Chapter 339: The Art of Language

The hospital was still the same ghastly white as before, white lights, white ceiling and floor.

Liu Xie was actually quite curious whether the hospital’s pure white color was what made it seem so bleak, or whether the pure white was what made the hospital seem bleak.

When she was little, she had imagined whether the hospital would have a better effect if it were festive red.

As it turned out, childhood whimsy was just whimsy, baseless and exceptionally chaotic at the same time.

If the hospital were the same festive bright red as a wedding, then while saving lives inside, there would be an aesthetic of a baby asking from the operating room whether to save the doctor or save the nurse or save Pavel Korchagin.

Liu Xie shook her head as her thoughts began to scatter again.

To be honest, she hadn’t planned on wearing a cotton padded jacket out today, but this long cotton padded coat had seven pockets in total, and it conquered Liu Xie in an instant.

As a result, she spent ages searching before she finally found the pocket where she’d put her mobile phone among the seven pockets, and then found the Old Man’s room number from her memos.

The room wasn’t as empty as the first time she’d visited the Old Man, where among the room’s total of three beds, it had gone from just the Old Man alone to only one empty bed remaining.

In other words, beside the Old Man, the middle bed now had someone in it.

He looked about the same age as the Old Man, but the other party claimed to be nearly ten years younger than Dean, Old Man.

For a moment, Liu Xie didn’t know whether to say the other party looked old or that Dean, Old Man, looked young.

Though normally, people in their seventies or eighties should all be in the same state as the Old Man’s roommate in the next bed, in a state of decrepit old age.

But the Old Man clearly still had an air of considerable vitality about him.

Could it be that this was already the last radiance of the setting sun?

Liu Xie had heard this term when scrolling through videos online, but she hadn’t expected to encounter it in real life.

This actually made the pressure in her heart even greater, afraid that before she could fulfill the Old Man’s wish, the Old Man would go first.

If that happened, it wouldn’t just be the Old Man who would have regrets.

She carried the fruit basket, pushed open the door, and looked inside.

The two elderly patients in adjacent beds seemed to be chatting, perhaps having reached an animated point, as they had even sat up from their beds.

Both patients wore serious expressions, carrying a feeling of being righteously indignant yet extremely calm at the same time.

Looking at their gesticulating appearance, and one side pausing mid-sentence while the other directly raised a hand to interrupt, Liu Xie could roughly guess what the topic between the two was.

Probably something that would get them beheaded if spoken outside.

But given the two’s ages, they probably didn’t need to care about such things anymore.

Huh, so did that mean once you reached a certain age, you could just talk politics freely?

Liu Xie began to fantasize about that white-haired but spirited scene, at the elderly activity center telling the old men and women doing square dancing below a warm fairy tale about fifty thousand marks for a loaf of bread.

She carried the fruit basket to the Old Man’s bedside, and before she could even open her mouth, the patient beside the Old Man who seemed to be losing on the international politics front grinned and pointed in Liu Xie’s direction.

“Your granddaughter-in-law has come to see you.”

The Old Man immediately shrank back into his bed from his earlier spirited vigor.

He smiled at Liu Xie with great benevolence. “You’ve come again today, granddaughter-in-law.”

This was something he’d figured out over the past two days of Liu Xie’s visits.

Liu Xie seemed to cast rather strange looks at him when he was in high spirits, as if grieving, as if lamenting.

As an elderly person, he really couldn’t understand it, especially on one day when he’d had diarrhea and returned to bed listless but with bright eyes, and Liu Xie had come to visit him.

At that time, Liu Xie had been very happy, repeatedly saying he was surely going to recover.

He was indeed going to recover, or rather, he had already recovered.

He was just staying in the inpatient department, supposedly for a few days of observation, otherwise he would have gone home that very day.

Always staying in the hospital was rather uncomfortable too.

That day he’d said he felt a bit unwell and asked the nurse for leave to go home for two days, and the nurse had let out a piercing shriek.

“Yeah.”

Liu Xie was stunned for a moment, then nodded.

To be honest, she still couldn’t quite accept that form of address in such a short time.

She pulled over a chair and sat down by Dean, Old Man’s, bedside, then placed the fruit basket on the Old Man’s nightstand.

Then she opened her mouth, but didn’t know what to say.

She took out an apple from the fruit basket, grabbed the small fruit knife from the drawer, and began peeling the apple.

Just as she was about to cut, as if remembering something, she first wiped the fruit knife on herself, then began peeling the apple toward the trash can.

Actually, sometimes Liu Xie felt she was a born swordsman, and placed elsewhere she’d at least be a Wuji Sword Saint.

Especially because after finishing an apple, the entire peel would come off in one piece without breaking, which she considered a display of considerable skill.

But after she finished peeling the apple, not much of the flesh remained either, those parts that had been carried into the trash can along with the peel she regarded as necessary sacrifices for the advancement of her swordsmanship.

Then she held the apple, carved off a piece with the fruit knife, and stabbed it out with the fruit knife.

She stuffed it into her mouth.

“Nom nom nom…” Liu Xie furrowed her brow slightly. “A bit sour.”

Then she looked up at the Old Man before her and froze.

“Ah, sorry, sorry, I’m used to it.” She hurriedly rummaged through the nightstand, finally finding a paper plate.

Then she somewhat scattered the meager remaining apple flesh onto the paper plate, and began burying her head searching for where the toothpicks were.

Seemingly unable to watch any longer, the Old Man took out two toothpicks and stuck them into the apple pieces respectively.

Then he tasted a piece, and his facial features scrunched up like an old chrysanthemum.

Liu Xie hadn’t lied, it really was a bit sour.

But he still put on a normal expression, skewered a piece of apple for the patient who had just been discussing international politics with him, and shared it with a smile.

A moment later, a smile of a scheme having succeeded appeared, accompanied by the patient’s wail.

“Old Man, how are you feeling today?”

Liu Xie thought for a long while, then decided to use the standard phrase for visiting a patient.

“Today? Feeling okay, a bit worse than tomorrow, a bit better than yesterday.”

The Old Man was cultured, but unfortunately Liu Xie wasn’t Ye Qingchang.

She didn’t understand, she just nodded with partial comprehension.

Then she began pondering how to achieve her goal.

What she wanted to ask about was the contact information of those children the Old Man had originally adopted, now scattered to the far corners of the world.

But for a moment it seemed hard to bring up.

She’d just been asking about his health, how to steer toward that topic?

She felt she really ought to take a course in the art of language.

The Art of Language