"How is the situation?"
Xie Shi'an shook his head: "They haven't come out yet."
As soon as she finished speaking, the lights in the emergency room went out.
Jian Changnian immediately ran over and grabbed the doctor's sleeve.
"Doctor, doctor, how is my grandmother?"
The doctor took off his mask and shook his head.
"The situation is not very optimistic. The patient has multiple fractures and a ruptured spleen with massive bleeding. Fortunately, the bleeding has been stopped. During the examination, we also found that the patient was carrying blood pressure medication. A brain CT scan revealed an aneurysm in the brain that was oozing blood due to the car accident, and the bleeding point was gradually expanding."
The doctor tried to describe the situation in simple, easy-to-understand language: "The car accident has stabilized, but if the tumor in the brain isn't removed, there's still a risk to his life at any time."
Jian Changnian recalled the time her grandmother fell down. The village doctor hesitated to speak, repeatedly urging her grandmother to go to the hospital for a checkup, but her grandmother refused. Was it also because of this tumor?
Thinking of this, tears streamed down her face.
"Doctor, doctor, we'll do any surgery, as long as... as long as it can save my grandmother's life, please."
The doctor sighed: "Let's send the patient to the ICU first. Come to my office later and I'll tell you the details."
***
Doctor's office.
Yan Xinyuan went in with Jian Changnian, while the other three waited outside. Xie Shi'an stood against the wall, while Cheng Zhen and Qiao Yuchu leaned against the door, wanting to hear what the doctor had to say.
“The patient is old, and the surgery is very risky, but if we leave this tumor untreated, the final outcome will also be…” The doctor picked up the scans and pointed them out to them.
Before he could finish speaking, Jian Changnian slid off the chair and knelt down on both knees with a thud.
"Doctor, please, even if there's only a sliver of hope, save my grandmother! I beg you!"
"Hey, what are you doing? Get up, kid." The director, who was over fifty, put down the X-ray and quickly helped the person up.
"If you decide to do it, raise the money as soon as possible. This tumor can't be delayed; the sooner the better."
"Approximately how much will it cost?" Yan Xinyuan asked.
The old director hesitated, but out of a sense of responsibility to the patient and a touch of pity for the child, he carefully spoke: "A conservative estimate would be 100,000 yuan. I've roughly understood your situation. To be honest, even if the surgery is performed, a poor prognosis could leave you with nothing but financial ruin..."
He knew all too well how much of a burden 100,000 yuan was for a child from a poor family who was still a minor.
The doctor didn't finish speaking, but Jian Changnian already understood what he meant. As a child from a poor family, she knew what one yuan meant to her, let alone one hundred thousand yuan.
For her at that time, it was an astronomical figure.
The boy kept shedding tears, but his gaze was so firm, without the slightest hesitation.
She bent down deeply: "Doctor, please, please operate on my grandmother. I will raise the money for the surgery as soon as possible. She is my only family in this world."
***
After leaving the doctor's office, Yan Xinyuan went to the other side to make a phone call. The three people in the corridor stood up and looked at her.
Qiao Yuchu hesitated, but Jian Changnian spoke first.
"We haven't gone back yet."
"We'll leave once Grandma's condition stabilizes." Qiao Yuchu wanted to say a few words of comfort, but felt powerless to do anything about it.
Jian Changnian's face was covered in tears. Seeing them like this, she sniffed and forced a smile.
"Everything's alright for now. It's getting late, so you should all go back and rest."
Xie Shi'an knew he couldn't be of much help by staying, so he nodded slightly and turned to leave.
She took two steps, but was stopped by someone.
"Shi'an, Sister Yu Chu, and Cheng Zhen..." She called out their names one by one, looked at them very seriously, bowed to them, tears streaming down her face, and choked up.
"Thank you so much."
Xie Shi'an and Cheng Zhen rode their motorcycles through the traffic to clear the way for her. Qiao Yuchu gave up her time with her family and rushed to the hospital late at night. Even if they didn't say or do anything, just standing there silently was a great source of support for her. Jian Changnian knew that even if she collapsed at this moment, she would not be alone.
After leaving the hospital, Cheng Zhen also felt a little reluctant.
"Shi'an, Shi'an, you always have the most clever ideas, can we think of a way to help her?"
Xie Shi'an ignored him and walked forward expressionlessly.
"Hey, Shi'an, I'm talking to you..." Cheng Zhen wanted to chase after her, but Qiao Yuchu stopped her.
"Can't you tell? She's in a bad mood right now. Don't upset her. Go home early, okay?"
Cheng Zhen finally belatedly remembered her grandfather's matter, and stuck out her tongue: "I forgot, ptooey, ptooey, he deserves a beating, hey, how are you going to get back? Or should I take you?"
Qiao Yuchu tossed the helmet to him, caught up with Xie Shian in a few steps, and the two got into a taxi together.
"Take a taxi and be careful on the road."
***
Yan Xinyuan made this call to the police station.
"What? The culprit hasn't been caught yet?"
"Although there are surveillance cameras on the road that captured the person's face, this motorcycle is a 'blacklist,' and it will take time to identify it."
The police officer at the local police station answered him in a matter-of-fact manner.
Yan Xinyuan scratched his head: "Please hurry up, we really need the money for the surgery."
After he hung up the phone, he realized that Jian Changnian was quietly watching him from not far away.
He got up and walked over, unsure how to tell her that the person hadn't been caught yet.
"Chang Nian..."
Instead, Jian Changnian smiled.
"It's alright, Coach Yan, you should go back and rest too. Thank you for today. I can take care of Grandma at the hospital by myself."
"But..." Yan Xinyuan wanted to say something more.
Jian Changnian shook her head, interrupting him.
"I'm really fine. Don't we have training tomorrow? I can manage, don't worry."
For some reason, Yan Xinyuan felt that in just one night, the child's expression had become so resolute, as if he had been reborn.
"Okay then, have the doctor call me if anything happens."
Just as he was about to turn and leave, Jian Changnian called him back.
"By the way, Coach Yan, I won't be participating in tomorrow's training..." She said this with a smile, but the smile looked worse than a cry.
"I may need to ask you for a long leave of absence."
***
"The national competition starts next week. Taking leave now would be tantamount to voluntarily forfeiting your qualification to participate, wouldn't it?"
The next morning during training, Jian Changnian was missing a player, and her teammates whispered among themselves.
"We can't just ignore a family member in the hospital. What would you choose?"
When asked, the teammate scratched his head and said, "Sigh, I don't know either. Let's train, let's train. Coach Yan is coming."
Xie Shi'an was warming up before training when he jumped up and smashed the ball against the wall with a powerful spike.
While they were busy with their pre-competition training, Jian Changnian saw that her grandmother's condition had stabilized and took some time to go home.
Pushing open the courtyard gate, she saw a familiar scene, but no one was there to greet her with a smile anymore. Jian Changnian's eyes welled up with tears.
The boy wiped his eyes, noticing the chickens and ducks squawking from hunger. He opened the fence, chopped up some wild vegetables and mixed them with feed, then scattered the mixture on the ground. Watching them happily eat as they ran around the yard, he whispered to himself.
"Eat up, eat more."
After doing all this, she ran back to the inner room and rummaged through everything. Finally, she found her grandmother's money box at the very back of the wardrobe. When she opened it, she found a huge pile of colorful bills.
Jian Changnian counted the money; including the coins, it totaled over three thousand yuan, which was all of her grandmother's savings.
There was also a photograph pressed at the bottom of the box. In my grandmother's time, there were only black and white photos. The tiny baby was being held in the arms of an elderly person.
My grandmother was still young at that time, and life had not yet bent her back; her eyes still held a bright light.
A line of small print was printed at the bottom of the photo:
Taken on March 15, 1996.
The day she was born.
Holding the loose change, Jian Changnian looked at the photo and burst into tears, knowing that her time was running out.
The boy wiped away his tears with his sleeve, put the photos away, returned the box to its original place, and then went to the bedside to organize some of his grandmother's handmade embroidery, such as insoles and pillowcases, packing them all up, as well as other things in the house that could be sold, such as the rice that had just been harvested this year and the vegetables from the garden.
After doing all this, she grabbed a pen, tucked a notebook into her pocket, and hurriedly went out again.
Fourteen or fifteen years old is an age when a child has a strong sense of self-esteem and is easily embarrassed. Her grandmother often taught her to rely on herself in everything and not to ask for help if possible. So, standing in Zhou Mu's house, facing her parents' complicated gaze, Jian Changnian had not yet spoken when tears fell down her face, and she stammered.
"Uncle...Auntie...I really...have no other choice...My grandma...really needs money for surgery...I...I'll give you an IOU, and I'll definitely pay you back later."
Mr. Zhou frowned as he smoked, remaining silent.
They were neighbors, and the two children had grown up together. Seeing her like this, Zhou's mother felt a little sorry for her.
“Child, it’s not that your uncle and aunt don’t want to lend you money… 100,000… This… this is an astronomical figure for our family.”
Upon hearing her words, Jian Changnian knelt down with a thud.
"Uncle and Aunt, I know I don't need that much. Please lend me as much as you can, even if it's just a few dozen or a hundred. I'll scrape it together little by little. Please, my grandmother is my only family!"
"Oh dear, child, this is unacceptable..." Seeing her like this, Zhou's mother's eyes also reddened, and she quickly went to help her up.
Zhou Mu, who was doing her homework in the inner room, couldn't listen anymore, threw down her pen, and rushed out.
"Dad! Mom! We're all from the same village, and I've often gone to Chang Nian's house for meals. Please help her, please help Grandma Jian! I'm begging you!"
Faced with Jian Changnian's tearful pleas and her daughter's persuasion, Zhou's mother wavered and went to the bedroom to get the money. Zhou's father followed her in, and although the door was closed, the sound of arguing could still be heard.
"Are you crazy?! She's such a young child, who knows if she'll have to pay this money back in the future!"
"Are you really going to just stand by and watch someone be driven to despair and die?!"
"If our family were millionaires, let alone 100,000, even 200,000 or 300,000, I'd throw it away with my eyes closed! And who knows if that money will even save someone's life? Mu Mu is about to go to university! Tuition and living expenses, what doesn't it cost money!"