20. A Midnight Fever

To avoid Tulong's men hunting them down, Gao Weizhao didn't dare return to his own apartment, nor would he agree to go to the hospital for treatment. Instead, he took Wen Mingjuan and checked into a hotel. To avoid any unnecessary trouble, and for the sake of keeping an eye on Gao Weizhao, the two of them reluctantly agreed to share a single room.

Wen Mingjuan used her light jacket to re-bind Gao Weizhao's wound, letting him rest a while on the bed so as not to disturb the injury further, while she went out to look for a pharmacy near the hotel to see if she could pick up some emergency supplies.

The sky had already gone dark, and a light drizzle had begun to fall. Wen Mingjuan, dressed too thinly for the weather, couldn't help shivering. After searching around, she finally spotted a pharmacy and a fast food place, and hurried to bring back medicine, bandages, and dinner.

She worried that if his wound wasn't properly treated, it might get infected, swell up, fester, or even lead to something far worse. So she poured almost the entire bottle of iodine over Gao Weizhao's wound, and he only frowned, without so much as a grunt of complaint.

Wen Mingjuan had always been squeamish about blood; as she applied the medicine, her hands and legs went weak, her head spun, and she even felt a wave of nausea rising—but she forced herself to endure it. Gao Weizhao had sacrificed so much for her; she couldn't possibly let herself fumble even a small task like this, or shrink back from it now.

Having hastily finished treating Gao Weizhao's wound and taken care of dinner for the both of them, Wen Mingjuan kept feeling a strange heaviness in her head and a weakness in her legs. But she still had to look after Gao Weizhao, whose injuries were far from minor, so she paid no mind to her own slight discomfort.

She studied Gao Weizhao's sleeping face, still furrowed in a tight frown, and murmured sadly to herself, "It must hurt so much."

After tucking the blanket around him, Wen Mingjuan sat herself down on the floor, leaning half against the side of the bed.

Tonight, she had to stay here and watch over Gao Weizhao.

She wasn't sure how much time had passed when Gao Weizhao suddenly jolted awake, alert. It was his hand, brushing accidentally against the body of Wen Mingjuan, who had fallen asleep slumped against the edge of the bed. That heat—it was scorching enough that he didn't dare hesitate even a single second before coming fully awake.

"Mingjuan?" Wen Mingjuan's heavy, rapid breathing struck at Gao Weizhao's heart with every breath.

"Mingjuan." Gao Weizhao shook her shoulder, flustered.

He had to wake her up as quickly as possible.

"Wake up! Why are you burning up like this?" He felt her forehead again.

Blazing hot, positively alarming.

He quickly pulled his hand back.

Wen Mingjuan was sick. She was running a high fever.

"How could this have happened?" Gao Weizhao panicked, at a complete loss. Turning his head, he suddenly caught sight of the little jacket on his own left arm, the one Wen Mingjuan had used to bind his wound and stop the bleeding, and it all clicked into place.

"Honestly..." He muttered, shaking her again, calling out, "Wake up, quickly!"

"Wha... what... is it?" After who knew how long of shaking her, Wen Mingjuan's weak, feeble voice finally answered.

"You're running a fever, burning up alarmingly. I need to get you to a hospital." Gao Weizhao said.

"No... aren't you... hiding from... the police... and... Tulong? And now... a hospital?" Wen Mingjuan responded feebly, unable even to open her eyes.

"You're burning up this bad—aren't you worried you might not make it if we don't get you to the ER?"

"It'll be fine... you weren't... afraid of dying... either... I'm... I'm just... a little cold... that's all... not... scared." Her mind was hazy, but even now, her thoughts still clung to worry over Gao Weizhao.

"You're not scared. I am." Gao Weizhao said firmly.

The moment he finished speaking, he rolled off the bed and scooped up Wen Mingjuan, already limp and unresponsive, and rushed hurriedly toward the door.

"Your... hand... the wound... don't... don't strain it... hurry... put... me down." She tried to stop Gao Weizhao—afraid that the wound she'd only just managed to stop bleeding would tear open again from the strain of carrying her, and afraid too of whatever grim consequences might follow from going to a hospital.

But her strength simply wasn't there.

Truly, it wasn't there at all.

Never mind how weak and limp she was right now with the fever—even in perfect health, with all her strength about her, she'd never have been able to overpower Gao Weizhao's powerful arms.

They say true feeling reveals itself in moments of urgency, and that was exactly the case here. If it had been his own injury, Gao Weizhao would never, under any circumstances, have agreed to go to the hospital. But for the sake of a gravely ill Wen Mingjuan, he didn't even pause to consider the risk—even knowing full well the tiger lay in wait on the mountain, he had to charge forward regardless.

His only fear was that something terrible might happen to Wen Mingjuan.

Because this was a bet he couldn't afford to lose.

Carrying Wen Mingjuan, her consciousness already half-faded, Gao Weizhao hurriedly hailed a taxi. The driver kept glancing back at the two of them through the rearview mirror—one strange sight after another: a grown man covered in blood, cradling a woman who looked on the verge of death. But anyone still out making a living at this hour of the night was hardly the type to be easily rattled; they'd seen enough of the world that nothing much fazed them anymore.

The digital clock on the dashboard read: four thirty-six.

At this hour, there was no better option than the emergency room of a major hospital. After telling the driver the name of the nearest hospital, Gao Weizhao gently patted Wen Mingjuan's cheek.

"Don't fall asleep! Do you hear me?" Seeing her drifting in and out of consciousness, his heart was racing with worry. Wen Mingjuan's scorching heat radiated into his hands, even as the warmth in his own chest seemed to drop lower and lower by contrast.

"Mingjuan! Talk to me. Say anything at all."

He patted her cheek again, just trying to keep her conscious.

"I feel so... awful... what... should I... say?" All at once, Wen Mingjuan answered him, her voice thin as a thread.

"Anything at all is fine."

Wen Mingjuan, hovering somewhere between sleep and waking, felt herself drifting weightlessly. Gazing at Gao Weizhao's arm, she vaguely recalled the tattoo there that she'd never quite gotten a clear look at.

"Your... the tattoo... on your arm... what... is it?" She asked.

"It's..." Gao Weizhao considered for a long moment. Under normal circumstances, he'd absolutely have refused to answer a question like that. But given the situation now, he found he had no choice but to answer. "It's a qilin."

"Why...?" Wen Mingjuan's breathing was weak and rapid; she could barely get words out at all.

But Gao Weizhao understood what she meant.

She was asking: why had he chosen the qilin as his emblem?

"Hm." Gao Weizhao stroked her long hair. He had never once tried to explain the reason behind this to anyone; asked so suddenly now, it was genuinely difficult to answer.

But to keep Wen Mingjuan straining to hold onto her consciousness, no matter how hard it was to get the words out, he had to try. "The qilin is also called the 'four-unlikes'—a creature that resembles four different animals but is fully none of them. And I... I'm a four-unlikes kind of person myself."

"How... could... you... be?"

"You once said Little Blueberry's grades had always been excellent, so you were shocked she'd do something so unacceptable. But does having good grades really mean there's no problem at all? Maybe that's what all teachers assume—but sadly, it's often exactly these kinds of children whose real problems get overlooked most easily."

"Don't... understand." Wen Mingjuan said weakly.

"I used to be exactly that kind of person myself—good grades, but deeply withdrawn."

"Is that... so?" Wen Mingjuan's whole body and spirit felt weightless, adrift, hazy; Gao Weizhao's words slipped past her ears in fragments, and she couldn't quite catch them clearly, couldn't piece them together into any coherent thought.

"You wouldn't understand. I've always hated the people around me—including myself."

Gao Weizhao's voice seemed to come from somewhere very far away; Wen Mingjuan no longer had the strength to make it out clearly. God, her head was spinning so badly.

Her hand slipped, limp and weak, down onto Gao Weizhao's chest...