Lovely Allergen

Chapter 55: Inevitable

After he separated from Nan Jia, Yue Zhishi completely forgot to eat dinner, muddling his way back to his dorm in a blur.

It just happened to be dinner time, so there was no one in the dorm. Yue Zhishi's eyes really hurt, and he had no energy at all — he felt dizzy and utterly weak, and he planned to sleep after taking a hot shower. But his luck and his physical condition seemed to line up: he'd only finished showered halfway when the dorm's hot water heater suddenly broke, only ice-cold water coming out no matter how he tried to adjust the gauge. With no other choice, Yue Zhishi could only rush through the rest of his shower, drying off and putting on his clothes before going out.

Song Yu sent Yue Zhishi two messages in the meantime. The first one was to tell him he'd been called away to do a surface survey and wouldn't be able to train with Yue Zhishi after dinner; the second one asked where he was.

Yue Zhishi's teeth were chattering from the cold by the time he wrapped himself into his blanket. He typed out 'sleeping in the dorm' with shaking hands and then turned on his phone's do not disturb mode.

He didn't know how long he actually slept. His dreams were extraordinarily fragile, and he'd wake as soon as he moved. He passed back out very quickly after waking up, so his dreams were broken bits and pieces, all of them memories from his childhood and every single one of them related to Song Yu. Whether he was in his dreams or in reality, he was still the one chasing — chasing until he fell down. But every time, Song Yu would turn around and wait for him. Except for the last time.

Song Yu walked away without looking back, his shadows of his receding figure disappearing rapidly. His surroundings melted and trickled down, the scene monstrous and bizarre, and everything was dyed red, turning into boiling, viscous lava that wrapped around Yue Zhishi. He couldn't breathe and had nowhere to escape.

When he was about to suffocate, Yue Zhishi woke up as if in self-protection. It felt like there was someone calling his name from below his bed, but he couldn't lift up his eyelids at all — he could only feel his swollen and painful eyes and the extreme aching in his bones. He used some effort to turn over, mumbling out a response from inside his blanket.

He seemed to hear Jiang Yufan and Shen Mi's voices. Jiang Yufan said he needed to go out and asked Shen Mi for help, but these sounds seemed to reach Yue Zhishi through a wall and didn't seem real at all. Yue Zhishi didn't feel anything concrete until Shen Mi and Jiang Yufan pooled their strength together and brought him down from his bed.

Pain — it was everywhere.

Jiang Yufan pulled a long woollen knit over Yue Zhishi. Thinking Yue Zhishi's legs might be too weak, he asked, "Le Le, do you think you can walk?"

Yue Zhishi heard him clearly and nodded, his voice feeble. "Yes, I'm fine."

"Don't talk anymore. How can you be fine when you're burning up so badly?" The sound of Shen Mi's voice was a bit high, and Yue Zhishi's heart shook as he listened. He didn't say anything to contradict him, but he very stubbornly insisted on walking by himself. The other two people had no choice but to hold him up and support him down the building. By the time they were walking on the stairs, Jiang Yufan clearly felt Yue Zhishi drifting back into unconsciousness.

So when they came out of the building, Jiang Yufan immediately called a taxi — but his teacher called him, asking where he was, and he had to leave. "Shen Mi, I really have to go. Are you going to be okay by yourself?"

"Yeah. You should go, I'll call you later."

"Okay, I'll go look for you guys at the hospital once I'm done."

At the end, only two of them remained, and the wind under the dormitory building seemed to blow Yue Zhishi a bit more awake. He mumbled that he didn't want to go to the hospital, that he didn't like the hospital, and Shen Mi patiently tried to persuade him before he finally pulled Yue Zhishi's arm over, wanting to carry him on his back. But Yue Zhishi wasn't willing to get on; he knew Shen Mi was going to take him to the hospital.