A Song For A Summer’s Night - Chapter 101

Su Xiang resumed her work, keeping her mind occupied.

“A group of students from your class will be joining us,” said the doctor before entering the room.

Su Xiang’s eyes bulged. She hadn’t worked with them in a while since they worked in different departments, but rotation helped them build experience.

When they arrived, Su Xiang listened to the doctor as he gave them a run-down of the central and peripheral nervous systems. Su Xiang spent hours observing and jotting down notes. She then practiced, and luckily, wasn’t prevented from doing so. The doctor left them to idle around the room while he went to prepare some scenarios.

Su Xiang looked around the room, observing everything.

“Xiang, make sure you don’t accidentally stab a patient,” teased one of her classmates. The others laughed. There weren’t any patients in the room at all.

Su Xiang turned around, narrowing her eyes darkly. “Are you stupid? That’s not something to joke about in this profession.”

Her classmate stepped forward, with cruel curved lips. “I’m not the one who made a patient, O.D. It’s a pity since it was such a simple task. How does a physician screw up on that?” she asked.

Su Xiang gritted her teeth. She didn’t know what to say. “Someone set me up,” she claimed.

“Oh?” replied her classmate with pity, “blaming others for your mistake. It’s a shame that you pretend to follow your parent’s legacy; maybe being a doctor isn’t for you.”

“I’m not doing this because of my parent’s legacy; I’m doing this for me,” snapped Su Xiang with confidence.

Before the woman could reply, the doctor returned, and everyone straightened. Su Xiang blended towards the back, feeling too discouraged to participate.

The doctor divided the class, working on the same case study, and their purpose was to conclude on a diagnosis. The group narrowed down to a few potential diagnoses, without Su Xiang placing her input. They wouldn’t take her seriously, she thought.

Her group was frustrated by the fact that they couldn’t figure it out, while Group A had already concluded an answer.

“All right,” said the experienced doctor, their mentor. “Can both groups present their answers?”

Su Xiang’s classmate, the one who teased her earlier, stepped forward. “It’s L-dopa-resistant Parkison’s disease,” she answered.

Su Xiang scoffed, and her classmate glared at her.

“That is incorrect,” said the doctor. “Group B, it’s your turn.”

Her group turned to her, “Xiang. We got the same answer as them. Please tell him about your findings.”

She glanced at them. “Why should I? Weren’t you laughing at me with them earlier?”

“We were wrong,” said her classmate,  a man older than Xun Zichen. “We’re sorry.”

Su Xiang then helplessly grabbed the group’s observation charts, looking over them.

“It’s progressive supranuclear palsy,” she said.

“Even so,” chimed in her evil classmate, “his eye movement seems to be normal.”

“It isn’t,” replied Su Xiang. “The vertical saccades are slow, and his eye movements experience some fast phases. It’s also affecting his posture, and notably, creating some cognitive disturbances.” She then presented the rest in front of the doctor, who said nothing at first, only wearing an impressive smirk on his face.

His hands folded over his chest. “Excellent job, group B,” he said to them. Su Xiang sighed in relief, and her group members patted her back, thanking her.

Her wicked classmate snarled in ridicule, and as she was leaving, the woman lifted a strand over her ear upon seeing Xun Zichen at the door. “Dr. Chen—” she began to say, but Xun Zichen walked passed her with an aloof expression, completely ignoring her. He had her hands in his pocket; his lab coat billowed as he walked by, approaching the doctor, speaking with him.

The doctor had dismissed them, so Su Xiang went to the staff room, collecting her things to go home. Xun Zichen entered not long after, grabbing a banana from a fruit bowl. He pretended not to notice her before he peeled it.

He glanced around the room, approaching her.

“Well done,” he told her.

Su Xiang smiled, stealing a glance. “Did you see what happened?”

“I heard it,” Xun Zichen replied, “from the doctor. But he also says that you’re getting bullied.”

“Maybe. But why do I care about what they say about me?”

Xun Zichen’s smile broadened. “That’s my girl,” he whispered.

Su Xiang gritted her teeth, flushing.

“I’ll finish work in two hours,” he told her.

“I’ll wait for you, and then we can order some food,” she mummed with a smile.

Xun Zichen nodded, brushing her hand with his before leaving the staff room.

Su Xiang then lifted her bag, heading towards Xun Zichen’s apartment. She twisted the doorknob with his key, chucking her shoes off.

It was dark, and when she stepped further in, her body stilled, her heart nearly stopped.

The balcony doors parted open, air flowing through sending chills throughout her body. She saw droplets of blood leading towards the couch, or behind it. She followed it, her heart pounded.

Right behind the couch, was the Cloak, holding his bleeding leg firmly.

Su Xiang sighed in relief, but she knew that she shouldn’t be feeling relief at all. She approached him, and he moved his hand.

“Am I dying?” he asked her.

Su Xiang observed his wound. It was a stabbing. She then checked his temperature, as well as the condition and depth of the injury.

“No,” she replied, “which is good because I wouldn’t know how to explain to anyone about a member of the Flock wounding up dead in this apartment.”

The Cloak grunted.

“Hold it while I get some supplies,” she instructed him. She then dashed towards Xun Zichen’s compartments, collecting all the materials she needed.

She placed on gloves, lying him down, quickly disinfecting the wound and bandaging it in a butterfly motion. She then cleaned up afterwards, giving him some of Xun Zichen’s clothes to wear, but she held a knife in her hand.

“Are you going to stab me?” The cloak asked sarcastically.

“Depends if you don’t answer my questions correctly,” she responded.

The cloak lifted his hands in a short surrender. “Ask away,” he said.

“How did you get into the apartment?” she asked.

“I went to the neighbour, an old lady, pretending to be Xun Zichen so that he could let me in through her balcony, and then I climbed over. I said I lost my keys,” Cloak answered.

“With your injury, you could have fallen, which would have resulted in a spinal injury or death,” she replied.

“I’m a dead man either way, so it doesn’t matter what happens to me,” he stated.

“How so?” she questioned.

“The Flock found out that I lied on your behalf. They tried to kill me, and I escaped, but not until after they lodged a knife at me. I took it out before getting into the next-door apartment, but I had to act quick. I know everything about you and your lover, so I came here.”

“How do you know he’s my lover?” she asked him.

The cloak eyed her appreciatively. “I would tap that, why not him?”

Su Xiang touched his leg, firmly grasping the area near his wound. The pain shot up. “Fuck, it was a joke,” he said.

“Objectifying me isn’t a joke,” she replied.

“Fuck! Okay!” he said through gritted teeth.

Su Xiang let go. “How did they find out?” she asked him.

He shrugged. “Some bitch named Yu Haoran, she informed them.”

Su Xiang’s eyes widened, her brows creased. As she absorbed everything, the Cloak took the clothes Su Xiang held. He removed his shirt, revealing a phoenix inked on his pectoral. But what puzzled her was the mark of a dragon on his leg. She caught a glimpse before she bandaged his wound.

“From what I understand, you have a mark of a phoenix, what’s the dragon for?” she questioned him.

“People can have more than one tattoo,” he replied. “I have seven of them.”

“But this dragon, in particular, looks familiar. What it is?” she interrogated.

“The Dragons,” he replied, “is part of the Black Society; it disbanded years ago, and it doesn’t matter.”

“Why were they disbanded?”

“Jeez, lady. You ask too many questions. I was better off in the sewers with rats to get this shit cleaned up.”

“No, you wouldn’t have been, so answer my question,” she persisted.

The Cloak rolled his eyes. “They just were. The head dragon called off the group and every member scattered. I have a tattoo for each society. The Flock wasn’t my first choice; if the Dragons were still around, I would have gone to them,” he replied.

“What’s your family name?” she asked him.

“I’d rather not say. I just go by Cloak.”

Su Xiang was tired of his stubbornness, but he answered the most relevant questions, and that’s all she needed to know.

“Well, cloak, thank you for the head’s up,” she told him.

He then stood up, going into the bathroom to finish dressing dress. Afterward, he told Su Xiang that he’d be laying low in a shabby place not too far from the apartment. Su Xiang then gave him instructions on how to keep it clean and to return the next day for further bandaging or stitches.

He left, and all Su Xiang could think about was that Xun Yaozu must know about Xun Zichen by now. She wasn’t sure what Yu Haoran told them. But it made her anxious.

Not long after, Xun Zichen returned, noticing how worn out and concerned she looked.

“What happened?” he asked her worryingly. And Su Xiang told him everything.

It took a few minutes for Xun Zichen to register the information. He sat in the armchair, taking a moment to breathe. He believed that he could move on as a doctor, to live his life, courting Su Xiang in secret, and it would all be simple.

“Your uncle must know by now. But why isn’t he attacking?” She questioned.

Xun Zichen gritted his teeth, running a hand down his face.

“He doesn’t want to kill me; I think he wants to challenge me,” he told her, meeting her eyes.