Daughter's Illness_1

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In a thirty square meter rental room, the floor was cluttered with all sorts of bottles. It looked rather messy.

In the kitchen, the grimy stove boasted a shiny, scrubbed iron pot with delicious chicken soup simmering within.

The aroma filled the entire room.

It was about time for it to be ready.

Gu Chen absentmindedly lifted the pot lid.

The next second, a burst of steam scalded him.

"Hiss."

He clenched his fingers, wincing in pain.

But what truly pained him wasn't the sting on his fingers.

It was the thought of his frail daughter Tangtang in the hospital, and his wife, Ji Pianran, who had run away from home sixteen years ago.

He shook his head with a bitter smile.

"Ji Pianran, you really are heartless," he said.

When Ji Pianran left without a word, she was gone for sixteen years.

Leaving behind him and their two-year-old daughter, Tangtang.

In retaliation, he took to drink; he left Tangtang with his mother and coiled up alone in a thirty square meter rental room in the city.

Every day was a blur of drunkenness.

When money ran out, he did odd jobs to earn enough to keep buying alcohol.

He lived like a zombie.

Until two days ago when the school called to say his daughter had fainted during class.

In a rush, he got there and took her to the hospital, where the doctor immediately diagnosed the child with severe anorexia.

As the examinations went further, they found not only severe anorexia but also, more critically, serious depression.

Anorexia was merely a complication of the depression.

Gu Chen sighed deeply, his face twisted in pain and helplessness.

All these years, because of Tangtang's face, so similar to Ji Pianran's.

It caused him an inexplicable sadness every time he saw her; hence, he always subconsciously avoided meeting his daughter.

He had thought that the child had grown up and could live her own life now.

Only he hadn't expected...

He reached for the stainless steel soup ladle hanging on the wall and carefully poured the steaming chicken soup into a thermos, then headed out toward the hospital.

In the hospital room, a sixteen-year-old girl was dressed in a patient gown.

Covered with a white blanket.

If not for her head sticking out, you really wouldn't be able to tell there was a person under the blanket.

She... was too thin.

Gu Chen tugged at the corners of his mouth, forcing a smile, trying to appear kinder.

"Tangtang, here, daddy made you some chicken soup to nourish you," he said.

The girl's spirit seemed rather weak.

Still, seeing her father, she managed to squeeze out a sweet smile.

"Daddy, I'm sorry for worrying you," she said.

Her voice sounded worn out.

Gu Chen felt a twinge in his heart, his grip on the thermos slackening.

The one who should be apologizing was himself, after all.

If he had known earlier about his daughter's illness and shown her some concern, maybe things wouldn't have come to this.

He placed the meal box on the hospital's bedside table and pulled out a small bowl with care.

He ladled the soup, blew on it to cool it down, then handed it to his daughter, feeding her with great caution.

"Take it slow, Tangtang, careful it's hot."

The young girl nodded, compliantly swallowing a small sip.

In truth, she couldn't taste the flavor of food anymore; even the tastiest morsels felt like chewing wax.

But she still forced herself to swallow it down.

"How is it? Does it taste good?" Gu Chen asked with concern.

The girl nodded, trying hard to smile, "It's very tasty, thank you, daddy."

Her smile was very sweet.

But the fragmented light in her eyes still dimmed, bit by bit.

Eyes don't lie.

She wasn't happy.

Gu Chen was terribly worried.

"What's wrong, is it that the soup daddy made doesn't taste good, or... are you unhappy, Tangtang?"

It was as if the girl had been hit right in the heart by his words.

She shook her head, gently biting her somewhat pale lips, "It's nothing."

After a moment, she began to talk to herself.

"I miss mom, she probably will never come back..."

She missed her mother so much.

At two, an age when a child hardly understands anything.

She rambled to herself.

"I haven't seen her for so many years, there shouldn't be any affection left, but why do I miss her even more now?"

She didn't know that there is a kind of emotion that not only doesn't fade with the passage of time but deepens day by day.

This is probably the power of blood.

Gu Chen pursed his lips; he couldn't explain, nor did he have the face to explain.

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He could only sit silently by her side, watching.

Worry was written all over his eyes.

"Actually, other kids all have their parents to pick them up and drop them off, and when it rains, they have an umbrella to share."

"That day... Lin Nannan gave me a lunchbox, she smiled and said to me, 'Tangtang, try this, it's my mom's cooking, it's super delicious.'

"At that moment, I was thinking, I must have had it too, once..."

Before she could finish, the girl's voice started to tremble.

Then suddenly she turned her head toward the bedside, and began to vomit violently.

The heart monitor on the table went crazy with beeps.

Gu Chen's scalp tingled in waves as he clenched his fists, feeling the greatest fear and tension for the first time in his life.

This feeling was even more heart-wrenching and fearful than Ji Pianran's departure.

"Doctor, doctor!!!"

He was trembling.

...

As expected, his daughter was rushed into the ICU, while Gu Chen sat on the cold bench, pale-faced.

He sat on the cold bench, staring fixedly at the glass in the door.

Upon reflection, he really had lived a failed life.

Gu Chen and Ji Pianran's marriage had been arranged.

There are two kinds of arranged marriages, one is between wealthy families for business alliances, aimed at greater benefits.

The other is in the backward small villages, where parents pay to arrange a marriage for their sons to carry on the family line.

Without asking, you'd know Gu Chen was the latter.

A poor area, and backwards too.

Having a wife was good enough, let alone finding love on your own.

But Gu Chen longed for love, so he avoided Ji Pianran as much as he could after they got married.

It wasn't until he got drunk one time that Tangtang came into being.

Because of that bout of drunkenness, there was a subtle change in the relationship between the two.

Unfortunately, that didn't last long. Soon, Gu Chen was called by his rowdy friends to go work in the city.

The big city was really different from the small village, and everyone was free to love.

Watching people, even older than himself, talking unabashedly in front of him about the thrill of pursuing love.

Gu Chen's feelings were incredibly complex.

His marriage had been arranged.

Despite having no affection, they even had a child together.

Fate is mocking.

He really wasn't reconciled.

It was this lack of reconciliation that made the little bit of warmth he'd started to feel for Ji Pianran disappear completely.

He started to stay away for half a year at a time.

Every time Ji Pianran called him, he deliberately wouldn't pick up.

Even though he knew that she had to walk miles to the town's public phone booth to call him.

But he just didn't have the courage to answer.

What was there to say? They had nothing to talk about.

His heart was too complex.

He didn't even know if he loved Ji Pianran or not.

Life went on like this, year after year, until the third year, on the first day of the Chinese New Year.

The firecrackers were incessant, every household was lively.

And Ji Pianran quietly left the two-year-old Tangtang behind without a word.

That day, she was nowhere to be found.

He panicked, completely frantic.

It was then that he realized, he actually liked her.

It seemed he had confused his anger at the world with anger towards her.

Over the next year, he looked for her, but there was no trace.

He had planned to take the two-year-old Tangtang to the city to work, but as the little girl grew, her chubby face becoming more defined, he realized she was a spitting image of Ji Pianran.

Every furrow of her brow, every smile, even the way she walked, was too similar.

Too similar.

So similar that every time he looked at her, his heart felt like it was being stirred with a knife.

He simply couldn't live with her by his side.

Later, Gu Chen still went to the city where he had previously worked.

He would send some living expenses to his mother every month.

Only returning for the New Year's holidays.

Stumbling along, over a decade passed just like that.

Just when he thought that his daughter had grown up, had become sensible, and could finally start a life of her own,

The call from the doctor shattered all his illusions of indifference.

...

"Gu Tangtang's family."

The door to the ICU opened.

The doctor, wearing a white coat and rubber gloves, had a grave expression on his face.

Gu Chen snapped back to the present, his heart that had been hanging for so long surged to his throat, and he stood up quickly, voice trembling, "I, I'm here!"

"Doctor, how is my daughter? What's happened to her?"