"No..." Li Weihuan shook his head, his expression somewhat lost, "I won’t forget Nanxi...I’ll never forget her..."
"You’ll just temporarily remember her...and besides, even if you don’t forget her, it doesn’t mean you can’t accept someone else, Weihuan. What you’ve lost...if you insist on clinging to the memories, the only one in pain will be you,"
Li Wanyu paused, then continued, "I won’t be staying in the country for long, I’ll probably leave the day after tomorrow. The jewellery shop can’t do without me. You’re being discharged the day after tomorrow, right? Do you need to go abroad for a change of pace? My place would be suitable..."
"I don’t need to!" Li Weihuan refused, "Aunt, I know what I should do, I’m not a kid anymore!"
Seeing this, Li Wanyu sighed and stopped speaking; there was no point in continuing.
Li Weihuan returned to the hospital, his thoughts in the ward were all over the place.
He took to heart what Li Wanyu said. He also knew she had brought him back to the hospital for that purpose.
But giving up on Nanxi, he could do it, forgetting Nanxi, however, was impossible.
Yes, it was absolutely impossible. He couldn’t forget Nanxi.
He unlocked his phone. The battery was almost dead. He scrolled to that familiar number, marked as "Wife," and gazed at it for a long time, his eyes unknowingly moistening.
A pair of hands gently caressed his face. It seemed like she even tucked him into bed. The figure moved in front of him, but there was no sound.
There was a soft sigh in his ear again. He frowned. The familiar feeling surged up once more. He felt like it was something he had always wanted to grasp but never could.
He reached out, trying to grasp it, but as he expected, his hand met nothing but emptiness.
Everything was like a dream, yet so very real.
The next morning, Li Weihuan woke up feeling irritable. He felt suffocated, a pressure he couldn’t shake off, making him uncomfortable.
He didn’t want to eat breakfast. He even yelled at the nurse who brought him his meal, leaving her red-eyed and at a loss for what to say. Li Weihuan, feeling even more annoyed, ignored her attempts to stop him and left for Bai Yuchuan’s room on his own!
Bai Yuchuan, who had had a less eventful time than him, was eating breakfast. He looked surprised when he saw Li Weihuan, "What’s up? Came here to mooch a meal?"
"Screw you, do you think I’m like you, live to eat?"
Bai Yuchuan frowned but didn’t make any comment. He could tell that Li Weihuan wasn’t feeling well.
He didn’t speak or tease him and just waited for Li Weihuan to open up. Sure enough, after a while, he started talking.
He said, "Xiaobai, I’m here because I wanted to talk to you about something...but don’t panic when you hear it, because it’s pretty strange!"
Bai Yuchuan continued eating his bun and looked at him, waiting for him to keep talking.
"Here’s the thing..." Bai Yuchuan took Li Weihuan through his recent nightly experiences in great detail.
"It really feels familiar. I think it’s Nanxi. I mean, I don’t think it’s a dream...but when I asked the nurse who looks after me, she said that no one came. I just don’t know what’s going on...it feels so damn real. Even now when I think about it, I still feel like she’s really there!"
Bai Yuchuan looked at him blankly for a bit, then softly said, "Huanzi, the doctor said you had a mild concussion. You don’t think it’s messing with you, do you?"
"Damn it, there’s nothing wrong with my brain!"
Li Weihuan exhaled deeply, and then said, "In short, you wouldn’t understand it, and I can’t explain it...anyways, I don’t think it was a dream. It wasn’t a dream!"
"So, it’s a ghost then. From what you’ve described, it sounds like a female ghost!"
Li Weihuan gave him a disdainful look, "Did you forget everything you learned about materialistic philosophy? What ghost, how could there be a ghost? You should have faith in science, understand?"
Bai Yuchuan fell silent, realising that by jesting like that, he was inadvertently leading Li Weihuan’s thoughts straight back to Nanxi.
"What do you plan to do?"
Li Weihuan pursed his lips, then said, "I plan to find her."
That night, after finishing dinner in Bai Yuchuan’s room, Li Weihuan returned to his own room. It was already past 10 PM.
After washing up and laying on his bed, he dismissed the nurse. He slowly closed his eyes, glancing at the clock. It was almost 11 o’clock.