The Little Deaf Man Decided to be Spoiled

15

Chapter 15
Gu Xiuyi was right- not only did Ji Ruan lose his voice, but he also fell ill.
Ji Ruan had a restless sleep that night. Though he had been exhausted all day and quickly fell asleep due to fatigue, he found himself in a shallow slumber, feeling discomfort, and suddenly woke up in the latter half of the night.
Upon awakening, he was enveloped in darkness, unable to see the streetlights outside or the small nightlight on the table. Having removed his hearing aid before sleep, he now faintly heard a ringing in his ears.
For a few seconds, Ji Ruan wallowed in this sensation of sensory deprivation, feeling suffocated, until a sharp pain in his stomach pulled him back to reality. The darkness in front of his eyes began to dissipate as the ringing in his ears intensified.
His stomach throbbed, accompanied by a burning sensation. The pain made Ji Ruan shiver, and he instinctively curled up, feeling a coldness in his upper abdomen as if weighed down by a chunk of ice.
He was drenched in sweat; his pajamas felt damp beneath his palms, even his hair was wet, and his vision blurred as sweat saturated his eyelashes.
Ji Ruan's consciousness never fully awakened. He lay there, eyes wide, gasping for breath, while lost in pain.
The next moment, a more intense cramping pain surged from his stomach, making him feel choked. It forced Ji Ruan to scramble out of bed and stumble mechanically towards the bathroom.
The moment he reached the sink, he vomited.
Everything was a blur; he couldn't tell how long he had been throwing up. All he knew was that the cramping in his stomach gradually felt like a continuous prickling, and his shirt collar and back were soaked in cold sweat.
Eventually, it seemed he was throwing up stomach acid; his chest and throat burnt fiercely. After rinsing his face, Ji Ruan, coughing, collapsed onto the floor, feeling dizzy as a high-pitched ringing echoed in his ears.
The sheer intensity of discomfort snapped Ji Ruan back to clarity.
His fingertips were numb. It took him quite a while to push himself upright against the wall before being forced to hunch over again by the stomach pain.
Gu Xiuyi's room was next door, while Aunt Zhao stayed on the first floor. Just walking from his room to the next left Ji Ruan dizzy and disoriented. He had never despised the large rooms as much as he did now.
Gu Xiuyi's doorknob was cold to touch. Ji Ruan knocked twice, but when there was no response and the persistent pain in his stomach continued, he found himself leaning against the door for support, knocking more forcefully.
"Click-"
The door was pulled open from the inside, and as Ji Ruan lost his balance, he stumbled forward, only to be caught securely in someone's arms.
His senses were in disarray- his vision blurred, and ears ringing, yet his sense of smell was intact. He recognized the familiar scent of Gu Xiuyi.
When Gu Xiuyi was awakened in the middle of the night, he hadn't expected to find Ji Ruan at his door, drenched in cold sweat, his face deathly pale, and shivering uncontrollably.
He patted Ji Ruan's damp face, attempting to speak. Realizing that Ji Ruan wasn't wearing his hearing aid, he leaned closer to his left ear and asked, "Ji Ruan?"
"Ji Ruan, what's hurting you?"
The pain was so intense for Ji Ruan that he couldn't hear anything. The air conditioning in Gu Xiuyi's room was set very low. The cool breeze intensified Ji Ruan's stomach pain, causing him to gasp in agony.
Seeing Ji Ruan pressing hard on his stomach, his knuckles turning white, Gu Xiuyi immediately guessed that it might be gastroenteritis.
Ji Ruan felt icy all over. Without hesitation, Gu Xiuyi grabbed a jacket to wrap around him, lifted him up, and began heading to the garage. However, after a few steps, he quickly turned back to retrieve a small external device from Ji Ruan's room.
As Gu Xiuyi seated Ji Ruan in the passenger seat, the pain left Ji Ruan too weak to resist. Ji Ruan was perspiring so heavily that he couldn't wear his external device, but Gu Xiuyi seemed to be constantly trying to converse with him.
Every time a vague voice sounded in his ear, Ji Ruan would respond with a faint "Mmm," ensuring Gu Xiuyi knew he hadn't passed out.
At one point, the pain became unbearable. Ji Ruan curled up in the seat, biting his lip hard, until the taste of blood flooded his mouth.
He then felt as if he was being sucked into a massive vortex, vaguely reminiscent of his previous severe illness when he had to take loads of medications. Sometimes, those medications would induce a stomach pain even more agonizing than his current affliction.
Such pain made one acutely aware of one's body being corroded by the illness, engulfing both body and spirit in terrifying agony.
·
At 5 in the morning, Gu Xiuyi, with Ji Ruan, who was crying uncontrollably from pain, rushed into the emergency room. Eventually, Ji Ruan was admitted to a private ward.
By then, Ji Ruan had lost consciousness. Gu Xiuyi thought the pain had knocked him out, but the doctor emphasized that he was just exhausted and had fallen asleep.
Gu Xiuyi sat by Ji Ruan's bedside, watching the nurse insert an IV. He waited for a while, ensuring Ji Ruan showed no signs of waking up, before heading to the doctor's office.
"Ah, it's nothing serious," the doctor, probably accustomed to such cases, responded nonchalantly. "It's just a typical case of acute gastroenteritis. A couple of days on an IV, and he'll be good to be discharged."
"But he was in so much pain that he bit through his lip," Gu Xiuyi stated with a heavy expression.
The doctor chuckled upon hearing this, "Can gastroenteritis be painless? What did the boy eat?"
Gu Xiuyi pursed his lips, "Grilled meat, cold beer... and ice cream."
"Typical," the doctor responded, unfazed. "Given it's graduation season and summer break, everyone's out partying. The ER gets flooded with cases like this every night. Young adults, same age, same symptoms. Just a couple of days ago, we had a case where someone drank so much they had a bleeding stomach. Now, that was truly alarming..."
Listening, Gu Xiuyi's brows deepened in their furrow. He truly felt the generation gap between himself and the young ones today. He had never been this wild during his own graduation.