Illness
Gu Fan got sick.
It was sudden.
The day before he had been fine.
The next morning his fever hit 104, his whole body burning as if he had just been pulled out of boiling water.
I called our son and asked him to drive over.
When we helped him downstairs his steps were floating, half his weight pressing onto my shoulder.
It was Gu Fan I was carrying.
He was heavy.
I had never known a person could be this heavy.
Usually I was the one walking down the stairs myself.
I would never get used to the smell of hospitals.
Disinfectant, rust, and that nameless thing drifting from the end of the corridor that made your throat tighten.
Nurses pushed carts back and forth.
The wheels rolled over the floor tiles with a rattle-rattle.
The old man in the next bed kept coughing, one after another, like a clock that had sprung a leak.
I went to get food for Gu Fan.
The cafeteria was on the first floor.
The elevator took too long, so I took the stairs down.
On the way back a little porridge spilled on the back of my hand.
It was hot, but I did not feel it.
I sat at the bedside and fed him spoonful by spoonful with a small spoon.
He ate very slowly.
His lips were cracked.
Porridge water ran from the corner of his mouth.
I wiped it with a tissue.
He opened his eyes and looked at me.
His gaze was blurred, as if a layer of fog had settled over it.
“Zhi Nian.”
He called me, his voice so hoarse it was almost inaudible.
“Have you eaten?”
I did not answer.
I could not eat.
At night he fell asleep.
I sat in the chair, staring at the green line on the heart monitor, jumping and jumping, like a tireless insect.
The ward lights were off.
Only the faint glow of the machines painted the ceiling a gray haze.
Someone was crying outside the window, far away.
I could not tell if it was a man or a woman, only wave after wave, like wind passing through an empty bottle.
I suddenly thought, if he disappeared, what would I do.
Not “if.”
It was “when.”
Because this would happen sooner or later.
Not today, then tomorrow.
Not this year, then decades from now.
It was only a matter of time.
I had thought I was strong.
I had thought that after going through so much, I was no longer afraid.
But I was afraid.
I was terrified.
I looked at his face.
The sleeping face, brows faintly furrowed, a layer of dry skin lifted on his lips.
His lashes were long, casting a small shadow under his eyes.
His breathing was very light, so light I had to tilt my ear to hear it.
Once.
Once.
Once.
I reached out and laid my fingertips on his wrist, feeling his pulse.
Very slow, very steady, as if telling me—I am still here, I have not left.
I suddenly felt this world was unreal.
All of it was false.
The ceiling was false, the floor was false, the people coming and going in the corridor, the car sounds and lights outside the window, the messages popping up on the phone—all of it was false.
Only this bit of warmth at his fingertips was real.
Only he was real.
I buried my face in his palm, lips against the lines of his hand.
His skin was dry, carrying the leftover bitter smell of fever medicine.
I wanted to say many things, but something blocked my throat.
Not a single word could come out.
Only tears.
Drop after drop, falling into his palm, hot, hotter than his body temperature.
A person’s body is too fragile.
It can get sick, it can break, it can disappear.
Like a lamp that goes out the moment it is said to, without even a wisp of smoke.
I used to not believe these things.
I thought as long as I worked hard enough, as long as I was careful enough, as long as I watched over him well, nothing would happen to him.
But illness does not care about any of that.
It comes when it wants, without looking at the date, without asking the reason.
It does not care how much you love someone, does not care how many words you have not said, does not care that you are not ready.
Gu Fan’s fingers moved.
He woke.
He turned his hand and held mine, his thumb brushing lightly across the back of my hand.
“Don’t cry.”
He said it, his voice still hoarse, but a little steadier than before.
I did not speak.
I buried my face even deeper.
“I’m fine.”
I nodded.
But the tears did not stop.
Some things you know will come, but when they arrive you still cannot bear them.
Like knowing the sun will set, but when the sky truly goes dark you still feel cold.
Gu Fan did not pull his hand away.
He let me hold it, lying there quietly, his breathing gradually evening out.
I held his hand very tightly.
Afraid that the moment I loosened it, he would become unreal.
Become the kind of thing in dreams that you can see but cannot touch.
The green line on the heart monitor was still jumping, once, once, very steady.
At some point it had gone quiet outside the window.
I leaned against the side of his bed, eyes half closed.
The world was still unreal, dreamlike as foam.
But he was still here.
That was enough.
System Crash
Zhi Nian was a little strange today.
When we were leaving in the morning she stood in the entryway and stopped moving.
I looked back.
Her ears were standing straight up, pupils narrowed into thin slits, like a cat that had entered hunting mode.
“What’s wrong?”
No reaction.
I walked over and waved my hand in front of her.
Her gaze followed my hand, but her eyes were empty, like a machine that had jammed.
“Zhi Nian?”
Then she suddenly reached out, grabbed my wrist, and started using me to “manually” groom herself.
I smiled helplessly and spread my fingers, combing down from the top of her head, carefully, strand by strand, as if smoothing the fur of an enormous cat.
No, wait.
Zhi Nian was a catgirl to begin with.
I paused, finding my own reasoning funny.
After a few strokes she stopped again, leaned her face close to my neck, took a deep breath—then let out a hah at my neck.
Not a puff of air.
It was that kind of threatening cat hah—, the breath heavy, carrying vibration.
I was huffed back half a step, completely bewildered.
Zhi Nian’s expression was even blanker than mine.
Her hand was still hooked around my wrist.
Her eyes blinked a few times.
Her ears began turning left and right, like two radars searching for a signal.
Her mouth opened, closed, opened again, letting out a very light “ah” syllable, then stuck there.
System crash.
The catgirl’s underlying code seemed to have hit a conflict.
The grooming command and the hissing command executed at the same time, the processor overloaded, the whole system trapped in an infinite loop.
She stood there, not knowing where to put her hands, not knowing which way her ears should turn, mouth slightly open, the light in her eyes flickering, like a computer waiting to be rebooted.
I found it a little funny, and also a little heartbreaking.
I reached out and stroked her head.
From the forehead back, following her hair, fingertips brushing the base of her cat ears.
There was a small tuft of especially soft down there that she usually did not let people touch.
Zhi Nian’s body trembled lightly.
The crash state lifted.
Her eyes refocused.
Her pupils slowly widened, returning to that usual round, rose-red light.
Her ears softened and lay against her scalp.
Her tail came back to life from its stiff state and slowly curled once.
She looked down at my hand still on top of her head.
The tips of her ears turned red.
“…What just happened to me?”
“You hissed at me.”
“And made me groom you.”
I hugged her from behind, rested my chin on the top of her head, and nuzzled those cat ears that had not fully returned to normal.
She buried her face in her hands.
Her ears were so red they looked ready to drip blood.
“It’s fine. The code got overwritten.”
Her voice was muffled against my chest. “…Stop talking.”
“Next time you want to be groomed you can just say so. No need to copy those bad cats online and put on a show.”
“Gu Fan!!”
She struggled once, as if trying to throw that full-of-holes performance aside, but she did not break free.
Her tail, though, was honest.
It quietly wrapped around my wrist.
Daily Life with the Kid
Our daughter is three, the most difficult age.
Right now she was sitting cross-legged on the carpet, a block tower taller than her head piled in front of her.
She built it very seriously.
Every time she placed a piece she would tilt her head and look at it for a long time, then pat it lightly with her palm to make sure it was steady before reaching for the next one.
The pair of cat ears on her head, much smaller than Zhi Nian’s, bounced and bounced, extremely cute.
I watched from the side, mainly responsible for passing blocks and steadying the tower when she patted too hard.
“Dad.”
“Mm.”
“Don’t move.”
“I’m not moving.”
“Your breathing is moving.”
I shut my mouth and smiled bitterly in silence.
The block tower grew higher and higher, already past the top of her head.
She had to stretch her arms to place the new block.
I kind of wanted to help, but last time the consequence of helping was that she cried for twenty minutes, the reason being “the block Dad put wasn’t my color.”
The tower was finally finished.
She stepped back two paces, looked it over from top to bottom, and nodded in satisfaction.
Then she slapped it down with one palm.
The blocks clattered across the floor, red and yellow and blue, rolling everywhere.
She turned her head to look at me, eyes sparkling.
“Dad, build it again.”
“You build it yourself.”
“No. Dad build it.”
“Why?”
“Because when Dad builds it, his ears move.”
I touched my own ears on instinct.
They had not moved.
She giggled and threw herself at my legs.
Her cat ears trembled, her tail sweeping back and forth across my calf.
I looked down at her.
She looked up at me, smiling so hard two little fangs showed.
I sighed and started picking up blocks.
She climbed onto my back, chin on my shoulder, directing me. “Red one first. No, not that red, that red, the light red! Dad you’re so dumb.”
Zhi Nian came out of the kitchen with fruit and leaned against the doorframe to look.
“Building blocks again?”
“She builds, I build, she knocks it down, I build again,” I said. “A loop.”
Zhi Nian laughed, walked over and crouched down, placing a blue block on the top of the tower.
Our daughter immediately refused. “Mom! That blue one doesn’t go there!”
Zhi Nian glanced at me, her eyes meaning guess who your daughter takes after.
I pretended not to see.
Anyway, in this house, what I said did not count.
Having a Baby
I had just woken up in the morning.
My brain was still fuzzy.
Zhi Nian poked her head out of the covers, hair a mess like a bird’s nest, cat ears tilted to one side, eyes half open, clearly not yet out of her dream.
She was wearing a loose pajama top.
Mine.
On the bottom she only had underwear.
The pajama top was big enough to cover it.
Even if it had not covered it, it would not have mattered.
I had already seen enough.
Two pale legs were exposed, stepping on the floor looking for slippers.
I leaned against the headboard watching her and suddenly said, “If we have a baby later, you’ll have to set a good example as a mother.”
Zhi Nian’s movement froze.
After about two seconds, maybe three, her face went red with a whoosh.
From her neck all the way to the tips of her ears, as if even the down inside those cat ears had turned pink.
“Have… have a baby!?”
Her voice jumped an octave.
Both hands covered her face.
Her whole self curled into a ball.
Her tail exploded, like a brush that had been shocked, standing straight up.
The more she talked the faster she got, the more fragmented, spinning in place, almost tripping over her own slippers.
“That kind of thing is still way too early! And—and pregnancy is a huge burden on the waist, holding a baby too, my waist isn’t that good to begin with and it’s not like you don’t know…”
After a good while I reached out, pinched her cheeks, and pulled them to both sides.
Her face was stretched out of shape, mouth pouting, eyes round, looking at me in a daze.
“Can you have some shame?”
She seemed to finally wake up completely.
Then her face turned even redder.
Incoherent, she grabbed a pillow and smashed it over.
“You… you say this first thing in the morning, you—”
I caught it.
She smashed another.
I caught that one too.
The pillows were gone.
She stood on the bed, hands on her hips, wearing that pair of underwear and my pajama top, so angry her cat ears shook, her tail whipping back and forth behind her, like a kitten that had fluffed up.
I laughed.
She got even angrier.
University
The afternoon I received my diploma, I called my mother.
It was not a “I graduated” kind of call.
It was another kind.
I said I was going to walk my own life now.
The other end of the phone was silent for a long time.
Long enough that I thought she had hung up.
Then she spoke, her voice a little rough.
“Mm.”
Just that one word.
No follow-up questions, no holding on, no “have you thought it through.”
Just “mm.”
I did not know what that “mm” meant.
Maybe it was letting go, giving up.
Maybe it was finally admitting that the failed marriage between her and my father should not keep binding me as I moved forward.
Every month she transferred money into my account.
The number was not small.
One transfer was enough for me to live on for half a year.
I never spent it.
That money lay quietly in the account, like an inheritance that would never be withdrawn.
The hardships I suffered as a child—those nights crying under the covers, those dusks standing at the school gate with no one coming to pick me up, those moments of being bullied and having to swallow it myself—had all turned into cold numbers now.
I did not want these numbers.
What I wanted were the things that could not come back.
Mother probably understood.
So she said nothing more.
Huacheng is very large.
Gu Fan’s school is in the east of the city, mine in the west.
Forty minutes by subway.
Not far, not close.
When he missed me he would ride over and wait for me at the school gate.
Sometimes I came out late.
He would lean against the lamppost looking at his phone, his figure stretched long by the light, like a tree planted by the roadside.
I asked him how long he had waited.
He always said he had just arrived.
But once I came out early and saw him squatting on the steps, chin on his knees, looking as if he had been waiting a long time.
I did not call out to him.
I stood at a distance and watched for a few seconds, then walked over and pretended I had seen nothing.
Part-time jobs were not easy to find.
I had carried plates, washed dishes, handed out flyers, worked night shifts in a convenience store, worked the front desk at a hotel.
The money was not much, but it was enough to live on.
Enough for me to afford paints, enough for me to occasionally treat Gu Fan to a decent meal.
After graduation I had not found a job yet.
Gu Fan said I could stay at his place first.
His rented apartment was very small, one bedroom and a living room.
The kitchen was only big enough for one person to turn around.
But there was a cactus on the windowsill he had bought from the morning market.
It grew well, lush and green, lively whether you watered it or not.
Big Sis told me to do self-media.
Post drawings, post daily life, post photos.
Drawing was fine.
No need to talk to people, no need to face a camera, just scribbling and changing things on paper, turning the things in my head that I could not say into colors and lines.
I did not earn much, just enough for fun.
When Gu Fan came back from work I was often still curled on the sofa drawing.
He changed his shoes, walked over, glanced at my drawing board, said neither good nor bad, only patted my head.
“We can eat now.”
“Mm.”
“Finish drawing first?”
“…No.”
I put down the pen, stood up, and followed him into that kitchen that was only big enough for one person to turn around.
The range hood hummed.
Oil in the pan sizzle-popped.
I hugged him from behind, fingers slipping around the apron ties, gently undoing them.
Gu Fan caught my restless hands.
It tickled.
I dodged a little.
He did not let go.
That was how the days passed.
Not especially good, not especially bad.
But I felt it was enough.