My Darling - Chapter 6.2

Chapter 6.2 — Love (2)

Jian Bianlin was still in a state of semiconsciousness.

Xie Bin still had work to do and left first, while the two assistants and Chu Jian kept watch in the room. In the latter half of the night, Chu Jian was unable to fall asleep, so leaning forward, she simply rested her upper body on the bed. Jian Bianlin woke two or three times, but she did not dare say much to him, only asking him if he was uncomfortable when he looked as if he wanted to say something.

At most, he would merely silently furrow his brow. He did not so much as utter, even one time, the word “hurts.”

Some time past three o’clock in the morning, he was awakened by pain and shifted slightly. Chu Jian, who was sprawled on the side of his bed, startled awake, and opening her eyes that were bloodshot from lack of rest, she stared at him.

Jian Bianlin’s first reaction was, “… Go back and get some sleep.” He could not use a pillow. The incision hurt. His various discomforts had left his throat so dry it was as if it had been polished by sandpaper, and his voice was hoarse and deep.

Chu Jian shifted her chair to be even closer to him.

In the still of the night, in that hospital room, Chu Jian, her back toward those two slumbering assistants of his who were dead to the world, smiled at Jian Bianlin as he lay on the bed. In a low voice that only the two of them could hear, she told him, “Didn’t you want to see me smile?” A smile seemed to also come onto Jian Bianlin’s lips. He lifted his fingers, wanting to touch her face.

Noiselessly, Chu Jian brought her face close and touched it against his middle and ring fingers that he had brought together slightly. “You get better fast, do you hear me? Once you’re better, I’ll settle the score with you.”

They dilly-dallied the time away like this for a little while. Chu Jian felt that, no matter how you looked at it, she and he seemed to be acting out a Korean drama. If there were some incidental music and soft lighting, it would simply be… She even wanted to say this aloud to cheer him up. However, that person who was still touching her face had already fallen back into sleep again, though in his half-asleep, half-awake state, he was still gently caressing her with the pads of his fingers. Chu Jian dared not move as well. Resting her upper body on his bed, she, too, drifted off into slumber.

The following day, he was moved into an inpatient room. Then the day after that, his gastric tube was also removed, and the doctor said his body could be wiped down with warm water.

Chu Jian did not think too deeply about this task, and after bringing some hot water into the room, she even first furtively kicked the two assistants out. Drawing the bed curtains shut, she gazed directly at Jian Bianlin. “I’ll take off your clothes first.”

Making a rough sweep with his eyes over that basin of hot water as well as the towel that was half-floating and half-submerged in it, Jian Bianlin could roughly guess what she intended to do. “You won’t be able to do it.”

“I can.” Wasn’t it just… wiping his body? She pointed out, “Those nurses and nursing aides are always doing it, and a lot of them are just young women.”

Jian Bianlin knew clearly that, since he was wearing an abdominal binder right now, if his body were to be sponged down, the binder would first need to be undone. It was just three days after the surgery. This step was likely one she would not be able to handle, nor would she dare attempt it.

But… He gave a barely perceptible “mm-hmm,” and said, “Come on then.”

There was utterly no trace of the feebleness and helplessness he had shown post-surgery when he was still drifting in and out of consciousness.

Only three days after coming through a calamity, this man had already put away all of his weakness. The look in his eyes was deep and calm, like a deep pool of water on which no waves could be stirred. Oceans will billow and roil; rivers will flow and surge forward; and lakes will form waves from the wind. Only those deep pools that are typically nestled amongst mountains, where there is no source for wind or waves, are more often than not so still and deep that the bottom cannot be seen. You will always think, beneath the surface of that water, something must be there.

Chu Jian was somewhat held in a trance as she recalled those impressions of him that were imprinted in her mind: from when he was still about as tall as her and was a taciturn little boy, to middle and high school, when he slowly became someone you could not really figure out, to now—a person who was always completely stolid.

Bringing her knees against the edge of the bed, she reached out a hand and touched the buttons of his hospital gown. “That day, when you were just regaining consciousness, you mumbled a lot of nonsensical stuff. Do you remember?”

“What did I say?” His memories of that time were fragmented and hazy.

“You said…” Chu Jian pursed her lips together, a smile still on them. “You said, ‘Chu Jian, I was wrong and let you down. I shouldn’t have kept you in the dark and just gone for surgery. I’m such a jerk and bastard.’”

… Jian Bianlin was silent.

He really believes it? Chu Jian was utterly tickled by this.

“Chu Jian?” he called her.

“Hmm?” Chu Jian was still delighting in her success at fooling him.

“This won’t do.” He gripped her shoulder with one hand. “You doing this… I just went through a big surgery. This really won’t do.”

Chu Jian originally had not really thought much in that direction, but at this moment, two of the buttons in front of his chest were undone, exposing the lovely curvature of his collarbones… Before she could even dwell anymore on this, Chu Jian was already so embarrassed that she took two steps backwards. Gnawing on her lower lip, she muttered, “Scoundrel!” And then, refusing to acknowledge him anymore, she went outside and directed his assistant to go into the room.

Xiao Yu stepped inside, rubbing the back of his head and asking, “Jian Ge, why did Sister-In-Law[1] run off?”

“Go call a nurse,” Jian Bianlin told him, “She can’t do it and you, even more so, can’t either.”

With an “oh, all right,” Xiao Yu left the room.

Before long, the special care nurse assigned to the room came in. Skillfully, she unfastened the abdominal binder for Jian Bianlin and wiped down his body with warm water. He was still recalling how Chu Jian’s face had immediately reddened when she heard those words, and he felt that this sickness had been worth it. Before he had gotten through his thoughts, however, there was a sharp pain from his wound that seemed to bore into his heart.

The special care nurse’s face flushed, and in a low voice, she said, “I’m sorry.” It turned out that when she was helping him put his clothing back on, her actions had been a little clumsy and bumped into his incision.

Jian Bianlin gave a surprising smile. “It’s all right.”

Chu Jian happened to push open the door and walk in at that moment. When she saw him smiling like this, she received a shock. After noting the very abnormal red tinge on the young special care nurse’s cheeks, she was unable to refrain from glancing back across at Jian Bianlin.

Hmm… She did not like this feeling.

She stole another couple of extra glimpses at Jian Bianlin. She had to admit, even when he was not a popular idol, since he was little, he had never lacked people flocking around him. That finely chiseled appearance, with eyes and nose and other features that were well-proportioned, was the type that was most attractive to girls.

Jian Bianlin stayed in the hospital for half a month.

It was impossible for Chu Jian to escape from attending this month’s trade show, so she had no choice but to travel back and forth between Guangzhou and Shanghai. When the show finally came to a close and the two representatives for the Japanese and Korean companies had been well waited on and seen off to go back to their own home countries, she had successfully received three years of exclusive distribution rights for the Korean brand and was also still in the midst of negotiations with the Japanese one.

The day before he was discharged from the hospital, Chu Jian, with great difficulty, managed to free herself from her Guangzhou business partners and hurried back to Shanghai.

After arriving in the afternoon, she promptly sent the two assistants away to get some rest while she stayed alone to keep Jian Bianlin company. Chu Jian was thinking that they must be exhausted, while they were thinking that Chu Jian probably wanted some “couple’s alone time.” Anyway, as they were leaving, they had looks in their eyes that cried, “Jian Ge has finally overcome all the hardships, and his longing has brought his wifey home to him.” So, with rather grateful contentedness, they retreated out of there.

That night, when Chu Jian saw that he had gotten off the bed to go to the bathroom, she asked hesitantly, “Do you need my help?” Once this one sentence was tossed out ever so lightly, she herself grew embarrassed first.

“How are you going to help?” Jian Bianlin looked at her with amusement.

“……”

“I’m going to wash up. What would you like to help with?” Jian Bianlin, though, would not let her off the hook.

She did not utter even a sound. As she looked him over a couple of extra times after he stepped inside the bathroom, all she could think was, it seemed… he had very easily returned to his image before he was admitted into the hospital. Indeed, he was born to be in the profession, to be a celebrity.

In fact, it was actually because she had said that she would be staying the night to take care of him that Jian Bianlin had purposely taken a hot shower today.

Since the surgery, apart from wiping down his body, this was actually the first time he had washed himself nice and clean from head to toe. His assistants had been nervous about this and had even repeatedly confirmed with the doctor that doing this would cause no issues.

This person who normally did not even bother sprucing himself up when going to the airport was now actually paying particular attention to his appearance when he was in the hospital. In regards to this, before Chu Jian arrived, Xie Bin had outright mocked him for “beautifying himself for the one who fancied him[2].”

But Chu Jian did not know about this extra layer of detail.

He stepped back out after washing his face. Still keeping to his old habit of not wiping his face off with a towel, water droplets were running down the side of his cheeks, and the ends of his hair were sodden, all of which served to highlight his eyes and make them seem especially black and bright. Chu Jian had been leaning back in the bed that she was to sleep on, thumbing through a fashion magazine to, at all times, keep herself at the forefront of the latest information regarding young women … Hearing some motion, she lifted her head and found him standing right before her.

Remembering that Xie Bin had told her that Jian Bianlin still could not bend at the waist, she instantly tossed aside the magazine and jumped up from the bed. Afterward, though, she thought, Wait, no. Probably just the motion of bending his head down and leaning forward at the chest is hard for him, too, right? She pointed at his hospital bed. “You sit down; I’ll stand. That way, we’ll be at eye level with each other.”

Complying with her instructions, he sat down at the edge of the bed.

There had been a noticeable change in Chu Jian’s manner toward him since the surgery—this was something Jian Bianlin could see. However, as it happened, this month she had been so busy it was as if her world had turned upside down.

Even if he had very much wanted to do something, he had not been able to catch her to do it.

Now that he had finally persevered through the wait until she returned from Guangzhou, and moreover, she was voluntarily coming close to him, to look him in the eyes and speak to him, he was not going to continue being an “upright and proper gentleman” any longer. As soon as Chu Jian was near, he leaned in close to inhale the scent of her neck, the tip of his nose just brushing against that tiny, dark blue stud earring in her earlobe. So pretty. Ever since she was little, she had always been much more fashion-sensitive with clothing and jewelry than other girls of the same age. This was especially so on weekends, when school uniforms were not worn. She had always been the one who was most eye-catching but yet, not garish.

The still-damp ends of Jian Bianlin’s hair that lay across his forehead grazed against her cheek. She tucked her head away slightly, trying to evade him.

This was a hospital room.

He put on a solemn look, but in reality, his unhurried motions were like those of a ruffian. “I just recovered from a bad illness. Do you have anything planned as a celebration?”

“Celebration?” Chu Jian stared at him, still caught in a phase of trying to recover herself. “You can’t eat stuff that’s too greasy, and seafood’s not okay either. How can we celebrate?”

Her rambling carried on, until the warmth of his breath drew near.

Chu Jian abruptly clued in.

Suddenly thinking of something, she nudged him and then told him, “I’ve been studying up on the Capricorn. You’re like a model case of that sign.”

Young girls tended to like zodiac signs and things like that. Jian Bianlin was not even clear on how many signs there actually were and could not guess what she wanted to say.

“But they say Capricorns have good genes, so there’s an especially large number of good-looking ones.” She spoke again.

Seeing that she was not planning on letting him kiss her in the next short while, Jian Bianlin reached his hand out and, a strand at a time, tucked away from her face her hair that was beside her cheeks, while simply listening as she carried on talking.

“Did you hear what I said?”

“I did,” he answered, his voice low. “You said I’m good-looking.”

What Chu Jian had in fact wanted to say was, “I have something to tell you.” All the useless preceding words were just the set-up.

……

Not speaking, he motioned to her to continue.

“On the day you had your surgery, I made a decision, and now I’ll tell it to you.” She and Jian Bianlin were basically two different types of people: He would have words in his heart but simply never say them, while she was the type who would have to speak out whatever came to mind. “Before, I had promised you that we could try things out between us. Now… um, as long as you don’t do anything to hurt or betray me, from now on, I will never be the one to initiate breaking up.”

Solemnly, she finished saying these words that handed herself over to him. Jian Bianlin, however, did not give a response.

Chu Jian felt somewhat as if she was taking a sledgehammer and smashing it into a sponge—no effect whatsoever. Pouting her lips, she muttered, “Forget it. I’m not going to bother getting upset with you.” Then, she even very logically added the sentence, “If one day you want to break up…”

Jian Bianlin unhurriedly lifted his gaze, his eyes looking straight into hers. “That’s not possible.”

A reply that was simple and direct.

Anyhow, Chu Jian was touched by these three words.

Jian Bianlin held her hand in his. His thumb that was gently stroking the back of her hand moved in a slow rhythm, carrying hints of something suggestive. He once again wanted to kiss her, but he did not know whether Chu Jian had another long chunk of words that she wanted to say. Somewhat impatiently, he waited for another little while.

Seeing that he was not speaking either, Chu Jian remembered the sentence he had said at the beginning of the conversation, the one about recovering from a bad illness and wanting a celebration. Her face burning, she mused, since he was the patient, the task of executing the celebration should fall on her, right? At the thought of this, her breathing became quite a bit faster, and she shifted herself forward an inch.

Detecting her motion, Jian Bianlin spread his knees apart, allowing her to stand between his legs. With his arm around her waist, he waited for her.

Until her kiss fell on his lips.

Chu Jian’s brain felt clouded for a moment, and her eardrums seemed swathed in a layer of mist. Her heartbeat was heavy and muffled. Still, she voluntarily extended the tip of her tongue and allowed it to slip inside, thinking that it would encounter his teeth. But all of a sudden, it touched his tongue. Their tongues entangled together, moistly and warmly, a couple of times—only a couple of times…

And then, Jian Bianlin really did…

This won’t do. This really won’t do.

[1]嫂子 “sao zi.” This literally means “sister-in-law.” Jian Bianlin is Xiao Yu’s “ge,” which literally means “older brother” (recall footnote [2] in chapter 3.3), so since Chu Jian is Jian Bianlin’s girlfriend, he addresses her as “sister-in-law.”

[2]为悦己者容. This makes reference to a quote from the historical work 《戰國策》Records of the Warring States (known also as Records on the Warring States Period, Strategies of the Warring States, etc.). However, the entire saying is actually “女为悦己者容” which translates as “a woman will beautify herself for the man who fancies her.” Xie Bin dropped the first character, 女 woman, but he was still teasing Jian Bianlin by using a statement on him that would normally be used to describe a woman, saying he was “prettying” himself for Chu Jian.