The sunlight shining through a gap in the curtains was a little too bright for her. She instinctively raised a hand to block the light; a second later, a masculine hand shot out and drew the curtains firmly together. The room seemed a lot more soothing and cosy without the harsh sunlight.
“How are you feeling?” A warm, comforting hand had rested upon Yan Huan’s forehead before she could process what was going on.
“Your fever’s gone down.” Lu Yi withdrew his hand. Yan Huan saw that his eyes were bloodshot from lack of sleep; nevertheless, he seemed to be in good spirits.
“What happened…” She had barely begun to speak when she realized that her throat was uncomfortably dry. She sounded as though she had swallowed a mouthful of sand—where had her clear, lovely voice gone?
“Here, drink this.” Lu Yi poured a glass of water and handed it to Yan Huan.
Yan Huan accepted the glass and drank the water in steady, measured gulps. The water helped moisten her parched throat, but she could not for the life of her recall what had happened to her.
“You fell sick,” Lu Yi explained calmly when he saw the confusion in her eyes. “Your wound became infected,” he continued,” but your fever’s gone now, so you should be fine.”
Yan Huan opened her mouth to say something, but her throat was still sore. She was sure her raspy voice would be unpleasant to listen to, so she decided to keep quiet.
Her gaze drifted towards Lu Yi’s left hand.
“Don’t worry, my wound’s been taken care of.” Lu Yi knew what she was thinking. He showed Yan Huan his palm.
Yan Huan saw at once that he was telling the truth: his wound had been treated and dressed. She could tell that it had been done by a professional; it had been expertly bandaged, unlike her amateurish attempt.
The door opened, and He Yibin walked in. “How is she? Is she better now?” He saw the alert expression on Yan Huan’s face, and breathed a sigh of relief.
“Looks like our hero is all right,” he said with a chuckle.
“I’m not a hero,” Yan Huan said hoarsely. She did not think she deserved that title. She had known about the mudslide only because this was her second run through life, but even then she had not been able to stop it. She had not been able to save all the other people who had perished.
“Well, you’re a hero in our book.” He Yibin gave her a thumbs-up. “Maybe you were there because of a coincidence, maybe Lu Yi and the others survived because they were lucky—it doesn’t change the fact that the food you brought with you saved a lot of people. And don’t forget the baby you rescued! We found the parents. Can you believe it? Things could have been a lot worse, but as it turns out, every cloud has a silver lining.”
“The parents have been found?” The news was music to Yan Huan’s ears.
The parents had been found. The poor baby would not end up an orphan like Yan Huan.
Oh, thank god, she thought. Thank god.
She could not have hoped for anything more.
“Yes, the parents have been found.” He Yibin extracted a thermometer from his pocket and shook it before handing it to Yan Huan. “I need to take your temperature. If it’s normal, that means you’re all right. Rest for the next few days, and you should be able to go back to work.”
He pulled out a small notebook he had been hiding behind his back. “By the way, I’d like a few autographs from you, if you don’t mind. My family adores you.”
Yan Huan accepted the autograph book and signed her name on its pages. When she was done, He Yibin happily slipped the book into his pocket. He said, smiling, “Okay, I’ll leave you alone for now. If your temperature turns out to be normal, I won’t have to give you another injection today.”
Yan Huan stuck the temperature under her tongue and sat quietly for a moment. She turned to look at Lu Yi.
“You stayed the whole night?”
“Yes.” Lu Yi tucked the blanket around her. “I couldn’t leave you while you were sick.”
Yan Huan was struck with a strange feeling. She felt both numb and bitter; she was seized with the urge to ask him to leave, but she knew she did not mean it. She did not want to see him go.
She wondered how it had turned out this way. The more time she spent with Lu Yi, the more she realized that she had been wrong about him in her previous life. She had been a horrible judge of character—her marriage to Lu Qin was proof enough of that.
But she kept her feelings to herself. There were some things she could not bring herself to say, just yet; things that Lu Yi would not say, either, so long as Yan Huan did not broach the subject first. In a way, they were watching each other, keeping each other at a polite distance as they tried to figure out their relationship.
Yan Huan felt that this was for the best. She no longer knew how to behave around the man before her.
She was afraid to get too close to him.
But the thought of him leaving her behind scared her, too.
Lu Yi held his hand out to her. “Give me the thermometer.” As usual, the lack of expression on his calm, stoic face made it difficult to guess what he was thinking. That had been his character in Yan Huan’s previous life, and it had remained unchanged in this life. He lived up to his reputation as the hardest member of the Lu family to get close to and understand.
Yan Huan took the thermometer out of her mouth.
Lu Yi looked at it. 36.2 degrees. That was normal.
He exited the room with the thermometer in his hand. In the living room, Yi Ling and He Yibin were engaged in an animated discussion as they watched a movie on the living room TV.
“She’s not as pretty as my Huanhuan.”
“Yes.” He Yibin nodded in agreement. “True.”
“Her acting isn’t as good as my Huanhuan’s.” Yi Ling turned her nose up snootily for emphasis.
“Exactly,” He Yibin agreed.
“The movie would be so much better if my Huanhuan played the female lead,” Yi Ling said with complete confidence. She was not afraid of being labeled “thick-skinned”—her skin was plenty thick, after all.
“I couldn’t agree more.” He Yibin and Yi Ling were singing in the same key now. They bonded over their shared tastes.
He Yibin was a doctor, but that did not mean he took a clinical, no-nonsense approach to life. In fact, weepy, tearjerker melodramas were his biggest weakness. He wept like a baby whenever he watched a particularly moving melodrama.
That was why he was getting along so swimmingly with Yi Ling—he had been profoundly moved by Divorced, and now considered Yan Huan’s performance to be the golden standard for melodramas.
Lu Yi showed He Yibin the thermometer.
He Yibin took it. “Okay, good, her temperature’s back to normal. She should be all right now.”
Yi Ling was relieved to hear that, but her relief gave way to embarrassment when she remembered how quickly she had fallen asleep last night. She shuddered to think what might have happened had Lu Yi not been there for them; her Huanhuan could have died from her fever in the night, while Yi Ling snored on the sofa, blissfully unaware.
Lu Yi prepared to leave—he had no reason to stay now that Yan Huan had recovered, and he had a lot of work to deal with. He had to check in with the Peace City survivors, and also file a report to his higher-ups detailing his experience with the mudslide.
Yan Huan was lying on her bed when Lu Yi left. She was awake; she knew he had left, but she made no attempt to get up.
Yi Ling opened the door to Yan Huan’s bedroom and walked in. She carefully tucked the blanket around Yan Huan as she mumbled, half to herself, “I guess they’re not so bad. I wish they’d stop taking my share of the food, though.”
“Yes, they’re okay.” Yan Huan added silently: But I already know that. The one I hate is Lu Qin, not Lu Yi.
As in Yan Huan’s previous life, the mudslide in Peace City received a lot of public attention. The natural disaster was covered by the TV stations, the internet, and all the major newspapers. And just like in Yan Huan’s previous life, Lu Yi and Lei Qingyi were thrust into the spotlight because they had experienced the mudslide first-hand.
