Chapter Twelve: Zhang Wen's Lost Love
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“Wife, the nurse just told me that I should talk to you more. It’ll help with your recovery. To be honest, I don’t really know what to talk about. In all my life, this is the first time I’ve ever spoken this much with a woman other than my mother.”
“If I ever say anything that upsets you, you have to tell me, all right?”
“I’ve never even been in love before.”
“And now, somehow, I’m already a married man.”
“Really, sweetheart, I wish you would wake up soon. If you were willing, I could even hold you and kiss you.”
Ethan Lin stopped thinking about everything else and awkwardly poured out his feelings, speaking from the heart.
Time seemed to pass differently inside the hospital room, moving more quickly than it did outside. It was not until a ringing phone startled him that Ethan realized it was already ten at night.
The name Victor Zhang on the screen reminded him to answer.
“Hello?”
“Ethan, what are you doing? Are you free? Come out for some barbecue. My treat! I sent you the location, so hurry over! There’ll be girls. Help your buddy out tonight and be my wingman. I’ll return the favor next time!”
“I…”
Beep… beep… beep…
All Ethan heard was the dead tone.
“Why you, Victor…”
Ethan shook his head with an exasperated smile, then turned toward Claire Su with a slightly apologetic look.
“Sweetheart, my friend called and asked me to help him find a girlfriend, so I’m going to head out. I’ll come see you again tomorrow. I hope you have a good dream tonight, too.”
Ethan quickly bent down and pecked Claire on the cheek like a chick pecking at grain before darting out of the room.
What was this supposed to be? Kiss her while she wasn’t paying attention, so she wouldn’t feel it.
Since it was already past ten, there were hardly any cars on the road. Ethan reached the place in only thirty minutes.
“Why are you here alone? Haven’t the girls you mentioned arrived yet?”
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Ethan patted Victor on the shoulder from behind and glanced at the empty table, asking in confusion.
To his surprise, Victor suddenly stood up, threw his arms around Ethan, and burst into tears. After questioning him at length, Ethan finally learned what had happened.
Apparently, the girl had arrived ten minutes earlier. According to Victor, she looked exactly like the woman in the photograph his maternal uncle had sent him. She was, in every way, the woman of his dreams.
Victor had opened with, “Hi. Were you introduced by a friend?”
The girl’s voice was lovely as well. Unfortunately, what she said made Victor’s heart sink halfway to the floor.
“Oh, oh, oh. Eight hundred for acquaintances, fifteen hundred for the whole night.”
For a moment, Victor’s mind filled with question marks. He stared at the girl with wide eyes, his face a picture of disbelief.
The girl was equally confused. She took out her phone and checked it carefully, then suddenly looked enlightened.
“Oh, oh, oh. You’re Victor Zhang, right? Sorry, I got the wrong person just now. I’m a very straightforward woman. Do you have a car and a house? If you do, and you add a five-hundred-thousand dowry, we can get married…”
Naturally, the evening ended in disaster. The girl even cursed Victor for being stingy, saying he had not ordered any food and still had the nerve to call it a date.
Furious, Victor pulled out his phone and confronted his uncle in the family group chat, demanding to know what kind of person he had introduced. His uncle was a man who cared deeply about his reputation, so he transferred Victor eighteen thousand eight hundred and eighty-eight to smooth things over and end the calamity.
Compared with Victor’s misfortune, Ethan felt that all the embarrassing sweet nothings he had been whispering to Claire, who was older than him, were hardly worth mentioning.
To mourn Victor’s love, which had died that very night, the two of them drank two cases of beer. Victor alone finished a case and a half.
“Come on, Victor. I’ll call a cab and take you home.”
Ethan patted Victor on the shoulder. Victor was sprawled across the table, drinking like a dead dog.
“Don’t worry about me. I brought a vehicle tonight. I’ll drive myself home.”
As he spoke, Victor stood up, picked up the bicycle that had fallen to the ground, and swung himself onto it.
Ethan, who had been about to stop him from driving home drunk, was left speechless.
There was nothing wrong with that logic. A bicycle was a vehicle too.
“Where did you get a bicycle?” Ethan could not resist asking. Where had Victor found such an old-fashioned bicycle, complete with a rear seat?
“Don’t ask. I borrowed it from my old man’s showroom. I figured I couldn’t drive after eating and drinking with a girl tonight, so I’d get a bicycle and take her for a ride. She’d sit behind me with her arms around my waist. The whole point was romance.”
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“Who would’ve thought I’d meet the wrong kind of person? Anyway, Ethan, I’m heading out. Oh, right—don’t forget what we agreed on tomorrow. We’re going to find a place near the company and rent it together. You’re graduating soon, and the school dormitory definitely won’t let you stay forever.”
The moment he finished speaking, Victor really did pedal away on that ancient bicycle, wobbling all over the road.
Ethan now had a car. To avoid paying an entire night’s worth of parking fees, he gritted his teeth and hired a designated driver. Once he got home, he paid the man and discovered that the trip of more than ten miles had cost him one hundred.
After doing the math, he realized he would have been better off taking a cab. Leaving the car there overnight would not even have cost that much in parking fees.
Early the next morning, Ethan dreamed that Claire had recovered. The two of them embraced, and just as they were about to proceed to the next, premium-rated stage, his phone rang.
It was Victor.
“Get up, Ethan. Hurry. Since we’re both off today, let’s go rent that place. You’re always dragging your feet.”
His beautiful dream ruined, Ethan was so angry that the corners of his mouth nearly twisted sideways. He wished he could appear in front of Victor immediately and give him a few hard slaps.
With a lingering sense of loss, Ethan hugged the empty air in front of him several times, as though still remembering the feeling of holding his wife in his dream.
When the two men met, Victor opened his arms, intending to give Ethan a big hug. Their bond as brothers had deepened somewhat after the hearty drinking session the previous night.
Ethan met his embrace with two solid punches.
Victor was completely baffled, but he did not dwell on it. He got into his car and drove Ethan to several places he had already inspected.
Ethan naturally wanted somewhere midway between the hospital and the company, since that would be more convenient. Victor did not care much, as long as it was close to work. He could live in any of the places he had looked at.
In the end, they settled on a place only three miles from the company. By electric scooter, it would probably take no more than ten minutes to get there. The hospital was less than six miles away as well.
Most importantly, the apartment was in a pleasant environment, with a large shopping mall nearby and a subway station right downstairs. Splitting the rent between them, each would pay sixteen hundred a month, and Ethan was quite satisfied.
Once the housing problem was settled, Victor suggested they go out for a good lunch.
Ethan refused without hesitation. He still had to go to the hospital to keep his wife company. How could he possibly have time to eat with a single man like Victor?
Victor naturally had no reason to stop Ethan from going to the hospital. All he knew was that Ethan was there to care for a member of his family, and in a sense, that was not wrong at all.