Midnight Phone Call

At two o’clock in the morning, Lin Xingmian was awakened by the ringing of his phone.

He fumbled around for his phone blearily, and the caller ID on the screen instantly cleared away most of his sleepiness—Ji Beichen.

It wasn’t a WeChat audio call, but a direct call to his mobile number.

Although Ji Beichen was usually loud and clamorous, he had never called at two in the morning before.

Lin Xingmian picked up, and before he could speak, a foreign voice transmitted from the other end: “Excuse me, is this Mr. Lin Xingmian? I am Ji Beichen’s manager. He is currently in the hospital, his emotions are somewhat unstable, and he keeps calling your name all along. Can you make a trip over?”

Lin Xingmian pulled back the blanket and began putting on clothes.

Halfway through dressing, the bedroom door was pushed open.

Gu Hanzhou stood at the doorway wearing deep gray loungewear, his hair slightly messy, clearly having been awakened as well: “What’s wrong?”

“Ji Beichen was admitted to the hospital.”

Gu Hanzhou did not ask further, turning around to grab his car keys.

The emergency room in the early morning felt more depressing than during the day.

The fluorescent lights illuminated everyone’s face into a ghastly white, and the scent of disinfectant permeated the hallway.

Ji Beichen’s manager was surnamed Chen, a capable woman in her forties who was pacing back and forth at the entrance, letting out a visible sigh of relief upon seeing Lin Xingmian.

“He is inside, he finished receiving a gastric lavage, and he is awake now, but he just refuses to speak and won’t let the doctors get close.”

“Gastric lavage?” Lin Xingmian’s voice tightened.

Sister Chen’s expression turned very complex.

“He had a dinner gathering tonight and drank quite a lot, looking fairly normal when the gathering broke up as he got onto the nanny van himself. In the end, he suddenly made me stop the car halfway, crouching by the roadside to vomit for a long time, and then—he couldn’t catch his breath. His hands were shaking when arriving at the hospital, and his heart rate reached one hundred and forty. The doctor said it was an acute anxiety attack, coupled with alcohol stimulation.”

She looked at Lin Xingmian: “Has he been under massive pressure recently? I have looked at his itinerary, and he skipped several announcements and pushed away two recordings these past few days. He isn’t this type of unprofessional person, never has been.”

Lin Xingmian did not answer.

He knew why Ji Beichen skipped the announcements.

He skipped them on the day of the escape room, and he skipped them last night too.

The door to the observation room was left ajar.

Lin Xingmian pushed the door to enter, and Ji Beichen lay on the hospital bed with an IV needle stuck into the back of his hand.

Lacking his usual flagrant vitality, that face pursued by countless camera lenses appeared pale to the point of near-transparency at this moment, his lips dry and cracked, and the corners of his eyes a bit red.

The moment he saw Lin Xingmian, his expression shifted several times—surprise, guilt, grievance, finally halting on a stubbornness unique to a youth as he tilted his head away to not look at him.

“Why did you come? Sister Chen told you to come? She is poking her nose into other people’s business.”

Lin Xingmian sat down by the bedside, reaching out his hand to turn Ji Beichen’s tilted face back.

Ji Beichen hadn’t expected him to make a move, staring at him blankly.

“Why did you drink so much?”

“Socializing,” Ji Beichen’s gaze drifted away.

“You wouldn’t drink to this extent for socializing. You used to hate wine table culture the most.”

Ji Beichen stopped speaking.

Lin Xingmian looked at him, looking at this top star on the hospital bed who was held in the palms of his fans’ hands, this person who shone boundlessly in a ten-thousand-person stadium, currently fragile like a piece of crumpled tinfoil.

He understood it suddenly.

“Because of last night?”

Silence.

“Last night Gu Hanzhou spoke those words, do you feel he was speaking on your behalf? Fighting for space for you?” Lin Xingmian paused.

“Do you feel yourself excluded?”

Ji Beichen’s Adam’s apple rolled once, and his voice sounded hoarse when speaking again: “He said ‘you guys like him, fine, give him space.’ On what basis does he speak this type of words? How many days has he known you? I have known you for six years. When you will be unhappy, when you need someone to accompany you, when you say it’s fine stubbornly while actually feeling exceptionally sad in your heart—does he know all of these?”

He tilted his head, water light existing in the corners of his eyes.

Ji Beichen never cried in front of people, failing to cry six years ago when mocked by the entire school for singing, failing to cry during his first cyberbullying experience, and failing to cry when breaking a rib during filming, yet at this moment his eyes were red, biting his lips until they turned white.

“I do not need him to give me space. I didn’t want any space originally, I only want you. But you chose him.”

“I did not choose him,” Lin Xingmian said.

“At least not yet.”

Ji Beichen turned his face to look at him.

Lin Xingmian leaned back against the chair, looking at the ceiling.

“Every single one of you says he likes me, and then waits for me to respond. Lu Shiyan uses medical records, Shen Moting uses money, Fu Xici uses companionship, you use enthusiasm, and Rong Du uses waiting. Gu Hanzhou isn’t the same as them—he did not make me choose. He just placed me there, and then said the rules will be set by me. He said if you do not want to live here one day, you can leave at any time.”

He sat up straight, looking at Ji Beichen.

“Do you know what I was thinking when he spoke that sentence? I was thinking, he is the first person who makes me feel that I can leave. All of you make me feel that leaving is a betrayal, a lack of conscience, and letting down your liking of so many years. This makes me very tired, Ji Beichen. Especially tired.”

Ji Beichen opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

Lin Xingmian stood up and walked to the window.

The window of the emergency room faced the parking lot, and beneath the streetlights, he could see Gu Hanzhou’s car still parked there, the faint light of a phone screen existing inside the vehicle.

He was probably replying to emails, or looking at the surveillance.

This person was always looking at the surveillance, as if afraid he would disappear in the middle of the night.

“I came today not because you were admitted to the hospital,” Lin Xingmian spoke with his back turned to Ji Beichen.

“It is because you called. Ji Beichen, you are my friend. Before you stuffed the key into my hand, you were my friend. I hope you will be in the future too. But if every time I do not respond to you, you drink yourself into the hospital, then we cannot even be friends. I am not threatening you, I am begging you. I cannot bear it anymore.”

A slight sound came from behind him.

Lin Xingmian turned around, seeing Ji Beichen supporting himself against the bed edge to sit up, pulling the IV tube so that a short section of blood returned into the needle.

He looked at Lin Xingmian, his eyes so red that one could not bear to look.

“Then are you still willing to be my friend?”

Lin Xingmian walked over to press him back onto the bed, arranging the IV tube neatly, then sat by the bedside: “Willing. But you have to promise me not to be like this again. Do not drink for me again, do not skip announcements again, and do not shoulder everything onto yourself again.”

Ji Beichen remained silent for a long time, closing his eyes with unshed tear marks still hanging on his eyelashes.

“If a friend is my only position, then I will act as a friend,” he said.

“But can I act as the most special friend? Not that type of special, just—a bit more special than Fu Xici and the others.”

Lin Xingmian could not help but smile a bit: “Fine, you are more special than them.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

The corner of Ji Beichen’s mouth pulled out a smile at last.

When Lin Xingmian walked out of the observation room, an extra person already stood in the hallway.

Lu Shiyan stood beside the nurse station wearing casual clothes, holding Ji Beichen’s medical record in his hand as he lowered his head to flip through it.

He was probably notified by the on-duty doctor, his hair lacking hair gel and his bangs hanging over his forehead, making him look several years younger than usual.

“Acute anxiety attack,” he closed the medical record.

“Fortunately it was handled timely. Just rest well after the gastric lavage. Has he been under massive pressure recently?”

“Everyone has pressure,” Lin Xingmian said.

Lu Shiyan looked at him for a while: “You too.”

Lin Xingmian did not deny it.

“After returning last night, I thought a lot. You said you are tired, Xingxing,” Lu Shiyan paused.

“I never thought you would be tired. In the past, no matter what matter you encountered, you would still be smiling the next day. The day you were kicked out of the Lin family, you did not shed a single tear. We all felt you were very strong, but perhaps you were just enduring.”

Lin Xingmian lowered his head to look at the tips of his feet.

He wanted to speak something very much, but his eye sockets felt a bit sour, afraid he wouldn’t be able to hold back the moment he opened his mouth.

“Your medicine, I will continue to dispense it for you, because your body indeed needs it,” Lu Shiyan said.

“But starting from now, I am only your doctor. As for other things—speak of them on the day you are no longer my patient.”

Having finished speaking, he turned around to walk toward the office, his white lab coat swaying gently under the ghastly white hallway lights.

In the parking lot, Gu Hanzhou leaned against the car door, putting his phone away into his pocket upon seeing Lin Xingmian walk out.

“How is it?”

“Received a gastric lavage, resting.”

Gu Hanzhou nodded his head, pulling open the car door for him.

He glanced at him when starting the engine.

“Those words you spoke to him inside just now, I could not hear them in the surveillance. But your expression—were you angry?”

“No, just thinking about some matters.”

“What matters?”

Lin Xingmian turned his head to look at the streetlights retreating rapidly outside the car window, only speaking after a while: “I used to feel they were good to me, so I should return it. But now I find I cannot return it, a person’s feelings cannot be divided into that many portions.”

A red light appeared ahead.

Gu Hanzhou stopped the car, turning his head to look at him: “No need to divide them. You only need to do one thing—place your own feelings in the first position. The others will get used to it.”

“You too?”

“Me too.”

The early morning streets were empty and quiet, with streetlights sweeping across the car roof one by one, alternately casting bright and dark light and shadow on the faces of the two.

Lin Xingmian leaned against the seat with closed eyes, not falling asleep, thinking about the person beside him.

Would Gu Hanzhou get used to it too?

If he truly left one day, what would happen to this person who had held him in the palm of his hand from the very first day?

He wouldn’t enter the hospital, nor would he go crazy from alcohol; he would probably just nod his head silently and continue living his own life.

Thinking of this scene, his heart suddenly felt a bit uncomfortable—not guilt, but a more private thing he was unwilling to ponder closely.

He opened his eyes to take a glance at Gu Hanzhou’s side profile—the cold and sharp lines softened a fraction by the streetlight illumination, looking intently at the road ahead.

“What are you looking at?” Gu Hanzhou did not turn his head.

“Nothing.”

He retracted his gaze, closing his eyes once more.

But this time, his hand moved slightly on the seat, his pinky touching Gu Hanzhou’s hand resting on the gear shift lever.

Merely a touch, lasting less than a second.

The green light lit up, and Gu Hanzhou shifted gears, pulling his hand back.

It was unknown whether he hadn’t detected it, or pretended not to.

Inside the elevator of Emerald Lake Bay, only the two of them existed.

Lin Xingmian leaned against the elevator wall, sleepiness finally surging up, his eyelids too heavy to open.

When the elevator reached the top floor, he almost hit the doorframe, and Gu Hanzhou reached out his hand to support his shoulder.

“Arrived.”

“En.”

Entering the door to switch shoes, brushing teeth, and washing face, he kept his eyes half-closed through the entire process.

Walking to the doorway of the master bedroom, he looked back—Gu Hanzhou stood in the living room, failing to go to the study.

The two exchanged a glance across the hallway for a second.

Then Lin Xingmian walked into the master bedroom, closing the door without locking it.