Chapter Forty-Eight: A Chance Encounter

Sheng Yao and Bai Xiao had dinner together. While eating, Sheng Yao, feeling idle, started talking about his day. Bai Xiao responded occasionally, nodding, but seemed utterly uninterested in the love triangle he mentioned.

Sheng Yao thought for a moment. His relationship and marriage with Bai Xiao had been smooth, untouched by any third or fourth party. Bai Xiao was his first love, and he was hers—oh, except for her high school crush on a TV drama idol.

Sheng Yao paused while washing the dishes.

“What’s wrong?” Bai Xiao immediately asked. “Are you still thinking about what happened today?”

Sheng Yao glanced at Bai Xiao. “I thought you’d be outraged. That Tong Bin was stalking people—doesn’t that make you angry?”

Bai Xiao was taken aback.

“The detective show you watched in high school—didn’t your idol rescue someone by catching a stalker?” Sheng Yao pressed.

Bai Xiao tilted her head, thinking. “Maybe it’s because… you told it badly?”

Sheng Yao was speechless and continued scrubbing the dishes.

Bai Xiao laughed, looping her arm through Sheng Yao’s. “Not really. I mean, the way you described it, Tong Bin just seemed cowardly and pathetic—he didn’t seem dangerous at all.”

“But Kong Yajie was frightened.”

“Yes… maybe she’s just timid. Or maybe Tong Bin has a split personality, or mania? Does he act differently around her?” Bai Xiao speculated.

“I don’t know. I don’t think he’s that mentally ill.”

“Depression is common enough.”

“The kind you see online isn’t real depression. What have you been doing at the clinic lately? Just watching videos and surfing websites all day?” Sheng Yao asked.

“Mostly raising dogs online. There are so many cute puppies these days! I need to catch up. I used to only see poodles, huskies, and those three silly sled dogs, but now other breeds are popular. Huskies have remained adorably silly for years, but I couldn’t handle one myself. Some large breeds can only be raised online—our area banned them ages ago…” Bai Xiao sighed, wiping dishes. “Cats are cute too. Ragdolls, forest cats, and Persians are back in vogue. Trends are a cycle.”

“Boss Le always says you have to choose pets based on your own situation—by affinity. What’s popular online doesn’t matter. If you find out after adopting one that it’s not a good fit, you’re in trouble,” Sheng Yao remarked.

Bai Xiao nodded in frustration. “I wonder when I can be discharged. When I am, I’ll go see Boss Le’s kennel.”

Sheng Yao rinsed the soap off the soup bowl and handed it to Bai Xiao. “It’s not really his kennel, just one he’s connected with.”

“Right.”

They finished the dishes and returned to the hospital room to watch videos for a while. Bai Xiao watched the clock and urged Sheng Yao to head home.

“Go rest early,” Bai Xiao said with a smile and a wave.

“You too. Sleep well,” Sheng Yao replied, stepping out and gently closing the door.

Lately, they had grown used to this routine. Bai Xiao would remind Sheng Yao when it was time, and Sheng Yao no longer needed her to see him off with lingering farewells.

Sheng Yao glanced back at the tightly shut hospital room door, then walked toward the consulting room. He knocked, and, a moment later, heard the doctor call him in.

He pushed open the door and saw the doctor in his usual seat, head down, absorbed in the documents on the desk.

It was perhaps not quite a document. The thick folder’s front pages were yellowed and worn, while the middle pages, spread open, were crisp white but deeply creased. Clearly, the doctor had reviewed this medical record countless times.

Sheng Yao was surprised.

He had never seen such a thick medical record before. The ones for Liu Yu and Mao Mao had only contained two or three thin pages. Liu Yu aside, Mao Mao had received the doctor’s treatment nine years ago, recovered from a serious illness, and only after its death did its underlying condition emerge. Even such a case merited only a few pages in the doctor’s notes. This record was so thick—how grave must this patient’s illness be?

Suddenly, Sheng Yao thought of Bai Xiao.

His heart raced, lips parted, but he dared not voice his question.

Mao Mao had been near death, but survived; it was just a cat. Bai Xiao had been dead for thirty-five years, and was revived by the doctor. In terms of complexity, surely there was no patient more complicated than Bai Xiao.

Sheng Yao’s mind lingered on Bai Xiao’s smile, but the question at his lips would not emerge. He feared that asking would shatter their happiness; he feared the doctor might give him a despairing answer.

The doctor said nothing, and seemed to finish the page he was reading. His painted fingernails pressed at the page’s edge, turned it over, scanned the top lines, then finally looked up, fixing his deep blue gaze on Sheng Yao.

Meeting those blue eyes, Sheng Yao suddenly felt enlightened.

He had already met a “miracle worker,” and Bai Xiao was now living at the clinic. To avoid confronting her illness would only harm her.

He had to admit, after the events with Mao Mao, his trust in the doctor was restored.

The tumor on Liu Yu and the strange mutation in Mao Mao were both dangerous, but, like all medicines have side effects, Sheng Yao saw them as consequences of that syringe injection. For Liu Yu, the treatment might do more harm than good; perhaps he’d recover on his own, and his psychological struggles would fade with time. Liu Yu didn’t need a life-saving cure—he just needed help adjusting to new surroundings after leaving his familiar home and school. But for Mao Mao, on the brink of death, and Bai Xiao, already deceased, saving them mattered more than any side effect.

“Is this Bai Xiao’s medical record? Is her condition… very serious?” Sheng Yao asked seriously.

The doctor didn’t answer, but his ten fingernails began chattering noisily, whether crying or laughing, all sounding like mockery.

Sheng Yao exhaled in relief. “It’s not Bai Xiao’s record?”

The doctor withdrew his gaze. “No. You should leave now.”

Sheng Yao realized the doctor was busy with another patient tonight, so he obediently took his leave. After stepping out of the consulting room, hearing the door’s echoing close, he remembered he had intended to ask about Bai Xiao’s discharge.

He looked toward the hospital room, seeing only the door he’d just closed.

The doctor’s words from their previous conversation echoed in Sheng Yao’s mind, along with his own earlier question.

Bai Xiao was probably ready to be discharged.

But…

Can Bai Xiao adapt to life outside now?

When they last discussed pets and moving, Bai Xiao had strongly resisted, showing intense emotion for the first time since her resurrection. She did not want her life to change. That was understandable. Yet, once she returned to ordinary life, she would inevitably confront the thirty-five-year gap. The changes she’d face were not as light as the shifts in “husky” or “Persian cats” she’d mentioned. When the time came, would Bai Xiao accept it calmly, or react like Liu Yu, suffering negative emotions and triggering “side effects”?

Sheng Yao dared not try.

The tumor that grew on Liu Yu was manageable—Liu Yu himself was drunk and offered no resistance, making it easy. But if it turned into a monster like Mao Mao, Sheng Yao had no confidence. Even if he could deal with such a monster, he couldn’t bear to watch Bai Xiao become one.

He recalled the medical record the doctor had just been reading. That patient hadn’t been cured with a single injection. So the doctor’s “miracle drug” was not a true cure-all.

For now… let things stay as they are.

Sheng Yao looked at the hospital room, then slowly withdrew his gaze.

He walked toward the clinic’s main entrance.

The old fluorescent light in the lobby flickered, and when it came back on, its glow was dim, like a candle about to die.

Sheng Yao glanced up at the bulb. He wondered if the doctor would let him replace the clinic’s light.

These days, he’d brought quite a few things to the clinic kitchen, even an air fryer and a rice cooker, but he and Bai Xiao never touched the clinic’s original items. The things they brought, the doctor never used—except for the food, which was always eaten, the empty plates left on the desk for Sheng Yao to retrieve. Judging by the returned plates, the doctor had good eating habits, wasn’t picky, and always finished everything without leftovers.

Lost in thought, Sheng Yao pressed his hand to the glass door.

Through the glass, he could only make out the blurry streets outside.

The streetlights on this alley weren’t near the monster clinic, leaving only neon signs and the glow from the clinic lobby through the glass door as sources of light. With the clinic’s fluorescent lamp malfunctioning, the street outside seemed swallowed by darkness.

Sheng Yao stepped out, habitually turning left and walking a few steps. Through gaps in the canopy of street trees, he caught sight of a brightly lit office building nearby, and was so startled he halted in his tracks.

“Sheng Yao?”

A voice from behind made Sheng Yao spin around.

Behind him, faint light spilled from the monster clinic’s glass door, illuminating half of Tong Bin’s body, leaving the other half in shadow.

Tong Bin’s steps didn’t pause. He emerged from the glow, his body vanishing into darkness, and, as if casually, glanced back. “What are you doing here? Do you live nearby?” he asked, turning fully to face Sheng Yao, eyes wide with curiosity in the night.

Sheng Yao was silent.

He had the same question for Tong Bin, but Tong Bin had beaten him to it. The clinic’s sudden relocation had already surprised Sheng Yao, and encountering Tong Bin here was entirely unexpected. Moreover, that backward glance from Tong Bin… made Sheng Yao wary.

He remembered the medical record the doctor had been reading.

“I just happened to be passing by. What about you?” Sheng Yao replied cautiously, choosing the simplest answer and relaxing his facial muscles.

But Tong Bin’s demeanor suddenly shifted; curiosity faded, replaced by melancholy. He sighed deeply, raised his head, and gazed at the nearby office building. “Me… well, it’s a long story… Do you have time?”

Though he was only half a head shorter than Sheng Yao, his slumped posture made him look a full head shorter. Now, as he lifted his gaze to Sheng Yao, his eyes seemed lifeless, yet faintly hopeful.

Sheng Yao glanced unobtrusively at the clinic’s still-lit entrance and nodded. “I do. Let’s find somewhere to sit.”