At the stall in front of Jihua Hospital, Shen Fangyu was eating with his friends in the department, eating meat with his right hand and drinking cold beer with his left, when he heard his phone ring. He hurriedly put down his beer to grab his phone.
It is professional practice for almost all doctors to keep their cell phones on 24 hours a day, never set them to silent mode, and check for any small messages at the first opportunity, as they may be patient-related.
He tapped the message notification from Jiang Xu and froze.
He scrolled up in disbelief and confirmed that all his chats with Jiang Xu were file transfers or official notifications, no such invitation had ever appeared.
However, he was sure that the message came from Jiang Xu himself, because he had a characteristic of ending messages with a yellow smiling emoji with a wide grin. (a.k.a :D)
Because of this, Shen Fangyu often complained inwardly that Jiang Xu was an old man who didn't even know that this emoji meant ridicule among young people.
However, he didn't know what kind of enlightenment he had gained today and suddenly asked the colleague next to him, "Does Jiang Xu put emojis in the messages he sends you?"
"No." Some coworkers were confused.
Shen Fangyu didn't believe it, so he showed a message Jiang Xu had sent him, "Like this little yellow emoji."
"Nope, just look at his messages if you don't believe me." The coworker immediately took out his cell phone.
After confirming that Shen Fangyu was indeed the only one who received this preferential treatment, his companion's expression was a little subtle, "He's not mocking you... is he?"
"No way," Shen Fangyu took his cowrker's phone without changing his expression. "The fact that he only sent it to me means he wanted to smile at me alone."
"..." Okay, you really do have thick skin, seeing as you can even justify it.
"But why did he ask to see you?" A colleague asked, "Could it be another fight?"
"I don't know," Shen Fangyu shrugged. "Ever since I jokingly asked if he was pregnant, he never paid attention to me."
He bit into his fried skewers and said, "He used to glare at me every time we met, but now he treats me like air. The last time I saw him throw up in the toilet, I gave him a packet of tissues, but he snatched them and left without saying thank you. I told him that he was being rude, but he turned around and looked at me-"
Shen Fangyu seemed a little depressed. "You guys don't understand; he looked at me as if I had impregnated him, wanting to tear me apart the next moment."
A colleague laughed and said, "It looks like you made Dr. Jiang angry by getting a place at the conference."
"He's too narrow-minded, it was their group that went last year." Shen Fangyu sighed.
A colleague tapped his phone and asked, "So, are you going to meet him?"
Shen Fangyu chuckled. "I won't go; He's like a queen giving me orders; why should I listen to him?" While talking, he picked up another pile of skewers. "Who does he think he is?"
His colleagues, who saw the dispute between the two, shouted at each other, saying, "Drink, drink, don't think about it."
It was almost nine o'clock when Shen Fangyu put down his last empty stick.
He took off his disposable gloves and washed his hands with hand sanitizer, took a sip of his beer, and, half-heartedly, glanced at his watch.
"You have an appointment?" A coworker asked, "You live in Cao Ying [1], how many times did you check your phone? Are you in a hurry to leave?"
"Hey, weren't you and Jiang Xu fighting over Zhong Lan before? Why hasn't there been any movement lately?" Someone then gossiped, "Is there anyone new?"
"There's no one new" Shen Fangyu replied with no further explanation. Besides, it's rude to reveal someone's sexuality behind their back. Upon repeated questions from his colleagues, he simply said, "It's not my place to explain any further."
He had always been a calm person with a relaxed attitude, and he was the kind of person who felt like he knew other people's boundaries well. After breaking free from his colleagues' questions, he looked at his cell phone and said, as if to himself or to others, "Forget it, I'd better go and check with him, in case there's something wrong."
After that, he stood up, and only then did his colleague realize something: "Hey, I thought it was someone else who made you leave so early, but it was Jiang Xu." He teased Shen Fangyu, "You're really quick to slap yourself in the face."
Shen Fangyu put on his jacket and sprayed a little cologne, asking, "Which makes me a good person." He lamented, "How could there be such a moral person like me under the heavens? Not only did I not surrender to Jiang Xu's evil power, but I also came forward to help him at the critical moment."
Finally, under the unforgiving gazes of his colleagues, Shen Fangyu returned to Jihua Hospital with his hands in his pockets.
When he opened the door, Jiang Xu was staring at the computer screen, still wearing his white coat, so he had probably just come from the ward.
The office was quiet at this hour, and the doctor on duty was not there either.
Shen Fangyu sat next to him and saw what he was reading. "Hey, why have you been interested in this direction lately-"
"Shen Fangyu." Jiang Xu suddenly spoke, interrupting his words.
He did not respond to Shen Fangyu's small talk, but released his grip on the mouse and turned to face him. Jiang Xu was not wearing a mask, so when he turned around, Shen Fangyu saw the mole under his eye again.
There was one thing that Shen Fangyu was embarrassed to tell others. Since he saw Jiang Xu's mole that day, he went back and had several dreams in a row, one bolder and more absurd than the other, but the point was that those dreams were very realistic, as if he had really slept with Jiang Xu.
He was also looking at Jiang Xu in an unusual way all this time, but Jiang Xu didn't bother to look at him and didn't notice his strange behavior.
Later, when Jiang Xu engaged him in a fight, he threw a punch, but his fist suddenly froze in the air when he saw the mole again, and then he was hit in the stomach.
The devil had attacked.
Fortunately, the evil fire in his heart finally disappeared as time passed. Doctor Shen attributed the consecutive erotic dreams to the fact that he hadn't done it for a long time and his body was too excited. But now that he saw the mole under Jiang Xu's eyes again, he felt that the fire he had suppressed for so long had somehow flared up again.
So he averted his gaze and said, as if casually, "Why did you call me?"
Jiang Xu looked at him and didn't say anything.
Shen Fangyu knew that Jiang Xu was a straightforward person. Especially when talking to him, he would combine three sentences into one and speak quickly, as if speaking any longer would shorten his life. So his current behavior made Shen Fangyu confused.
He thought for a moment and asked, "What's wrong?"
Jiang Xu took a sip of water, retracted his complicated gaze, and spoke in a business-like manner, "There is something I need to tell you."
Today, Jiang Xu did not show any impatience, nor did he glare at him. Although he still looked at him unhappily, at least his voice was calm.
There must be a devil when things go wrong, and Shen Fangyu had a feeling that what Jiang Xu was about to say was not something good.
"Do you want me to help you with your assignment? Or is this a change in the surgery schedule, or... something to do with the conference participant quota?" Shen Fangyu couldn't think of anything else that would make Jiang Xu speak to him in such a serious manner, and to be honest, he didn't even think that the things he had just guessed would make Jiang Xu show such an attitude in front of him.
Jiang Xu listened and took the timer from the table, "First, I'll give you a minute to prepare yourself mentally."
Shen Fangyu froze, "Wait a minute—"
Jiang Xu didn't wait, he glanced at Shen Fangyu and immediately pressed the start button. No matter how difficult it was for him to talk about it, he didn't want to appear embarrassed now that he had decided to tell Shen Fangyu.
Shen Fangyu's heart suddenly beat a little faster, and he felt that what Jiang Xu was about to say was not good.
What was it?
What was so serious that he needed to prepare himself for it?
Time passed quickly as Jiang Xu's left hand rested on the table, turning the timer continuously. The cuffs of his white coat fell back as he moved his hands, revealing his well-defined wrists.
Shen Fangyu kept wanting to say something, but as he watched the numbers on the timer get smaller and smaller, it was like watching a stopwatch move in the final seconds of an exam when he couldn't finish his questions. The more anxious he was, the more he didn't know what to do.
Even he had never felt this nervous during an exam.
Only when the dust began to settle and the number on the timer reached zero did Shen Fangyu's heart pound when the sharp and piercing bell suddenly rang.
Jiang Xu immediately pressed the snooze button and turned off the timer, not letting it ring a second time.
"Don't you-"
"I'm pregnant, and the baby is yours."
Jiang Xu lowered his gaze, his gaze fixed on the timer as he spoke softly.
Shen Fangyu: "?"
Minutes of mental preparation may not be enough.
Translator's Note:
Sorry for not uploading yall, it was exam season T^T
[1] I'm guessing this is referring to the Chinese idiom "shēn zài Cáo yíng xīn zài Hàn", which means to be somewhere while longing to be in another place. So Shen Fangyu does not actually live in Cao ying, I believe he lives in City A