Pastel Colours - Chapter 20

Day0815:15

Just in case, Songran checked the Internet and confirmed that the incubation period of chickenpox was at least ten days, and he immediately relaxed.

Ten days is long enough.

Even if he is unfortunately infected, he will have to wait for Mr. He to return to China before he develops symptoms. At that time, he had successfully completed the task, and returned the alive little Bubu to Mr. He. He would lie down at home for a few days at most, exercise his lazy immune system, and strengthen his survival skills by the way-being single for 23 years, no father My mother does not have a boyfriend, and every time Songran gets sick, she relies on her good health, carrying it to the end by herself, and never takes self-pity.

As long as it is not a serious illness, you can always survive it, and it will be uncomfortable for a few days to die.

This is his experience summed up over the years.

However, perhaps the flag inserted was too powerful, and the effect was immediate, and the legendary ten-day incubation period disappeared. In the afternoon, Songran suddenly developed a high fever.

Bubu was about to take a nap, and Songran told him a little story before going to bed. He originally planned to go back to catch up the manuscript after he finished speaking, but as he talked, his eyelids were getting heavier and heavier, his hands were loose, the person was crooked, and he fell asleep on the bedside in a daze. , The picture book slipped out of his arms.

In his sleep, his body temperature is like a stable opening the door, dozens of iron hoofs pulling the chaotic reins and running frantically, rushing into the danger zone in a very short time.

The lungs were hot, crushed like a hundred kilograms of hot pepper, and poured into the throat. The bright red pepper juice soaked every alveolar. The air curled up with the heat waves, sweat soaked through the back, and the big water droplets of soybeans dripped down one by one along the neck, as if being in the dull and damp heat of S City.

Songran was uncomfortably baked by the heat, but was unconscious, thinking that Bubu had a fever again, and wanted to get up to take his body temperature. His tired limbs were like melted wax oil on the bed, and they could not be shoveled. stand up.

When he barely sat up, there was a burst of blue light flashing in front of him, and the phantom flickered frequently. He hurriedly supported the wall and walked towards the bathroom, sinking one step to the left and one step to the right, swaying like he was stepping on cotton. Finally trudged to the bathroom, his calves softened sharply, knelt on the ground, held the toilet and threw himself in the water, almost immersing his head in the water.

He vomited in pieces for two minutes, almost vomiting half of his life. In a trance, he remembered something, and tried to pull the handrail to stand up, support the washstand, and look at the wash mirror.

His vision was blurred because of the high fever. He repeatedly squinted his eyes, approached the mirror, and saw-a rash on his right cheek.

Reaching out, itchy.

Songran stood there for a while, turned on the faucet, and poured a handful of cold water on his face.

In the bedroom, the mobile phone in vibrating mode buzzed and vibrated anxiously under the pillow. Songran was in the bathroom and couldn’t hear any movement. Bobu on the other side of the bed was holding the little rabbit in a deep dream, and didn’t notice the vibration of the phone.

It was repeated three times, and the phone screen went dark-the opposite party gave up the call.

He Zhiyuan put his mobile phone in his pocket and got into the co-pilot of the taxi.

The idea of ​​calling Songran came suddenly, he didn’t know the reason, after all, he had never contacted Songran in the afternoon domestic time before.

There is no reason today.

His two-day schedule was extremely busy, and he couldn’t spare any time. Worked non-stop from 8 am to 8 pm, attended four meetings before and after get off work, drove to San Jose after work, ate a hurried dinner at the airport, and immediately took the 9:30 flight to Los Angeles. Tomorrow he will attend an authoritative data security conference in the industry. The conference lasts for three days. He only has one morning schedule to give a speech on behalf of the SwordArc R&D team. Then there were three technical interviews, targeting doctoral students who also came to the conference, so as not to make a special trip to Silicon Valley. After the interview, he will catch the nearest flight back to PaloAlto and hand over the remaining two and a half days of the meeting to his colleagues.

Work is spinning, his mind is filled with career, he shouldn’t have thought of Songran he had never met before.

However, when the plane slowly landed on the beacon runway at midnight and completed the docking with the bridge, he walked out of the gate with a briefcase, took out his mobile phone, and turned off the flight mode. The first thing was to open the address book and press Song Ran’s name.

There was an uneasy feeling in my heart, urging him to talk to Songran as soon as possible and listen to the voice of the young man to confirm that he is safe today.

But no one answered the other side.

When he left the airport, He Zhiyuan had made three consecutive calls, but he still didn’t get a response from Songran. He convinced himself that it was the lunch break and Songran might be taking a nap with Boob. It would not be too late to contact him again tomorrow morning, so he temporarily let go of the matter. It was 12 o’clock in the middle of the night when he arrived at the hotel. He took off his shirt and tie, hung it in the closet, and took a hot bath in the bathroom. He usually fell asleep with half a glass of red wine and undressed.

At three o’clock in the morning, the dream broke abruptly in the middle.

He Zhiyuan opened his eyes, and the night outside the window was dark. The gray shadows of several high-rise buildings overlapped, and they were gradually printed on the ceiling, appearing cramped and deserted. Uneasy, he instinctively took out his mobile phone, and dialed another call to Songran.

This time it got through.

There was a light and muffled cough, and then a hoarse voice: “Mr. He? You…are you looking for me?”

He Zhiyuan knew what was wrong when he heard it, turned over and sat up, and asked, “Songran, what’s wrong with you?”

After about five seconds, Songran replied slowly: “I, I’m fine, it’s good, Bobu is also good, today…I’m taking care of him, he…well, he sent a few more Acne, not serious, and no more fever…I applied topical medicine to him, that, the one prescribed by the doctor…”

Song Ran’s tone is very weak, the kind of weakness that can’t be concealed by hard support: slow speaking, loose wording, simple choice of words, speaking upside down, completely unable to grasp the point… These signs tell He Zhiyuan, Song Ran is at this moment The mental state is quite bad, and the thinking is very chaotic.

The noisy background sound was coming from the phone all the time, and the noise was continuous.

He Zhiyuan was suspicious and asked, “Where are you?”

“Hmm… here, in the hospital.” Songran hesitated obviously, and the volume was reduced to the point of inaudibility. “The…F University Affiliated Hospital next to the house.”

At this moment, the hospital radio rang in due course. He Zhiyuan listened closely and caught the word “emergency” from it-why is Songran in the emergency department?

The suspicion in his heart grew stronger and stronger: “Are you alone, or with a boob?”

For such a simple question, Songran thought about it for three full seconds: “One person.”

“Why go to the hospital?”

“Uh, I…” Songran squatted for a while and whispered, “I’ll help Boob… get the medicine.”

He Zhiyuan stopped talking.

He could hear that Songran lied.

The silence came too abruptly, and he leaned on the armrest of the cold chair in the waiting room, his forehead rested on the back of his hand, and he thought dizzyly, Mr. He probably found something wrong.

Why lie again and again?

With his current state of mind, he couldn’t make up a decent lie at all, but he just didn’t hit the south wall and didn’t look back, stubbornly holding the tiny ray of hope, and wanted to continue to hide it from Mr. He.

Too naive.

I was too naive to laugh.

Songran held on to his hot forehead, his head was full of distracting thoughts, and he began to entangle the insignificant details: How did Mr. He discover it? Is the pharmacy of this hospital closed at night, or is his tone unnatural?

The sentence just now… what did he say?

Can’t remember it at all.

He burned to 39 degrees in his life, his thinking was muddy and muddy, and he forgot what he had said. After a long memory of such a muddled memory, He Zhiyuan suddenly woke him up: “It’s you.”

“what?”

Song Ran shook his painful head.

He Zhiyuan said: “The radio called you just now. You should go to get the fever injection first, and call me back later.”

“Oh, good… I’ll get an injection…”

After being exposed to this point, Songran has no face to cover up, and there is no room for cover up anyway. The nurse opened the door, leaned out half of his body and called his name. He stood up and said before going in: “Mr. He, Bubu is not at home alone. Before I came out, I asked Lin Hui… She said she would take my place. Take care of Boob…”

He Zhiyuan interrupted him: “Go get an injection first.”

“……Ok.”

Songran wiped her face indiscriminately, with warm tears in her fingers. He was too embarrassed and too embarrassed. The negative emotions doubled the pain in his body and couldn’t help but wet his eyes.

A needle in the butt, a few minutes, it ended in a blink of an eye.

Songran clutched his down jacket and leaned on the corridor. There was a wave of cold and heat inside his body, his joints trembled when he was cold, and his temples were full of sweat when he was warm. He dared not call He Zhiyuan back, clutching the phone with such force as if he wanted to crush the screen. But in the eyes of others, he was so weak that he couldn’t even hold his mobile phone. He was emptied in his fingers, and he seemed to slide down at any time.

After shaking for a long time, He Zhiyuan took the initiative to call in the end.

In addition to the usual loving greetings every night, this is He Zhiyuan’s third private call to Song Ran. He should have been ecstatic, opened his small account book, and made the last tick. But now, he didn’t dare to connect.

He was afraid of being questioned by He Zhiyuan, why would he still get chickenpox after asking his parents.

How to answer?

Just say that he has been lying so far. In fact, is he a kid who doesn’t want anyone?

He never wanted to experience the embarrassing scene of being exposed face to face.

When he was in elementary school, Songran had no one to pick him up from school. The older kids in the same class always bullied him. He jokes that he has no father or mother, so he pretends to say that his parents are doing business in distant places, and the causes and consequences are clearly organized. In order to defend this lie, he dared not go directly to the orphanage after school, but went in the opposite direction, wandering around a large intricate circle, and then went back until dark. The bully in the class was bluffed, and he escaped from the bullying.

One day later, he was called to the podium by the teacher and received a flower and a mini cake.

The teacher said in a warm tone that Songran is the most special child in our class. He is an orphan and lives in the “House of Hope”, but he is strong and optimistic and never complains about fate. Today he is celebrating his birthday, and his classmates will sing a happy birthday song and send him a sincere blessing.

So, in the jagged Happy Birthday song, Songran’s long journey for several months became a waste of effort, and the pitiful dignity he carefully maintained… also vanished unexpectedly.

From then on, Songran refused to celebrate his birthday again.

He couldn’t understand why the identity of an orphan was like a stain that was not a stain. Everyone knew that it was not the child’s fault to be abandoned by his parents, but this identity still seemed “disgraceful.” He tried his best to avoid talking about the past with others. Even if he did, he would deliberately obscure the details, fabricate a basket of “big family” and say that there are a large group of younger siblings in the family.

Half-truths, half-truths, peace of mind, and exempt others from pity.

He used the same rhetoric to Mr. He, which should have been fine, but unexpectedly, Bobo had a chickenpox outbreak, which caused a chain effect and broke his lie.

Songran felt at a loss, as if he was standing blankly in front of the podium, hearing the teacher’s gentle tone of voice, piercing the secret that he held tightly in his heart in public.

The phone buzzed and numbed the hot fingertips. Songran knew that he couldn’t hide, so he had to bite the bullet and pick it up.

“Is the injection finished?”

He Zhiyuan stood leaning on the table in his bathrobe, leaning on his back with one hand, frowning, his tone no longer gentle.

Songran heard a little anger, and then shrank her neck: “It’s over.”

“What’s your body temperature?”

“39.”

“When the temperature reaches 39 degrees, you still refuse to tell the truth and treat me as an outsider?”

He Zhiyuan was mixed with anger and anxiety, an unspeakable sense of irritation surged into his heart, and the volume could not help but increased. Songran shrank so much that she almost lost her neck, her entire face was buried in the down jacket, and she whispered: “No, I didn’t treat you as an outsider, I just… dare not tell you.”

“Don’t dare?” He Zhiyuan raised his eyebrows, “I’m a thousand miles away from you, what can I do with you?”

Songran hurriedly shook his head, accidentally too wide, eyes staring at Venus, and almost rushed to the toilet to vomit again, barely suppressed, panting and saying: “I…I seem to have been infected with chickenpox by Bobu.”

He Zhiyuan frowned: “Didn’t you have chickenpox before?”

“Yes, yes, I’m sorry, I lied to you.” Songran’s voice was low, “Yesterday… I didn’t call to ask at all.”

He Zhiyuan was so furious that he knocked **** the table: “Why don’t you ask?”

Songran narrowed her neck again: “Nowhere to ask.”

“Your parents went to bed at ten o’clock?”

“I don’t have parents!” Songran squeezed the hem of the sweater uncomfortably, gritted his teeth, and confessed quite self-defeatingly, “Those brothers and sisters before, and all the people lied to you! I have never wanted it since I was a child, and lost it. In the orphanage, when I first met you, I was afraid of being looked down upon and made up a lie. Yesterday you asked me to call home. I was afraid of being exposed, so I lied again. Who knows that I had a fever today. Come, I was caught.”

He Zhiyuan’s eyes fell sharply, and his forearm on the table pushed hard and stood up straight.

He thought that Songran was born in a rich and harmonious family, and it was precisely because he did not eat human sufferings that he lived a carefree life. A pen and a piece of paper have preserved the fantastic imagination of childhood.

Unexpectedly, Songran’s true past would be like this.

Songran has a high fever, lacks reason, and the child is twelve in his temperament. Once he let go of his emotions, he can’t take it back. There he was aggrieved and indignantly chattering: “I didn’t take chickenpox seriously. I gave the orphanage back this morning. The call came and asked them to check it. The orphanage said I had it, and I thought it was over. Who knew I would be recruited like this… What should I do now, I have a fever, I must not be able to bring Bobu It’s only two days since I got it back. I haven’t brought enough. I haven’t told many stories… It’s too much. Even God is jealous of me and desperately stumbles on me…”

What’s all this upside down?

He Zhiyuan feels that Songran’s personality is really a mystery-how cheerful he is on the outside, how sensitive he is on the inside, and occasionally the logic breaks down, and he does things like blaming oneself while being sick. Swear twice.

He Zhiyuan calmed down and asked, “Has been diagnosed?”

“Not yet.” Songran muffled, “The dermatologist is off work, and I can only register tomorrow.”

“That is, you have not been diagnosed yet. Don’t have a psychological burden. I don’t blame you about lying. You don’t have to think too much. The most important thing is to rest assured.” He Zhiyuan told him, “Is the injection finished? You? Sit still and wait for five minutes. I will find someone to take you home.”

Songran was self-willed and reluctant: “No, I walk back by myself. Two streets, ten minutes walk.”

“You dare to move.” He Zhiyuan suppressed him in a non-negotiable tone. “Give me my **** and stick it to the chair. If the person picking you up is not here, you are not allowed to take a step.”