Late Night - What If I Have A Guilty Conscience?

"It does have an effect."

Shen Zhengning's body couldn't move, but his mouth could still talk back, which was terrifying: "Didn't it affect you?"

"..."

Zhuang Mingqi resentfully poked the wicked curve of his lips with a cotton swab, looking like he really wanted to tape his mouth shut. Annoying him seemed to put Shen Zhengning in a good mood; he looked as refreshed as if he had completed a daily quest, and contentedly continued to show concern for his other comrade: "What about Silver?"

"The police took him back to the Public Security Bureau to collect evidence." Zhuang Mingqi collected the used cotton swab and disposable cup and threw them away, saying with no small amount of worry, "Didn't he bite the culprit? There might be some fibers or something in his teeth. Yuan Hang originally said they would keep him for a night. At ten-thirty, he sent me a WeChat message, and it sounded like he's a bit reluctant to give him back to us."

"Tell him not to go too far," Shen Zhengning said flatly. "That's no ordinary Samoyed. He's Emperor Ye, Jesus, the one true god who saved both our sorry lives. If they try to seize a civilian's dog, I will seriously go and pull up a banner at the entrance of their station."

"Okay." Zhuang Mingqi promised solemnly, "Tomorrow, after your mother and the caregiver come to look after you, I'll go pick him up right away."

Shen Zhengning: "..."

He was aghast: "Who???"

Seeing him so agitated he almost shot up like a carp, Zhuang Mingqi quickly and squarely placed the blame on Yuan Hang: "Your mother called during the surgery. Yuan Hang lied and told her you were having an appendectomy, but then the hospital's announcement system went off, so your mother... uh, saw through it on the spot. She happened to be in Sheng'an for training, so she took a taxi to the hospital. She only left after you were out of surgery."

Heaven is conspiring against me. Shen Zhengning lay back on the pillow, his eyes vacant: "Forget it. The three of us are just unlucky. Let's not blame each other for bad luck, let's blame Mercury being in retrograde."

Zhuang Mingqi had heard Qi Yue talk about the past outside the operating room and felt a little heartache for the old Shen Zhengning. He frowned and asked him seriously, "You don't want to see her? Otherwise, I can stay and keep you company tomorrow?"

Shen Zhengning was struck speechless, then laughed: "Where did that come from? It's not that I don't want to see her, I'm just afraid she'll worry." He carefully controlled his movements to avoid jostling his wound. "Seeing your reaction... what did she say to you?"

But Zhuang Mingqi didn't answer. He got up and turned off the main light in the outer room, leaving only a bedside floor lamp on in the inner room. In the dim, frosted-glass-like yellow halo, one couldn't help but lower their voice, as if afraid of disturbing someone's dream: "Nothing. You lost so much blood, you need to rest well. You need more sleep to recover quickly. Don't overthink it, and put away your mind-reading."

"I'll reiterate, there's no such thing as mind-reading in this world, only observation, induction, and deduction." Shen Zhengning said slowly, his eyes half-closed. "And the question you want to ask, I can guess without reading your mind."

Zhuang Mingqi: "You know your last two sentences contradict each other, right?"

"Because it's written all over your face." Shen Zhengning said with his eyes closed, "'Ah~ he actually stepped forward to be the hero saving the beauty, how should I repay this great debt of gratitude, would it be too presumptuous to offer myself to him?' I might have missed a punctuation mark or two, but that's the general idea."

As he spoke in a strained, monotonous voice, Zhuang Mingqi's expression gradually changed from being on high alert to one of complete boredom: "..."

It was truly amazing that a patient who couldn't use his abdominal muscles could say so much nonsense in one breath. Zhuang Mingqi questioned him hauntingly, "Did you just say 'hero saving the beauty'? You did, didn't you? So you knew, you knew that he—"

"I don't have X-ray vision hacks. How could I have known back then that he had a knife and who he was going to stab?" Shen Zhengning interrupted him with complete composure. "I just happened to want to switch places. The one who really saved our lives was Silver. If anyone's going to offer themselves, it should be to him. Will you? Never mind, I'm offering myself first..."

It was hard to describe the feeling of hearing him give that answer with his own mouth. The heart that had been caught in his throat was finally released, settling back into his chest for the moment, yet there was a faint, bottomless sense of loss. But now was not the time to be willful. One shouldn't make major decisions late at night after a life-and-death crisis. Zhuang Mingqi ground his teeth softly: "'Happened to'... Alright, I believe you."

Then he was silent for two seconds, and finally, under Shen Zhengning's tolerant and encouraging gaze that seemed to say, 'Go on, keep pretending, let's see how far you can take it,' he turned his face away slightly and added, in a poor attempt to cover up, "Your mother said that even if it was someone you had nothing to do with being bullied, you'd still lend a hand if you saw it."

Normally, even the most dazzling beauty couldn't withstand the combined devastation of constant anxiety, rushing around, and sleepless nights. Zhuang Mingqi was no exception, yet his exhaustion had a certain aesthetic appeal. His dark bangs and eyelashes drooped, and the line of his jaw and the veins on his neck were clearly visible in the light. If you gave him a BGM like "Even if I'm hurt, I won't let a tear show," he could play the part of the dejected, heartbroken second male lead.

Shen Zhengning quietly drew in a sharp breath. 'My goodness, why is our house cat being so sour?' he thought. But just as adding a little vinegar when stewing meat can tenderize it, Shen Zhengning's heart was inevitably softened by that restrained demeanor of his.

Although now wasn't the right time—

"So you've been hesitating for so long because you actually wanted to complain about me?" He glanced at Zhuang Mingqi and asked with a teasing smile, "Let me ask you, you've already come tattling to me about what my mom said. What kind of relationship would you call that?"

Zhuang Mingqi: "...You!"

His thoughts ran wild for a moment, and by the time he realized he had been led astray by that guy, a fire had already been lit at the base of his ears. Exasperated, he pulled the blanket up, covering half of Shen Zhengning's face tightly: "No more talking, go to sleep!"

Shen Zhengning was currently in a dazed state where the anesthesia had just worn off; he wanted to sleep for a bit but was constantly disturbed by the subtle pain from his wound. He was nestled lazily in the blanket and raised an eyebrow at Zhuang Mingqi, who was sitting by the bed, asking in a muffled voice, "So, are you preparing to tell me a bedtime story?"

Zhuang Mingqi pulled the corner of the blanket down and tucked it in properly, saying casually, "I won't bother you. You sleep. I'll stay here with you."

"If you sit still all night, what'll happen to your back?" Shen Zhengning tried to shoo him away. "Then I'll have a hole in my abs and you'll have a herniated disc. We'll perfectly make a pair that's 'attacked from front and back.' How unlucky is that?"

"Didn't you say not to look for the cause in ourselves, but to blame it all on Mercury being in retrograde?"

"I also said that excessive clinginess is equivalent to intimidation. Cut that out. Stop being so clingy. Go sleep on the sofa, hurry up."

"I'm not that fragile. At a time like this, just worry about yourself, hero." Zhuang Mingqi nonchalantly rejected his suggestion. "It's only for a few hours. Besides, I can't sleep anyway. I feel more at ease watching over you."

Zhuang Mingqi wasn't so carefree as to be able to sleep peacefully after such a heart-stopping night. His sleeping pills had temporarily lost their effect, but fortunately, the placebo effect was still strong. As long as his bright moon hung high in the night sky, whether new or full, the moonlight could always slowly fill the winding, rugged scars.

The next morning, the caregiver came to the hospital room to help him wash up. Not long after, Qi Yue arrived with breakfast. The mother and son's reunion was very calm; there was no weeping in each other's arms, nor any harsh reprimands. Qi Yue chided him a little for being careless, and Shen Zhengning humbly accepted it without any argument. They were so picture-perfectly "benevolent mother, filial son" that even Zhuang Mingqi could see something was off—last night, Qi Yue had clearly been worried enough to lose her composure and cry in front of an outsider. How come seeing him in person today, she seemed so much less affected? Could it be that his presence was interfering with the mother and son's genuine expression of emotion?

After finishing breakfast, Zhuang Mingqi announced that he was going to the Public Security Bureau to pick up Silver and, while he was at it, bring back a change of clothes and daily necessities for Shen Zhengning. He planned to make a quick escape and leave the room to the mother and son, not at all realizing he had given anything away. Qi Yue gave him a slightly probing look, but Shen Zhengning smoothly covered for him, "The key is in my coat pocket. If you can't find anything, send me a WeChat message. Drive safely."

Qi Yue glanced at Shen Zhengning again.

"Okay, I know." Zhuang Mingqi put the key away. "I'll be back later. Auntie, thank you for your trouble."

Qi Yue responded, "Go on."

After Zhuang Mingqi left, Qi Yue returned to the inner room of the ward and faced Shen Zhengning on the hospital bed. They looked at each other in consternation.

A moment later, Shen Zhengning was the first to give up resisting: "If there's anything you want to ask, just ask directly. Don't hold back, I'm not that fragile."

Just as he used to be sharp and direct, unscrupulously laying things bare, it was only what he deserved for Qi Yue to do the same back to him.

Qi Yue asked: "Last night, Yuan Hang tried desperately to smooth things over for you, saying you took a knife for someone as a righteous act. What do you say, was it a righteous act?"

Shen Zhengning answered as clearly as a lawyer in a defense: "Objectively, no, it was pure coincidence. I wanted to switch places at that moment and didn't know the person opposite me had a knife. Subjectively, however—

"It was not."

It was not a righteous act, not for such a noble reason.

It was simply born from the desire to protect a certain person, and by a strange twist of fate, he really did end up protecting that person.

"He doesn't know about this. We're not yet together. The root of the problem is with me, you don't need to trouble him."

"In your scenario, am I the kind of person who can't bear to hit her own child, so she goes to hit someone else's?" Qi Yue asked coldly. "What trouble would I cause him? Throw five million at him and tell him to leave my son? Do you think he'd throw back ten million and tell me to leave my son?"

Shen Zhengning: "Mom... you know him so well."

Qi Yue: ?

"Don't say irrelevant things. Be serious." Qi Yue's face turned cold. "Are you serious about this? Setting aside whether the family can accept it, you know the attitude in our country towards this kind of thing. Same-sex partnerships are not protected by law. His money won't be community property. No matter how good-looking he is, he'll get old. To put it bluntly, when you're seventy or eighty, if you get sick and need surgery, he won't even be able to sign the consent forms for you. Do you really have to go down this path?"

The heating in the hospital room was turned up high, so it wasn't cold even in the thin hospital gown. However, Qi Yue's words were like a window cracked open, letting a rush of cold air sweep in, mercilessly engulfing the artificial warmth.

But the cold wasn't created by the one who opened the window; she merely made him see the external environment clearly. And one day, they would have to leave the warm room and step out into the icy reality.

After the serious and powerful question landed, the atmosphere in the room fell silent. Therefore, Shen Zhengning, who suddenly started laughing at this moment, seemed exceptionally out of place, making Qi Yue wonder if the general anesthesia had affected his intelligence.

"It's fine, I'm not having a sudden fit. I just suddenly thought that your question just now is quite similar to the wedding vows a priest asks the bride and groom, 'for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health'." Shen Zhengning shifted himself into a more comfortable position. "Does anyone decide to give up on marriage after hearing the wedding vows?"

"..." Qi Yue said, "That's a false analogy. It's sophistry."

"Perhaps, but I never intended to convince anyone anyway," Shen Zhengning said. "After all, 'liking' someone isn't something that continues with permission and can be stopped immediately with disapproval—even if forced apart by external forces, after many years, it just becomes 'unreconciled,' not 'let go'."