Just as I was about to move my body, I realized that I couldn't feel my left leg at all. My heart sank. I slowly reached down to touch it, and my dad suddenly grabbed my hand and said, "Yuanyuan, don't be too sad. It's just your left leg."
It's just a left leg? My mind went completely blank.
Could it be? My left leg is gone?
After a ten-second pause, I bit my lip, and tears streamed down my face.
In the years to come, there will be no cars, no electric scooters, not even the most ordinary bicycle. My only companion will be a cold wheelchair.
Tears flowed more and more, and no matter how hard I bit my lip, I couldn't hold back. Finally, I burst into loud sobs, crying so loudly that it shook heaven and earth, as if I were the most miserable person in the world.
"Huh? The anesthesia has worn off? Is it starting to hurt?" Su Zhenzhen pushed open the door and walked in, carrying a food box.
"Waaah—Big sister—waaah~~" I cried uncontrollably, squeezing my nose.
"Alright! Yuanyuan's dad, even if you want to punish her, you have to know when to stop." Mom pushed Dad away a little angrily, then leaned down beside me and said softly, "Yuanyuan, your dad is lying to you! Your left leg is just broken. The doctor has already set the bone. In just two or three months, if you drink more bone broth, you'll be fine soon!"
"Huh?" My crying stopped abruptly. "Is my leg still there?"
"Yes!" Mom and my older sister nodded in unison.
"Waaaaah!" I burst into tears, even more heartbroken than before.
"Yuanyuan! What's wrong now? Your dad is lying to you!" Mom said, squeezing my hand with concern.
"Yes! Yuanyuan, your older sister will teach him a lesson for you, so don't cry." Su Zhenzhen punched my dad hard.
"I...I..." I sobbed, pointing to my left leg, "The anesthesia wore off, and it hurts so much!!"
*****
In the evening, Qu Ling, who lived in the next ward, came to see me.
“Yuanyuan,” he said, patting my head with a look of guilt, “it’s all my fault that you got so badly injured.”
"Dean, it's not your fault! It's my own fault! I told ghost stories and scared myself. I'm the one who caused you to get hurt. It's all my fault!" I blushed with shame.
"No! It's my fault! I shouldn't have made you drive me to N City so late." Qu Ling clenched her fist in self-reproach. "If anything happens to you, I'll regret it for the rest of my life..."
"Dean! I'm fine!" I waved my hand vigorously and said, "I just broke my left leg, it'll heal in two months! But Dean, what exactly did we see that night? Was that person with the umbrella really a ghost?"
"Ahem... um..." Qu Ling coughed awkwardly twice. Just as he was about to speak, the door to the ward was pushed open again.
"Yuanyuan!"
It turned out to be Teacher Qu Zhuguang. She came to see me especially, which was really touching.
“Teacher Qu!” I looked at her with tears in my eyes.
"Yuanyuan! It's all my fault!" Qu Zhuguang's eyes were also glistening with tears. "I'm the one who ruined you!"
Huh? How did this get involved with Teacher Qu again?
“Yuanyuan, last night I went to Xiaolan’s house in the front yard to get a face mask. I was getting impatient and kept waiting at her house, so I went home with the mask on. I didn’t expect you and Qu Ling to drive by. I turned around in surprise and was so scared that you crashed into a tree…”
"Huh? So... so that female ghost was Teacher Qu!"
Please imagine the expression on my face; words like "surprise" are insufficient to describe it.
OMG!
In the future, the law should explicitly stipulate that people who wear face masks should not leave their homes!
A sudden thunderbolt
Being sick has its advantages; at least no one will force me to lose weight anymore. I can also use the excuse of recuperating to temporarily forget about the unpleasant thing about fatty liver.
I had a bowl of pig's feet noodles for breakfast, and Grandma even added two eggs to it. Dad was envious of my special treatment, so he followed Grandma around with his bowl, asking for an egg too. Grandma gave him a disapproving look and said, "You're already so fat, why are you still eating!"
“And she also has fatty liver!” Dad said angrily, pointing at me.
"Her leg is broken and the bone is growing, and your leg is broken too?"
"Mom!" Dad squatted down to the side, drawing circles on his face, feeling wronged. "I feel like you don't love me anymore!"
Ugh~~~ Two eggs are churning in my stomach, I almost threw up.
Since turning fifty, my dad has become increasingly unbearable. His hair is turning completely white, yet he still acts like a child, clinging to my grandma. Because of this, my mom and I have often teased him behind his back.
After dinner, Mom brought me some anti-inflammatory pills, while Dad started spouting nonsense, "Why take medicine! Medicine is just something doctors use to fool people! Don't think I'm slandering Western medicine; the health of Yuanyuan's generation of children has been ruined by antibiotics!"
“Our children have been taking traditional Chinese medicine since they were little, and they rarely take Western medicine,” the grandmother argued.
"Traditional Chinese medicine?" My dad looked unconvinced. "That's even more of a scam! Western medicine at least has some chemical effects, but traditional Chinese medicine is just using rotten tree roots and rotten grass to fool people!"
"You traitor! Stop talking nonsense here. Go to work after you finish eating! Do you want to stay and wash the dishes?" Grandma threw a rag at Dad's face.
In an instant, my dad disappeared from the kitchen.
This lazy person, once you ask him to work, he'll dart around faster than a rabbit.
*****
It was a sunny day; the sun was warm, and the wind wasn't cold.
I was lying in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows in the living room reading a book that Qu Ling had given me a few days ago.
It's a fairy tale, featuring a chubby field mouse, a gentle and polite water rat, a clever and learned badger, and a toad who loves racing. It's a very heartwarming and lovely fairy tale, but the fact that it was given to me by Qu Ling is a bit unbelievable. I simply can't equate a fairy tale with Dean Qu.
Grandpa, wearing his reading glasses, was smashing the sunflower heads he had harvested in the fall in the yard. This was a task Grandma had given him that morning. He was impatient with slowly picking at them with his hands, so he simply smashed the huge flower heads on the ground and then collected the sunflower seeds that were flying everywhere into a small bamboo basket.
Suddenly, Grandpa slowed down his smashing of the flowerpot. He turned his head toward the gate, holding a broken sunflower in his hand.
"Old Su! Open the door for me right now!"
I propped myself up and looked out the door. I saw Grandpa Qu standing outside with his hands behind his back, his goatee sticking up high.
"Why did you come here? Didn't you go to Xiamen for recuperation?" Grandpa tossed the flowerpot into the bamboo basket and slowly walked to the door to open it for him.
Grandma wasn't home, so Grandpa brought Qu Ba Grandpa into the house without even thinking to pour him a glass of water.
"Hello, Grandpa Qu!" I moved my injured leg, sat up straight, and greeted Grandpa Qu.
"Alright!" Grandpa Qu walked to my side, placed his large hand on my head, and felt a warm sensation in his palm. "Yuanyuan, does your leg still hurt?"
"Hmm, it's still a little bit, but it doesn't hurt much anymore! Grandpa, please sit down!" I took Grandpa Qu's hand and asked him to sit down.
"Good boy! What a good child!" Grandpa Qu sighed, wiped his eyes, and turned to my grandfather, saying, "Old Su, I know this is all my two children's fault! Don't worry, I will give Yuanyuan an explanation!"
"What's there to explain? The child's leg is crippled!" Grandpa said indifferently.
"I!" Grandpa Qu gritted his teeth. "If I say I can confess, I definitely can! Su Wentong, don't you trust me?"
Grandpa pushed up his reading glasses, picked up the purple clay teapot on the coffee table, took a sip, and said, "How could I not trust you, Commander Qu! You always keep your word."
"You! Humph! For Yuanyuan's sake, I won't argue with you, you old fogey. But we have a deal, if I really have an explanation, you can't disrespect me, you can't contradict me!"
Grandpa looked at him and thought for a moment. Perhaps feeling that Qu Ba couldn't give any earth-shattering explanation, he nodded and said, "Fine, when have I ever refused your face, Qu Ba?"
"Hmph, haven't you refuted me enough?" Grandpa Qu glared at Grandpa angrily. "Over the years, if I don't take the initiative to contact you, you won't even blink at me! All I did was kill your nemesis, Fatty Wang. Is it worth treating me like this for a nemesis?"
"Ahem—" Grandpa glanced at me awkwardly and said, "Qu Ba, don't talk nonsense in front of children!"
"Alright! I'm leaving now! You wait at home, I'll make sure you're completely convinced!" Grandpa Qu stood up, panting, and turned back to me with a forced smile as he walked to the door, saying, "Yuanyuan, take good care of your injury!"
"Okay! Goodbye, Grandpa Qu!" I waved to him vigorously.
"goodbye!"
Grandpa didn't get up to see off Grandpa Qu, but just sat on the sofa in a daze.
"grandfather!"
"Huh?" Grandpa snapped back to reality when I called him. "Qu Ba is gone?"
"I'm leaving." I gestured towards the window with my chin. "I feel really bad that you didn't even see Grandpa Qu off."
"Sigh! Why can't we ever break ties with the Qu family!" Grandpa sighed, stood up, and went back to the yard to smash his sunflowers. Seeds flew everywhere, and flower heads splattered.
Looking at my grandfather's white hair gleaming in the sunlight, I suddenly wanted to know the story between him and Grandpa Qu. Besides the story of the cowherd boy who saved this young scholar when he was a child, there must have been many other extraordinary stories in their youth.
****
My dad came home just after 4:30 p.m. He didn't drink any water or say a word as soon as he walked in, and just curled up in a ball on the sofa, shivering.
"Dad, what's wrong?" I was sitting in the soft chair, unable to move, and couldn't go to his side to see him. I couldn't help but feel curious.
"It's...it's nothing!" Dad hugged the cushion tightly to his chest, his body trembling.
"Why are you shivering like that if there's nothing wrong with you?"
"Sigh...I...I think I've caught a cold, I have a bit of a fever!" My dad, a tall man of 1.8 meters, looked pitiful yet ridiculous huddled in a corner of the sofa, shivering. It was a movement more suited to a kitten, but on his massive frame, it had an unusual effect.
"Huh? You can get sick too?" I said deliberately, dragging out my voice. "Aren't you known as the invincible Iron Man? How could a virus get close to you! Impossible, Dad, you must be overthinking it!" After saying that, I turned over and continued looking at myself in the setting sun.
After some time, Grandpa came out of the study.
"What are you doing curled up there, fourth brother?" Grandpa took out his reading glasses from his shirt pocket, walked over to Dad and observed him closely. "Hmm, so he's pretending to be a meat bun."
"I'm sick! I'm not pretending to be a meat bun!" Dad retorted with a hum.
"Yuanyuan, I'm going to buy a newspaper. Is there anything you want to eat? Grandpa will get it for you!"
"I want to eat jujube cake and osmanthus-flavored chestnut candy!"
"Okay!" Grandpa swayed as he carried his cloth bag out the door.
I glanced at my dad, and saw him blinking, pouting, and looking a little resentful.
A little while later, my mom came home from get off work. Without even glancing at my dad, who was curled up on the sofa, she went straight to my side and said, "Yuanyuan, are you feeling better today? I bought some pork bones, I'll make you some soup right away!"
"I'm much better. Mom, Dad said he's sick!" I made a face at my mom and pointed to the "meat bun" on the sofa.
Mom turned her head to look, winked at me, and said, "Oh dear, you don't know that people like this don't get sick! Besides, Western medicine is a scam, and traditional Chinese medicine is a scam too. Even if you get sick, you can't get treatment; you can only tough it out, right?"
I covered my mouth and chuckled to myself. Dad had really run into the line of fire with the whole family this time.
As dusk settled, family members gradually returned home. It was Saturday, and my eldest uncle, second uncle, and third uncle's families were all coming over for dinner. With so many people coming and going, only my eldest uncle, as he passed the sofa, reached out and patted my dad on the back, saying, "Fourth brother, aren't you going to eat yet? The food's almost all gone!"
"I'm not hungry!" Dad said gruffly, burying his face in the cushion. He thought his older brother would still show some concern, but his uncle instead said, "That's perfect, I'll eat yours too! I'm starving!"
My dad was so angry he almost fainted. I just watched from the sidelines, wondering how long he could hold out.
After a while, Grandma came into the living room with a mop to mop the floor. Dad looked at Grandma as if he had seen a savior, grabbed her clothes and cried out, "Mom! I'm going to die!"