Xu Ruchong didn't return to his room, just lay down in a lounge next to the lab. The RZ Unit's people normally handled minor complaints like this, in case last minute work came up.
After a while, someone opened the door and came in, startling Xu Ruchong. He gave an indistinct "yeah," not opening his eyes.
He heard Fang Xiu's voice say, "Sleep, it's all right, it's me."
So Xu Ruchong drifted murkily back to sleep. Fang Xiu leaned down and felt his forehead to check his temperature. He looked at the water stains on his glass, determined that he had already taken medicine, then quietly walked out. After a moment, he brought in a thick blanket from somewhere and smoothed it over Xu Ruchong.
Perhaps it was heavy and Xu Ruchong was uncomfortable from the weight. He struggled a little. Fang Xiu put a hand on his head, then flattened the corners of the blanket. He quietly said, "Shh, don't move. You're running a slight fever. It'll be good to sweat it out a bit."
Xu Ruchong slowly opened his eyes and glanced at him. Probably from the fever, the corners of his eyes were a little reddened.
Fang Xiu poked him in the forehead. "Isn't that brain of yours any use? Why don't you go back to your own room and sleep? I can keep an eye on things for you here."
Xu Ruchong disdained him in a heavily nasal voice: "Nope, a gorilla like you can't handle work of such high intellectual requirements."
Fang Xiu spat. "Ingrate."
Xu Ruchong asked, "Don't you have an assignment?"
"I came to look in on you first. If Master Xu falls, half the sky will be missing for all of us field personnel."
"I'll be fine. I just need to lie down." Xu Ruchong closed his eyes somewhat wearily. "You go ahead."
Fang Xiu felt that he looked pitiful. He could only sigh. He sat there for a while, then finally got up and left. Not long after he left, someone opened the door again. This time it was Lu Qingbai who came in holding an IV bag. He closed the door with his foot and walked in almost noiselessly. He hung up the IV bag and attached the drip to Xu Ruchong.
Dr. Lu's skills were excellent. Xu Ruchong didn't even feel pain. He only felt a tightening and then a loosening on his wrist, and the needle was in. He couldn't resist forcing his eyelids up once more to look at him. "Why did you come yourself? Aren't you busy?"
Lu Qingbai said, "I'll finish with you first, then I'll see to the rest. They're all dead, anyway. They can wait a bit. You're still breathing, so I'm giving you the tie-breaking point."
He had just spoken when Hu Bugui also opened the door and walked in. He asked, "How is he? I heard Xiao Xu is running a fever."
At last, Xu Ruchong couldn't keep lying down any longer. He wanted to get up, but Lu Qingbai held him down and scolded: "Enough, you can't even balance, don't thrash around."
Hu Bugui nodded. "Look after your health. I'll have the treatment center send a nurse over to help look after you. How about that?"
Xu Ruchong quickly said, "No need, no need."
When Lu Qingbai and Hu Bugui had also left, Xu Ruchong seemed to sigh in relief as he lay back down. But in no time at all, Qin Luo and Xue Xiaolu also came. The girls quietly put a thermos on the little cabinet at the head of the bed. Xue Xiaolu kept her voice very low and asked, "Do you think he's awake?"
Qin Luo said in an even quieter voice, "Half-conscious, I think. I'm always like that when I have a fever. He might know if you talk to him."
So Xue Xiaolu leaned close to Xu Ruchong's ear. In a quiet, soft voice, she said, "Master Xu, remember to drink the soup when you wake up."
Then she thought about it and looked back at Qin Luo. She said, "Forget it, let's leave him a note, or else what if he didn't hear?"
When the two of them had also left, the door creaked open yet again. A figure like a mouse stealthily slipped in, pen in hand—it was Tu Tutu, up to no good. He tiptoed closer to Xu Ruchong's bed and opened his mouth in a silent malicious smile. He pulled off the felt-tip pen's cap and was about to put pen to Xu Ruchong's face when he heard a light cough behind him—Su Qing was the one who could truly come and go without a sound.
Tu Tutu's hand froze at once. Su Qing said in an equally quiet voice, "Little whelp, do you need another pinch?"
He walked over and rubbed his hands together to raise the temperature of the skin. When they weren't so cold, like Fang Xiu, he reached out to check Xu Ruchong's temperature. Then he straightened the blanket he had messed up turning over. Finally, he took Tu Tutu by the hand and proceeded out like a vassal giving orders under the emperor's name.
Tu Tutu quietly cried out in grief: "Our Imperial Presence is a puppet emperor!"
When the final round of visitors had left, Xu Ruchong suddenly opened his eyes. He lay on his side, facing the wall. The rims of his eyes were still red, but there was no sleepiness in them.
He slowly raised his head and looked at the thermos on the nightstand and the paper under it. The paper was light blue with a small decorative border. If his nose hadn't been very congested, he probably would have been able to smell a faint perfume. At a glance it was the sort of thing girls liked.
He wasn't wearing his ridiculously large glasses. His gaze seemed a little weak. The curves at the corners of his eyes were long, giving them something of a profound flavor. Xu Ruchong's expression was a little complicated. He suddenly opened his mouth and silently said to the spotless white wall in front of him, "What are you all so nice to me for?"
When Su Qing came out of Xu Ruchong's lounge, he silently took Tu Tutu towards the sixth floor. There were no clues on his face. Tu Tutu snuck a glance at him and couldn't decide how this puppet master was planning to deal with him. He could only follow, inwardly muttering "Perturbed"1 the whole way. But Su Qing only tossed him towards his room and briefly instructed: "Go in and play. Close the door. If anyone knocks, pretend you aren't here."
Tu Tutu looked at him, blinking his big eyes. Su Qing paused, then stroked his head.
Tu Tutu raised his fist and stood up straight. He said, "Go on, Seiya! Burn your Cosmo!"
Su Qing looked at him for a while, then commented: "Get the hell out. Do Athenas come as short as you?"
Then he gently closed the door and turned towards Cheng Weizhi's room.
Cheng Weizhi very enthusiastically let him in. When Su Qing walked in, he took a look at Cheng Ge—he looked the same as always, squatting to one side, immersed in his own world. He only took a glance at him, then lost interest and returned to his own business. He was holding coloring materials, which he was daubing onto a landscape painting.
Cheng Weizhi noticed Su Qing's line of sight and sighed. He said to his son, "Cheng Ge, raise your head, say hello to our guest."
Cheng Ge had some reaction to his words. He slowly raised his head and shifted his eyes to Su Qing. He raised his hand, still holding a paintbrush, and slowly waved at Su Qing. "Hi." The brush left a yellow mark on his face.
Su Qing smiled and waved back at him. Cheng Ge looked at Cheng Weizhi like an obedient child waiting for instructions for the next step. Cheng Weizhi softly said, "Will you show us what you're drawing?"
Cheng Ge reacted half a beat slow, nodded, then clumsily raised the drawing high over his head. The drawing was of a golden field of flowers. Further on was a little house. The chimney smoke and the flowers were both moving with the wind. While Cheng Ge hadn't studied, he could use distance perspective extremely well. The painting extended into the distance as though it continued to the ends of the earth, boundless, with a background of blue sky and slightly low white clouds.
"Goodness, what a good drawing. You're a regular living Van Gogh," Su Qing delivered a line of sweet-talk, then changed the subject. He turned his head and asked Cheng Weizhi, "Does he think up his own drawings, or does he draw places he's been?"
Cheng Weizhi's attention was still on his son, so he automatically went along with his subject: "Some are places he's been to, and some are things he saw in photos or on TV. Things we ordinary people may take a look and then forget, he sometimes draws—Cheng Ge, take out your other works and display them for us."
Su Qing looked on with the cool eye of a bystander and felt that the old professor was just like an ordinary father, delighted with each of his son's minor accomplishments, always wanting to show them off to others.
Cheng Ge brought over a big portfolio and cutely laid it out in front of them. Like a patient preschool teacher, Cheng Weizhi pointed to picture after picture, asking, "Cheng Ge, what is this drawing of? Cheng Ge, what is that drawing of?"
Cheng Ge's speech wasn't smooth, as though he was holding a piece of hot tofu in his mouth. He spoke indistinctly and drooled when he spoke too much. He could only get out a couple of words at a time, which were sometimes irrelevant. But the old professor wasn't in a rush, and neither was Cheng Ge.
Su Qing sat by them in silence, taking note of the interactions between the father and son, and the drawings.
Very soon, they came to the unusual drawing. Su Qing suddenly put in a word: "Cheng Ge, what place is this drawing of?"
Cheng Ge turned to look at him blankly, then repeated his question: "What...place?"
Cheng Weizhi's notice was also drawn. He gave an "oh!" and asked, "Cheng Ge, why is this drawing so grey? Did you see an old photo?"
Cheng Ge nodded—however, a nod didn't mean confirmation. When he didn't understand what someone was saying to him, he would also nod.
"Looking at a grey thing like this puts people in a bad mood," Cheng Weizhi said to Cheng Ge, enunciating each syllable clearly. "It makes them unhappy."
"Dad...is unhappy?"
"We should draw things with lots of sunshine and colors," Cheng Weizhi said, pointing to the brightly colored new work. "We draw like that, not like this."
It was unclear whether Cheng Ge understood. He looked at one, then at the other, then finally nodded in confusion.
Su Qing took the chance to say, "Then why don't you just give it to me? I just happen to be missing a couple of paintings in my room."
Cheng Weizhi, all smiles, said to Cheng Ge, "Can I give Su Qing a few of your drawings?" Seeing that Cheng Ge hadn't completely understood, he slowed down his speech. Very, very slowly, he picked up a drawing. Passing it to Su Qing, he said, "Give—to—him, all right?"
Cheng Ge nodded again.
Su Qing said, "Then I won't stand on ceremony."
Then he picked out a couple of drawings, including the grey one, and put them in his lap. He looked down. After a moment, with a hint of probing undetectable to others, he said, "Uncle Cheng, I don't know if you've heard what happened last night. I still don't especially understand—why could my double core energy crystal activate when it won't work for others?"
Translator's Note
1, 忐忑a memetic song from early 2010. No lyrics, expresses the notion of perturbation quite well.