Wei Chen knew he was dead. His body had become a vegetable, while his soul drifted in the void. No matter how unwilling he was, no matter how desperately he didn't want to die, he could not return to that body. He could only watch helplessly as it lay on the hospital bed like a corpse—motionless, pierced with tubes.
The sky that day was overcast and gloomy. It was already seven or eight in the morning, yet daylight had barely broken through.
Wei Chen's soul hovered above his body. For what must have been the hundredth time, he tried to burrow back into the flesh below. He wanted to live. He didn't want to die!
The result was, as always, futile. Wei Chen drifted back into the void in defeat, staring down at the body on the hospital bed, his heart a tangled mess of bitter emotions.
Just then, the door to the ward opened, and a young man carrying an army-green portfolio case on his back walked in. One could tell at a glance that the young man's life was one of hardship. His jeans had been washed to a faded white. His oversized pullover sweater had several places where the threads had visibly come undone. Even the corners of the portfolio case, which the young man clearly treasured, had split open, revealing the brown, fraying cardboard within.
The young man was thin and frail. Beneath his jeans, his two legs were like bamboo poles, and his face had an unhealthy pallor. His eyes were large, but they were filled entirely with guardedness—as though he refused to become part of this world, locking himself away inside a world of his own.
Wei Chen knew this young man. His name was Chen Li, and in the eyes of the law, they shared the most intimate of bonds—they were a legally registered married couple. In truth, however, there was no intimacy between them whatsoever. The marriage existed in name only, a product not of love, not even of commerce—but of conspiracy.
Wei Chen also knew that the young man had suffered from autism since childhood, rejecting everyone's care and goodwill. They had been married for five years now, yet in all his memories, they had never exchanged a single word. Partly because the young man's condition made expression difficult for him, and partly because Wei Chen himself had never wanted to bother with him.
And yet, it was precisely this young man—autistic, barely able to string a sentence together—who, after Wei Chen had been betrayed by everyone, abandoned by all, stripped of everything, and even beaten into a vegetative state, stayed faithfully by his side without a single word of complaint or regret.
Wei Chen watched the young man walk to his bedside and begin to massage his gradually stiffening body with thin, frail fingers—one stroke after another, repeating the motions with near-obsessive persistence, his face utterly expressionless.
The young man seemed tireless. The late autumn air carried a faint chill, yet beads of sweat had already formed on his face, sliding down his skin, gathering at his chin, and finally dripping off in streams.
He was so frail, and yet for Wei Chen's sake, he was so unyielding.
Wei Chen felt a sharp ache rise in his heart. He drifted over, wanting to wipe the sweat from the young man's face, but when his hand touched Chen Li, it passed straight through him.
Now, it seemed, all he could do was watch. Wei Chen looked at the body on the hospital bed, his heart filled with a crushing sense of helplessness and an emotion he could neither name nor explain.
He didn't know how much time had passed before the young man finally completed a full round of massage. Wei Chen watched as Chen Li slung the battered portfolio case onto his back, stood up, and left the ward.
Before, Wei Chen's soul had never been able to stray far from his body. But today, his soul was able to follow the young man out, and strangely, he was not yanked back by that merciless force as he always had been before.
Wei Chen followed behind the young man and watched him walk on foot to a small park not far from the hospital. Chen Li found a corner, sat down, opened his portfolio case, wrote a single line on a sheet of sketching paper, and hung it up beside him.
When Wei Chen saw the words—"Figure sketches, 30 yuan each"—he felt a burning heat behind his eyes. If a soul could shed tears, Wei Chen was certain he would already be weeping.
Of course. He had nothing left now. The exorbitant hospital fees—where had the money come from? It had been earned by this young man, bit by painstaking bit. He knew Chen Li was autistic, that he had locked himself away in his own world, unwilling to make contact with the outside.
And yet, for Wei Chen's sake, without any treatment whatsoever, the young man had torn open the doors of his heart—raw, bleeding—and exposed the self he had kept hidden deep inside to the harsh light of day.
"Chen Li, you don't have to do this," Wei Chen murmured softly, moving to Chen Li's side and reaching out as if to gently touch him.