The sunset fell below the trees.
Ambulances were parked under the hospital entrance.
The young nurses took off their uniforms and changed into beautiful dresses, put on some makeup, and turned into fashionable young ladies. Some of them went to the hospital entrance and got into cars to meet people, while others hurriedly flagged taxis to go on dates.
Xiao Qi stood in front of the pot waiting for the water to boil. She cracked the eggs into the pot in circles, stirred them, then added the tomatoes she had cut up earlier. When the water boiled again, she turned down the heat, let it simmer for a while, then added some salt. When the water boiled rapidly again, she turned off the heat.
A good cook knows when to add just enough salt.
Xiao Qi tasted the soup she made. Surprisingly, she found it light and refreshing for once, with the sour-sweetness of tomatoes and the fresh sweetness of eggs, and a proper amount of saltiness.
With the soup done, the rice was also cooked.
Her aunt had originally planned to cook, but didn't expect Xiao Qi to have everything ready.
When she opened the rice cooker, the scent of braised pork rice wafted up, glossy and oily. The aroma of braised pork filled the air.
The white rice had taken on a reddish color from the sauce, accompanied by green bean pods, red carrot cubes, and white onions, presenting a colorful and nutritious sight.
Xiao Qi washed her hands and served herself and her aunt each a large bowl.
She also scraped and divided the crispy rice from the bottom for her aunt, knowing that she liked eating it, while she only took a small piece for herself since she wasn't so fond of it.
By this time, others in the tunnel had also started cooking. Smelling the fragrance from Xiao Qi's place, they were made hungry one by one.
Su Simei was the crude sort when it came to living conditions, and she wasn't too picky about flavors either, but she did enjoy eating a lot.
She gobbled down the food with great gusto.
After finishing the last spoonful of soup, there was not a single grain of rice left in that pot.
Su Simei patted her bulging belly and said, "I didn't expect you to be quite a good cook Xiao Qi. This tomato egg soup you made tastes even better than when I make it."
Xiao Qi also felt very satisfied from the meal.
The tomato egg soup her aunt normally made was covered by a thick layer of oil floating on top, with added pepper powder and other odd seasonings. The tomatoes and eggs were distinctly separate instead of blended.
Whereas her soup had everything infused as one, yet still tasted light and refreshing.
Xiao Qi felt that this was one of the best meals she'd had recently since being away from home.
"If auntie likes it, I can come back and cook dinner in the evenings," she offered.
"Oh no need. Just do it if you happen to have time, otherwise I'll take care of the meals. I do this everyday anyhow," her aunt casually declined as she gathered the bowls.
Since Xiao Qi cooked, she went to wash the dishes.
With some time still left before bed, Xiao Qi tidied up the room—smoothed out the beds, cleared the desk and clutter from the corners, and swept the floor. The room felt much more refreshed afterwards. Working up another sweat, she told her aunt she was going upstairs to take a shower in the patient wards.
The deluxe patient building happened to be completely full that day, so her aunt brought Xiao Qi to a ward room instead. It was the room with that young man who broke his leg in a car accident. His previous roommate had been discharged already, so now it was just the two women there. Her aunt decided to bring Xiao Qi over since the other wards were crowded.
Most people felt patient wards were dirty, which was indeed the case. Some patients were too sick to take care of themselves, so there would inevitably be a lot of waste; but the first floor wards were kept exceptionally tidy by Su Simei with meticulous cleaning. One could tell from the bathroom that there were hardly any forgotten filth in the corners.
When Xiao Qi entered, the young man was lying in bed fiddling with his cellphone. His elderly mother sat nearby knitting wool yarn, seemingly resigned to her fate, or perhaps for some other reason. In any case she looked to be in slightly better spirits than before, mechanically knitting away without sighing and moaning like last time.
After showering, Xiao Qi returned to their quarters.
She took a one hour nap, exhausted from all the day's activities.
When she awoke at around 8pm, Xiao Qi still wanted to go over to the neighboring school's sports field to study English for at least an hour.
Her English comprehension buff only had limited uses left, so she had to get more practice in on her own. She realized that even without the buff now, her comprehension was still much better than before.
On her way over she put on headphones and listened to the English programs on Ximalaya.
While she had gained a lot recently, she felt more and more pressed for time.
She paced around the school lab building's sports field reading out loud. No one would stop her there. After the nap she was full of energy.
She had started memorizing the New Concept English Book 3. Unlike reading where you'd forget most of the content afterwards, reciting something meant it wouldn't fade from memory as easily. Some things memorized one day might still be recalled days later.
With limited uses left on her memory buff, Xiao Qi had wanted to take advantage of it to get through all four New Concept English books. But she discovered it was not as easy as she imagined.
She had been stuck on Book 3 for several days already.
On the flip side, after memorizing over 40 lessons in Book 3, she suddenly felt like levels had opened up. Listening comprehension and reading comprehension exercises she previously found difficult now seemed much simpler.
Hence she persisted with the recitation.
Moreover, many of the passages in Book 3 were great material, beyond just grammar patterns. There was benefit to reading texts hundreds of times till their meaning became apparent.
With some spare money lately, Xiao Qi still felt terribly pressed for time, investing most of it towards learning and improvement.
In fact, she already had a sizable following on Douyin by now.
Her videos on Douyin included tutoring classes, bamboo weaving, studying English books in the library, catching a thief, and cooking/food prep pictures.
The cooking photos were posted by Lin Qingqing, who had recently gotten new headphones and loved the Douyin music. She didn't shoot videos, just a series of pictures matched to music. It included Xiao Qi cutting vegetables, shots of her in profile at work, the stone tables and big trees downstairs in the hospital, and her writing in the back. Grouped into 8 photos posted together.
Without anything particularly viral, it still managed several hundred likes.
What had ignited lately was the catching a thief video. Comments debated whether it was staged or real—the girl ran too quickly, must have super strength; some recognized it as No.1 Middle School. In any case, the phone theft victim watching the hoopla chimed in with more plot twists that got laughs all around, ending in more likes. This random Douyin video shot by a passerby somehow garnered hundreds of thousands of likes out of nowhere.
The girl in the video was holding an English textbook, looking very young in plain clothing—the nighttime schoolyard scene simply lacked bright lighting.
Xiao Qi studied then left after memorizing the day's assignment. Campus seemed livelier for some reason, but she didn't think anything of it and just returned to the hospital to check in with her aunt.
Her aunt followed Xiao Qi back to their room, phone in hand, asking how to use the Stone-Skipping platform: the young man upstairs with the broken leg had set up a Stone Skipping page and she wanted to donate.
Xiao Qi was puzzled. Stone Skipping pages were nothing rare in hospitals—frankly there were so many per ward that people were numb to it. If you donated to every sob story, the hospital staff wouldn't even have salaries left to feed themselves.
Thus working here long enough, you'd actually grow more indifferent about such causes. Her penny-pinching aunt never donated either.
"That young man's a good sort. Filial to his old ma, polite to folks, didn't badmouth his runaway bride either. I say that woman will regret it someday. He told his ma cheerily that being a mechanic would be even more convenient crawling under cars with his legs cut off!"
Xiao Qi opened the Stone Skipping page her aunt indicated in WeChat moments. Liu Anquan, 29 years old—Xiao Qi felt that was rather old to be newly married. His photos showed an average-looking but youthful man in military uniform, while the hospital shots simply omitted his missing legs under the blanket, his face wearing the same mild smile against the pillow. Hard to believe his legs were gone seeing that carefree grin.
Xiao Qi walked her aunt through linking WeChat to donate, and helped submit the 200 yuan contribution she wanted to give. Her aunt was quite pleased about it, and headed upstairs after sorting it out.
Left alone, Xiao Qi wanted to practice her writing, but couldn't really focus.
The image of the mother and son taking a shower upstairs kept coming to my mind.
And the photo of her lying in bed.
She simply opened Stone Savings and took a look at the donations. There were quite a lot - $5 and $10 donations, fewer hundreds, more twenties and fifties. She looked at her own interface and donated $15,000 in one go.
She repeatedly counted the zeros to make sure there were no mistakes before confirming.
Then she felt relieved.
During her next calligraphy practice session, she was much more focused and suddenly felt at ease.
