At the hospital, they went through the entire process of registration, consultation, payment, and blood tests. The doctor examined the test results once, then put on his reading glasses and looked them over again.
“You’re very healthy,” the doctor said, setting down the results and eyeing the young man before him with confusion. “Where exactly did you say you weren’t feeling well?”
Qi Fang coughed awkwardly, glancing at the test results on the desk. “Isn’t there any indicator that’s outside the normal range? Like low blood sugar or high uric acid?”
“No,” the doctor adjusted his glasses. “Every indicator is perfectly normal. Mr. Qi, you’re healthier than the textbook examples. How do you take such good care of yourself? Don’t you have to work overtime?”
“I don’t,” Qi Fang replied. “I only make others work overtime.”
Noticing Shen Yu’s gaze, Qi Fang quickly added, “With triple overtime pay and compensatory time off, of course.”
The doctor’s expression inexplicably turned resentful. He signed the form and said, “There’s nothing wrong. If you’re not experiencing any discomfort, you can…”
Shen Yu, who had been sitting to the side, suddenly spoke up. “Dr. Liu, are you sure all the tests are complete?”
“His temperature is normal, he’s mentally alert, and he walks without difficulty,” the doctor said. “If you’re not sick, go home and rest. Hanging around the hospital will only increase your chances of catching something.”
Shen Yu nodded and stood up. “Thank you for your time.”
As they left the consultation room, Qi Fang noticed Shen Yu looking at his phone. “Do you need to reply to student emails? Should we sit outside for a while before heading back?”
During the examination, Qi Fang had noticed Shen Yu seemingly working on his phone the entire time. This was quite common. Shen Yu’s time was typically divided into two categories: work time with his eyes open, and sleep time with his eyes closed.
“No need,” Shen Yu uncharacteristically declined, adding coolly, “I’m reading literature on flu treatment.”
“Why are you looking at that?” Qi Fang asked.
“Self-taught medicine,” Shen Yu replied.
Qi Fang was speechless.
*
On the drive home, Qi Fang couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off.
During red lights, he kept glancing to his right, where Shen Yu sat engrossed in his phone, still earnestly studying “how to treat the flu.”
He wore the same thin gray-black woolen coat he’d had on while teaching earlier, with a bit of chalk dust on the cuffs – likely from brushing against the podium. His long eyelashes cast shadows as he looked down, his face pale and expression serious, not at all like someone joking around.
Shen Yu never wasted time on silly jokes, Qi Fang thought.
Where had things gone wrong? Why did Shen Yu keep thinking he had a cold?
Qi Fang took a deep breath, causing his mask to cling to his nose. After leaving the hospital, he had wanted to remove the stifling thing, but saw Shen Yu immediately pull out another new mask to wear.
“I’ll keep it on, I’ll keep it on,” Qi Fang resignedly fastened the mask back over his face and said to Shen Yu, “Don’t cover your face with that thing, it’s not breathable.”
Even as they returned to their neighborhood, Qi Fang couldn’t figure it out, feeling vaguely unsettled.
This unsettled feeling turned to utter bewilderment when he saw a massive cardboard box as tall as a person sitting at their front door.
“What’s this?” Qi Fang asked.
Shen Yu calmly approached to check the shipping information on top of the box, then said, “A stir-fry machine.”
After a pause, he added, “I bought it.”
Qi Fang asked curiously, “What did you buy a stir-fry machine for… Is the cook at home not satisfactory?”
The cook at home – specifically referring to Qi Fang himself.
“You’re sick and need rest,” Shen Yu said, unlocking the door with his fingerprint and placing a hand on the box. His voice was calm as he continued, “Cooking takes up too much rest time. While you’re ill, I’ll do the cooking.”
It was like a bolt from the blue.
Shen Yu’s talent for cooking was inversely proportional to his academic prowess. As beautifully as he could write academic papers, his cooking was equally terrible.
Qi Fang had once taken a single bite and ended up in the hospital emergency room that night, on an IV drip for two days.
Shen Yu didn’t notice the terror in Qi Fang’s eyes. He habitually turned on the living room lights first, then used scissors to open the box and drag out the stir-fry machine.
He then sat on the sofa and began studying the instruction manual.
It seemed he planned to start practicing right away that evening.
——Time was of the essence.
Qi Fang’s face turned ashen, his breathing rapid.
The status of the household’s master chef was teetering on the brink, and the golden award-winning wok atop the display cabinet was about to lose its luster.
His sharp gaze swept over the pure white AI-challenged stir-fry machine. Through it, Qi Fang seemed to foresee a future where his position as cook would plummet, losing his last bit of usefulness, and being thrown out by Shen Yu to live on the streets.
This thing could not be kept. It must be destroyed.
Shen Yu finished reading the manual, convinced he had mastered advanced stir-frying techniques. As he stood up, he noticed Qi Fang’s murderous glare. After a moment of silence, he asked, “What’s wrong? Are you feeling unwell somewhere?”
Qi Fang, who had been mentally sharpening his knives against the machine, heard this and had a sudden inspiration. He immediately said, “There are no vegetables in the fridge. We need ingredients to cook, right? I’ll order some groceries for delivery first.”
Shen Yu held the manual, his brow furrowing slightly. “How long will that take?”
“Half an hour,” Qi Fang replied nonchalantly, as if he had completely forgotten about the abundance of meat and vegetables in the fridge, as well as the vegetable store just outside their compound. “You can take a shower first… It’s not too late to start cooking when the groceries arrive.”
Shen Yu considered for a few seconds, and for the sake of maximum time efficiency, quickly agreed to Qi Fang’s suggestion.
He never cooked, so he trusted Qi Fang implicitly, not even bothering to check the fridge himself.
Watching Shen Yu’s retreating figure heading upstairs, Qi Fang let out a long sigh of relief. While keeping an ear out for sounds from upstairs, he swiftly lifted the lid of the stir-fry machine, removed the inner pot, and stashed it in the storage room downstairs, hiding it behind a brand-new spare toilet.
After completing this, Qi Fang locked the storage room door with satisfaction. He then took out his phone, opened WeChat, scrolled through his chat list, and sent a message to someone.
[Qi Fang: You there?]
[Li Congming: ?? What’s up, Qi Er Shao?]
Qi Fang immediately initiated a voice call.
Li Congming, whose real name was Li Chongming, was like Qin Xiaosa, one of the friends who had grown up with Qi Fang and Shen Yu. Coincidentally, they had attended the same elementary, middle, and high schools, and they didn’t separate until they went to college.
In terms of shared experiences, Li Congming was undoubtedly the friend who knew the most about Qi Fang and Shen Yu’s past. Unfortunately, this friend had a quirk that wasn’t quite a flaw – Li Congming was a hardcore straight man.
What defines a hardcore straight man? It’s someone who, even when Qi Fang was chasing after Shen Yu every day in school, never missing a morning, noon, or night greeting, giving various gifts on holidays, and cooking nourishing chicken soup for Shen Yu every week, still stubbornly believed this was the greatest friendship of the 21st century.
“If I were like Shen Yu, having a good friend like Qi Fang, my life would be complete,” Li Congming had once said.
After graduating from university, Li Congming focused on medicine, pursuing a master’s degree abroad. He had only returned in the past two years and, upon his return, was immediately invited to Qi Fang and Shen Yu’s wedding.
At the wedding, Li Congming was dumbfounded, dizzy, his world spinning, his soul scattered, doubting his entire outlook on life and the world.
—— After all, anyone who suddenly saw two childhood friends who had grown up together turn into a gay couple would suffer a devastating psychological blow.
From then on, Li Congming couldn’t help but avoid Qi Fang and would not contact him unless it was extremely urgent, for fear of recalling the vicious curse he had uttered that year: “I want to have a good friend like Qi Fang, just like Shen Yu.”
The voice call rang for quite a while before connecting. The voice on the other end said weakly, “What do you want this late at night…”
Qi Fang, unfazed by his awkward attitude, asked directly, “You studied medicine, right?”
Li Congming: “Yes.”
Standing on his five-meter-wide riverside balcony, Qi Fang gazed at the moon and asked profoundly, “Then tell me, when someone suddenly becomes overly concerned about another person, always feeling that person is unwell and needs care, what’s going on?”
Li Congming was silent for a moment, then cautiously asked, “He thinks that person is sick?”
Qi Fang asked in surprise, “How did you know?”
“…” Li Congming asked bluntly, “What illness do you have?”
“I’m not sick,” Qi Fang said, changing his stance and pondering. “That’s the key point. Shen Yu has been thinking I’m sick these past few days. He won’t even believe the hospital test results. Why do you think he suddenly started thinking this way?”
Li Congming: “I don’t know.”
Qi Fang: “Is this all you can do after seven years of medical school?”
Li Congming exploded, “Qi Fang, is there something wrong with your brain? I’m an orthopedist, orthopedist! Not a psychiatrist. You should make an appointment with psychiatry for this kind of question.”
Qi Fang scoffed, “What good are you then?”
Li Congming was at a loss for words, “If you ever break your leg, you can come to me. I guarantee I’ll have you up and running in no time.”
Qi Fang clicked his tongue, “Would Shen Yu ever hurt me?”
Li Congming: “I didn’t say Shen Yu… I’m the one who wants to beat you up.”
Qi Fang declared, “You’re a doctor, you must answer my question. You’re the only doctor I know. Can’t you be useful in crucial moments, like in TV dramas?”
Li Congming immediately hung up the voice call.
Qi Fang sent him a few threatening knife emojis on WeChat. Half a minute later, Li Congming replied: [I’ve made an appointment for you in psychiatry. Come to my hospital tomorrow at 8 a.m.]
[Qi Fang: I’ll tell your blind date about how you ate chicken shit as a child.]
Li Congming’s chat box immediately showed “The other party is typing…” After a few minutes, Li Congming calmly sent two messages:
[Li Congming: I’ll ask some doctor friends tomorrow.]
[Li Congming: And I never actually ate chicken shit!!! Can you stop bringing that up???]
*
Shen Yu sat up in the bathtub, feeling inexplicably dizzy.
This was unusual. Perhaps it was due to being away on business for days, working non-stop without proper rest, leading to his current fatigue.
Yes, Shen Yu was even a bit surprised to find himself feeling so tired.
This weariness wasn’t simply heavy eyelids wanting sleep, or sore muscles needing rest, but something that came from within, a signal from deep in his brain.
A slow, dull sensation spread silently. Shen Yu looked down at the hot water in the tub, feeling as if his thoughts had sunk to the bottom, swaying with each ripple, unable to focus.
…Time to rest, Shen Yu thought.
The lab reports his students had sent today could wait until tomorrow morning.
Maintaining sufficient energy was crucial for maximizing work efficiency.
As Shen Yu sat there, he suddenly heard Qi Fang’s voice from outside the bathroom.
“Shen Yu?” Qi Fang stood at the bedroom door, looking towards the closed frosted glass door of the bathroom, his brow slightly furrowed. He asked, “Are you done? The groceries have arrived. Are you still coming down to cook?”
“Mm…” Shen Yu’s voice sounded, perhaps muffled by the steam, “Coming.”
Shen Yu stepped out of the bathtub, drained the water, dried himself off, and put on his pajamas. As he opened the door, he immediately locked eyes with Qi Fang, who was standing at the bedroom entrance.
Seeing Shen Yu emerge unscathed, Qi Fang seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. A smile spread across his face as he held up his phone and said, “You were in there for twenty-three minutes. I thought something might have happened, so I came up to check on you.”
Shen Yu was momentarily taken aback and didn’t respond. Typically, he never spent more than twenty minutes in the bath—in Professor Shen’s value system, routine activities like bathing weren’t worth occupying too much time.
“Shall we go downstairs?” Qi Fang asked, raising an eyebrow.
Shen Yu nodded. After the bath, he appeared considerably more alert. The drowsy state he’d been in while in the bathroom now seemed like a mere illusion.
The two walked side by side towards the stairs.
Qi Fang had been pondering whether he’d hidden the inner pot of the stir-fry machine well enough, but his thoughts soon wandered. His gaze unconsciously settled on Shen Yu.
Maybe because he came out in a hurry, Shen Yu hadn’t completely dried his hair. A few damp strands clung to the nape of his neck, tiny water droplets still clinging to them. The moisture seeped into the white cotton of his pajamas, leaving a small patch of fabric wet.
Qi Fang’s gaze lingered, and he suddenly realized how rare it was to see Shen Yu in such a “disheveled” state.
He stared for too long, and Shen Yu, sensing it, looked up, catching Qi Fang’s gaze directly.
Shen Yu halted, and Qi Fang, unsure why, stopped as well.
The hallway was unlit. Shen Yu’s eyes, shrouded in the misty darkness, seemed even more intensely black. Qi Fang felt as if he might be pulled in just by looking, his heart involuntarily beginning to race.
Why was Shen Yu suddenly gazing at him so intently? Qi Fang wondered.
This was… too intimate, wasn’t it?
Such close proximity, such a quiet night, such a perfect moment, such a—
“You’re not wearing a mask,” Shen Yu said.
Qi Fang: “?”
“The flu has persistent contagious properties.” Shen Yu took half a step back and continued seriously, “I have a lot of work to do lately. I’d rather not catch it from you.”
Qi Fang: “.”
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