Chapter 76: The Unbelieved

Chapter 76: The Man Nobody Believed

The night had grown deep, and the lights in the ward were off, leaving only the faint glow of the medical monitors. The person on the bed stirred, his brows furrowed tightly, cold sweat beading on his forehead, his face twisted in pain.

A few minutes later, he suddenly snapped his eyes open, staring at the pitch-black room. His face went pale in an instant, and his breathing turned rapid and ragged. In a panic, he rolled off the bed, dragging the sheets down with him as he tumbled to the floor. The knife wound on his abdomen throbbed dully, seeping blood under the violent movement.

Can't breathe...

Zhao Yu fumbled desperately for the light switch, but couldn't find it no matter how he tried. The darkness in the room seemed to swallow him whole. He pushed himself up, stumbled toward the door, and slammed it open, collapsing into the corridor outside.

A pair of steady hands caught him. He was drenched in cold sweat, gripping the man's clothes with both hands, his breathing like a bellows about to give out.

Gu Hansheng caught him and immediately knew something was wrong. His gaze was unfocused, his face pale as paper, and his body kept going limp.

"Doctor!" Gu Hansheng scooped him up in his arms, about to carry him back to the ward, when he suddenly began to struggle violently.

"No...!" Zhao Yu grabbed the doorframe with almost all his remaining strength, leaning desperately away, tearing open the freshly stitched wound in an instant.

Gu Hansheng halted at once, stepping back into the corridor with him, and seeing his agonized, suffocating expression of terror, murmured gently, "Don't be afraid, there's no one else here."

Two nurses arrived first, with Zhuang Shubai right behind them.

"Put him back on the bed!" one nurse said.

"No, he's scared," Gu Hansheng replied.

"Get the stretcher bed!" Zhuang Shubai glanced at the dark room, immediately understanding what Gu Hansheng meant, and directed the nurses to bring out the stretcher.

Gu Hansheng carefully set Zhao Yu down on the bed. Probably because of the panic attack, he kept unconsciously clutching Gu Hansheng's clothes, his breathing frighteningly fast.

"He can't breathe!" Gu Hansheng's face went pale, cold sweat soaking his back.

"Sedative!" Zhuang Shubai said to the nurse, his expression grim.

After the sedative shot, Zhao Yu finally started to calm down, his breathing gradually steadying, and he slowly released Gu Hansheng's clothes.

Gu Hansheng grabbed his hand, but had to let go when they wheeled him into the operating room. Zhao Yu's hand was cold as ice.

The torn wound had to be re-stitched. Gu Hansheng stood outside the operating room, still in a daze, beneath the red light, his face looking no better than Zhao Yu's.

Zhuang Shubai stepped out of the operating room and said, "He needs to be moved to a larger ward. The lights can't be turned off."

Gu Hansheng asked, "What exactly is going on?"

"It's probably a panic response caused by a psychological issue," Zhuang Shubai said, removing his mask. After seeing Zhao Yu's extreme reaction to the dark room today, he was even more sure of his guess: "Claustrophobia."

Zhao Yu had stayed alone in dark rooms before. Today's sudden episode must have been triggered by something.

As Zhuang Shubai was thinking this over, he heard Gu Hansheng ask, "What claustrophobia?"

"You had no idea?" Zhuang Shubai was somewhat surprised. "He's afraid of elevators, scared of enclosed spaces—these are classic signs of claustrophobia. Heart palpitations, anxiety, fainting, and in severe cases, respiratory alkalosis."

Gu Hansheng knew Zhao Yu had a psychological hang-up about elevators, but he'd never imagined it was this bad.

"A few months ago, he had an elevator accident."

"I see." Zhuang Shubai nodded, accepting that as the trigger.

The doctors wheeled Zhao Yu out and moved him to a larger private room upstairs. Zhuang Shubai followed into the room, but Gu Hansheng just stood outside, peering through the blinds at the figure on the bed.

Gu Hansheng had seen Zhao Yu's fear of elevators before—but what had he done about it?

—He'd assumed it was an act.

When Zhao Yu showed obvious discomfort and resistance, all he got in return was Gu Hansheng's sneers and ridicule.

They'd been together for so long, and it wasn't until now, with someone else pointing it out, that he realized Zhao Yu had never been faking it. He was genuinely terrified.

Gu Hansheng suddenly realized how hollow his affection was—nothing compared to the harm he'd done.

The night stretched on, endless. Gu Hansheng sat alone in the silent corridor, bitterness rising in his chest.

When Zhuang Shubai left the ward, he left a dim yellow light on—not too bright, just enough to light the head of the bed, casting a soft warm glow over everything in the room.

Gu Hansheng crept into the room, looking at Zhao Yu's sleeping face. Just as he reached out to touch him, Zhao Lianfeng's words echoed in his head.

His outstretched hand froze.

Stuffed in a suitcase all night... begging for mercy within half an hour...

—It wasn't because of the elevator accident, but trauma from abuse many years ago. The convulsions during that elevator accident were caused by claustrophobia.

Gu Hansheng's hovering hand trembled, his heart struck as if by a sledgehammer, the tremor shattering the warm light in front of him.

How could he have known nothing about any of this? How could he have ignored such obvious pain?

Even with all that trauma, Zhao Yu still chose to face Zhao Lianfeng alone rather than trust him.

Zhao Yu had walked into his world covered in wounds, and finally left alone, bruised and broken. The moment Gu Hansheng told him to get out, he'd pushed this relationship into a point of no return.

Why would Zhao Yu believe him?

He'd once thought that even if he'd made mistakes, he could fix them. Now he realized he'd done everything wrong—and those mistakes couldn't be easily fixed.

Zhao Yu didn't know what he was dreaming, but his eyelids twitched. Suddenly, a drop of water landed on his face and slid down his cheek, and he didn't even notice.

That hovering hand never came down. In the dim yellow light, his shadow was cast on the white wall, frozen as if time had stopped.

By the time dawn broke, the man was gone from the room.

Zhao Yu opened his eyes and, for some reason, touched his cheek. In his dream, he'd thought he was crying—something cool had been on his cheek, but apparently he hadn't actually cried.

The curtains were open, revealing a pale, empty sky outside. The warm light in the room felt comforting.

Zhao Yu lifted his shirt and looked at his stomach, tightly wrapped in bandages. He vaguely remembered what had happened last night—his panic attack had made him tear the wound open, and it must have been stitched up again.

He wanted to contact Chen Xitong, but he didn't have his phone. He pushed himself up, holding onto the wall, and slowly made his way to the nurse's station to borrow a phone.

"Hey! You shouldn't be walking!" The nurse jumped when she saw him and hurried over to help him.

"Sorry, I wanted to call my family," Zhao Yu said.

The nurse helped him sit down slowly and slid the phone over to him.

When Zhao Yu picked up the phone, he realized he didn't know Chen Xitong's number. Embarrassed, he set the receiver down and slowly made his way back to the room.

Logically, after the house had been trashed yesterday, Chen Xitong should have come looking for him once he got back.

Just as Zhao Yu lay down, Zhuang Shubai swept into the room like a gust of wind. He hadn't slept all night and had only just changed when a nurse rushed in to get him.

"Besides your abdomen, is there anywhere else that hurts?" Zhuang Shubai checked his wound.

"No." Zhao Yu asked, "I'm gonna be okay, right?"

"Don't worry, you'll be fine." Zhuang Shubai took his temperature again and said, "Good thing the knife wasn't that long. Still, you're gonna need some rest. If you need to get up, just hit the call button by the bed."

"Okay."

"It's still early. Do you want to sleep a bit more?"

"Dr. Zhuang, thank you." Zhao Yu looked at his tired face: "Did you do my surgery?"

"I didn't trust anyone else to do it." Zhuang Shubai tucked the blanket around him. Even though the two emergency surgeries had worn him out, he still looked gentle and spoke patiently. "I'm gonna go get your meds. Be right back."

"Mm." Zhao Yu suddenly remembered Chen Xitong might not be able to make it today, so he said to Zhuang Shubai, "Can you do me a favor?"

"What favor?"

"There's a stuffed animal on my fridge—the one you gave me. Can you bring it over?"

"Stuffed animal? I've got more in my office. If you want one, I can give you another."

"No..." Zhao Yu hesitated for a moment, then said, "There's a camera inside that stuffed animal."

If it caught Zhao Lianfeng attacking him, that'd be a huge advantage for Zhao Yu. Zhuang Shubai agreed right away: "Alright, I'll go grab it."

But as he reached the door, a question suddenly hit him: why would someone put a camera inside a stuffed animal?

Zhuang Shubai pressed down on the door handle but hesitated to push it open. The polished handle gleamed silver—the same color as the knife that had stabbed Zhao Yu.

In the heat of the struggle, Zhao Lianfeng was reckless enough to pull a knife, yet careful enough to avoid all the vital spots. When caught, he shouted in a panic: "It wasn't me..."

There were only two people in the room. If it wasn't him, then who?

Zhuang Shubai said nothing, silently pushed the door open, and drove to Zhao Yu's home.

Zhao Yu's place was still a total mess, just like yesterday. When he pushed the door open, an apple rolled across the floor, a tipped-over bottle of whiskey was leaking onto the wood, and the whole room smelled like alcohol.

He'd gotten the key from his landlord friend yesterday, otherwise he wouldn't have been able to get in. On the way over, he'd figured Zhao Lianfeng might come after Zhao Yu. Now that he thought about it, how would Zhao Lianfeng even know Zhao Yu's address?

Something felt really off.

Zhuang Shubai stepped over the overturned sofa, removed the camera from the stuffed animal on the fridge, and took out the memory card inside.

But he didn't immediately give the memory card to Zhao Yu. Instead, he brought it back to his office and used his computer to review its contents.

The footage captured by the camera was very clear. Zhao Yu opened the door for Zhao Lianfeng, the father and son talked, the conversation fell apart, and they ended up grappling with each other.

After Zhao Yu was pinned to the ground and choked, he fumbled for the knife, but he didn't fight back immediately. In those few seconds of hesitation, Zhao Lianfeng noticed the knife in his hand and struggled with him over it.

As the two fiercely fought over the knife, in an angle the camera couldn't capture, the knife somehow stabbed into Zhao Yu's abdomen.

No matter how many times Zhuang Shubai replayed it, he still couldn't see the knife go in. He could only see that before the knife entered the camera's blind spot, Zhao Lianfeng's hand was indeed on the handle—along with Zhao Yu's.

Even without the stabbing footage, hiring a formidable lawyer would be more than enough to send Zhao Lianfeng to prison.

This should have been something to be happy about, yet Zhuang Shubai couldn't bring himself to feel joy.

He walked into Zhao Yu's hospital room with the memory card and, as he handed it over, caught a cold, calculating look flash across Zhao Yu's face.

Zhuang Shubai took in his expression, remained silent for a moment, then asked, "What exactly did you borrow that copy of *Anatomy* from me for?"