Attitude

Before long, though, Wei Yin no longer had the mind for anything else.

“Rest here. It’s raining too hard outside; we can’t go home yet.”

Hua Yu set the bags down and glanced at Wei Yin.

Wei Yin hurriedly nodded, trying hard to look especially obedient.

“Okay. I’m fine with anything.”

Hua Yu’s expression softened a little. She turned on the air conditioner and nodded toward the bathroom. “Once the room warms up, you can take a shower. Use hot water, and blow-dry your hair right away afterward so you don’t catch a cold.”

“You should go first, Dr. Hua,” Wei Yin said worriedly. “You came to pick me up in the rain; you should freshen up first.”

Room service arrived. Hua Yu went to open the door and said flatly, “No need.”

The food was standard hotel fare; it couldn’t really be called delicious, but it wasn’t bad either. There was quite a lot of it: two meat dishes and two vegetable dishes.

“Eat your fill first, then you can sleep for a while,” Hua Yu said, arranging things for Wei Yin.

Wei Yin handed her the chopsticks. “Dr. Hua, you eat.”

Hua Yu refused. “No need.”

Wei Yin’s eyes flickered; she looked a little downcast. “Oh.”

She really was useless. She had gone out to pay her respects without checking the time, and even though the weather had clearly turned bad, she still hadn’t left. Then she’d taken shelter in the mountains and somehow fallen asleep until she was soaked through.

She had made Hua Yu rush over in the rain and delayed her from going to work.

Wei Yin’s eyes gradually turned red.

Hua Yu was replying to work messages on her phone. When she looked up and saw Wei Yin like that, she frowned.

“I’m sorry,” Wei Yin said, her voice thick with a stuffy nose.

Hua Yu put away her phone and stood in front of Wei Yin, her brows knitting tighter.

“Have you caught a cold?” Hua Yu asked.

Wei Yin opened her mouth with a little gasp, then forced it shut again, pouting as she drew in a couple of breaths.

She felt awful.

“Speak.” Hua Yu bent down, speaking faster now, her tone noticeably anxious. “Are you dizzy? Does your head hurt? Do you feel feverish anywhere? Can you feel your glands?”

A flicker of confusion passed through Wei Yin’s eyes.

“You can’t catch a cold right now,” Hua Yu said when Wei Yin still didn’t answer, her brows drawing even tighter. She said directly, “Come on, I’m taking you to the hospital.”

“I’m fine, I don’t feel bad,” Wei Yin said quickly.

Hua Yu’s brow remained furrowed. “You don’t feel bad?”

Wei Yin didn’t have time to cry anymore; she shook her head and honestly said, “I don’t feel bad.”

Her body didn’t feel bad.

Hua Yu clearly didn’t believe her. She reached up and felt Wei Yin’s forehead; only after confirming she didn’t have a fever did she finally relax a little.

Wei Yin watched Hua Yu move half a circle away. “Dr. Hua, are you worried about me?”

Hua Yu looked at her without speaking.

Wei Yin’s courage, which had already been nearly snuffed out, flared back to life. In a small voice, she said, “I thought Dr. Hua was angry with me.”

Angry?

Hua Yu lowered her head and thought in silence for a long moment.

She understood.

Wei Yin wasn’t oblivious to other people’s moods; she had simply assumed she’d hidden her anger well, and hadn’t expected Wei Yin to notice anyway.

“The gland treatment cycle is very long. During this period, you’re not allowed to get sick; not even the slightest cold is allowed,” Hua Yu pressed a finger hard against the bridge of her nose, then lifted her head calmly. Her voice was stern, almost cold. “I’ve told you many times.”

Wei Yin knew that. There were more than a dozen precautions, and taken together, they could be summed up as: live as carefully as someone in the first three months of pregnancy or during postpartum recovery.

But she really couldn’t live that delicately.

Hua Yu’s expression grew even more solemn. Wei Yin’s instincts told her she had to say something, or she would definitely be scolded terribly.

One minute later.

Her prediction was wrong.

Wei Yin opened her mouth several times, but she couldn’t manage to explain herself.

Hua Yu didn’t scold her either.

Wei Yin was flustered and bewildered; she clutched the hem of her skirt tightly and took a deep breath. “I-I’m sorry.”

Hua Yu lowered her head and spoke slowly, enunciating every word with heavy emphasis. “I don’t want you doing anything that will stir up your immune system, because even a mild cold can set off an earthquake in it.”

“Your glands are in an atrophic state. There’s a chance your immune system will detect them and attack.”

“When that happens, the damaged glands will worsen their own autoimmune deficiency and fall into a vicious cycle.”

In medicine, this had a name: a death spiral.

How glands became embedded in human genes was still an unsolved mystery. They altered the human body, yet didn’t perfectly fuse with it. Their greatest collaborator, and also their greatest enemy, was the immune system. If the two worked together and stayed stable, the body would function well; if either side ran into trouble, the entire system would collapse.

If immunity was weak, the glands would frantically secrete hormones, accelerating the failure of the body’s organs.

If the glands were weak, the immune system would treat them as foreign invaders and attack them madly.

The best outcome was that, with time, a person aged and both sides gradually lost strength, remaining in peaceful coexistence.

But such balance was very hard to achieve in patients like Wei Yin.

Hua Yu left out one word and didn’t say it aloud so she wouldn’t scare Wei Yin.

She often told herself to be gentler with Wei Yin.

In daily life, she could indulge Wei Yin completely; but when it came to treatment, this wasn’t something she could solve simply by giving in.

Hua Yu said calmly, “Wei Yin, you haven’t taken good care of yourself. Your attitude toward your own body is a serious problem.”

Wei Yin opened her mouth. “I...”

“It’s getting late.” Hua Yu stood up. “I still have another patient to see in person. Rest well. Tell me immediately if you feel unwell. I’ll come pick you up tomorrow morning.”

Wei Yin grew anxious. “But it’s raining so hard outside!”

Hua Yu didn’t turn back. “Take the subway.”

Watching the door close, Wei Yin squatted on the bed and wrapped her arms around her knees, shrinking into a miserable little ball.

Wei Yin knew this time it was her fault.

Hua Yu had clearly emphasized many times not to get sick, yet she had never kept it in mind.

Seen that way, anyone would be angry if they were treated like their words were nothing but wind in one ear and out the other.

Actually, she really hadn’t done it on purpose. She rarely put any thought into taking care of herself, especially when it came to anything related to her glands.

Hua Yu was very good to her, but she kept causing Hua Yu trouble; Wei Yin despised that version of herself.

When something conflicted, Wei Yin would follow that tiny clue deeper, digging into herself to figure out why, subconsciously, she kept ignoring her glands.

Yes; she had been ignoring them subconsciously.

Ignoring them meant not caring about them, not liking them.

Yes; she didn’t like her glands.

It was a kind of disgust rooted in memories from childhood. If she didn’t have this gland, she would be a healthy beta, and her mother wouldn’t have to work so many jobs to earn money for her treatment.

She wouldn’t have to soak in medicine every day and receive cold nutritional drips.

Later, when her gland finally atrophied anyway, she even felt a little relieved, because from that day on, she could hardly feel its existence anymore.

Let it be like that; let it atrophy, then remove it, and become a beta.

Wei Yin longed for that very much. She had carried this thought since she was young. Even though she had been small then and thought very simply, not understanding that a gland was not a flower you could let wither and simply pluck away, that it might bring even more serious and irreversible damage, she had still, deep in her subconscious, hoped for that day to come.

That was the fundamental reason she had repeatedly failed to care about her own body.

Wei Yin pressed a hand to the tightness in her chest. Her heart thudded and jumped in her ribcage; she took deep breaths to suppress the sadness, but broken little sounds still leaked out and betrayed her emotions.

This wasn’t what she wanted.

She didn’t want things to end up like this.

In all the years before, no one like Hua Yu had ever appeared in her life.

From the moment Hua Yu appeared, she had wanted to stay by her side. That kind of longing and urgency made her willing to change the course of the life she had followed for so many years.

Then what was one more change?

Wei Yin waited for the sadness to ebb little by little, then got up and finished the food. After that, she took a steaming hot shower and burrowed into the blankets.

The next time she saw Hua Yu, she would definitely explain everything clearly and promise never to make the same mistake again.