Chapter 3

Chapter 3

That day, when the doctor came for rounds, he said he would try his best to secure special medication to help us.

However, when I asked him, “How much longer do I have to live?” he couldn’t give me an answer.

Grandma must have seen through it. It wasn’t that the doctor didn’t have an answer, but rather that the answer was too cruel, and he didn’t want to reveal it so bluntly.

Otherwise, why would this little old lady-who usually couldn’t wait to spend two hours a day chatting with the doctors to build rapport-suddenly lose all faith in modern medicine? Why else would she start running to every temple in Hangzhou, big and small, trying to get every Buddha and Bodhisattva to give me a hand?

The hospital room began to fill with peach wood swords, exorcism talismans, and a whole string of things I couldn’t name but that looked profoundly mysterious.

The head nurse criticized her a few times, so whenever the doctors or nurses came to the ward, Grandma would quietly hide these things away. As soon as they left, the room would once again be festooned with a dazzling array of items.

With my breath weak and thready, I teased her, “Are you fighting a guerrilla war in here?”

She acted very secretive. “Qianqian, don’t be afraid. When I went to pray at the temple a couple of days ago, I met someone. She has late-stage cancer too-it’s been over ten years, and she’s still living well. She said she has a way and will come to help you in a few days.”

This new friend Grandma met was named Aunt Li. She was from our hometown, so I called her Aunt Li.

Aunt Li had been diagnosed with late-stage cancer seventeen years ago, and back then, it was also considered incurable by medicine.

But now she was living a good life-plump, fair-skinned, and with a healthy complexion. You couldn’t tell at all that she was someone who had fought a life-and-death struggle against cancer.

She brought a fruit basket to visit me. After some small talk, she gently touched the back of my hand, which was bruised and swollen from the needles. “You’re about the same age as my daughter. Sigh, if your mother were still here and saw you suffering like this, her heart would break, wouldn’t it?”

I was actually fine with it myself because I had lost my mother when I was very young; my perception of maternal love had always been quite weak.

But Grandma was different.

Those words pierced her heart almost instantly.

This old lady, who had already lost a daughter and was now watching as she was about to lose her granddaughter, suddenly began to choke up.

Aunt Li comforted her in a low voice, “Auntie, don’t cry. Although Qianqian isn’t in a good state right now, she’s still much better off than I was back then. If I could be cured, then Qianqian is so young-she’ll definitely be cured even more easily.”

Grandma wiped the corners of her eyes, remembered something, and asked, “That Divine Doctor you mentioned last time-when is he coming back to Hangzhou?”

I was confused. “Divine Doctor?”

Aunt Li smiled and tucked in the corners of my blanket. “He’s an old practitioner of traditional Chinese medicine whose family has practiced for generations. His name is Doctor Fang. Over the years, no one knows how many terminally ill patients he has cured. We all call him the Divine Doctor.”

Grandma asked hurriedly, “How does this Divine Doctor treat people?”

Aunt Li said, “He uses Fasting Therapy. Think about it-cancer cells are cells too, right? They also need nutrition. If you starve yourself for a while and starve the cancer cells to death, won’t the illness be cured?”

Grandma nodded repeatedly.

I couldn’t help but retort, “If I starve for a while, the cancer cells might die, but won’t the normal cells starve to death too?”

The smile on Aunt Li’s face stiffened. She said, “Doctor Fang has his own treatment measures. When taken alongside Chinese herbal medicine, it will provide targeted nutrition to the normal cells.”

What kind of herbal medicine has eyes and can distinguish between good and bad cells?

I grumbled inwardly, but I didn’t want to spoil Grandma’s mood-the little old lady truly hadn’t looked this radiant or smiled like this in a very long time.

Therefore, I simply leaned against my hand and acted tired. Aunt Li took the hint and said she would take her leave.

Perhaps also feeling that we weren’t on the same wavelength, she left the ward, but stayed outside to chat with Grandma for a good while longer.

By the time I fell asleep and woke up again, it was already dark.

Grandma was sitting nearby knitting a scarf. Seeing me wake up, she smiled and held the nearly finished red scarf against me to check the size. “You’ll wear this scarf when the Lunar New Year comes.”

I smiled back.

But I didn’t know if I would even last until the New Year.

Grandma set down her knitting needles and said, “Aunt Li told me that although Doctor Fang is based in Hong Kong, he’s very traditional and values his roots. He might return to his hometown to visit the ancestral graves during the New Year. I’ll go wait for him then.”

Doctor Fang was the practitioner of traditional Chinese medicine who had supposedly cured Aunt Li.

I shook my head. “Do you really believe what she says?”

Grandma replied, “You saw Aunt Li’s diagnosis reports and her photos from back then yourself. It really was late-stage cancer. Now she’s alive and well, active and eating fine. Isn’t that all thanks to Doctor Fang?”

I shook my head again. “Forget it. I don’t really trust these ‘Divine Doctors’ with their unconventional methods.”

Grandma didn’t argue with me further.

However, it seemed that modern medicine was barely able to keep me clinging to life anymore.

As the late autumn osmanthus flowers were blown down by the rustling north wind, I lost consciousness several times and was rushed into emergency resuscitation.

I could hardly eat anything. I could only manage a few sips of the soup Grandma spent hours brewing for me.

I was being kept alive entirely by nutritional IV drips.

When I bathed, I could see myself in the mirror-skeletal, with sunken cheeks, making my eyes look unnaturally large. I looked terrifyingly haggard.

I could see it, and Grandma could see it even more clearly.

One day, she walked in carrying two insulated food jars. One contained soup for me, but I didn’t know who the other one was for.

When I was halfway through my soup, Grandma left with the other jar.

The elderly woman in the neighboring bed tipped me off. “Your grandma is going to give that soup to the attending physician.”

I froze.

She continued, “Your grandma saw that you weren’t doing well, so she wondered if she should give the doctors a ‘red envelope’ so they’d put in more effort. But she was afraid of using up your life-saving money and delaying your treatment, so she decided to bring the doctors soup every day instead.”

I felt my throat go dry. “Every day?”

She nodded. “Yes, ever since your last emergency resuscitation. You didn’t know? Oh, I suppose it’s no wonder; you’ve been so low on energy lately and spend most of your time sleeping.”

As she folded her clothes, she kept rambling on. “Actually, the doctors told her there’s no need to make soup and that they’ll definitely do their best to treat you. Your grandma… she’s just lost her wits with worry. *Sigh*.”

I lowered my head to drink the soup. As I drank, the spoon in my hand seemed to blur and distort.

A single tear fell, splashing into the soup.

That afternoon, I felt like I couldn’t breathe. My heart was pounding violently, and a chaotic, sharp ringing filled my ears. I opened my eyes to see nothing but a vast expanse of white.

I tried to raise my hand to press the call button, but I couldn’t even lift my arm.

In the midst of the chaos, a single thought surfaced: I’m probably going to die.

I can’t really remember the resuscitation process. By the time I opened my eyes again, it was already dark.

I knew I had escaped death once more.

But how many more times could I escape?

Grandma was sitting by my bed. Under the lamp, her hair looked piercingly white.

“Qianqian, let’s let that Doctor Fang that Aunt Li mentioned take a look at you. Just try it once, okay?”

Her voice was almost pleading.

I let out a long, slow breath. “Okay.”

I might as well treat a dead horse as if it were alive… Even if it doesn’t work, at least Grandma will have some peace of mind, won’t she?