Chapter 108

“Suining, get up.”

Xiang Weishan’s gaze dropped from his tall figure, fingers gripping the end of the bed.

“You don’t need to beg me like this regarding my relationship with Feiran.”

Fang Suining was already so frightened by his words about “removing the tubes” that she could hardly think straight. She struggled to understand the meaning behind Xiang Weishan’s cryptic statement. Clinging to the bed sheets, she knelt upright despite her theatrical pose, and wiped her damp face with one hand. “Uncle, even if you don’t want to take care of Brother Feiran, my mother and I can provide money and support… Don’t give up on him; he’s still breathing.”

“If it were me lying here, and Feiran wanted to remove the tubes, would Qiucheng beg Feiran for me like you’re doing now?” Xiang Weishan asked disjointedly, his face showing no emotion in the extreme heat or cold.

Fang Suining was taken aback by the question, her lips moving without sound. “Mom…”

“I am several times better to Qiucheng than Feiran is to you,” Xiang Weishan said abruptly.

Fang Suining furrowed her brows, not following his hypothetical scenario, and blurted out, “—But Brother Feiran would never treat you this way! At least he wouldn’t give up without trying!”

A hint of surprise flashed in Xiang Weishan’s otherwise impassive eyes.

The ward fell silent again, dust floating in the light beam.

Fang Suining didn’t dare leave for a moment, instinctively calling Qiucheng, then sat on the edge of the bed, her mind blank, replaying all the dramatic and melodramatic scenes from TV dramas involving hospital confrontations.

The door was pushed open again by Xiang Weishan. She stared, not daring to blink.

“The medical aircraft will arrive tonight.”

Fang Suining asked another question, her eyes wide as a calf’s: “Is it transporting a patient or a corpse?”

Xiang Weishan glanced at her. “If he dies naturally in the next few hours.”

The strength in Fang Suining’s back suddenly drained away. She turned her face, tears falling onto her pants, and muttered quietly, “Damn it.”

The medical staff came in for checks every half hour.

Xiang Weishan did not leave, and Fang Suining stayed close—she felt extremely insecure, her fingers still trembling, fearing he might change his mind.

Xiang Weishan was constantly on the phone. The first call was to Qiucheng, asking him to handle the coordination with the domestic receiving hospital. The second was to the embassy, thanking them for their tireless assistance, and emphasizing that due to concerns for Xiang Lianqiao’s health and privacy, he requested the matter remain out of the public eye to prevent further harm to the family from public speculation. The following calls were in English, seemingly delegating technical consultations.

Fang Suining kept one ear attentive, her gaze shifting between the blood oxygen and heart rate monitor and the IV drip. After a thorough check, she glanced at Xiang Feiran.

This was the first time she had truly examined him since coming in.

“Brother Feiran, you look so unfamiliar now. So quiet, just two nostrils left to breathe. Haha, who would have thought, you’ve come to this. When you’re old, it wouldn’t be too much to ask for half of your pension, right?”

“Wake up soon, I’m begging you. If you wake up, I’ll serve you.”

In her agitation, she suddenly heard Xiang Weishan ask, “Do you see your uncle as a heartless beast?”

Fang Suining dared not provoke him and remained silent.

Xiang Weishan continued speaking to himself, “Do Qiucheng and Feiran often badmouth me in front of you?”

Her answer was straightforward this time: “No.”

Xiang Weishan looked up.

“They don’t mention you much.”

Xiang Weishan was taken aback and smiled, “Feiran doesn’t mention me either? He must despise me.”

“Brother Feiran is a proud person; he wouldn’t waste time on such emotions. You should know him well.” Fang Suining suddenly realized—he actually wanted to hear her say that Xiang Feiran would speak ill of him, his father.

Fang Suining searched her memory for any relevant stories that might make Xiang Weishan more sympathetic. Unfortunately, Feiran never spoke about him, and outsiders might even think his father had died since his birth.

“Go spend more time with your grandfather; he misses you,” Xiang Weishan changed the subject.

“But Grandpa always asks about him. He asked just a few days ago.”

The Nepal incident was minor and hadn’t made the news. Communication and information channels around Xiang Lianqiao were controlled by family and assistants. That night, when the hot search exploded, there were several internal calls to him, but the assistant handled them well, and the students and juniors understood.

Xiang Lianqiao was kept in the dark, believing that Feiran’s inspection had simply been extended.

“Tell him he went to New Caledonia,” Xiang Weishan said suddenly, his expression calm as if he had planned it.

If Feiran truly died, he would also keep it from Xiang Lianqiao. The doctors had hinted that Xiang Lianqiao’s health was not good overall, and maintaining a calm mood was the best care for him. The sorrow of sending a white-haired person to a black-haired one might be too much for him to bear. Over the past ten days, Xiang Weishan had not only been searching for Feiran but also contemplating this matter.

“Ah?” Fang Suining was confused. “New Caledonia? … Where is that?”

“Don’t you read his research papers?” Xiang Weishan looked at her with some disappointment. “The oil-free camphor is the closest group to the ancestor of angiosperms and is one of the keys to uncovering the diversity process of angiosperms. He has been researching this for over a year.”

Few institutions in the world provide samples of oil-free camphor. Feiran had established cooperation with Belgium on this topic. Aside from this, the group only grows on the isolated New Caledonia Island, which has been separated from the world for over 80 million years.

If it were just a pan-genome analysis, staying in the lab would suffice. However, Feiran’s research approach has always involved delving into the biogeographical environment, which suits his personality.

“But…” Fang Suining hesitated, quickly browsing information about the island on her phone. “The island isn’t wilderness; even if he’s been away for a long time, there should be some communication.”

Xiang Weishan nodded. “I’ll find a way. I’ll keep it hidden for as long as possible.”

This was the consensus between him and Qiucheng.

To put it bluntly… perhaps Xiang Lianqiao wouldn’t last long, at least not to let him leave in sorrow.

Death is so heavy. Fang Suining turned her face away and whispered, “Brother Feiran, you need to wake up quickly for Grandpa’s sake.”

“The young lady from the merchant…”

On the heart rate monitor, the stable waveform showed a slight fluctuation—a faint heartbeat, the strongest it could produce at the moment, but so subtle that no one noticed.

Fang Suining didn’t know much about the situation in the country, but Xiang Weishan knew very well. Besides him and the embassy’s rescue team, there were two other teams hired by the merchant.

“Have you been in contact with them?” Xiang Weishan asked.

On the night of the hot search, Shang Mingbao took a private plane to Nepal, while Fang Suining returned from Paris. Although she left a message for Shang Mingbao before boarding, Shang Mingbao was fully focused on the rescue operation and couldn’t spare any attention to “discuss” the matter.

After entering the forest, Shang Mingbao was completely out of contact for seven days and then fell into a coma after hearing the bad news. Over the past three days, Fang Suining received news of Feiran’s death and spoke with her briefly.

The call was short. The voice from Hong Kong was so weak, it seemed not of this world. Fang Suining struggled with her grief and offered her condolences.

“I contacted them yesterday,” Fang Suining replied truthfully.

Her voice was clear and resonant in normal speech, but it still felt insufficient to Xiang Feiran.

“Suining, put more effort into your words about her.”

“There wasn’t much said. She was admitted to the hospital, and I plan to visit her.”

The situation was grim earlier, and she couldn’t think of much. Now that her emotions had stabilized, she prepared to inform her.

Fang Suining’s voice seemed to be coming through a layer of rippling water, softly drifting into Xiang Feiran’s consciousness.

“Don’t tell her about Feiran,” another male voice said.

“Why?” Fang Suining asked in surprise.

Xiang Weishan countered, “Then why don’t you tell Grandpa?”

“He can’t handle it, but she—”

“She can handle it. It seems she loves Feiran very much. What if Feiran never wakes up?”

Fang Suining didn’t understand his meaning.

“Will she stay by the bedside, hiring someone to take care of him, year after year, and then leave? Or will she feel too guilty to leave, sticking around out of a sense of responsibility for four or five years? There will always be an end.”

Xiang Weishan said lightly to Fang Suining, “If someone can break up even when they’re living well, how long can a sense of responsibility hold out for a person in a vegetative state, someone who has muscle atrophy and might develop bedsores? Moreover, her family won’t allow her to wait for so long. She will inevitably meet new people and start a new life. Do you think, on that day, will she turn away with relief or with a burden of apology to Feiran?”

Fang Suining was at a loss, his tongue and thoughts tangled.

“You can hide the truth from Grandpa out of kindness, but you should also hide it from her out of kindness.”

Xiang Weishan looked at the figure on the hospital bed. “Feiran, is Dad right? Is this your true feeling?”

No one could answer him; it was silent and still.

“But what if he wakes up tomorrow?” Fang Suining said somewhat stammeringly, “Or in ten days, or even three to five months, or half a year.”

“If he wakes up tomorrow, in ten days or half a month, or even in six months, he will walk to that woman himself.”

Xiang Weishan leaned forward in his chair, fingers intertwined, only raising his gaze: “Suining, a person who has been told the truth can only be bound by love, but before being told, she still has the freedom to start a new life. Don’t waste the rare time when your uncle is like a real person. Believe me, he wouldn’t want to place this responsibility on her.”

The night before the medical jet arrived was very quiet.

Fang Suining and the caregiver stayed in the ward, and she propped her head up, dozing off, not noticing that the stable waveform had weakened to almost a straight line.

The alarm for a stroke pierced her eardrums. Medical staff burst in, shouting her away and racing against death.

Fang Suining didn’t understand why the person who seemed stable in the afternoon, like they would open their eyes and greet her the next day, suddenly became critically ill.

He seemed to have given up that faint, stubborn will to live, letting go of the kite string.

Never had she thought that survival would cause her distress. Survival isn’t complete living, and death isn’t complete dying. Can a person half-alive truly leave another still capable of enjoying life in a half-dead state?

That person, dragged by a carriage and left bloodied but still refusing to let go, was becoming her.

When asked by Xiang Weishan, Xiang Feiran first realized his own selfishness—

He wanted Shang Mingbao to know.

He wanted her to stay with him.

He wanted her to wait for him, to stand before her once again.

But he had already seen her clearly. She loved him.

He wasn’t afraid of her looking at others in exhaustion. He only feared that she would live a bad life from then on.

For a twenty-seven-year-old woman, life was just beginning; she shouldn’t bear the burden of love.

Back to the boundless, dark rocky shore, with the wind howling. Amidst the fluttering colorful windhorse flags, he looked at the eyes of Tan Shouyue and said, “Mom, it seems I’ve learned to let go.”

“Brother Feiran, don’t give up, okay?” Fang Suining stood at the side, helplessly crying and repeatedly saying, “Don’t give up. Think about Mingbao. I don’t know what’s going on with you two, but she’s not well, she’s really not well. That day she asked me when the funeral is. She said, ‘Suining, I always feel he hasn’t left yet.’ Surviving is the first step, waking up is the second step,” Fang Suining said firmly. “You’re a genius; you can do everything well. When you get married in the future, I’ll perform on stage for you. I’ll sing ‘Dragon and Phoenix in Harmony,’ ‘Once Liang Hong matched with Meng Guang, today the fairy will attend Xiang Wang…’”

Fang Suining didn’t understand a word of what the Nepalese doctors were shouting. She only stared at the line, staring at the line…

She also wanted to see if the white of the wedding hall was different from the white elsewhere.

“Wait for me to come back,” she vaguely remembered him saying. What came after? That day, he used a satellite phone, trying to get a signal by the riverbank, wanting to call her babe and then add a “darling.”

The medical jet arrived in Beijing at dawn. The man, who had just experienced a life-and-death situation, was sent to the experimental ward in collaboration with Xiang Weishan. Experts from around the world performed surgery on him through remote consultations and smart medical technology.

He merely survived, but no one knew when he would wake up, nor did anyone dare to make a promise.

December in the city was like spring. When Shang Mingbao saw Fang Suining, she was wearing a black trench coat, looking elegant, with her hair neatly styled.

Fang Suining drove her to a villa area in the city center.

“No funeral. The person isn’t found, what should we do?” Fang Suining smiled as he held the steering wheel. “Once it’s arranged, the commotion will inevitably let Grandpa know. He can’t handle it; he’s old and easily sentimental. Even watching the news makes him shed tears.”

“Are you returning to France the day after tomorrow?” Shang Mingbao asked.

“Yes, the contract with the tour group still has a year left. When it expires, I’ll come back.”

“I’ll visit Grandpa often for you,” Shang Mingbao said, not as a formality.

At the red light, Fang Suining stepped on the brakes, his hand gripping the steering wheel tightly in a feigned calm.

“Have you been able to eat and sleep in the past half month?” She took a deep breath, smiling as she turned to face Shang Mingbao’s plain face.

Shang Mingbao simply replied “Mm.”

Intense pain can clear up after rain, but slow pain is like continuous drizzle. Fang Suining felt relieved.

In the days after being discharged, Shang Mingbao’s auditory hallucinations grew worse. Even at home, it was the same. She could move around freely, always following that voice, quiet and calm, with everything before her a blank white, as if knowing that passing through the mist would lead her to him.

Sophie always followed her, afraid to wake her, moving quietly. If she showed any signs of misfortune, she would hold onto her tightly.

That afternoon, Shang Mingbao kept walking following the sound, surrounded by birds and insects, the scent of flowers and grass, the sun warm, and the sea breeze gently blowing. She didn’t know when she fell asleep, deep in the Shuiwan Garden, with the shadow of hydrangeas as her blanket. When she woke up, the sun hadn’t set yet, and a bright green cricket jumped past her eyes. She suddenly felt a tingling in her nose.

Xiang Feiran’s voice would never lead her into danger.

He took her to the most beautiful place, allowing her to see the colors of the world anew.

After that day, she began to eat and sleep. Wen Youyi held her, tears streaming down her face as she said, “Mommy is sorry.” A mother who attributed all the suffering her daughter endured to herself.

Shang Mingbao, with her mouth full of food, felt her cheeks swell and ache from chewing. Eventually, she collapsed into Wen Youyi’s arms and cried out loudly.

The garden villa in the city center was a standalone courtyard with good privacy; the neighbors only knew the cars but not the people.

Fang Suining used a key to open the courtyard door. “This is Feiran Ge’s house, but he has never lived here.”

The herbaceous shrubs in the yard had withered, leaving only a single aloe vera plant alive, hidden in an inconspicuous corner, overshadowed by the green shadow of a white camellia.

Fang Suining stopped at the end of the walkway, turned back, and handed her a card. “You go ahead. This is his house. You know how territorial he is. I wouldn’t dare enter without an invitation.”

Shang Mingbao pressed her lips together and forced a pale smile. “You obviously enjoy doing this kind of thing.”

The electronic door lock activated, and the bright sunlight of ten o’clock in the morning flooded in.

It hadn’t been ventilated for a long time, so the dust was dead but stirred into life by the presence of a living person.

Shang Mingbao didn’t cover her nose. She gazed steadily and slowly around the entrance, hall, and corners of the house.

She had never been here. On the night of her thirtieth birthday, he had invited her, but she soon went to New York.

The sound of high heels tapping on the solid wood floor echoed through the empty space from the first floor to the second.

The bedroom door lock was one she had once praised as beautiful. She had forgotten it, perhaps just complimented it offhandedly, but it came back to her now.

It was a suite connected to a walk-in closet, with a wardrobe made of North American black walnut. Shoes, bags, and clothing were neatly arranged, and the light strip behind the glass door illuminated the shadows of the hanging clothes.

She thought these must be Xiang Feiran’s clothes, or should she call them… relics? Holding her breath, she opened the closet door and was caught off guard by a row of women’s clothing.

Pink bathrobes, white silk pajamas, pleated skirts, suit jackets, backless evening gowns, sweatshirts, the blue windbreaker he gave her, and the inner lining…

They were all packed and discarded.

Indeed, they were packed away into their new house.

Her old belongings had moved into this new home before she did.

Shang Mingbao thought she might be abnormal, feeling exhausted as she lay on that bed, on the side Xiang Feiran usually slept—he always slept on the right side, she on the left, his left arm around her while his right hand corrected papers.

This pillow had no trace of Xiang Feiran’s scent, only the repetitive smell of sunlight and dust. Shang Mingbao closed her eyes, turned over, and hugged her own pillow.

Something fell from beneath the pillow.

She didn’t see it, her face buried deeply, until she reluctantly opened her eyes in the empty room—

A purple amulet, which he had casually mentioned discarding as outdated, was bright and fresh beneath the pillow he had prepared for her.

He had sought this talisman by climbing five thousand steps at dawn; there would never be another like it in this life.

Her fingers trembled as she reached for it. After picking it up, it was held close to her heart with her arm.

Shang Mingbao knelt on the bed and cried out loud.

Separated by thick, sealed glass, her cries were distant but real. Fang Suining looked up at the octagonal balcony that was identical to the one in the apartment on 96th Street in New York, then shifted his gaze to the barren courtyard.

On the way here, before discussing the funeral, Shang Mingbao suddenly said, “Suining, call me ‘sister-in-law,’ okay?”

If a memorial hall were set up, she would wear a white flower for him, as his widow.

Fang Suining looked at the white camellia. Even in the rain, it bloomed with the most fervor.

Feiran, Feiran, the countryside is desolate. Why don’t you return?

Two months later, Xiang Feiran, who had not yet awakened, showed stable vital signs and was transferred to a ward in the city for care.