Evening Stars Chapter 31
Translated by Q the Panda (ko-fi)
Chapter 31
Xu Nanheng drifted in and out of sleep along the way. The journey from the city back to the county town was via the same provincial road they had taken earlier.
The road wasn't smooth, so Fang Shiyou worried he might feel nauseous. He kept the car moving at a steady pace, avoiding sudden acceleration or braking. This was much like the way he'd always lived: calm, quiet, and focused.
The lone Raptor pickup shone its headlights down the provincial road in Tibet. Within the beams of light, dust swirled from the pavement. Fang Shiyou had driven this same road countless times over the past half year. Most of the time, he drove alone. Occasionally, Professor Gu would be in the passenger seat, and sometimes Professor Gu would drive while he took the passenger seat.
When they were almost at the apartment complex, Fang Shiyou's phone rang.
His ringtone was the default one, which happened to be the same as Xu Nanheng's alarm. The moment the sound rang out, it was as if a switch flipped in Teacher Xu. His eyelids snapped open, and his hands started fumbling around, trying to find the source of the noise to shut it off.
But they were in the car, and Xu Nanheng had been asleep the whole ride. He didn't realize where he was. The sound of that alarm always grated on him. He ran his right hand along the car door, found nothing, and reached across with his left.
Restricted by the seatbelt, he grew more frantic in his drowsy state, and his hand movements became more forceful. Fang Shiyou realized he had woken up. The phone was in his pants pocket. He slowed down and stopped. Just as he stepped on the brake, Xu Nanheng's hand touched the gear shift, and then continued groping towards the driver's seat.
His hand landed squarely on Fang Shiyou's thigh. Fang Shiyou tensed up, not daring to move.
Xu Nanheng had accurately located the sound, but his hand wasn't quite as precise. Realizing the sound was coming from a spot further up the leg he was touching, Teacher Xu reached further up.
That touch landed right on Dr. Fang's vital spot.
Fang Shiyou's phone was still ringing, and Xu Nanheng was starting to get genuinely annoyed. How could this alarm still be going off? Irritation flared, and with a frown, he pressed…… hard again.
Thank heaven Fang Shiyou had already stopped the car. He shut his eyes briefly, caught Xu Nanheng's wrist, lifted his hand away, then pulled out the phone and answered it.
“He-Hello, Professor.”
“Hm? What's with that tone? Are you feeling unwell?”
“No, cough, just now…… I choked on some water,” Fang Shiyou made up an excuse.
Professor Gu said, “Oh. You've arrived safely then?”
“Mm.” Fang Shiyou nodded. “Just parked, about to head upstairs.”
“Good. You're going to the village tomorrow, right? That's good. You've been running nonstop these days. You can finally get some proper sleep there.”
Fang Shiyou was a little surprised. Professor Gu usually showed his concern in more tangible ways, like buying him multivitamins, or paying for extra fish and meat for him in the cafeteria. Professor Gu's way of caring for him was relatively direct and simple, occasionally transferring some money over and such, but rarely through such plain language as today.
“Ah…… yes.” Fang Shiyou hesitated. “Dad, nothing's wrong on your end, is there?”
There was a short pause on Professor Gu's end before he said, “For the surgery scheduled right after ours, they couldn't get the heart to restart.”
“……” Fang Shiyou held the phone in his left hand, while his right was still wrapped around Xu Nanheng's wrist.
The alcohol in Teacher Xu's system had begun to wear off. His seat had been reclined a bit earlier, and from that angle, he couldn't see Fang Shiyou's face, only the side and back of his head.
But he could sense something was wrong. Fang Shiyou's hand had gone rigid, his posture stiff, and his Adam's apple moved as he swallowed. So Xu Nanheng, with a quiet gesture of comfort, pulled his hand back. At the last moment of contact, he flipped his hand over and held Fang Shiyou's hand instead.
Fang Shiyou asked, “The second surgery wasn't yours, was it?”
“No, not mine,” Teacher Gu said. “Director Shao's. He came out and told me every step he took during the operation, but still, the heart didn't restart. That patient…… the young man was about your age.”
Fang Shiyou exhaled silently, both weary and faintly relieved. It happened that people didn't make it off the operating table, whether in Tibet or in Beijing.
This was particularly evident in cardiac surgery. The surgeons may execute the procedure seamlessly — stemming the bleeding, performing the repairs, the replacements, the suturing. Yet, while some hearts would beat again and recover within a week, others would never open their eyes again.
People said doctors had to be detached, and that was true. But doctors were still human.
Medicine itself had been born from humanity's instinct to save a dying companion.
“You……” Fang Shiyou drew a breath. “There's nothing you could've done. Remember that kidney transplant patient in Beijing, under Director Liao? Everything was fine, urine output was normal, and then suddenly, acute rejection.”
Professor Gu exhaled quietly. “Yes. Sometimes that's just how healing is. Alright, as long as you've arrived safely. Get some rest early.”
“You rest early too.”
After the call ended, Fang Shiyou turned his head and saw Xu Nanheng had straightened his seat. He was still holding Fang Shiyou's hand. When their eyes met, Xu Nanheng's gaze was no longer hazy. It seemed the intoxication had eased after sleeping the whole way.
“Something happened?” Xu Nanheng asked.
His voice was hoarse, roughened by the dryness that came with drinking.
The engine had already been turned off. Without its low hum, the cabin was utterly still. The county's night was already quiet, and the car was so silent that even a swallow could be heard clearly.
“It was…… the surgery after ours. The patient…… didn't make it.”
Xu Nanheng parted his lips but said nothing. He simply tightened his grip on Fang Shiyou's hand, offering silent comfort.
“He was so young,” Fang Shiyou went on, pressing his lips together. “My age. That's why my dad called after he heard.”
Xu Nanheng understood. He swallowed and said softly, “That's a real pity.”
“When I first……” Fang Shiyou coughed lightly and cleared his throat. “When I first entered the cardiothoracic surgery department, my father warned me repeatedly that there will be many occasions when you have done all you can. You will have adhered to established protocols, drawn upon all your experience and training, and consulted techniques from mentors and surgical records worldwide, and yet……”
Xu Nanheng's grip tightened again.
Fang Shiyou didn't go on. There was no need, because Xu Nanheng already understood.
“A medical scholar once said, ‘Medicine sometimes heals, often assists, and always comforts,’” Fang Shiyou said. “Come on, let's get out and go to bed early.”
Xu Nanheng unbuckled his seatbelt and smiled faintly. “Rest early, drink more hot water.”
Fang Shiyou felt that Xu Nanheng's physical constitution had a certain lag, although this wasn't medically defined, since no one ever got sick exactly as the books described. Xu Nanheng only experienced altitude sickness nearly a month after arriving on the plateau, and only threw up after riding in the car for nearly two hours after drinking.
When they got back to the apartment and had just taken off their coats, Xu Nanheng suddenly felt something wrong. He rushed into the bathroom and clung to the toilet as he retched violently.
While he was throwing up, Fang Shiyou boiled some water and went to tidy up the bed.
A moment later, the sound of running water came from the bathroom. Xu Nanheng was rinsing his mouth. When he finished, he tried to rinse the toilet with the showerhead, but he turned the wrong knob. The overhead shower burst to life instead, pouring straight down on him, so he just stripped and took a shower on the spot.
Amid the chaos, the bathroom door opened a crack, and Xu Nanheng appeared, looking miserable. “Dr. Fang……”
Fang Shiyou took off his watch, put out his cigarette, got up from the sofa, and walked to the door. “Tell me.”
“Bath towel, pajamas, underwear.”
“Got it.”
Feeling much better after throwing up, Xu Nanheng lay down and instantly fell asleep. He hadn't slept well last night, had traveled all day, and drank alcohol in the evening. He was asleep in seconds after lying down.
For Fang Shiyou, the day had felt endless.
In fact, he'd had far more exhausting days before. He had once spent thirty-six hours straight of surgery, writing case notes, and prescribing treatments. There were times he stayed at the hospital for four or five days in a row, doing surgeries by day and night shifts after. Walking out of the hospital at eight in the morning, he'd look up at Beijing's pale blue sky and feel like he'd just been released from prison. Yet even then, it never felt this long.
But today was too long.
He turned his head and looked at the soundly sleeping Xu Nanheng. He didn't know how much Xu Nanheng would remember when morning came. He wanted him to remember, and at the same time, he didn't.
That kind of hesitation, that tug between wanting and fearing, was something Fang Shiyou had never experienced before. He'd always been the composed, detached type. That detachment came from years of subtle conditioning from mentors and the culture of medical profession itself. Everyone said that once you entered the hospital, you had to stay calm no matter what. You'd meet the poor, the helpless, every kind of person there was. You couldn't save them all. You had to learn to live with that helplessness.
And Xu Nanheng was a lot like him in that way.
In the soft light spilling through the gap in the curtains, Fang Shiyou quietly studied the lines of his face while he slept.
Xu Nanheng's eyebrows were thick, his lashes long, and his sleeping face looked gentle and docile. For a fleeting moment, Fang Shiyou wished he could fall asleep to this face every night. He was simply too endearing, whether he was scowling over a cigarette by the highway at midnight, or looking at him with that sly grin, audaciously saying, ‘Let's see who dares to accuse this official.’
Fang Shiyou had once sought reasons for this intense, sudden, almost pathologically strong attraction to Teacher Xu. Like Teacher Xu, he also attempted to explain it using a more scientific approach, much like diagnosing the cause of an illness. But Fang Shiyou was more thorough. After all, this indescribable feeling simply defied logic and reason. Dr. Fang was even more aware that in the two-hundred-year history of surgery, there were still countless conditions that had no clear explanation, let alone the reason one fell for someone.
“You're awake.” Fang Shiyou was sitting at the dining table. When he heard the bedroom door open, he turned around. “How do you feel? Any headache? Acid reflux?”
As he spoke, he closed his laptop, stood up, and added, “I made porridge. Have some water first. It's here.”
Xu Nanheng still looked dazed. It was his first hangover, and ‘headache’ hardly covered it. He rubbed at his eyes. “It hurts. My eyes hurt too. And my neck.”
Then his wrist was caught and pulled down. Fang Shiyou said, “Don't rub.”
Xu Nanheng looked at his wrist being held, vaguely feeling that the posture and the sensation were familiar, like he had been grabbed this way once before…… but the memory was very blurry and fragmented.
“My head hurts so much, Dr. Fang.”
“Drink some porridge first,” Fang Shiyou said. “Then I'll give you something for the pain.”
It seemed Xu Nanheng had blacked out part of the night. As Xu Nanheng entered the bathroom, Fang Shiyou was unsure whether his brief sigh was one of relief or regret. The painkiller was placed right next to the glass of water. Fang Shiyou moved his laptop aside, went into the kitchen, and ladled out the porridge. He cracked open the small window behind the pot of coriander to let the breeze cool the steaming bowl.
And maybe cool himself down too.
“Your constitution is quite good, catching the cold breeze first thing in the morning,” Xu Nanheng joked as he came out after washing up.
When Fang Shiyou turned around, Xu Nanheng squinted slightly. He wasn't nearsighted, but he narrowed his eyes anyway, as if that would allow him to see more clearly. But what was blurry wasn't the Fang Shiyou in front of him, but the Fang Shiyou in his memory.
It seemed he had also looked at Fang Zhiyou from that same slight angle the night before, only it was in the dim interior of a car, not on a bright morning like this
Fang Shiyou brought out the bowl of porridge, giving him a quick once-over. “The eye pain's from the strain. Eat. Once you're done, we're heading back to the village.”
“You'll be in the village all week?” Xu Nanheng asked, sitting down.
“Mm. A week of consultations, a week of outreach,” Fang Shiyou replied.
They sat facing each other. Fang Shiyou was dressed lightly, and Xu Nanheng unintentionally found his gaze dropping to the other man's chest. Immediately, fragments of memory, seemingly his own, yet unfamiliar, surfaced in his mind. And it was frightening, utterly frightening, because in those fragments, he seemed to be touching that very chest.
“Teacher Xu.” Fang Shiyou was watching him.
“Ah.” Xu Nanheng snapped out of it.
“It's not hot anymore. You can eat,” Fang Shiyou reminded. He studied Xu Nanheng's expression as he spoke. Their eyes met for a brief moment before Xu Nanheng quickly looked away. This doctor was also a bit frightening. His eyes were too piercing.
Three hours later, they arrived at the edge of the village.
After that snowfall, the weather turned completely cold, marking the beginning of early winter.
The villagers' yaks in the pens were covered with quilts. On the road back to the village, they saw herders carrying thermoses of hot tea now that the weather had turned chilly.
The snow-covered mountains in the distance were blanketed by another layer. Fang Shiyou told him that the snow wouldn't melt until spring.
So, Tibet in winter was quiet. In the plateau winter, not even birds pass through.
The car stopped at the school gate. Xu Nanheng got out, stretched long and hard, and sighed. “Our village still feels the best!”
Fang Shiyou smiled. “Are you coming over for lunch?”
“No, I think Teacher Sonam is in the kitchen. I saw smoke coming up.” Xu Nanheng turned, waved at him. “Go ahead.”
Fang Shiyou nodded, but just as Xu Nanheng turned to walk toward the school, Fang Shiyou lowered the passenger-side window and called out to him.
He didn't call him Teacher Xu.
“Xu Nanheng.”
Xu Nanheng froze. He stood stiff for about…… half a second. If one second was a ‘tick-tock,’ then right after the ‘tick,’ despair already hit him.
The fragmented memories lined up. He remembered everything.
And Dr. Fang had also realized that he remembered everything.
He had groped the doctor's chest while drunk. And while drunk, he had also touched him there.
In the car, Fang Shiyou saw him freeze. His lips curved into a smile.
Xu Nanheng turned back. Their expressions said everything. They both knew. He gave a bitter smile. “Don't suddenly call someone by their full name, Dr. Fang. It's terrifying.”
“That's still better than suddenly being touched……”
“Stop!” Xu Nanheng clenched his fist, cutting him off, his face slightly flushed. “You're really going to argue with someone who was completely wasted?”
Fang Shiyou looked innocent. “I'm not arguing. I just want to ask. Xu Nanheng, what you said last night…… was it true?”
Do you have a girlfriend, or a boyfriend?
Xu Nanheng blinked twice, then nodded. “It's true.”
“Then I'll go first,” Fang Shiyou said.
“Ah.” Xu Nanheng nodded blankly.