Chapter 85: CH 76

When the stupid student returned, Jiang Xu’s parents had already left.

The two of them bumped into each other at the hospital. At that time, Jiang Xu was rushing to attend a consultation in another department. The elevator was crowded, and he was in a hurry, so he ran down the stairs and ran into Shen Fangyu, who was climbing up.

The lovers who hadn’t seen each other for a few days suddenly locked eyes in the stairwell and almost simultaneously stopped in their tracks.

Shen Fangyu stood below, looking up at him. His expressionless face broke into a smile and he opened his arms, a faint smile playing at the corner of his eyes, “Can I have a hug?”

Jiang Xu’s heart inexplicably felt sour. Hearing Shen Fangyu speak, he rushed down a few steps and before he was even in front of Shen Fangyu, the latter took a few steps forward and hugged him tightly.

Shen Fangyu let Jiang Xu nuzzle his neck and said softly, “Didn’t I tell you not to run? What if something happens?”

Jiang Xu’s voice was muffled. “I’m going for a consultation and I’m pressed for time.”

The two doctors stood on two different steps of the staircase, briefly embracing in the quiet and empty stairwell for less than five seconds. Just as Jiang Xu was about to pull away, he slipped two pieces of chocolate into Shen Fangyu’s pocket.

Two pieces of chocolate that clearly conveyed their hidden affection.

After work, the two of them met in the parking lot. Jiang Xu sat in the passenger seat and listened to Shen Fangyu telling the story of Dr. Albert and Mr. Baker. When he heard how Mr. Baker willingly got pregnant for Mrs Daisy for the sake of love, Jiang Xu turned his head away and looked at the darkening sky outside the car window.

Apart from those two pieces of news that day, Jiang Xu didn’t bring up anything related to the surgery to Shen Fangyu again. But he knew that those two pieces of news could not fully make up for the blow that Shen Fangyu had received from the trip to S country.

Since returning from S country, Shen Fangyu seemed unchanged on the surface, but he started staying up late, reading books, and frequently searching for information at night.

After Jiang Xu had persuaded him several times, Shen Fangyu started sneaking out of bed and going to the study after he fell asleep. Sometimes Jiang Xu would wake up at three or four in the morning, reach out and realize that the other side of the bed had been cold for a long time.

They had searched and collected all the available information about male pregnancy but although there are so many documents and materials, it is impossible for Shen Fangyu to create something out of nothing.

For awhile, Shen Fangyu even delved into obscure and difficult-to-understand traditional Chinese medicine texts and it was only when Jiang Xu repeatedly told him that all the confirmed cases appeared after two thousand years, and the occurrence of such cases was likely related to environmental changes, that Shen Fangyu gave up.

Jiang Xu thought that Shen Fangyu was well aware that doing excessive work would only exhaust himself without any benefits.

But he also understood that Shen Fangyu was trapped in anxiety and unable to find relief. He could only rely on this seemingly active way to numb himself and temporarily escape from that anxious state of mind.

However, using futile efforts to avoid anxiety will only further exacerbate the anxiety.

Finally, after Shen Fangyu lost ten kilograms in just a few days, Jiang Xu made up his mind and used sleeping pills to put him to sleep.

“I have been feeling sleepy lately, especially at this time, I get really sleepy and can’t wake up even in the middle of the night…”

Jiang Xu leaned against the head of the bed, holding a tablet and reading some documents, while Shen Fangyu lay beside him, holding his hand with his fingers. Before he could finish his sentence, he fell asleep.

Jiang Xu looked at his tired profile and gently put down the tablet. He lay down on his side, tucked him in with the blanket, and then faced him.

Shen Fangyu, who had lost weight, still looked attractive, but his cheeks were slightly sunken, and the dark circles under his eyes were heavier.

Jiang Xu reached out his hand and lightly traced his lover’s eyebrows and eyes. This was an affectionate gesture, but Shen Fangyu, who had been forced to sleep by a sedative every day, would not open his eyes to kiss him.

This couldn’t go on, Jiang Xu thought.

Shen Fangyu couldn’t keep taking medication nor should he keep suffering like this.

After thinking for a long time, he said to Shen Fangyu, “Rest for a few days, okay?”

But his sleeping lover did not answer him.

In the end, he turned off the lights, gently kissed the corner of Shen Fangyu’s lips that were always curled up in the past.

—————-

“You want to go abroad to have surgery with Dr. Kenn?” Shen Fangyu obviously did not expect Jiang Xu to talk to him about this.

Jiang Xu nodded, “I have thought about it. It might be difficult to protect my privacy if I have surgery in China, so I am considering going abroad.”

This was actually a crude excuse.

There were plenty of ways to protect his privacy in China as well.

But this was the most appropriate excuse for now, one that would allow Shen Fangyu to let go of his psychological burden.

It wasn’t that he doubted his skills or didn’t trust him, it was just that his mindset had collapsed.

Jiang Xu knew that as long as Shen Fangyu wasn’t stupid, he wouldn’t question this excuse and would agree with it reluctantly.

Sure enough, Shen Fangyu just remained quiet for a moment, then said to him, “I will contact Dr Kenn and make preparations early.”

Shen Fangyu, who used to be confident, lowered his eyes, and the feathery eyelashes covered the emotions in his eyes.

Jiang Xu breathed a sigh of relief, but didn’t notice that Shen Fangyu’s hands had turned red from the pressure.

Shen Fangyu recovered from his insomnia, and Jiang Xu didn’t add sleeping pills to his cup anymore.

But Jiang Xu quickly realized that Shen Fangyu had become somewhat reserved when facing him, as if the words he said and the things he did had been rehearsed countless times in his mind before being put into action, but he didn’t want to show it.

However, in these situations, such abnormal behavior often makes things get out if hand.

After proposing to pay for the surgery, Dr Kenn, who was previously unresponsive, replied to Shen Fangyu’s email.

After Dr. Kenn’s successful surgery, Dr. Albert, who had been a bloody stepping stone, added great drama to the operation, causing Dr. Kenn’s fame and status to rise even higher, and he was no longer the same Dr. Kenn as before.

Soon, they set a date for their first meeting – the days off that Director Cui promised to give them when they go abroad together.

Dr. Kenn increased the deposit for the surgery to 600,000 US dollars, with no refund if the surgery fails, and an additional 400,000 if the surgery is successful. Shen Fangyu simply read the email calmly, expressed his gratitude to the other party, and then agreed to pay him when they meet in country M.

When Shen Fangyu told Jiang Xu about the contents of the email, Jiang Xu was stunned.

He thought that he could at least let Shen Fangyu relax mentally for awhile by going to find Dr Kenn now that there was still time, and then consider how to proceed with the surgery.

Unexpectedly, Shen Fangyu went ahead to make arrangements with Dr. Kenn for the surgery fee and meeting time.

“Why are you in such a hurry?” Jiang Xu didn’t understand.

Shen Fangyu didn’t answer Jiang Xu face to face. After a long time, Jiang Xu received a message from Shen Fangyu on his phone: “I don’t know what else I can do for you.”

After seeing this message, Jiang Xu reflected for a long time: did his impulsive decision to be with Shen Fangyu look selfish and inconsiderate?

There is an old saying in Country Z: “Physician cannot heal themselves.”

It means that as a doctor, whether it’s for oneself or for friends and family, it’s difficult to remain completely calm and objective when there are deep emotional ties to the patient. Either you’re afraid of prescribing too much medicine, or you’re afraid of prescribing too little.

The current Shen Fangyu loves him, so he cares too much and this has made him lose his composure.

And this reflection reached its peak when Shen Fangyu took him to the ATM machine one day.

They were walking after dinner that day, and were chatting with each other with a smile, but when they reached the door of the bank, Shen Fangyu suddenly asked for his salary card and said they go check the balance.

Jiang Xu couldn’t understand what Shen Fangyu was up to until the latter inserted the card and he saw the shocking number.

“Did you rob a bank?”

Shen Fangyu took out the card and put it in Jiang Xu’s pocket. “I sold the house.”

Jiang Xu couldn’t believe it. “Didn’t I tell you not to sell the house?”

“It’s fine,” Shen Fangyu squeezed his shoulders. “Don’t worry too much.”

“Shen Fangyu!”

Faced with Jiang Xu’s angry expression, Shen Fangyu turned his head away.

“No, your house can’t be sold for that much.”

Jiang Xu suddenly shook his head. He had seen Shen Fangyu’s property certificate and knew the market price very well.

Seeing that his lie had been seen through, Shen Fangyu smiled casually, “I also borrowed some money from my brother, and my parents gave me some after they heard that I needed money urgently. I also got some from friends, ten thousand or twenty thousand each, in smaller amounts.”

Shen Fangyu seemed indifferent on the surface, but Jiang Xu knew that his pride was also strong, especially when it came to his family.

Because of the grievances he had suffered from being treated differently when he was a child, Jiang Xu thought that for Shen Fangyu, there might not be anything more humiliating than bowing to his family and borrowing money from his elder brother.

Inside the narrow ATM booth, the mechanical female voice kept reminding, “Please be aware that someone is following you.”

But Jiang Xu looked at Shen Fangyu, who was only a step away from him, and felt like the world had gone silent.

Anger, self-blame, doubt, reflection… mixed emotions surged within him. After a long time, he leaned against the ATM machine, his hand in his pocket, and suddenly raised his eyes to ask, “Do you think I’m with you just because I’m touched?”

Shen Fangyu did not answer.

Jiang Xu looked at him and continued to ask, “Do you think that if you can’t perform the surgery, I won’t love you anymore?”

“Jiang Xu.” Shen Fangyu’s gaze fell on Jiang Xu’s abdomen, finally not evading his question.

“ I am your lover now, you are carrying my child, but I can’t afford the surgery, and I don’t have much savings,” he said in a low voice, “I couldn’t give you a life of financial freedom before, and now I can’t even ensure your safety and provide you with life security. I can’t give you anything. Do you think I deserve your love?”

Upon hearing the last sentence, Jiang Xu’s heart suddenly clenched, as if someone had struck him with a blunt force from behind and the aching sensation spread in his chest.

“So what are you doing now?” He held the bank card in his hand, tapping the control panel, “Do you think you need to use money to make me touched, so that I will continue to love you?”

“Do you think I agreed to be with you because I expect you to perform the surgery for me and give me a better life?”

He was so angry that he spoke bluntly, “According to your theory, when Li Yalei confessed his love to me by giving me half of his family’s water plant, should I have accepted him? Or when Huo Chengchun promised to send me abroad for further studies with millions of dollars and said I would have a carefree life of doing scientific research, should I have blindly followed him after graduating?”

Jiang Xu’s words triggered memories of the past, and Shen Fangyu looked at him in confusion and said unconsciously, “So, they were chasing you back then?”

Jiang Xu choked on his words.

Li Yalei and Huo Chengchun were their classmates in college, and both of them were Shen Fangyu’s roommates.

As the wealthy second generations that were the early adopters of the internet, these two had progressive ideas. Over a decade ago, when the term “gay” was still unfamiliar to most people, they started buying flowers and lighting candles to openly express their love for Jiang Xu.

Due to their flamboyant behavior, almost half of the class knew about their pursuit of Jiang Xu at that time. Jiang Xu was so infuriated that he mentioned it to Shen Fangyu, hoping to provoke him by mentioning his two roommates.

However, Shen Fangyu had never heard of this matter.

And now, after many years, Shen Fangyu finally learned that his two good roommates had betrayed him long ago.

Because his relationship with Jiang Xu had never been good, these two had always claimed that as his roommates, they should be his good brothers and had insisted on cutting ties with Jiang Xu in front of him.

…As it turned out, they had cut ties in this way.

No wonder no one dared to tell him back then.

Shen Fangyu still remembered when the two got drunk in a bar after their love was rejected and he had carried them back in the middle of the night.

The two young men cried like babies, but refused to reveal who they liked no matter what.

Later, Li Yalei went back to inherit his family business as soon as he graduated because he couldn’t get his unrequited love. Huo Chengchun went abroad without looking back, saying that the person who made him sad was not abroad.

It wasn’t until today that Shen Fangyu realized that both of them were his rivals in love.

No wonder their dormitory conversations often revolved around Jiang Xu.

Upon learning of the existence of his rivals and the fact that his roommates had kept it from him for so long, Shen Fangyu, who had been depressed for days, couldn’t help but blurt out to Jiang Xu, “How could they do that?”

Jiang Xu just kept looking at him, waiting for him to wake up to the truth.

Unexpectedly, after Shen Fangyu blurted out his question, he thought about it and realized that as a salaried worker, he couldn’t really compare with these wealthy second-generation guys. So he sincerely asked Jiang Xu, “Then why didn’t you agree?”

Jiang Xu waited for a long time only to hear this question, and he almost had a brain hemorrhage from anger.

“Shen Fangyu, did you go to S country and have your brain replaced by the organ traffickers?”

“The Shen Fangyu I know shouldn’t be asking me why I didn’t agree at this time,” Jiang Xu looked at him with frustration, “I’ll tell you what he should say.”

“He should say, ‘Jiang Xu, I should have pursued you from the beginning, if I had pursued you from college, what could they do to win over me?’”

After saying that, he slapped the bank card on Shen Fangyu, opened the door of the ATM without expression, and quickly stepped out.

Before leaving, he forcefully turned back and said to Shen Fangyu, who was still standing in place, “I’ll be staying at Tang Ke’s place. Don’t come looking for me until you figure things out.”

Then he slammed the door shut with a “bang”.