Free Web NovelChapter 212: Chapter 212: Destined
Su Li’s wound had indeed become infected.
Mrs. Tang had bitten her on her left hand, near the web of her thumb. When the gauze was removed, the area around the teeth marks was terribly red and swollen, showing no signs of healing at all.
"I’ll have to disinfect and treat the wound again. It’s going to hurt a little more than last time, so you’ll have to bear with it," the doctor told Su Li after examining the wound.
Su Li nodded. "It’s all right, Doctor. Please, go ahead."
"Okay. If it hurts so much you want to cry, just go ahead and cry. It’s okay." Young girls often can’t handle pain, so crying was normal.
Su Li forced a smile and said nothing.
’She had pain receptors; of course she knew it hurt. But she wouldn’t be brought to tears by it.’
’If this little bit of pain was enough to make her cry, what about her past life, when the pain had her writhing on the ground and passing out? She could have cried herself to death back then.’
Perhaps because the wound on her hand was also from Mrs. Tang’s bite, Su Li’s thoughts drifted back to her previous life once more.
She gave a self-deprecating smile as she watched the doctor treat her wound.
The doctor, who had been watching Su Li’s expression, asked, "Are you still holding up?"
Su Li nodded. "I’m fine. It’s not that bad. You can just focus on treating it."
The doctor tilted his head, a flicker of confusion in his eyes, before he refocused on the wound.
"All done. If it still doesn’t feel right in the next couple of days, or if it hurts just as much, come back to the hospital. Don’t delay."
The doctor wrote Su Li a prescription. "You said you had a fever before. Even though it’s not as high now, you still need to take medicine and get an injection."
"Okay, thank you, Doctor."
Su Li took the prescription, paid the fees, picked up the medicine, and went to get an IV drip.
IVs in those days had thicker needles, and the drip bottles were still made of glass.
The nurse who was to administer Su Li’s IV was a recent graduate from a nursing school. She grew a little nervous the moment she saw Su Li’s veins.
"Your veins are so thin."
She made the attempt, but unfortunately, she missed.
She only got it on the second try.
She was extremely embarrassed and apologized twice.
Su Li shook her head. "It’s okay."
Since Su Li didn’t cry out or complain, the nurse felt even more apologetic. Seeing that Su Li was alone, she gave a special instruction.
"When the IV bag is almost empty, just call out for me loudly. Or... Ma’am, could you please help keep an eye on it for her? If you could call me when it’s finished, I’d appreciate it," she asked the woman nearby who was accompanying her husband while he got his IV.
"Of course, I’ll help watch it. You go on with your work." The nurse was kind, and so was the woman. ƒгeeweɓn૦vel.com
Su Li thanked them repeatedly.
After exchanging a few pleasantries with the kind woman, Su Li fell silent.
Her gaze slowly shifted from her right hand, where the IV was inserted, to her bandaged left hand.
The watch, the ring, the gauze... Su Li’s eyes finally settled on the ring.
She stared at it fixedly, unmoving for a long time. No one knew what she was thinking.
In the hallway outside the infusion room, Tang Yuanxiao stood quietly, leaning against the wall. He watched Su Li through the doorway, past the silhouettes of people coming and going.
Su Li had told him not to come up.
Su Li had said she would come to the hospital today.
But Tang Yuanxiao had rushed over anyway. He had raced to the Imperial City as fast as he could to be by Su Li’s side.
But now, seeing Su Li, his feet felt rooted to the spot.
In the packed infusion room, there were wives with their husbands, husbands with their wives, and children with their parents. Every person getting an IV had someone there with them.
Except for Su Li.
Su Li just sat there, all by herself.
The already thin Su Li had grown even thinner in the two short days since he’d last seen her.
The slap mark had faded to a faint trace, almost invisible unless you looked closely, but the healthy color in her cheeks was gone. Her chin looked sharper, her face pale.
Looking at the thin, haggard Su Li in the chair, watching the way her eyes were fixed on her ring, Tang Yuanxiao found it impossible to take a single step inside.
As Su Li stared, she must have been too exhausted, because she slowly drifted off to sleep.
Tang Yuanxiao stood outside the door. When he saw her IV bag was almost empty, he hurriedly called for the nurse.
After her drip was finished, Su Li left the hospital. Tang Yuanxiao assumed she would go home, but to his surprise, she bought some fruit nearby and then headed back to the hospital.
Tang Yuanxiao followed behind her, watching helplessly as she forced herself to pull it together at a hospital room door, put on a smile, and knocked.
Su Li had gone to see the renovation contractor.
The contractor was much better; the scratches on his face had already scabbed over.
When he and his family saw Su Li arrive again, they all sighed.
"I’m being discharged tomorrow. You don’t have to come anymore."
The contractor’s mother, who had nearly torn Su Li to shreds before, took a deep breath. She didn’t offer a smile, but she finally spoke.
"If you can’t manage a smile, then don’t force it. You’re just skin and bones. Your body hasn’t even recovered yet, so just go home and rest properly. Our family... we don’t need you to apologize anymore."
After saying that, she muttered, "The one who should be apologizing hasn’t come to apologize." frёeωebɳovel.com
The contractor gave a helpless smile and said to Su Li, "It hasn’t been easy for you either. I’ve seen your sincerity. Business is business, but goodwill remains. If there’s a chance in the future, we can work together again."
Su Li nodded vigorously. "Okay."
"Hurry home and get some rest," the contractor’s mother urged, shooing her away.
Su Li nodded and said her goodbyes.
Once outside the room, she finally let out a slow breath.
She understood the helplessness and anger that came with being caught in an undeserved disaster, a misfortune that fell from the sky. Thankfully, things hadn’t reached an irreversible point.
’Can I finally, truly breathe a sigh of relief now?’
She had missed class for three days straight, her entire routine thrown into chaos. But thankfully, life was about to return to normal.
Su Li walked home slowly, tidied up a bit, and finally went to school.
’I can’t miss any more classes.’
Tang Yuanxiao watched from a distance as Su Li entered the school. He stood there for a long while before returning to his military base.
In the end, he never showed himself to Su Li.
After feeling the concern from her classmates, Su Li finished her classes, ate dinner at school with Chang E, and only then went home.
It was inconvenient to take a proper shower, so Su Li just gave herself a quick sponge bath before getting into bed.
After lying down, Su Li let out another slow breath.
She raised her hand again, once more looking intently at the hand that wore both a watch and a ring. She stared for a long, long time.
Before, she had forced herself to look only at Tang Yuanxiao and Wu Sheng, to make a choice between them.
Now, reality was telling her it was impossible.
Mrs. Tang had come. The things that happened in Xinghua Village followed them like a shadow to this new place, and had only gotten worse...
Mrs. Tang was Tang Yuanxiao’s mother, the most important person to him.
And for Su Li, she was an insurmountable obstacle. In the end, they would just go around in circles, ending up right back where they were in Xinghua Village.
It was like they were cursed, forever trapped in that vicious cycle...
She was too tired. She had learned enough lessons, both in her last life and this one. She couldn’t be naive anymore.
Her relationship with Tang Yuanxiao was just like her wound—it couldn’t be left to fester any longer.
Right now, it was just infected. If it went on, it would start to suppurate.
Why wait until she was staring at her own coffin to cry? Why did they have to wait until it festered, became dangerously infected, and even threatened her life?
Enough was enough.
Su Li’s hand gently stroked the ring, and then, she chose to take it off.
Taking it off before had required oil as a lubricant. This time, she was already preparing to get up and use soap.
But then, the ring... slipped right off.
Su Li froze, halfway to sitting up, staring in a daze at the ring she had just removed.
The ring that she couldn’t get off before, no matter how hard she tried... had just come off so easily.
Effortlessly.
It was as if, in the great unseen, heaven had already decreed it.
