CH 61

Soon he arrived at the hospital.

When Ou Shaowen walked into the ward, Ou Renjin was standing by the window making a phone call. Seeing Ou Shaowen, he made a reassuring gesture and methodically finished the call.

The person on the other end of the line must have known Ou Renjin well, and although they were talking about business matters, the tone was casual.

Ou Shaowen didn’t have much expression on his face. When he entered the room, he found a chair and sat down quietly.

“Have you communicated with the movie department?

“I’d say, brother, you report everything to me, why don’t you just call the mayor when you find a yuan on the road?”

Ou Shaowen’s attention was drawn to the content of the phone call and he turned his head, staring at Ou Renjin.

“I have already told the secretariat that an investment of less than 100 million yuan can be signed by two heads of departments. Also, don’t give out my number casually. There are always directors coming to me for investment, isn’t there a project incubator in the movie department? Tell them to contact the person in charge there directly.” He was impatient, “I can’t even stay at the hospital in peace.”

It seemed that the other side was concerned about why he was hospitalised, and he casually said, “It’s not a major surgery, just a gallstone.”

……

Five minutes later the call was over. Ou Shaowen withdrew his gaze, turned away and looked blankly ahead.

Ou Renjin walked up to him and pinched his face, “Wow, someone has turned into a bulging little potato.”

“I’m not angry.” Ou Shaowen raised his head in response to his movement and replied calmly, “And you, in fact, have never believed me at all.”

Ou Renjin smiled as usual, “Do you think I have been perfunctory to you?”

“Yes.”

“We haven’t talked about this properly before, let’s talk about it today.” He didn’t choose to sit next to Ou Shaowen, but sat in a chair opposite, his posture and tone formal.

“You told me earlier that you were able to regrow a new heart after it was transplanted to me?”

Ou Shaowen shook his head and added, “Not just the heart, but all the organs in my entire body are like this.”

“Then… how long does this process of regrowth take?” Even though deep down, he didn’t believe in what Ou Shaowen said, he still asked his questions on the premise of believing him.

“They are all different, some take long and some regrow quickly.” Ou Shaowen recalled seriously, “Some organs that don’t affect me might grow on their own when I am not paying attention, so I don’t know the specific time. Moreover, the recovery time is not particularly stable, and there are small differences every time.”

He paused, as if he was a little uncertain again, “However, the lights are always on, the room is always very bright, and there is no device nearby that can display the time, so I have no concept of time.”

Speaking of this, he suddenly began to wonder. At the beginning, all the concepts of time were instilled in him by the researchers in the laboratory. Were the two months they said it took for the heart to regrow equivalent to the two months in his current cognition?

“Then…” Ou Renjin’s eyes moved slightly, but he maintained his steady tone, “Do you know why you have such an ability?”

“I don’t know. They don’t know either, they don’t know which step produced the effect, and they don’t know which way this body mutated, what made me such a freak, so I’m unique and can’t be replicated. You don’t know, I actually used to have a lot of nicknames. Sometimes they called me a freak, and sometimes they called me a miracle. Although I don’t like surgery very much, I know that my organs can save many, many people, and I will occasionally feel a little happy.”

In the beginning, he would hate those people too. At least, when no one came to make a deal with the laboratory, his life could still be calm for a few days and he would not be firmly restrained in bed. He would be able to listen to the researchers talk and watch them do their experiments.

It was just that the more he hated them, the more painful he felt inside. Suddenly one day, he began to realise that impotent hatred would not change anything. His body was already in enough pain. What else could he do but live like this? At least he could keep his mind calm.

So, like an ostrich, he began to slowly ignore the malice that every aspect and act of the surgery contained, and openly accepted the meaning of his existence, as if he had undergone a grand successful self-hypnosis.

At the end of the conversation, Ou Shaowen was already answering some questions that had not been asked yet.

The shock in Ou Renjin’s heart swirled in a circle like a wave, and more questions instantly popped into his mind: why would he be called such nicknames? Who were the people who called him those nicknames? Where was the room that was always lit? What kind of surgery? In what sense was it surgery?

Ou Shaowen’s tone was too natural, and he didn’t hesitate at all, as if he had really experienced all these things. His chaotic description, every word of it, seemed to be in line with Ou Renjin’s previous terrifying guesses. Ou Renjin pursed his lips tightly, his eyes sharp, and he was almost unable to control his emotions.

But in the end he didn’t ask anything, he just raised his eyes and looked at Ou Shaowen, “Will this process of regrowth be painful?”

“Yes…” Ou Shaowen looked into his eyes and hesitated for a moment, “A little bit.”

Ou Renjin’s eyes looked very beautiful at this moment, like the wind sweeping over a clear lake, sparkling with softness and heartache that could encompass Ou Shaowen’s entire being.

Ou Renjin finally found his purpose for starting this conversation, hooked the corner of his mouth and smiled, “That’s why I don’t want to. Even if your heart can regrow within an hour, as long as it will cause you pain, I don’t want it.”

Ou Shaowen’s eyes widened suddenly and his whole body trembled uncontrollably. He pursed his lips hard, looking at Ou Renjin with a very shocked and extremely moved gaze.

Ou Renjin was just saying the usual nice and gentle words to coax him. In his eyes, these words were no different from his previous words like “I miss you, kid”. He could never realise how, for Ou Shaowen, these words had turned everything he was used to upside down.

When he was accustomed to pain, it turned out that there would really be such a person in this world who would say to him, “As long as it will cause you pain, I don’t want it.”

These words made him feel vulnerable, as if he had naturally become the way Ou Renjin saw him, someone who needed protection, who couldn’t be hurt, who couldn’t suffer the slightest bit of pain.

“It doesn’t have to be you now, does it? We already have a suitable source of heart, the doctors have done many tests and this one is healthy, not much different from yours, so you should stop competing, okay?” Ou Renjin smiled and teased him, “Besides, you like me so much, chances are your heart will be so nervous that it won’t move when you put it inside my body.”

Ou Shaowen originally had tears in his eyes, but this teasing made him laugh, “No, it will move faster than a rabbit.”

“This won’t work either. If your heart rate is too fast, it can kill you.”

Ou Shaowen smiled, and halfway through the smile, he curled his mouth again, blinked, and tears fell from his eyes, a whimper escaping his throat. He turned his head away, no longer facing Ou Renjin.

“What’s the matter?” This time he really didn’t know why Ou Shaowen was suddenly aggrieved and weeping. He took a step forward and squatted in front of him, trying to turn his head back.

Ou Shaowen grabbed his hand, but his head was bowed lower and lower, as if he was trying to bury it in the back of the chair. He didn’t know what was wrong with him. Ou Renjin rejected him, but he was actually moved.

At this moment, his crying became more and more uncontrollable, his shoulders shuddered, his sobs became louder and louder, and his whole body shrank into a ball, desperately avoiding Ou Renjin’s hand that reached out to touch his cheek.

“What’s the matter? Does the relationship between us have to rely on heart donation? You don’t need to deliberately do something for me, I love you very much anyway.”

Ou Renjin guessed the cause of his sudden emotional breakdown wildly, but from a certain point of view, he guessed part of it correctly.

As if afraid of scaring Ou Shaowen, he said very softly, “I didn’t deliberately reject your heart, I know you care about me very much, so you would rather suffer yourself and keep me healthy, right? I know, I feel it, I can be sure that you love me the most in the world…”

The more Ou Renjin comforted him, the more Ou Shaowen’s emotions got out of control. He wanted to try his best to swallow his sobs, but in a few seconds at most, he was sobbing again.

He covered his head and pressed his whole head against the wall, and no matter what, he just wouldn’t let Ou Renjin look at him.

“Did I say something wrong? Something that makes you so sad?” This was the first time, and he really couldn’t guess the reason for Ou Shaowen’s emotional outbreak.

Ou Shaowen sobbed and shook his head, “I’m sorry… sorry, let me… cry by myself… for a while.”

“Good.” Ou Renjin stood up, “Then I’ll lie down on the bed first. Come and hug me when you’re done crying, okay?”

“Uh-huh.” Ou Shaowen whimpered in response

After about three minutes, Ou Renjin sensed him come from the other end of the room, slowly climb into the bed, put his arms around his waist, and cling to his back tightly. His head rested against the back of Ou Renjin’s neck, and every three or five seconds, he sobbed softly.

With some effort Ou Renjin turned around on the bed and kissed his red eyes, “I think I feel some discomfort in my heart.”

“Ah, what discomfort?” Ou Shaowen hurriedly wanted to sit up and ring the nurse’s bell, but Ou Renjin grabbed his arm.

“I saw you crying, so I felt uncomfortable.”

Ou Shaowen breathed a sigh of relief, and was about to lie down again but Ou Renjin also sat up, “The food at noon was already spicy enough to make my throat hurt, and after coaxing you for so long, my throat is almost smoking. Pour me a glass of water.”

“Okay.” Ou Shaowen obediently got down and poured him water.

Ou Renjin took the water, stretched out his hand and patted his shoulder with a smile, “Don’t get back yet, go take a shower, and after that it’s time to sleep. Today I want you to sleep with me, okay?”

He didn’t ask Ou Shaowen why he was crying just now, nor was he going to comfort him too much, he just wanted to sleep with his arms around him.

“Yes.” Ou Shaowen answered seriously, took a quick shower, got into the bed and nestled in Ou Renjin’s arms.