Zhuang Fanxin wiped his sweat. He could feel the symptoms of a heat stroke, he just hadn't paid them any mind. Rongcheng was hot; rushing to class or to live sketch every summer, it was hard to avoid falling sick occasionally. This wasn't a big deal.
Hearing their voices, Xue Maochen came out of his room to take a look. "Did you go out to play today, Xiao Zhuang?" he teased.
Zhuang Fanxin nodded, his face paling slightly under the redness. Ms Hu handed him a large glass of water. After gulping it all down, he felt his mouth dry. He stood again, saying, "I feel a bit better now, it's fine."
Hearing his weak voice, Gu Zhuoyan found this hard to believe. Xue Maochen added, "Seems unlikely. You'll be in trouble if you're dehydrated."
Zhuang Fanxin replied, "I'll just get an IV drip. The last time I had a heat stroke, I was fine after getting an IV drip." He really did feel unwell; if he didn't leave soon, he would inconvenience them, so he girded his loins and walked out.
"Will you be fine on your own?" asked Xue Maochen.
"I'll be fine." Zhuang Fanxin beamed brightly as he walked out. "I'll get my dad to go with me."
He walked off into the distance. Gu Zhuoyan picked up the TV remote to look for something to watch, but there wasn't anything interesting on. Xue Maochen crossed his legs and played with the dog. Laughing, he said that the puppy was like a small child, incredibly mischievous.
"Zhuoyan, I bought this dog for you," said Xue Maochen. "When you go back, bring him along. Don't leave him with me, I won't be able to walk him every day."
Gu Zhuoyan smiled and replied, "Okay, understood."
At the mention of this, he remembered that when he was walking the dog this morning, he had seen Zhuang Xianyang leave for work before he bumped into Zhuang Fanxin. After that, he had left the dog lying in the Zhuangs' parking spot. Zhuang Fanxin said that he would get Zhuang Xianyang to go with him; surely it was too early for Zhuang Xianyang to come home from work?
Gu Zhuoyan went out and looked about. There was no car outside the Zhuangs' gate. Zhuang Xianyang definitely wasn't home. As dizzy as he was, would Zhuang Fanxin go get himself an IV drip? Could he even?
Logically speaking, a sickly teenager could probably manage getting an IV drip on his own.
Gu Zhuoyan went back to the living room to watch TV. He switched over to a news programme. The programme was talking about how a patient on an IV drip in a Hangzhou hospital was now in a dispute with the hospital after the patient had accidentally knocked the IV pole over and caused it to smash into their own eyes.
"Wow, that's unlucky," said Xue Maochen.
Humans have a funny way of linking thoughts. Gu Zhuoyan mentally replaced the patient with Zhuang Fanxin. If those eyes were smashed… He collected himself and asked, "Grandpa, which hospital does Zhuang Fanxin go to? Is it nearby?
"There's a community clinic twenty metres from the end of the street," said Xue Maochen. "It's not worth going to the hospital for a minor issue." As he spoke, he recalled that since he lived alone, both Zhuang Xianyang and Zhao Jianqiu came over to take care of him whenever he felt poorly or had a minor accident. Their relationship was very close. "Zhuoyan, how about you go check in on him? Just take a stroll."
Gu Zhuoyan rose and left. When he reached the clinic, he didn't enter immediately, but first went to the convenience store next door to buy an ice cream.
Eating the ice cream, he walked into the clinic and looked at their IV room. Zhuang Fanxin was waiting alone on the couch in the corner. He was huddling under a towel blanket the clinic had given him, his head bowed. The curls on his forehead were soaked in sweat and no longer fluffy.
Gu Zhuoyan walked over and asked, "Where's your dad?"
Zhuang Fanxin looked up at his voice, a bit stunned by his appearance. "My dad's still at work," he said. "You came out for ice cream?"
Gu Zhuoyan sat down next to him, noting the goosebumps on Zhuang Fanxin's arm: he looked quite cold. He picked up the corner of the towel blanket and pulled it tighter over the boy. "You have a fever, don't you?" he said.
"Seems so. I'm taking my temperature right now," said Zhuang Fanxin.
They passed the next five minutes in silence. The thermometer was probably done, but the arm it was under was taking an IV drip as well. Zhuang Fanxin elbowed Gu Zhuoyan lightly to ask for help. A cool breeze passed through his sleeve as Gu Zhuoyan reached into his armpit and pulled the thermometer out.
His body was burning with fever, and Gu Zhuoyan's hand had been touching his ice cream. Zhuang Fanxin felt so cold, not warming up even after a long while. The thermometer read 38.7ºC, even higher than the temperature outside. The nurse came by and added a dose of fever-reducing medication to the drip.
After this, he only needed to wait for the fever to reduce. Delirious, Zhuang Fanxin lowered his head and smothered his face in the towel, stifling his own breaths. Gu Zhuoyan watched him, thinking of how listless Gu Baoyan would be when she fell sick, wanting his father Gu Shibo to hold her.
He wasn't planning on being anyone's dad, so he switched it up: "You can lean on me if you're feeling weak."
Zhuang Fanxin mm-ed, but didn't move. His body was thin and frail, but he had strong endurance. The two did not speak again. In the silence of the clinic, they could hear the drip drip of the medication.
Not long after, another IV drip patient arrived, turning on the TV. The TV was playing Wong Fei-hung. Zhuang Fanxin looked up and watched as well. He liked films; though it was an old show that had been broadcast over and over, and he had seen it time and time again, he still watched with great interest.
But about five minutes in, Gu Zhuoyan yawned.
Zhuang Fanxin's eyes were half-open, the flush of his eyelids slowly fading and his complexion improving. After a moment, he muttered, "I've seen this so many times, but I still have no clue what Clubfoot Seven's real name is."
There was no reaction. He figured Gu Zhuoyan didn't know either, until a sudden weight sank his shoulder. Gu Zhuoyan's head was pillowed against him. He had been asleep for a while now.
Zhuang Fanxin sat still. After a moment, his arm began to grow sore, but he didn't move for fear of waking the other. The other patient looked over, bemused. "Who's taking care of whom?"
He smiled. "Can you lower the volume please?"
Gu Zhuoyan slept peacefully against Zhuang Fanxin's shoulder. He was a rough carer in general; the last time he had tried to take care of Gu Baoyan was when her pigtail had tangled with her hair clip—he'd handed her a pair of scissors. It was inevitable that his attempt to care for this patient was less than ideal.
As the IV bag emptied, Zhuang Fanxin called for the nurse to remove the needle. Gu Zhuoyan finally opened his eyes and came to. Embarrassed, he looked away, pretending nothing had happened.
Zhuang Fanxin's high fever had temporarily subsided, but his steps were uncertain and he walked slowly. They left the clinic and ambled home. Before he went in, Zhuang Fanxin said "thank you".
Gu Zhuoyan handed the prescribed medication over without saying "you're welcome". From his perspective, he and Zhuang Fanxin had already become good neighbours who helped each other—they could no longer tell whether a debt was owed one way or the other.
Zhuang Fanxin lay down on his bed as soon as he reached home. He opened his two presents for a look. The bathrobe was fine, but looking at the sneakers after the initial delight had passed, he felt a sense of burden. Receiving a gift worth thousands not long after getting to know each other seemed unjustified.
He mulled it over. Perhaps he should give Gu Zhuoyan something of near-equal value? Should he save up his allowance, or maybe make some money from commissions? Still slightly dazed, he decided to leave the detailed planning for after his recovery.
Zhuang Xianyang and Zhao Jianqiu returned in the evening. With his parents there to care for him, Zhuang Fanxin was in much better spirits than earlier that afternoon. But the next day, Zhao Jianqiu had to return to her office to finish off a project quite urgently, while Zhuang Xianyang was booked for a whole day of lectures that he couldn't postpone at such a late hour.
Zhuang Fanxin lay wrapped up in his blanket. His phone alarm informed him that he had a remedial maths lesson tomorrow morning—since he felt he could handle it, he hadn't asked Zhuang Xianyang to ask for sick leave on his behalf.
His Pan-Asian-esque face grew even more haggard after a fevered night. The next day, Zhuang Fanxin awoke, his curls a tangled mess and his lips cracked from dryness. He looked as if he had aged twenty years.
He got up to shower and put on fresh clean clothes, successfully returning the bloom of spring to his seventeen-year-old self. Most importantly, he couldn't wait to try on the shoes.
He put them on. They weren't too big, nor too small; just right. Zhuang Fanxin tied the shoelaces and cat-walked back and forth in front of the mirror, admiring himself for a while. Then he went downstairs, took his medicine, picked up his bag, and walked out the door.
At the gate, he ran into Gu Zhuoyan walking his dog again. "Morning," greeted Zhuang Fanxin.
Gu Zhuoyan pulled the dog to a stop and gave Zhuang Fanxin a once-over. He didn't look feverish anymore, but his large eyes were still slightly puffy. "Feeling better?" he asked. "Why aren't you resting at home? Where are you off to?"
"Maths class," replied Zhuang Fanxin.
Persevering despite his illness. "You're very hardworking," said Gu Zhuoyan.
Embarrassed, Zhuang Fanxin smiled. He didn't hate studying, but the reason he was forging ahead with class today was also because he couldn't help wanting to take his new shoes out for a walk.
"I'll be going then." He waved goodbye.
After a few steps, Zhuang Fanxin recalled that today's maths lesson would be discussing the worksheets that he asked Gu Zhuoyan to help him do. Since they were remedial lessons, their teacher graded every set of worksheets and used them to determine how everyone's results would fluctuate.
Zhuang Fanxin turned and asked, "Was it hard, the maths paper you did for me?"
"It was okay," said Gu Zhuoyan. He had actually long forgotten about it.
"Can you get a hundred points?" Zhuang Fanxin asked doubtfully.
Gu Zhuoyan thought for a moment. "Maybe."
Half an hour later, Zhuang Fanxin's ride stopped at the tuition centre. He filled his tumbler with hot water and looked for a seat farther away from the air-conditioning. When the bell rang, the teacher slowly walked in with a stack of answer sheets, first casting a glance around the classroom, then looking straight at Zhuang Fanxin with a smile.
Zhuang Fanxin was taken aback. Why look at him? Did he do badly?
"This set of problems were a bit more difficult. A lot of people left the final two questions unanswered," the teacher spoke from the podium. "Listen well when we discuss them today."
Since they were hard, doing badly wasn't so unforgivable.
Zhuang Fanxin relaxed a bit. Just then, his answer sheet was returned to him. He took it and lay it on his desk. The paper was full of red ticks. Suspicious, he flipped over to look at the score; holy shit!
An impressive 150, full marks.
Zhuang Fanxin gaped. He looked up and met the teacher's twinkling, knowing gaze through a pair of glasses. Suddenly, he understood what that smile meant. He sipped at his warm water, trying to calm down. His personal best in a school exam had been 146, but for his remedial lessons, his marks always hovered around 101.
The bell rang, signalling the beginning of class. The teacher asked everyone to take out their answer sheets for discussion.
Zhuang Fanxin listened earnestly. He gradually realized how difficult this set of questions had been, and the more he realized it, the more he thought of the ghost writer behind his worksheet. He really did underestimate Gu Zhuoyan: though the boy looked indifferent, he managed to get full marks just like that.
They reached the major problems at the end of the paper. "Number twenty was quite a tough one," said the teacher. "Very few people got this right."
Zhuang Fanxin looked at the question. He read it once and didn't quite understand it. He also didn't notice the teacher adding, "In fact, only one student answered this question correctly: the only student who received full marks in this class."
Zhuang Fanxin was reading it for the second time. In the middle of reading it, he paused and raised his head. The only one with full marks. Was this him?
At that moment, the teacher met his eyes and smiled. "Zhuang Fanxin, come up and solve this problem."
—
1. Intravenous drips are far more common in China than in most developing/developed nations; people often get IV drips for fairly minor ailments. Hence Zhuang Fanxin's light tone.
2. Shibo is pronounced like "shir-bu-orh".