Qiming Chapter 54

Chapter 54

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Dizziness, ringing in his ears, nausea.

Wang Kun sat up from his bed, wearing an undershirt and pyjama shorts as he rushed into the bathroom. He knelt by the toilet, gripping his throat and retching continuously. Due to his poor appetite, he hadn't eaten much the previous night, and his stomach was greatly irritated.

After a long while, he finally calmed down and looked up at his face in the mirror. His face was pale and bloodless, with dark circles under his eyes, sunken cheeks, and protruding cheekbones, causing his features to appear twisted.

A bright red stream of blood flowed from his nostrils, dripping into the sink.

A month ago, Wang Kun had noticed bruises appearing on his body, wounds that wouldn't heal, and blood that was difficult to stop. Before going to the hospital for a check-up, he had suspected that his childhood leukaemia had relapsed, re-emerging after fourteen years.

He had thought that surviving more than ten years meant he was nearly cured, allowing him to replan his life, to forget the disease and those unbearable days of suffering.

But the moment he received the confirmed diagnosis, he once again felt that his life was prematurely ending. He lay silently on the operating table, staring at the shadowless lamp, holding a pen-shaped scalpel in his hand, feeling the blood in his body gradually turn cold, matching the temperature of the icy operating table.

Was he lucky or unlucky? Perhaps just a little bit unlucky.

Holding his bloodless face in his hands, he slowly slid down to the floor, leaning against the wall.

Wang Kun recalled the first time he met Lin Xiangrong. At that time, he was still a middle school student, unable to attend school due to a malignant disease, and could only stay in the hospital all day. He had been in the hospital for almost a year; at first, his father thought it was anaemia and delayed taking him to the hospital for quite some time. After being diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia, he initially managed with chemotherapy. When that was no longer effective, they began to consider a bone marrow transplant.

At that time, the cost of a bone marrow transplant was an unaffordable expense for his family. He still vividly remembered one night when his father, a forty-year-old man, suddenly hugged him and cried uncontrollably, then opened the window, intending to jump out together.

If the haematology department hadn't been on the third floor, they might have really died. But dragging on day after day without money or a successful match, how was that different from dying?

Until that day when he leaned on the windowsill, wearing a white and blue striped hospital gown, and saw Lin Xiangrong sleeping quietly in her ward. At twenty years old, she was exceptionally beautiful, with fair skin, full lips, and an upward-curving mouth, looking bright and warm.

Most importantly, Lin Xiangrong provided him with haematopoietic stem cells and paid for his surgery.

For a long time, he kept telling himself that as long as he had Lin Xiangrong's blood in his body, he could survive, live like a normal person. The haematopoietic stem cells she gifted him were not just cells, they were the light infused into his body, the only reason supporting his will to live.

Now, fourteen years later, he caught the blood trickling down with his hands, most of it falling to the floor, staining the white tiles with a large, shocking patch of red. He lightly licked the blood in his palm with the tip of his tongue, then took out a packet of tissues to wipe the floor. Only when the bleeding from the ruptured capillaries in his nasal cavity finally stopped did he, exhausted, lean against the wall, attempting to slowly stand up.

The sunlight outside the window was particularly glaring. He stood up, holding onto the door frame. The sound of the wind and voices gradually faded, and in the next second, his vision went black. As the world spun, he lost consciousness.

In that brief moment before he fainted, he thought about how wonderful it would be if he just died like this, free from all troubles, erasing everything from his past. Unfortunately, when he woke up, he was lying in a hospital bed, wearing an oxygen mask and receiving glucose, surrounded by the smell of disinfectant. He recognised this place, the haematology department of Ruihe Hospital.

He opened his eyes, removed the oxygen mask, and turned his head to see several police officers sitting by his bed, staring at him with wide eyes. Although they were in plain clothes, Wang Kun could still recognise them; they were detectives from the criminal investigation team who had visited Xu Chengyue when he was hospitalised a few days ago.

So it was these police officers who rushed to his house and rescued him.

He was sure he hadn't made any noise when he fainted, so he couldn't have alerted his neighbours. He hadn't called the police, and no one else would have done it for him.

"That was close, my first reaction when I entered your house was that I almost let you run away."

"And then when I saw you in the bathroom, my first reaction was, too close, you almost died," Gu Yunfeng said earnestly to him. "Either way, it would have been very detrimental to our work."

"Fortunately, we got you to the hospital in time. Your anaemia is quite severe." He asked about Wang Kun's condition with concern, "Do you know what illness you have?"

"Yes, leukaemia."

The people around him had expressions that seemed to say, 'So you do know.' They asked him, "Then why aren't you getting treated?"

"I don't want to treat it, it's just throwing money away," Wang Kun forced a smile, then turned his head to stare out the window, no longer speaking. He was actually a very shy person and usually answered others politely. But today, he was very tired, very uncomfortable, and truly didn't know how to treat his illness.

A few pigeons flew by outside the window, leisurely landing on someone else's rooftop, tilting their heads to look for food. Wang Kun stared at these pigeons, inexplicably feeling very envious of them.

Seeing that he was weak and uncooperative, Gu Yunfeng had no choice but to wave his hand, signalling the others to leave first. Compared to his fainting from blood loss in the morning, Wang Kun's complexion had improved slightly, showing a bit of colour, but he was still emaciated, with the veins on the back of his hands clearly visible.

When Gu Yunfeng had rushed into the bathroom and saw the blood on the floor and Wang Kun's pale face, he had been truly startled, fearing that the prime suspect might die, hindering the entire case.

Fortunately, they arrived in time. The suspect hadn't escaped and was saved.

"You're still young, and it's not like it's impossible to cure," he comforted the young doctor, his nerves still on edge. In his eyes, Wang Kun was still the prime suspect in the Jiang family massacre, accused of killing many innocent people and dismembering Jiang Yang's limbs. He had a strong psychological resilience and, judging by the knife wounds, was very agile and skilled.

"If chemotherapy doesn't work, there's still the option of a bone marrow transplant," Gu Yunfeng said.

Ever since he learned about Wang Kun's leukaemia relapse, he had been puzzled by one thing. In the Jiang family case, apart from Jiang Yang, who had been dismembered, the other family members had been killed instantly with short spears collected by Jiang Yang, stabbed in the heart. Although Wang Kun, as a surgeon, had some inherent advantages, he was still a patient. The difficulty of efficiently killing four people was too great.

When he killed Jiang Yang and processed his limbs into slices, his hands were probably already trembling so much that he could barely hold the knife.

As soon as he mentioned the word "bone marrow transplant," he saw Wang Kun let out a cold laugh and sit up on the hospital bed.

Wang Kun's movement was too abrupt, pulling on the IV needle in his hand, causing it to swell and blood to seep out.

"Hey, hey, take it easy..." Before Gu Yunfeng could finish speaking, he was met with a piercing glare. Instinctively, he took a step back, his knee hitting the corner of a cabinet.

"Do you know how much a bone marrow transplant costs? Do you know it's not covered by insurance? Do you know how hard it is to find a match?" Wang Kun's tone suddenly grew agitated, the sharpness in his eyes gradually replaced by desolation, before he fell into silence again.

"You have a successful match, you can have a second transfusion."

"Fuck you..." He coughed violently a few times, staring directly into Gu Yunfeng's eyes, almost pointing at his nose as he said, "I don't want her to suffer any more harm, no matter what."

In the next second, Wang Kun clutched his chest, realising that the police had already discovered his connection with Lin Xiangrong, and he had accidentally admitted it.

Realising he had been too impulsive, he called a nurse to remove the blood-filled IV needle and replace it with a new one. Then he calmly looked at the room full of police officers.

How did they find out? When did they find out?

Have the police already suspected him?

He remembered that summer more than ten years ago, when the sun rose, he lay in his hospital bed, not wanting to wash his face, not wanting to brush his teeth, uninterested in anything. He felt that doing anything was meaningless, thinking he might not see the sun tomorrow.

Since everything would end tomorrow, what was the point of living hard today?

– Until Lin Xiangrong appeared.

She was his unattainable desire, the only light that made him waver in despair.

He turned to look at Gu Yunfeng and smiled helplessly. "Officer, when a person is seriously ill, they lower their expectations of life to the minimum."

"Treatment is too painful, worse than death."

"I won't treat the illness, I've quit my job, and with only a few days left, with no relatives, I'll find a place to live out my days."

He smiled as he spoke, looking up at the medication dripping down the scale. He rarely looked so gently at the medication, eventually lowering his head and burying his face in his hands.

In that gentle gaze, Gu Yunfeng saw infinite longing and reluctance.

"You really... can contact Lin Xiangrong for another bone marrow transplant," he said.

Wang Kun lowered his head and chuckled softly. "I know my condition, the success rate of a second transfusion is very low," he whispered. "With her blood flowing through me, we are the closest family, integrated into my marrow and blood, indistinguishable from each other."

Though he spoke vaguely, Gu Yunfeng understood his meaning. If the second transfusion failed, he would have to find a new match. If lucky, he might find a suitable one and replace it with another person's hematopoietic stem cells, slowly stripping Lin Xiangrong's blood from his body.

He would rather die than lose the bond of their shared blood. With a determination to die, what would he do for Lin Xiangrong?

Take good care of her?

There wasn't enough time.

Take care of her family?

Her relationship with the Jiang family had always been deteriorating.

Then there was only clearing obstacles for her, killing Jiang Yang.

"So you killed Jiang Yang's whole family?" Caught off guard, Gu Yunfeng stepped forward and pressed Wang Kun's shoulder. "Your blood was found at the scene."

The air grew so still that it almost solidified. Wang Kun lifted his head, his gaze calm as he asked, "How can you be sure it's my blood? DNA samples include saliva, hair, blood."

"My saliva and hair do not match the DNA of the blood at the scene. You have no reason to conclude it was me."

‿︵‿︵ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ・❉・ ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ‿︵‿︵

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Translator Notes

Please feel free to comment any mistakes I made so I can improve and do better as I go through the book.

Translated: August 2, 2024 by Angel

Edited: October 12, 2024 by Angel