Evening Stars Chapter 18
Translated by Q the Panda (ko-fi)
Chapter 18
Xu Nanheng's sudden bout of altitude sickness had drawn the attention of the principal and other teachers. That morning, Sonam Tsomo and Teacher Tsering had gone to the county junior high school and successfully arranged to borrow the chemistry laboratory for the village students. When they returned, they heard that Xu Nanheng had been admitted to the hospital.
The principal was startled, but fortunately Teacher Dawa said it was nothing serious, just that he needed oxygen. As a result, everyone agreed that it would be best if Teacher Xu didn't go with the plan for Saturday, where Teacher Dawa and Principal Sonam would hold remedial classes, and Xu Nanheng and two other teachers would go to students' homes to help with farm work.
Everyone subconsciously assumed that people who experienced altitude sickness were very weak and would remain weak for quite some time.
Besides, Xu Nanheng was already in the hospital. No one would lie in a hospital unless absolutely necessary.
At that moment, Xu Nanheng was asleep in the hospital. An iPad lay on his stomach, and an Apple Pencil was weakly clipped between his long, beautiful fingers, as if he had fallen asleep while writing something on the iPad.
By the time Sonam Tsomo returned in the afternoon, it was past three. She and Teacher Tsering went straight to the hospital. Sonam Tsomo didn't immediately ask which room Xu Nanheng was in. Instead, she went to find Fang Shiyou. His office door was open, and he was the only one inside.
Fang Shiyou briefly explained Xu Nanheng's condition to Sonam Tsomo. It was just ordinary altitude sickness. As a doctor, he recommended Xu Nanheng stay overnight as a precaution. He told the principal not to worry and, while he was at it, inquired about Dolkar's follow-up examination.
They chatted in the office for a short while before Sonam Tsomo returned to school to prepare dinner for the students.
When Fang Shiyou later entered the ward, he saw Xu Nanheng fast asleep. When he had come in earlier with the blood test results, Teacher Xu had still been writing something on his iPad. Only an hour had passed, and now he was sleeping soundly.
He was wearing a long-sleeved T-shirt, and the outline of his chest was clearly visible. The blanket tucked under his arms rose and fell with his breath. The young man was in a deep sleep. Outside the window, the sunlight was gentle and the breeze was soft. The curtains in the hospital room swayed as if pushed by the wind, swinging like a pendulum.
After a moment of silence, the ward door was pushed open from the outside. Fang Shiyou turned his head. “Yes?”
The person who came in was Yang Gao, also a Tibet aid doctor, though he was from Sichuan.
“You're here,” Yang Gao said at a normal volume. “They started digging a tunnel at the mountainside these past few days. The director said this small hospital will probably get busy. Next week, Dr. Gao and I will stay here, and you'll return to the county hospital.”
Dr. Gao was a local doctor who had been treating villagers here since this small hospital was just a clinic. Without hesitation, Fang Shiyou said, “No, let Dr. Gao go back to the county. I'll stay with you.”
“Huh?” Yang Gao looked puzzled. “Are you sure? It'll all be debridement and suturing. Gotta be pretty exhausting.”
“No problem,” Fang Shiyou said. “I'll stay. Besides, a neurosurgery director from Zhongshan just arrived in the county to perform surgery. It would be good for Dr. Gao to go and observe more.”
Yang Gao thought for a moment. “Oh, right, that works too. So it's settled. Hey, who are you looking at in this room?”
Yang Gao was standing by the ward door, near the bathroom, around a corner where he couldn't see the bed. So he poked his head in and saw Xu Nanheng. “Isn't this that teacher? What happened to him?”
“Altitude sickness. Brought here for oxygen.”
“Huh.” Yang Gao squinted. Something about the situation felt off, so he asked, “Wait, you're staying here next week not to keep an eye on this teacher by any chance, are you?”
Fang Shiyou usually kept his interpersonal relationships at the hospital simple. He followed the standard path of a medical student, shadowing his own professors. At colleagues' gatherings, he always sat on the edges, neither standing out nor looking dull.
But Fang Shiyou was quite handsome with clean-cut features, deep-set eyes, and a narrow eye shape. His light amber irises gave him a somewhat detached air. He was still young, not yet thirty, and already accomplished. It was natural that many people tried to arrange introductions for him.
As for Fang Shiyou, no matter who came to him, even when the director tried to make an introduction once, he always used the same standard excuse: too busy, focused on his career.
Yang Gao had joined the hospital a year earlier, so he knew Fang Shiyou's nature. That was why he had been so surprised when he heard Fang Shiyou had gotten into a stranger's car on National Highway 109.
Now, he was even more surprised. Yang Gao was a gallbladder surgeon. Back in Beijing, they had once worked together in the ER, where he had helped Fang Shiyou's patient with a laparoscopic procedure. That was when they had first met.
Seeing him silent, Yang Gao raised his chin, clearly prompting a response.
Fang Shiyou glanced at the person in the bed and said, “That's right. I want to keep an eye on him.”
Yang Gao took a deep breath and forced out a strange smile. “Okay, as long as you're happy.”
He had come to tell Fang Shiyou about the schedule. Digging a tunnel down by the mountain was a major project, bound to involve bumps, falls, even fractures. Therefore, the doctors scheduled for the two-week rotation would stay for an extra week to ensure sufficient medical staff.
As a result, the small hospital would be livelier this week, with local doctors, aid doctors, and half the nursing team.
Fang Shiyou walked to the bedside and glanced at him. Honestly, Fang Shiyou wasn't sure if Xu Nanheng was awake or not, since he'd witnessed this teacher's ability to sleep soundly. However…… the eyeball under the eyelid moved, then moved again. Although rapid eye movement was normal during deep sleep, Fang Shiyou had hunch that Xu Nanheng was actually awake.
Sure enough, Xu Nanheng opened his eyes.
But the way he did it was so cute. He opened his right eye first, intending to sneak a glance and observe secretly. Instead, his gaze immediately landed on Fang Shiyou, standing casually by the bed.
The teacher chuckled and opened both eyes. “Thank you for the trouble, Dr. Fang.”
Once Xu Nanheng accepted someone, he became genuinely sincere.
This was one of his strengths. Once he allowed someone in, he was utterly sincere. He was never one for pretense to begin with, so he skipped past Fang Shiyou's probing and bypassed his own internal debate about whether to pretend he had heard nothing.
“All good,” Fang Shiyou said. “It was incidental.”
Xu Nanheng tried to sit up, but the oxygen tube got in the way. “Pull out my oxygen tube then.”
At that, they exchanged a glance and both burst out laughing. That line was just morbid.
Fang Shiyou said, “I was only going to have you breathe it for two hours. I didn't move you when I saw you were asleep, but I stopped it a while ago.”
“Oh.” Xu Nanheng nodded.
Fang Shiyou stepped over to remove the tube, then put on his stethoscope. “Sit up straight. I'll listen.”
Xu Nanheng straightened his upper body.
Fang Shiyou placed the head of the stethoscope on Xu Nanheng's chest cavity, just as he did with all his patients. But once Xu Nanheng sat up, their faces ended up almost touching. It was a coincidence. Fang Shiyou was simply standing by the bedside, and Xu had simply straightened up.
Moreover, due to the limited length of the stethoscope, Fang Shiyou had to bend over. As he leaned down, Xu Nanheng caught the faint scent of disinfectant on him.
Xu Nanheng was very handsome, with perfectly proportioned double eyelids. His face remained still, but his eyes subtly looked toward Fang Shiyou, his slender, dense eyelashes fluttering slightly, before he immediately looked away.
Fang Shiyou moved the stethoscope from Xu Nanheng's back to his chest. “Are you feeling palpitations? Your heart sounds quite fast.”
“A little……” Xu Nanheng pursed his lips.
Actually, it wasn't just a little. His pulse had spiked only after Fang Shiyou leaned in.
Fang Shiyou frowned slightly. “Better stay overnight for observation.”
“Huh?” Xu Nanheng quickly refused. “No, I have to supervise the evening self-study.”
Fang Shiyou's expression didn't change. “Although I said there's nothing to worry about, you can't just ignore it. This altitude sickness was mostly caused by climbing the stairs too much. You do know that in a high-altitude region, you're supposed to walk slowly even on flat ground, and you shouldn't even take showers. How could you still go back and climb up and down the stairs?”
“……” Xu Nanheng blinked a few times. “I'll come back after evening self-study.”
“Alright.” Fang Shiyou looked away.
That night, when Xu Nanheng returned to the hospital, he didn't sleep in the ward. He slept in Fang Shiyou's on-call room while Fang Shiyou was on duty outside.
Inside, he saw the Doraemon coral fleece blanket again, which confirmed even more that Fang Shiyou took it wherever he went. The blanket was placed vertically on the inner side of the bed, against the wall. Once Xu Nanheng lay down, he realized that lying on his side, he could conveniently rub the blanket in his hands. It helped him fall asleep.
He had planned to take a proper shower at the hospital. These past days, he had been washing with water from a basin, so he missed real showers. But Fang Shiyou wouldn't allow it, warning that someone with altitude sickness could faint in the bath.
Xu Nanheng's hospitalization kept everyone at school on edge.
Especially the students. They had already labeled the volunteer teacher from Beijing as a ‘frail, delicate city person.’ The good news was that the group of mischievous boys, led by Zhou Yang, behaved themselves, but the bad news was that while Dolkar was previously the baseline for physical fitness in the classroom, now…… everyone thought Xu Nanheng was about the same.
This was evident during the last evening self-study on Friday when Lobsang Lhamo came to the podium to ask questions. Xu Nanheng accidentally choked on a sip of water and began coughing. Lhamo jumped upright in alarm, and Dasang Choedon almost instinctively ran to the hospital to call for help.
Then Saturday arrived.
According to the original schedule, Teacher Dawa and Teacher Tsering were supposed to hold remedial classes in Chinese, English, History, and Politics.
As for the frail, delicate city person…… before he set off to the cowshed behind the village that Saturday, Principal Sonam stopped him. “Teacher Xu, are you feeling better? Maybe you should stay in the kitchen today and wash dishes instead.”
Xu Nanheng had had enough.
He gripped the shovel in his hands. “Teacher Sonam, I'm really not that weak. I can go, I totally can. My altitude sickness this time was just a sudden, unexpected bout.”
Even though he had been carried to the hospital, as if he was at death's door.
Regardless, the ones who went to help the students with farm work this Saturday were still Xu Nanheng and Teacher Budon. The two carried shovels to the village behind the school to tend the cowshed.
Teacher Budon mentioned that he had visited Beijing when he was in college. They chatted casually, and he said he still remembered the taste of fermented mung bean gruel from Beijing.
Xu Nanheng didn't know whether to laugh or cry. “I don't like it either.”
Teacher Budon looked surprised. “Really? I thought every Beijing native liked fermented mung bean gruel!”
Xu Nanheng shook his head. “I can't even stand the smell.”
“Hahaha……” Teacher Budon laughed. “Ah, coming here must feel like a big change for you. After all, you came from the capital.”
Xu Nanheng shook his head again. “Not really. I actually don't go out much in Beijing. For me, the big-city things are 24-hour delivery, hot water, and smooth internet.”
Teacher Budon laughed again. “You're…… how should I put it? Kind of different. Not what I'd expect from someone from a big city.”
“Really?” Xu Nanheng scratched his head. They had reached the cowshed, and the strong odor of livestock hit him. He pressed his lips together and gripped the shovel tighter.
“Eh?” Teacher Budon stepped over some debris on the ground. “Dr. Fang is here too?”
Xu Nanheng tilted his head and looked over.
He saw Fang Shiyou in a white coat, standing side by side with a nurse. Hearing Teacher Budon call out to him, Fang Shiyou turned, and saw Xu Nanheng.
Xu Nanheng, the wisecracker, blurted out with a mix of surprise and exaggeration, “Wow, you can even treat sick cows! That's amazing, Veterinarian Fang!”
Fang Shiyou stared at him for a moment, then moved one step sideways. Behind him sat an elderly man on a stool.
Fang Shiyou introduced, “I'm attending to this gentleman, Dasang Choedon's grandfather.”
Xu Nanheng: “I…… I'm sorry.”