Chapter 18
Chapter 18
After S City entered plum rain season, the rain never seemed to stop.
The sky was always gloomy and gray, blurred with mist, with endless fine drizzle mixed in.
The teacher stood at the podium and announced that the Eight-City Joint Exam would be held next week. Every student had to take it. No one was allowed to ask for leave.
Although I had taken a month off, the tutor Uncle Xu had hired for me was incredible.
Little by little, she had forced me to catch up on all the lessons I had missed that month.
So now, all I needed to do was review properly.
I sat at the desk by the window and turned on a warm yellow desk lamp.
It was eleven o’clock at night.
Outside, rain poured down in sheets, streams of water never breaking across the window.
Without warning, I thought again of the words I had overheard last night.
“That little sister of mine was just born lucky.”
“It wouldn’t be too much for her to kneel down and kowtow to the Xu Family.”
“She should have swapped life scripts with you. Only someone like you deserves to be pampered by everyone.”
…
A nameless irritation rose in my chest, so I simply closed my textbook.
I casually pulled Chen Yuezeng’s General Biology from the bookshelf.
But the moment I opened it, my phone received a call from Uncle Wu in W Town.
Uncle Wu must have missed me and wanted to chat.
A tiny flicker of joy rose in me.
My expression softened into a smile as I pressed the answer button and called gently, “Uncle.”
“Xiaohe, I need to tell you something. Prepare yourself, all right?”
I said, okay, Uncle, go ahead.
At that moment, I had no idea what was about to happen.
I was still smiling.
“Big Yellow is gone.”
My smile froze at the corner of my mouth.
“It stopped eating and drinking the day you left. I wanted to call and ask you to come back to see it, but I was afraid I’d delay your studies.
“I carried it to the lame vet on the street. The Lame Doctor said it would probably be in the next day or two, so I was thinking of calling you tomorrow morning.”
He paused. “It just left. Its body is still warm.”
My hand went slack, and the phone slipped to the floor with a sharp slap.
I instinctively lowered my head to pick it up, only to see the page my arm was pressing down.
Black words on white paper.
[The heart appears on day 21, and by around day 30, the heartbeat begins. From then on, it never stops until death.]
“Big Yellow, Big Yellow, take me to school.”
On mornings when the sky was still dark, it would stand at the front gate, wagging its tail, waiting for me to open the door.
With my pink schoolbag on my back, one girl and one dog walked together through the unlit dawn, keeping each other warm.
“Big Yellow, you can’t sneak Mom’s meatballs, okay? Those are for New Year.”
Big Yellow lay on the ground in aggrieved silence, looking up at me with its dark, round eyes.
In the end, I couldn’t bear it and tossed it one.
Its four legs immediately stood up, and its tail wagged happily again.
“Big Yellow, Dad is back from selling tofu. Go welcome Dad home.”
“Big Yellow, come watch TV with me.”
…
My parents’ portraits hung high above. Dressed in white mourning clothes, I stood helplessly in the gray, dusty main room.
“Woof-”
Big Yellow circled anxiously around my feet, its bright black eyes full of worry and fear.
Suddenly, I dropped to my knees with a thud.
I hugged it tightly, my tears soaking into its warm, thick fur.
“Big Yellow, you’re all I have left.”
Then there was the day Uncle Xu came to pick me up. It chased the car for more than a dozen li.
It didn’t know what was happening.
It couldn’t understand why I, who had taken it everywhere since I was little, had left it behind alone.
The black whiskers around its mouth and the yellow fur on its triangular ears were blown back by the wind.
…
I stood at the bridgehead and turned back for one last look at its figure.
It was crouched quietly at Uncle Wu’s feet. When it saw me looking at it, it suddenly tilted its head, gazing at me in blank confusion.
Then Uncle Wu led it away.
It looked back at me one last time and never turned around again.
So that had been its goodbye to me.
“Big Yellow…”
I slowly crouched down, dazed, not knowing where to look.
My throat hurt so much. My head hurt so much. Everything hurt.
“Cough, cough, cough, cough…”
I coughed. Coughed loudly, as if I were going to cough up every organ in my body.
It felt like something was stuck in my throat.
Gradually, I couldn’t catch my breath.
I didn’t know what to do, so I instinctively clutched at my neck.
Until an indescribable, suffocating, convulsive pain came crashing down over me like a tide.
A violent palpitation tore through my entire body in an instant.
No.
If this went on, I was going to die.
That terrifying thought suddenly appeared in my mind.
So I braced myself against the corner of the desk and forced myself up, ignoring the dizziness that seemed ready to knock me to the floor in the next second.
Clutching the collar of my clothes tightly, I stumbled downstairs and knocked on Aunt Su’s door.
“Aunt Su.”
I didn’t know if my voice was too quiet, but the lifesaving door in front of me stayed closed.
“Aunt Su.
“Open the door, Aunt Su.”
Suddenly, I felt despair. The fear surging up inside me filled every drop of blood in my body.
“Aunt Su, it’s Xiaohe.
“Aunt Su, please open the door.
“Aunt Su, my chest hurts.”
I pounded hard on the door. The sob in my voice could no longer be held back.
“Aunt Su, open the door.
“My chest hurts.
“Aunt Su, please open the door. My chest hurts.”
Someone suddenly grabbed me and forcefully turned me around.
When I looked, it was Xu Ge, who should have been in the capital.
My bloodless face was reflected in his eyes.
I gasped for breath in great gulps, struggling to lift my chin and look at him.
He frowned strangely, as if wondering what was wrong with me.
Then he suddenly noticed my pale lips. His brows snapped together, and his expression changed drastically.
He scooped me into his arms and stood up, then turned his head and roared, “Uncle Zhang, call Doctor Chen here. Call 120. Ruan He is having a sudden bout of heart palpitations.”