The lights in the hospital corridor were a ghastly white, the color of surgical knives, evenly spread across the smooth tiled floor, reflecting the hurried and indistinct shadows of people passing by.
The smell of disinfectant was so strong it stung the nose, mixed with a faint scent of rust and an unnamed anxiety, heavily pressing into every corner.
The red digits on the electronic clock on the wall ticked, one jump after another, cutting through the silently flowing time.
The door to the emergency resuscitation room was tightly shut.
The small red light above the door stubbornly remained on, like a bloodshot eye, coldly staring at the people outside.
Zong Yi stood with her back against the wall, which was so cold it bit into the bones.
She had already been standing there for a long time—so long that both legs had gone numb and lost all sensation, leaving only her spine maintaining a stiff posture.
Her mother had been accompanied by the property management staff to handle the procedures. At this moment, in the empty corner of the corridor, only she remained.
The phone in her pocket was quiet like a lifeless stone.
Those efficient yet distant arrangement calls that had come one after another while she was rushing to the hospital had completely fallen silent after her father was pushed into the emergency room.
As if the net woven in haste had automatically faded into the background after completing the task of "delivery."
Now, what remained was pure waiting—waiting that could only be borne alone.
She raised her left hand.
The Buddhist beads on her wrist rested heavily against her skin.
In a place like the hospital, a place so closely related to life, illness, and death, this object from another woman struggling on a sickbed—an object symbolizing some kind of vague spiritual reliance—became exceptionally sharp in its sense of presence.
Each bead seemed to breathe silently, resonating with the pulse of the blood vessels in her wrist, bringing a strange and unsettling sense of synchronization.
Unconsciously, she used the pad of her thumb to rub the top bead over and over again.
The wooden texture scraped across her skin, rough and real.
Footsteps came from the end of the corridor.
Her mother had returned after finishing the procedures, her face pale and her eyes red and swollen, supported by a middle-aged woman wearing a property management uniform.
Zong Yi went up to meet her and supported her mother's other arm.
Her mother's fingertips were cold, trembling slightly.
"The expert team has all gone in…" her mother's voice trembled, hoarse from crying. "Your father… his blood pressure has been unstable…"
"He'll be fine."
Zong Yi heard her own dry voice echo in the empty corridor.
Calm. Lacking persuasion. Yet an instinctive comfort.
She tightened the hand gripping her mother's arm.
The three of them sat down on the plastic bench outside the emergency room.
Silence pressed down with a tangible weight, suffocating.
Only the faint ticking of the electronic clock, along with the distant sounds of machines beeping and the low voices of medical staff, formed the only background sound in the dead-silent space.
Her mother leaned tiredly against Zong Yi's shoulder and closed her eyes, but tears silently slid from the corners of her eyes.
Zong Yi straightened her back so that her mother could lean more steadily.
Yet her gaze involuntarily fell once more on that tightly closed door with the red light glowing above it.
Time lost its meaning.
Every second was stretched and compressed.
After an unknown amount of time, the phone in her pocket vibrated once.
Very lightly.
But in the extreme silence, it sounded like a thunderclap.
Zong Yi's body stiffened almost imperceptibly.
She slowly took out her phone.
The screen was lit up. It was a message notification from that instant messaging app.
From the south.
There were only two words, just like last time, with no extra tone:
[How is it?]
Zong Yi stared at those two words.
Her fingertip hovered over the cold screen.
She should reply, "Still in emergency treatment," or "The situation is unclear."
That was the truth.
But when her fingertip fell, the words she typed were:
[Waiting.]
Sent.
Almost immediately, the other side replied.
Still brief:
[Mm.]
Then silence again.
But this silence was different from before.
It was as if an invisible, slender thread had pierced through the thousands of kilometers of distance, through the humid air of the south and the disinfectant smell of the northern hospital, weakly connecting two people trapped in island-like spaces of their own.
Here, she was waiting for her father's life or death.
Over there… perhaps she was also waiting for something.
Zong Yi tightened her grip on the phone, her knuckles turning pale.
She did not reply again.
She simply turned off the screen and held the phone in her palm.
The cold metal casing seemed to carry an indescribable trace of warmth.
The waiting continued.
Every minute felt like a century.
Her mother, exhausted and worried, gradually fell into a hazy sleep, her head resting on Zong Yi's shoulder, letting out faint snores.
Zong Yi sat motionless like a statue.
Only the Buddhist beads on her wrist occasionally collided as her breathing rose and fell ever so slightly, producing a dull sound almost too soft to hear.
After an unknown length of time.
The light in the corridor seemed to dim somewhat, and night had completely fallen outside the window.
The door of the emergency room finally opened.
A doctor wearing surgical scrubs, with his mask pulled down to his chin, walked out.
There was fatigue on his face from prolonged tension, but his eyes were calm.
Zong Yi gently steadied her mother and stood up.
Her mother immediately woke up, looking anxiously at the doctor.
"Family?" the doctor asked.
"I'm his daughter," Zong Yi stepped forward, her voice slightly tight.
"The patient has temporarily escaped life-threatening danger."
The doctor's voice remained professionally steady, yet the tightly wound nerves of Zong Yi and her mother suddenly loosened, and they nearly lost their balance.
"Acute anterior myocardial infarction. Fortunately he was sent in fairly quickly. Emergency intervention was performed, and the blood vessel has been opened.
But the heart function has been severely damaged. He needs to stay in the CCU for close monitoring. We'll have to see how he recovers afterward."
The doctor continued explaining some professional terms and precautions.
Zong Yi forced herself to focus on listening.
Words like "myocardial enzyme spectrum," "ejection fraction," and "risk of complications" smashed into her chaotic mind like hailstones.
Her mother covered her mouth beside her, tears silently flowing.
Only after the doctor finished speaking and turned away to prepare the next procedures did Zong Yi slowly feel as if she were waking up from a long and perilous dream.
Her father… was temporarily safe.
She helped her almost-collapsed mother sit down again.
But she herself remained standing, her back straight, as if only by doing so could she support the body that was nearly collapsing after that sudden release of tension.
Then she took out her phone again.
Her fingers paused on the screen for a long time before she slowly typed:
[Temporarily out of danger. In CCU.]
Sent.
This time, the reply from the other side came a little slower.
After about a minute, the screen lit up:
[Good. If you need anything, say it.]
Still a sentence so concise it was almost stiff.
No comfort. No congratulations.
Only the most practical promise of support that could be activated at any time.
Zong Yi looked at that line of text.
In a corner of her heart, something felt as though it had been lightly pricked by a very fine needle.
Sour. Slightly numb.
And something deeper—something that made her subconsciously want to avoid it.
She slowly typed a line:
[Not needed for now. Thank you.]
Her fingertip hesitated on the send button for a moment before pressing it.
This time, the other side did not reply again.
The conversation began abruptly, and ended just as abruptly.
Zong Yi put the phone back into her pocket.
The Buddhist beads on her wrist slipped out from her sleeve with the movement, coldly pressing against the back of her hand.
She supported her mother and followed the nurse's guidance to see her father, who had been transferred into the CCU intensive care unit.
Through the huge glass window, her father lay on the hospital bed, his body covered with various tubes and monitoring instruments.
His face was ashen.
His chest rose and fell rhythmically with the ventilator.
He looked as fragile as a withered leaf in the wind.
Her mother pressed herself against the glass and sobbed softly.
Zong Yi stood behind her mother and watched quietly.
The fatigue, anxiety, and tension of the past days seemed to find an outlet at that moment, turning into a heavy sense of exhaustion that spread up from the soles of her feet, almost drowning her.
She leaned against the cold glass wall and slowly slid down until she sat on the polished floor of the corridor.
She no longer cared about manners.
Or appearance.
She lowered her head and buried her face in her bent knees.
The Buddhist beads on her left wrist, because of her curled posture, pressed against her forehead, the hard sensation bringing a dull pain.
She did not move.
She simply sat there.
In the hospital corridor filled with the smell of disinfectant and the traces of life struggling.
Amid her mother's suppressed sobs and the distant rhythmic beeping of machines.
Like a plant that had been battered by a storm and temporarily lost all its strength.
She remained like that until the phone in her pocket vibrated again, extremely lightly.
She slowly raised her head. Her eyes were filled with red blood vessels, yet there were no tears.
She took out her phone.
On the screen was the last message in that instant messaging app.
After her sentence, "Not needed for now. Thank you." almost an hour had passed.
There were no words.
Only a picture.
The image loaded—it was the sky of the south.
At dusk, the clouds were dyed by the setting sun into magnificent gold-red and purple-gray colors, layered upon each other, spreading across most of the frame.
Below the sky, one could vaguely see a corner of the deep blue, calm sea, and a section of gray-white edge that looked like a reef or a breakwater.
The composition was simple, even somewhat casual.
The light was beautiful, yet it carried a vastness that was almost desolate.
There was no caption. No explanation.
As if it had simply been taken casually, then sent casually.
Zong Yi stared at that picture for a very, very long time.
Then she raised her left hand. The Buddhist beads on her wrist reflected a calm, warm glow under the ghastly white lights of the corridor.
She gently pressed the phone screen against that string of beads.
The cold screen, the cold wooden beads, pressed against the equally cold skin over her wrist bone.
No one spoke.
The dusk inside the picture silently enveloped this utterly exhausted woman in the hospital corridor.
Only after a long time did she put away the phone, support herself against the wall, and slowly stand up.
Her legs were numb and prickling from sitting too long. She staggered slightly before steadying herself.
Then she turned around and faced the enormous glass window of the monitoring room that reflected her father's sleeping figure.
Her back straightened once again.
—
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