didn’t have even a little hint of drowsiness within him.

Today, brother Yuan Huai didn’t come to find him.

He’s gone.

The boy’s eyes started to turn wet and tears rolled down his cheeks onto his pillow.

A few days ago, when he suddenly realised that brother Yuan Huai was a ghost, he was very scared, and he couldn’t help but run away. Afterwards, he immediately regretted this action of his. Although brother Yuan Huai was a ghost, he had not done anything that could hurt him. On the contrary, he treated him very carefully and gently. So what if brother Yuan Huai is a ghost?

However, his actions must have hurt brother Yuan Huai’s feelings. Since that day, he had not appeared before him.

What should I do……What should I do to get brother Yuan Huai back……..

The boy buried his head in his pillow and his shoulders trembled slightly. A soft whimper could be heard.

“Gurgle, gurgle…..gugu………..”

At this moment, he suddenly heard a strange sound coming from the bathroom in his room.

What’s that sound? Is that brother Yuan Huai? But it doesn’t sound like him………

The boy was a little scared. He put on his slippers, turned on the bedside lamp and cautiously walked over to the bathroom. He leaned against the door and listened to the movements inside.

“Glug, glug………”

That strange sound continued and then, like the flush button was pressed by something, he suddenly heard the sound of the toilet flushing.

This definitely isn’t brother Yuan Huai!

The youth’s face went pale. He suddenly recalled the ghost story about the ‘man-eating monster in the sewer’. No longer able to stay in his room, he immediately opened the door and rushed out to the corridor outside.

So scary……….If ghosts are real then the man-eating monster must also exist!

He stood in the corridor trembling. His hands and feet were cold, and he didn’t know what to do. The nurse on duty saw him come out of his room and walked over with a look of concern: “Zhi Chu, why did you come out? What’s wrong?”

“I……..”

The youth opened and closed his mouth. He didn’t know what he should say to let her believe that he had just seen a monster but at this moment he suddenly saw a bright red figure standing at the end of the corridor.

It was a young woman with messy long hair. Her pale skin was rotting slightly, and she was wearing a blood-red coloured dress. She slowly looked up and stiffly turned her head over to look at him.

It’s the red-clothed woman’s corpse………………. Ghost! There really are ghosts in the hospital! Those legends are true!

“Sister, a ghost. Run!”

The boy was scared to the point that his face was completely void of colour. He grabbed the nurse’s hand and made an attempt to escape but at this moment the elevators in the hospital were not running and it couldn’t be used so he dragged the nurse with him to the stairwell.

“Zhi Chu? Huh?”

The nurse looked back and saw that there wasn’t anything there. She remembered that the young boy had symptoms of paranoia and she thought that his illness had played up again. She pulled him back and gently reassured him.

“Don’t be afraid. There are no ghosts in the hospital. See, I’ve been doing night shifts for a so many years now and I’m okay so don’t worry, there really aren’t any ghosts. Take some medicine and go to sleep.”

“No…….It’s real…….”

The boy was very flustered but, seeing that she wasn’t listening to him, he could only pull at her sleeves and drag her towards the stairwell. During a moment of distraction, he didn’t pay attention to his feet and stepped into air. Like this, he directly fell backwards.

The nurse screamed: “Zhi Chu!”

“Bang————-”

…………..

“Fortunately, Zhi Chu didn’t sustain any serious injuries.”

Doctor Luo gently held the youths head and carefully examined it. He then took the CT scan of his head and looked at it for a long time before shaking his head and saying:

“But because of the impact to the head, for a short time he would be slightly confused and would have more difficulty distinguishing between reality and fantasy. We would need to guide him slowly to help him recover.”

A good-looking woman nodded her head. She looked over at the youth sitting on the bed and slight worry flashed across her eyes: “My child…..will he get better?”

“Please rest assured.” Doctor Luo nodded. “We will do our best to cure him.”

After exchanging a few more words with the young man’s mother, Doctor Luo sat on the bed and pressed his hand onto the boys’ shoulder. With a serious tone he said: “Zhi Chu. Do you believe in me and your mother?”

“……….Of course.”

The boy’s response was a little slow. He then nodded and answered with clear eyes: “Of course I believe in you and my mother.”

“That’s good. We’re telling you that there are no ghosts in this world. You don’t have to be afraid.”

Doctor Luo said: “Those ghosts are just fantasies conjured up by you. This includes Xie Yuan Huai. He has passed away a long time ago. He is not a real person.”

“But………” The boy opened and closed his mouth. He anxiously tried to explain, “Brother Yuan Huai is real………”

“Xiao Chu!”

The woman suddenly walked over with her eyes faintly shedding tears. With a pale face she pulled him into her embrace. She said in an almost pleading tone:

“I’m begging you, please get better soon okay? Do you know how worried mum was when I heard that you fell from the stairs…….Take it as your mum’s heartfelt request……..”

“………….Mum?” The boy who was being hugged by her was a little stunned.

In his memory, his mother would always be busy with work and she almost never cared about him. Because of his sexual orientation, she would rarely smile at him and he had always thought that she didn’t like him.

“You are mum’s precious son. How can mum not like you?”

As if she knew his thoughts, the woman whispered out these words. However, her nature is naturally rather stoic so saying these words was her limit. She couldn’t speak anymore and could only gently rub the boy’s head.

“Mum will change………I’ll spend more time with you. Dad will do the same. He also loves you very much. He’s coming back from abroad to see you and will be back soon. So, for us, you have to get better okay?”

“……….Okay!”

The boy’s eyes were red as he sincerely nodded his head. He hugged her back tightly causing the woman to stiffen up a little. Her heart was filled with a mixture of both joy and sorrow and she couldn’t help but shed a few more tears. Doctor Luo who was standing on the side also revealed a heartfelt smile.

…………

However in the deepest part of the boy’s heart, he didn’t want to believe that Xie Yuan Huai was just an illusion.

He clearly felt so real. He had embraced him, kissed him and relied on him wholeheartedly. He would even accompany him to sleep at night and show him a small but beautiful smile every now and then………..

Someone like brother Yuan Huai, how could he conjure up such a fantasy on his own………?

“Brother Yuan Huai……….”

Alone in his ward, the boy curled up in his bed. Looking thin and weak, he buried half his face in his arms and only revealed a pair of faintly red eyes.

“Doctor Luo said that I can’t differentiate between fantasy and reality so I don’t know anymore whether you really exist……….”

“Please. If you really exist, can you come out and see me? I……….I know I must’ve hurt you a lot that day but I didn’t mean it. Even if you’re a ghost, I like you. Please come out and see me okay?”

No one answered him.

He sat in the ward for a whole day. Until late at night, not a figure appeared.

Perhaps brother Yuan Huai still hasn’t forgiven him.

But what’s more likely was that “brother Yuan Huai” was really just an imaginary figure that he had conjured up.

The boy’s eyes were a little swollen from crying. He was extremely upset but even if he was sad, he understood that he should no longer let himself be immersed in his own fantasies. His mother and father were still waiting for him at home, waiting for him to return back to them.

“In the end you still haven’t appeared………”

He said quietly. His voice was a little hoarse from crying.

“Then……..goodbye.”

“Goodbye brother Yuan Huai.”

The boy closed his eyes, buried his face and shrank into a small ball. His body felt a little cold.

What he couldn’t see was that, standing just beside him was Xie Yuan Huai. He had reached out and wanted to touch him only to see his hand go through the boy’s body.

He had always been by Xiao Chu’s side.

But Xiao Chu could no longer see him and could no longer be touched by him.

………..

He had lost his Xiao Chu.

*****

Bai Yi’s Diary (Part 29)

Bai Yi who has been apart from Cheng Zhi Chu for a long time eventually refused to write his diary entry.