Talking Things Out

The person who should never have shown up had suddenly appeared, and Hua Yu’s expression seemed to freeze. For a long moment, she couldn’t say a word.

Wei Yin’s uninvited arrival probably exceeded Hua Yu’s expectations. For Wei Yin, breaking into her ward when she knew perfectly well that Hua Yu, because of her condition, would not receive any omega visitors, could be counted as a rare act of defiance.

Not only had Wei Yin guessed that she was awake, she had gone straight to her door and stood outside her ward, confronting her with a sharper edge than usual and asking if she could come in.

Hua Yu’s mind had been blurred by the violent impact of pheromones; for a moment, she couldn’t think of how to answer.

Xu Ya Qing looked from one to the other. The two of them had locked into a standoff.

“What a lovers’ rendezvous,” Xu Ya Qing interrupted the strange atmosphere, giving them both a way out. “So tender, so full of feeling. Hurry up and come in.”

Wei Yin tilted her head, her amber eyes fixed on Hua Yu without blinking. “Dr. Hua?”

Hua Yu came to herself and quickly looked away.

“...Come in,” she said.

Since she’d already been caught, it would make no sense to refuse to let her through the door.

After Wei Yin came in, she didn’t pay Hua Yu any attention and walked straight up to Xu Ya Qing, setting the lunch box down.

“A few home-style dishes for you,” Wei Yin said lightly. “Try them all. If anything needs changing, tell me.”

Xu Ya Qing had never once had the privilege of being fed by Hua Yu; after two days of fruit, she let out an “oh!” and took the lunch box. “No changing, no changing. I’ll eat whatever I get.”

Then she glanced at Hua Yu, hesitation flickering in her eyes. “...Same for her.”

“So?” Wei Yin turned back with a cool, unreadable air and looked at Hua Yu as well. “Dr. Hua, looking like this, should be getting more nutrition.”

Hua Yu opened her mouth. “I...”

“She hasn’t eaten for the past few days; she’s been surviving on fruit sugar,” Xu Ya Qing blurted out, exposing her.

Wei Yin drew her gaze back and said softly, lowering her eyes, “Dr. Hua’s so busy she doesn’t even eat?”

Xu Ya Qing laughed. “Busy my ass.”

Hua Yu’s gaze swept over her like a real physical thing.

Only then did Xu Ya Qing realize how she’d sounded; she shrank her neck and coughed.

“Well, she is busy. Even when she’s sick she won’t sit still; the ward keeps taking in patients, and whenever there’s some rare or difficult case, all those junior doctors and nurses have to come ask her questions. There’s no peace for a single day... ”

Wei Yin blinked. “But how come I heard Yang Cha say something about a patient taking over the place where the host should be? What’s that about?”

Xu Ya Qing opened her mouth, speechless.

Fine. She was right.

Hua Yu was deliberately doing it. She had time, plenty of time, and she was driving the whole department to the edge; she just wouldn’t reply to your messages, wouldn’t let you visit.

Xu Ya Qing wanted very much to explain a thing or two for Hua Yu, so she wouldn’t look like she was deliberately ignoring Wei Yin and having a cold war. But before she could even sort through her words, Hua Yu spoke.

“Ya Qing, the food’s gone cold. Take it to heat up.”

Xu Ya Qing answered at once, rising with the lunch box and slipping away fast. “Sure thing. I’m going now; you two take your time and chat. Message me when you’re done.”

Only Hua Yu and Wei Yin were left in the room.

Wei Yin sat where Xu Ya Qing had been and looked across the three meters between them at Hua Yu.

For a while, neither of them said anything.

Hua Yu lowered her gaze and, after hesitating for a moment, said, “I... later, the police contacted me. The other side wanted to settle, but Ya Qing told me you were very angry, so I didn’t agree.”

Wei Yin gave no response. She seemed to have used up all her strength when she made that scene at the police station; after that, where things went was not something she could control or decide.

Seeing that Wei Yin wasn’t interested, Hua Yu changed the subject and continued explaining.

“The hospital’s treatment plan for me is to empty the glands first, then repair the damaged gland cells step by step. There’s no real danger; the damage isn’t that severe...”

Wei Yin pressed her lips together.

Hua Yu had been watching her expression the whole time. She paused, then sidestepped the topic and admitted plainly, “The hospital really doesn’t recommend omega visits. Actually, it’s not just me; all the patients on this floor are alpha patients. AO separation is already... well, it’s not recommended.”

In principle, not allowed and not recommended were basically the same thing.

Anyone except college students and recent college graduates understood that.

Using that as an explanation for why she had refused to meet her not only didn’t match the reality, it also sounded like she was making excuses.

What did making excuses mean? Polishing things over; refusing to be honest.

Wei Yin pressed her lips together again, and a trace of ferocity flashed in her eyes.

Hua Yu: ...

Hua Yu stopped talking.

After a long while, she asked, “Are you angry?”

Wei Yin frowned and answered quickly, “No.”

Hua Yu: It clearly looks like you are.

Hua Yu cleared her throat. Knowing this was her own fault, she tried to apologize. “I’m sorry.”

This time, Wei Yin finally looked at her directly; however, something in her gaze seemed different from before.

“I should be the one apologizing to you,” Wei Yin said. “After all, the pastries were brought by me, and you’re the most innocent person here.”

Competing over who should apologize now would be too formal. Hua Yu wasn’t good at comforting people; she had never done it before. On top of that, she still wasn’t sure how to face Wei Yin, and the helplessness on her face deepened.

“I nearly hurt you,” Hua Yu said slowly. The words trapped between her teeth and lips came out with great difficulty, as if what she held in her mouth wasn’t speech but bitter, gritty sand. “And I scared you into crying. You were so afraid...”

She paused, then went on quietly, “At the start, I never planned for you to repay any debt. That little bit of treatment money wasn’t anything to me. Even if it had been more, it still couldn’t compare with a life. Since I was willing to spend money to save you, how could I be willing to let you get hurt because you were paying me back?”

She had turned these reasons over in her heart for days, tasting the complicated bitterness of them on her own; the more she thought about it, the more she felt she had done wrong.

Wei Yin was simple and stubborn. She didn’t want to owe Hua Yu anything, and she didn’t want to take advantage of her. That was the heart of a child; if you found it precious, you could just look at it a little more. Why insist on following her wishes?

Hua Yu felt her own behavior had been despicable. Wei Yin wasn’t a normal friend; Hua Yu had feelings for her. She had once been the person Hua Yu kept at the tip of her heart, so why had Hua Yu kept her close while she had lost her memory?

It was impossible to say there had been no personal feelings at all.

This murky relationship had been full of danger from the very start.

She was an alpha; Wei Yin was an omega. Hua Yu, as a doctor, couldn’t possibly not know how fiercely second-sex attraction could flare, or how strong Wei Yin’s pull on her was.

Especially when heat came, and she still refused to let Wei Yin leave.

Stay by her side.

She had gained a moment of peace, but had placed Wei Yin in danger.

If Hua Yu hadn’t come to her senses in time, what would have happened? Hua Yu didn’t even dare think about it.

Wei Yin had suffered severe gland damage before. Her glands had been pushed from an immature state into maturity without Hua Yu knowing, and then atrophied on top of that maturity. Someone had definitely tried to harm Wei Yin, and had succeeded. Hua Yu hated that to the point of grinding her teeth, but she had never imagined that one day, she herself would nearly do the same thing.

That was something Hua Yu absolutely could not tolerate.

She had a very strong desire to control her own life, fulfilling her responsibilities and obligations with seamless precision. She hadn’t expected to be hit so hard by something like this. Facing Wei Yin, all she wanted was to avoid it; yet she also knew clearly that Wei Yin didn’t want to leave her, and that made her miserable and sweetly distressed at the same time, guilty and conflicted all at once.

It was almost laughable. She could tell that Wei Yin liked her, and even though she remembered nothing, she still wanted to stay at her side.

Wei Yin wasn’t as good as Hua Yu at laying out grand principles, but the more she listened, the more she felt that Hua Yu was talking nonsense; in the end she got anxious enough to stand up and walk over to her.

“So the overachievers like to get stuck on things too?” Wei Yin stopped in front of Hua Yu and said. “Then according to you, what should the two of us’ relationship look like?”

Hua Yu looked up. She keenly sensed the disappointment in Wei Yin’s words and, carefully, said nothing.

Wei Yin’s tone was a little urgent, but she was clearly trying hard to stay calm. “If you won’t say it, I’ll say it for you.”

“The kind of relationship you accept is one where everything is up to you. You tell me to do this, and I can’t do that,” Wei Yin took a breath, her voice lowering. “That’s not impossible. I like you; if you want to watch over me a little more, I’m willing. But you can’t deal with every problem by thinking only of pushing me away.”

“You only allow yourself to give. If you want to be good to me, you don’t hesitate; you don’t bother wondering whether that kind of relationship is normal between ‘ordinary friends.’ But you can’t stand it if I take one step toward you. The moment I get close, you back away. Then I’m just a pretty vase in your display window. Looking is fine, but a vase can’t choose where it’s placed.”

Wei Yin sounded hurt, but she also knew she didn’t have much standing here. She forced the emotion back down, her voice growing smaller and smaller. “Dr. Hua, I’m not something you can just decide for. I have my own thoughts. I want to stay here, so you have to let me stay. Unless you say it right now, say you never want to see me again and tell me to leave, I won’t cling to you.”

Wei Yin rarely spoke at such length. She wasn’t someone who was good at expressing what was in her heart; it was usually others who set the rules in front of her, and she would say fine, anything was okay.

This time, perhaps because she was serious. The relationship between her and Hua Yu couldn’t tolerate any grit. A lot of what Hua Yu was obviously doing was just taking everything on herself; that kind of relationship wasn’t normal, wasn’t healthy, and wasn’t conducive to a long-term future.

She wasn’t a parasitic vine dependent on other people. Hua Yu’s behavior made Wei Yin feel far too useless, as if she didn’t deserve to share the burden.

A flash of emotion crossed Hua Yu’s eyes. She parted her lips, hesitated for a long while, but still couldn’t say anything.

Wei Yin waited quietly, giving Hua Yu plenty of time to think.

But Hua Yu still didn’t give her an answer.

Wei Yin nodded. “I understand. Then let’s leave it at that for now. When you’re better, I’ll move out.”

Hua Yu’s brow tightened, as if a sudden stab of pain had shot fiercely through her scalp. She blurted out, “Xiao Yin, a lot of things aren’t what you think. The fact that you’re willing to stay by my side right now might just be...”

“Just what?”

Hua Yu paused, then closed her eyes. Wei Yin was forcing her; forcing her by threatening to leave.

Wei Yin succeeded.

Opening her eyes, Hua Yu said in a defeated voice, “Just because you don’t remember what happened before.”

It was the first time Wei Yin had heard Hua Yu take the initiative to mention the past.

“I don’t understand,” Wei Yin said seriously, word by word. “Between the two of us, who exactly owes whom? If I did something wrong, I’ll apologize and make amends; give me a chance. If it was you, then I’m saying it now: let bygones be bygones. I won’t hold it against you.”

Fatigue flickered across Hua Yu’s face. She was weak right now and couldn’t manage a long conversation, but she still forced herself to explain. “Maybe... both.”

Wei Yin frowned and asked directly, “Does it have to do with Li Leran and Yu Tiantian?”

Hua Yu’s head shot up.

Seeing her expression, Wei Yin understood part of it. “Ya Qing warned Li Leran not to mention me to Yu Tiantian. I only thought Yu Tiantian had some old connection with you before, but now it looks like I have some connection with Yu Tiantian too, right?”

Hua Yu’s face went a little paler, and her gaze drifted uncontrollably into empty space.

Wei Yin couldn’t bear to see her like that. She stopped guessing and answered decisively.

“Fine. Then I’ll promise you now that whatever I had with Yu Tiantian before, I won’t contact her alone or in private,” Wei Yin said, and even she felt a little like laughing. What kind of strange promise was this? “And I went through my life log. There’s nothing in it about my romantic life. I can’t think of any dispute other than that which would make you care so much... but I can guarantee I could never fall for someone who doesn’t appear in my records and who never showed up during those years when I was down and out.”

It was as though a handful of sparks had been scattered into Hua Yu’s eyes, shimmering point by point. “You...”

“Yes, you. Right now, this very moment, I only want you.”

Wei Yin’s direct strike was like a shower of golden sparks crashing down from above. Hua Yu listened, stunned and helpless, her dazed expression almost comical.

It took a full two minutes before Hua Yu reacted; she raised a hand, wanting to take Wei Yin’s.

Wei Yin lifted her hand to avoid her, her voice cool. “Take care of yourself. It’s getting late; I’m leaving first.”

Hua Yu asked quickly, “Where are you going?”

Wei Yin turned around. “To Ya Qing’s studio. I have to start planning for my next job.”

Hua Yu caught the meaning in her words and immediately panicked. “I never told you to move out.”

“We’ll talk about it later.” Wei Yin didn’t stop walking. She and Hua Yu had finally said everything out in the open, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t angry.

The reason things could be said clearly this time was purely because Wei Yin had figured things out herself, gathered the courage to take one step forward, and then kicked Hua Yu once hard. By Hua Wu Turtle’s standards, she still ought to be cold-shouldering her for a long time, maybe even separating entirely.

“Will you still come see me?” Hua Yu asked softly from behind her.

Wei Yin stopped at the door. A smile curved her lips, but her answer was calm and cool. “Maybe. I’ll be very busy from now on.”

Hua Yu looked at Wei Yin’s retreating back; sweetness and sourness tangled together in her heart all at once, and she was utterly miserable.