Su Qing's vision was a blur. He blinked, and things came into focus. When he looked up, he saw Xu Ruchong's lips drawn back to the roots of his ears in a big, stupid grin. Su Qing felt that his facial muscles weren't especially taking orders yet, so his expression remained calm while he was startled. He thought, What temple sent this dumbass?
Then he saw Lu Qingbai bring two raised fingers up in front of him. "Tell me, can you see how many this is?"
Su Qing: "..."
Damn, there was an even dumber one. It was a buy-one-get-one-free fad.
He also felt very tired, as though he had just gotten through climbing the Himalayas. He didn't feel like moving a single finger. His just-opened eyes once more involuntarily fell closed. Lu Qingbai immediately became urgent. Not caring at all whether the person lying in bed was a guardian deity or a sufferer, he reached out to give him a push on the shoulder. "Hey, hey, are you planning on hibernating here or what? Why are you closing your eyes again? Wake up—Xiao Xu, go get a cup of cold water..."
Fortunately, Cheng Weizhi appeared to put a timely stop to this. He took a step forward and drew close to Su Qing. Softly, he said, "Su Qing, look, do you still remember me?"
Su Qing stared. At last he woke up entirely and opened his mouth, silently forming the word "Cheng." In that moment, Cheng Weizhi finally relaxed and laughed until tears fell. He simply didn't know what to say. It was as if he was the one with a new lease of life.
Sadly, not everyone could grasp his crying and laughing sincerity. Lu Qingbai got out a notebook and drew close obnoxiously. "Well, then, this is a rare opportunity, let me ask you some questions first. Do you feel that you see thing differently now? Is the world still three-dimensional in your eyes? Can you see the movement of people's cytoplasm when you look at them? Have you heard any strange sounds? Are you feeling full of power..."
Su Qing gave Lu Qingbai a look of disbelief. Because there was some distortion over the communicator, he hadn't realized that this white-coated, open-armed slob with half his shirt tucked into his pants and half sticking out was the quack who had electrocuted him several times. He silently turned aside, thinking, Did this comrade forget to take his meds before coming to work?
Lu Qingbai doggedly occupied his field of vision, displaying his intense interest towards everything about this freshly-minted freak, buzzing around Su Qing like a fly, carrying out a prattling mental attack against him: "How is your dynamic visual acuity now? When I wave my fingers like this, do you not see overlapping images? Does it look like slow motion... Hey, look over here, don't look at the ceiling..."
"..." Su Qing thought that an accurate translation of his action would have been "rolling his eyes."
When Lu Qingbai got fired up, he was even noisier than that chatterbox Xu Ruchong. At last, Hu Bugui couldn't stand it anymore. He lifted him by the back of his collar and dragged him two steps away from Su Qing's side. Lu Qingbai wanted to say something, but he saw Su Qing meet Hu Bugui's eyes and swallowed his words, his eyeballs rotating with profound mystery.
Hu Bugui stood there like a lump, looking fixedly at Su Qing, not saying a word. After an age, when he was about to start sweating from holding back, he somewhat hastily squeezed out a sentence: "Are you feeling better now?"
Su Qing looked at him expressionlessly for a while, then dropped his gaze and lowered his sharp chin in something like a nod. Then he turned his head aside and closed his eyes again, indicating that he wasn't receiving visitors.
Hu Bugui was silent for a while, then quietly said, "Everyone leave. Let him rest."
Lu Qingbai was still a little reluctant to part from this living rarity, but sadly he was forcibly ejected by Hu Bugui. Su Qing then opened his eyes again and looked out through the glass at the receding people and understood what place he had come to. He felt very vexed. He bitterly thought, Why is it always this crowd of plague gods pestering me?
It was really no way to live.
Su Qing's consciousness began to be clear at times and muddled at others. Much of the time he was still heavily asleep, frequently dreaming. Occasionally he would be disturbed by people around him and would be blearily half-waking and half-sleeping for a while, then fall back asleep.
During his hazy periods, he could feel that there was always someone beside him. Though this person made his movements as light as he could, it was still possible to sense that he was a little clumsy. Sometimes when he was turning Su Qing over or cleaning him he would hurt him.
Su Qing faintly knew who this person was, but he was unwilling to open his eyes, and he was also too tired and couldn't open them.
By the time he completely woke up, another ten days had passed.
This time he was shaken awake by a thump-thump-thump sound—little Tu Tutu was bouncing a rubber ball in his hospital room. When he saw Su Qing open his eyes, Tu Tutu gave a start and threw the rubber ball at the wall. When it bounced back, it came hurtling towards Su Qing's face—who knew what wicked person had let the little whelp in.
When the ball came towards him, Su Qing suddenly had a very strange feeling, as though it really had been freeze-framed. It slowed visibly, enough for Su Qing to turn his head away. The rubber ball brushed past his ear, shook the pillow, then fell back to the floor.
Tu Tutu pounced, yelling, "Uncle Annoying, you're alive again!"
Su Qing: "..."
Tu Tutu continued, counting on his fingers: "You were 'dead' for weeks. If you didn't come back to life, they were going to 'roast' you up and shut you up in a little box."
Su Qing struggled to use his sore throat to say, "I'm...not...some...damn...roast duck."
Tu Tutu paid no attention to what he was saying. He gravely expounded his contribution: "But I said to them that you were definitely going to come back to life, so they couldn't shut Uncle Annoying up in a little box."
Su Qing, with a double meaning, said, "It's all...thanks to you."
Tu Tutu took a big step back and pushed the little baseball cap he was wearing askew. He jiggled his leg and said, "No need for thanks, you can 'repay me with your body'...Huh? Wait, I don't think that's how it goes... Well, anyway, you can come along with me after this and go halves with me on everything you get..."
Su Qing: "..."
What kind of rotten movies had the RZ Unit been showing this little brat?
After Tu Tutu had stammered through his gang leader's lines, he threw himself fawningly at Su Qing's bedside again, his big, round eyes curving in a smile. "So, first, can you buy me lots of different colors of chocolate chips?"
Su Qing very much wanted to sit up and thrash the little devil into lots of different colors of chocolate chips.
After waking up, Su Qing didn't see Hu Bugui again. The person taking care of him changed to a pretty little girl named Xue Xiaolu. The little girl was a professional and made Su Qing's life much more comfortable. The only flaw in this perfection was that he thought this girl might have been dropped on her head as a child. She frequently had attacks—she would be talking and talking, and then she would think of something and put her hands to her cheeks, look right at him, then start smiling idiotically as she looked. If there wasn't something peculiar in that idiotic smile, Su Qing practically would have thought the little girl had fallen in love with him.
Only late each night would a person come to his room. He didn't do anything, only occasionally turned off the lights or straightened his covers for him.
This person's movements were very light. Generally speaking, if he snuck in, no one would notice. But Su Qing's senses had suddenly become very acute. Even when this person stood at the door, his heartbeat was enough to alert him.
In fact, Su Qing knew who this person was, but he didn't think he had anything to say to him, so each time he feigned ignorance.
Cheng Weizhi also came to see him once. When he came, Cheng Ge waited for him outside under the care of a specialized nurse. The old professor had come to say goodbye.
"I've had no peace in this life." Before leaving, Cheng Weizhi sighed. "Perhaps I didn't do good deeds in my past life, so payment is being demanded of me in this one."
Su Qing said, "Uncle Cheng, you're a scientist. How are you so nonmaterialistic?"
Cheng Weizhi laughed. "It has been my good fortune to meet a good child like you. Your parents are also blessed to have a son like you."
Su Qing smiled bitterly. "It seems that my dad really doesn't know his own blessings. He not only doesn't know his blessings, he hates them."
Cheng Weizhi reached out to pat him on the head. "If you get a chance, go and see him. How can there be hatred that can't be resolved between a father and son?—I'm leaving. It wasn't easy surviving. Come and visit me during the holidays, I'll make you dumplings."
Su Qing suddenly called Cheng Weizhi back. "Uncle Cheng, draw me another line."
After thinking about it, Cheng Weizhi said, "Regardless of how the ways of the world change, regardless of how others change, and regardless of how you yourself change, all you need to do is remember who you are."
When he finished speaking, the old professor put on his cap, covering up his head of grey hair, and left. He had left Su Qing with new coordinates for life.
Lu Qingbai meanwhile became the person Su Qing saw every day. Though Su Qing thought that this quack had a very hungry expression when he looked at him, as though he wanted to peel off his skin and rip out his tendons, he still learned from him what had happened.
Su Qing looked at his own hand, so thin that the veins stuck out, and felt that this was all a dream, because he hadn't noticed anything different about himself—until the first day Lu Qingbai permitted him to get out of bed and walk. When Su Qing's foot touched the ground, he thought that his legs were weak after lying down for so long and his footing was unsteady, so he stepped with particular force when he stood up.
And so the tragedy happened. Under Lu Qingbai's apparently unperturbed but actually excited gaze, Su Qing stamped a crack into the floor.
Lu Qingbai was so excited he rubbed his hands together. "Yes, right now you're like a poor little joker who's gotten rich overnight. Your body is suddenly full of an energy system that's unfamiliar to you. This is contradictory to your previous understanding of yourself, and it may give rise to some trouble in your life. But it's all right. This is a part of your body. It won't be long before it's as familiar to you as your own hands and feet!"
Su Qing looked at the floor he had cracked, then looked at Lu Qingbai with his eyes flashing green. He thought, This really is government property. No one is concerned about it.
Lu Qingbai clapped his hands. "I'll go prepare a test now to test all your body's indexes so I can put together an exercise plan. Though it's a very unique case that came about by pure chance, I believe that you're a harbinger of good for the evolution of all humanity!"
Before he was even finished speaking, he ran off as though his ass was on fire. Su Qing wordlessly kicked the floor tile that was sticking up at one corner back into place and carefully began to teach himself to walk.
Three days later, Lu Qingbai impatiently arranged all kinds of tests for Su Qing, planning to conduct a study. Su Qing meanwhile had basically learned how to walk, eat, and perform other basic life skills. That night, after Hu Bugui had concluded his habitual nightly patrol, Su Qing suddenly turned over and sat up in bed.
He carefully avoided the security cameras in the corners and felt his way to Tu Tutu's room. He shook the heavily sleeping child awake. "Wake up. Little chief, let me ask you, will you elope with me?"
Tu Tutu rubbed his eyes. "Oh...where are you going?"
Su Qing said, "I'm going away from here, to a place that none of them will find."
Tu Tutu asked, "Why?"
Su Qing said, "The people here are all unlucky. If you spend too much time with them, you'll step in dog shit as soon as you walk out the door."
Tu Tutu wrinkled his nose. "Will you buy me candy?"
"I will, I'll buy it for you every day, all right?"
"Will you buy me a big train?"
"A train is no good, I can't afford it. But I'll consider a motor scooter."
Tu Tutu pondered seriously for a while, then cheerfully nodded and gave the final word: "All right!"