To Covet (GL) - Chapter 32

I was in a daze after waking up, mechanically going through the motions of washing up and changing clothes.

My limbs felt sore and weak; even carrying my bag was a struggle. Initially, I thought it was due to a lack of sleep the night before—the overly soft sofa and a persistent, strange dream repeatedly compressed my already short sleep time. When I finally came to, my alarm had gone off several times.

I even dreamt of Yu Zhouwan, though I forgot the specific details, only vaguely recalling that it was similar to the scene on the bed last night.

Symptoms like dizziness and a sore throat seemed to worsen in the cold winter air. I bundled up tightly, but still let out a sneeze the moment I stepped out the door, my knees buckling as I nearly missed a step on the stairs.

The buzzing sound of the class reading aloud was extremely hypnotic, and I couldn’t help but rest my forehead and doze off for a bit.

“Sister Yu, Sister Yu,” Xu Lanlan whispered to me. “Don’t fall asleep. We have a vocabulary quiz soon. I’m counting on you.”

“My head hurts.” The dense notes made me even dizzier, and my lower back ached severely. I was completely restless. “Keep an eye on the teacher for me. I’m going to close my eyes for a moment.”

“Are you sick? Your face is so red.” Xu Lanlan looked around and reached out to touch my forehead. “You’re really warm. Maybe you should go to the school nurse?”

I might actually have a fever. Last night, relying on the air conditioning in the living room, I had only covered myself with a light blanket.

I managed to endure the first class, but by English class, I was nodding off like a chicken pecking at rice.

Before I could fully close my eyes, the English teacher tapped on our desk. I looked up, and a cool hand was placed on my forehead.

I woke up for a brief moment, but a huge wave of sleepiness swept over me again.

“Oh dear, Yu Keyi, your fever is so high. Don’t delay, hurry to the clinic. Don’t let it get worse.” Her stern expression immediately turned to worry.

“Teacher, I’ll go with her!” Xu Lanlan enthusiastically raised her hand and pulled me out without question.

I was incredibly grateful to Xu Lanlan. If it weren’t for her, I couldn’t guarantee that I wouldn’t stumble and roll down the stairs alone, though I knew she was mostly doing it to escape the vocabulary quiz.

“Thirty-nine point five degrees Celsius,” the school nurse shook the thermometer. “Call your homeroom teacher to get a leave slip. Go to the hospital for an IV drip.”

Xu Lanlan went to contact the teacher. I lay on the bed, drinking the sweet fever reducer, and quietly checked the phone in my pocket. I actually had a few missed calls with no contact name saved.

“Why the sudden fever?” Mr. Gao nervously rubbed his hands as soon as he entered the room. “It’s alright. I called your father. He’ll be here to pick you up soon.”

I nodded, my gaze shifting to the girl who had followed Mr. Gao in.

“Gao Rui, you can skip the run. Get your medicine and wait here with Yu Keyi for her family,” Mr. Gao immediately spotted Xu Lanlan, who was planning to escape. “Xu Lanlan, you go back. Don’t be late for the run.”

Xu Lanlan reluctantly mumbled “Oh,” pulling in her neck. Her recent math tests hadn’t been ideal, so she absolutely didn’t dare offend Mr. Gao.

“Feeling better?” Gao Rui’s face was half-buried in a knitted scarf. “Are you coming back for evening self-study?”

“Depends, maybe I’ll come back after the IV drip breaks the fever this afternoon.” I choked slightly, completely unwilling to return to school immediately after the fever broke. “What medicine are you getting? Are you sick too?”

“Ibuprofen. I finished the ones I brought.”

I realized Gao Rui’s face was paler than usual. Even the warm air conditioning in the clinic couldn’t restore her color.

“Are you feeling really bad?” I moved closer to the wall, making a small space. “Why don’t you sit here? The mattress is softer.”

She slowly got up, her back hunched, and leaned weakly against the folded blankets at the foot of the bed, her eyes half-closed.

Before leaving, I looked back at Gao Rui through the glass. She was holding a vocabulary book in one hand and a steaming mug of water in the other. She frowned, tilted her head back, and swallowed the pain relief capsule, only to throw it all up less than two seconds later.

Yu Hanyang took me to the hospital to register and get a blood test.

It was just a common cold; I didn’t worry about it.

But it seemed more complicated than it looked. The doctor explained the test report to Yu Hanyang, essentially saying that the inflammation markers were too high and required further tests. So, I was taken for a CT scan and eventually moved from the regular infusion room to a patient ward.

I slept for a while. When I woke up, I found my phone in my pocket and returned those missed calls.

“Keyi? Is that Yu Keyi?”

I was stunned for a moment, unable to recall who the person was until another elderly voice interrupted her from the side.

“Auntie? (My father’s sister-in-law)”

I wasn’t used to that title.

In all my life, the only chance I had to see her was during Chinese New Year, but my usually busy aunt and uncle were always on duty during the holiday, so the number of times we met was negligible.

“Oh, Keyi, Auntie is calling you. Am I interrupting your class?”

“Why wouldn’t you interrupt? It’s already evening. She has heavy homework assignments at night. I told her to wait until the weekend…” My grandma mumbled and snatched the phone from my aunt. “Girl, are you still at school?”

“No, I…” I stared at the dripping IV bag. “I took a leave of absence. I’m getting an IV drip at the hospital. Grandma, why did you think to call me?”

“Why are you in the hospital? Did you catch a cold? Or are you unwell somewhere?”

Grandma took the phone from my aunt, muttering that she would manage it herself. My aunt resignedly let her.

“I just wanted to talk to my girl. Your auntie just bought me a new phone, and I wanted to save your number first, but I accidentally hit the call button.”

“Just a bit of a cold. I’ll be fine after the IV.”

The doctor had said a lot of things I didn’t quite catch—something about a weakened immune system, compounded by a mixed bacterial and viral infection, requiring at least three days of observation in the hospital.

I didn’t want to worry the elderly, so I glossed over it.

Grandma rattled on about the cold weather and staying warm, eventually planning to come to Linzhou to see me and bring me the pumpkins she grew, but my aunt finally persuaded her not to.

“Will you come back during the winter break?” my aunt asked.

“Yes, I’ll come back.”

“When you return, come straight to our house. Grandma is staying here now, too.”

Without her daughter’s care, my grandmother, a solitary elderly woman, was a constant worry, especially in the freezing winter. So, my uncle had taken her in.

After hanging up the phone, the ward became eerily silent.

Yu Hanyang definitely had a thousand excuses not to stay with me. I gave up the idea of calling him.

My charger was left at home, so I didn’t dare play on my phone. I was done sleeping, so I picked up the remote control by the bed and tuned into a cartoon channel. I was engrossed when a knock on the door startled me.

“Feeling any better?” Gao Rui always had study materials in her hands. “I took notes on what was covered in the evening class today and brought you a copy.”

The half of her fingers exposed outside the fuzzy gloves gave me a chill.

“Are you going to attend classes during the winter break?” Gao Rui hadn’t taken off her hat. It was late, and she didn’t plan to stay long. “The competition training classes.”

“Organized by the school?”

“Mr. Jiang mentioned it today. They’ve hired outside teachers, and we’re supposed to sign up ourselves if we’re interested. The spots are limited.” Gao Rui sat down on the spare bed beside mine. “You haven’t participated before?”

I shook my head.

The small, run-down town of Shucheng only had one youth center, which offered basic language, math, and foreign language courses. Besides, it was already a miracle that Yang Chun had raised me single-handedly; there was no money for me to take extra courses like that.

“I thought you had some exposure to competition before. Your problem-solving approach seems trained.” Gao Rui stared at the nearly empty IV bag and pressed the green button by the bed. “I’ve been taking competition classes since elementary school, so I know some of their routines.”

“I’ll think about it,” I shrugged.

A shadow of disappointment quickly crossed Gao Rui’s face.

“Yu Keyi, what placement are you aiming for? Provincial first-prize? Or a national award?”

I rubbed my nose guiltily. I had only signed up for a competition to avoid evening self-study.

Besides, only my Physics grades were acceptable. Subjects like Math were a struggle just to keep up with daily homework.

People like me seemed miles away from the glittering awards Gao Rui was talking about.

I reopened my phone to search for competition training details and the dates of important selection trials. I instinctively clicked on the chat window with Yu Zhouwan, wanting to send a message to tell her I wouldn’t be home for a few days because I was in the hospital, but I typed out a string of characters and deleted them.

She probably didn’t want to see any trace of my existence right now. The image of her “accusing” me while sobbing last night flashed in my mind. I rolled my eyes, turned off the phone, and pulled the blanket over my head, forcing myself to sleep.