Chapter 3#
Offerings to the Homophobic Straight Man: Crematorium 3#
With a “buzz,” Lin Jinbai felt his mind go blank, as if all sound in the world had been instantly drained away.
Every word from that unfamiliar voice was like an ice pick, harshly piercing his eardrums and stabbing his heart.
The phone slipped from his suddenly powerless hand, hitting the cold floor with a sharp “clatter,” its screen instantly shattering into a spiderweb pattern.
“Qiao Qing…” he murmured, his voice so faint it was almost inaudible.
Li Wenjie was startled by his reaction and quickly asked, “What’s wrong, Jinbai? What happened?”
Lin Jinbai seemed not to hear. He abruptly stood up, his chair scraping backward with a harsh sound.
He didn’t care about anything else, stumbling out of the bar, disappearing instantly into the dim doorway.
Only Li Wenjie remained, sitting stunned, looking at the shattered, faintly glowing phone on the floor.
And Lin Jinbai’s half-drunk whiskey, its ice slowly melting.
An ominous premonition weighed heavily on him.
“Damn it!” Li Wenjie cursed under his breath, his face also changing.
He immediately pulled out a few banknotes and slapped them on the table, picked up the phone, grabbed his jacket, and rushed out after him.
The cold early autumn wind instantly filled his shirt, but he didn’t notice, anxiously looking around.
Finally, he saw Lin Jinbai stumbling at the street corner, trying to hail a taxi.
The usually calm, composed, and even somewhat arrogant Lin Jinbai now looked frantic, like a lost child.
Li Wenjie quickened his pace, caught up, and grabbed Lin Jinbai, who was almost losing his balance.
“Which hospital? I’ll take you! How can you go by yourself in this state?!”
Fortunately, he had arranged for a designated driver before coming out for drinks.
Lin Jinbai turned his head blankly, his eyes hollow, his lips trembling, barely able to form a complete sentence:
“Jing City First… Jing City First People’s Hospital… Emergency Department…”
“Let’s go!” Li Wenjie didn’t ask any more questions. He firmly put his arm around Lin Jinbai’s shoulder, half-supporting, half-dragging him towards the parking lot.
The hospital corridor was filled with the smell of disinfectant. The cold fluorescent lights cast a stark white glow, making Lin Jinbai’s face look bloodless.
He and Li Wenjie almost ran all the way to the entrance of the emergency room.
Time seemed to stretch infinitely, every minute and second becoming an torment.
Lin Jinbai stood rigidly at the door, his gaze fixed on the three crimson words “Surgery in Progress” above the door, as if trying to see through it.
His fists were unconsciously clenched, his nails digging deep into his palms, yet he felt no pain.
Countless images flashed uncontrollably through his mind: Qiao Qing’s bloodshot eyes, his bitter smile, the shattered dishes, and the glass of water he had thrown…
Each image whipped at his nerves like a lash.
Li Wenjie looked at his distraught appearance, opened his mouth, but ultimately said nothing, just silently patted his shoulder and handed him a newly bought bottle of water.
Lin Jinbai didn’t react. The water felt cold in his hand, but it was far less chilling than the coldness rising in his heart.
Over an hour, it felt as long as a century.
Finally, the heavy door opened with a “click.”
A doctor in green scrubs walked out, looking slightly fatigued.
Lin Jinbai practically lunged forward, his voice hoarse and dry: “Doctor, how is he?”
Li Wenjie also immediately crowded around.
The doctor pushed his mask down from his nose, his tone carrying a hint of relief:
“The surgery was successful. The patient was very lucky; the impact looked severe, but it was mostly external injuries and some fractures. No vital organs suffered fatal damage, and no severe intracranial hemorrhage was found. It’s a blessing. He’ll need good rest now.”
The sword hanging over his heart finally dropped. Lin Jinbai’s legs went weak, and he stumbled, caught in time by Li Wenjie.
He let out a long, trembling breath, only then realizing he had been holding his breath, his chest aching with a dull pain.
A sense of post-trauma exhaustion swept over him.
Soon, Qiao Qing was wheeled out of the emergency room by a nurse.
He lay on the mobile bed, his face as pale as a crumpled piece of paper, lifeless.
Gauze was taped to his forehead, and his exposed arms and neck showed clear abrasions and bruises.
One arm was in a cast, fixed across his chest.
His eyes were closed, thick eyelashes casting a small shadow beneath his eyelids, making him look fragile, as if he might break at a touch.
Lin Jinbai’s gaze greedily followed that familiar yet strange sleeping face, his heart tightly clutched by an invisible hand, aching with a bitter soreness.
He subconsciously wanted to reach out and touch Qiao Qing’s face, but his fingertips recoiled sharply just before making contact, as if that pale skin carried a scorching heat.
“Please arrange a VIP room, a quiet one, thank you.”
Lin Jinbai turned to the nurse, his voice still a bit tight, but he had regained his usual calm detachment.
Li Wenjie, seeing Lin Jinbai’s instant shift in demeanor, understood perfectly.
He spoke up proactively: “I’ll go buy things for his hospital stay—toiletries, slippers, towels, and so on. I’ll also see if there are any nutritional supplements I can buy. You stay here and watch over him.”
Lin Jinbai nodded, his gaze not leaving the mobile bed being pushed towards the elevator for a second.
The VIP room was indeed much quieter, a spacious single room with complete facilities.
Outside the window was the deep night, with only the silent shimmer of the city’s distant neon lights.
The nurse settled Qiao Qing, adjusted the IV drip, gave a few instructions, and then left.
Only the two of them remained in the room.
Lin Jinbai gently pulled a chair and sat by the bedside.
The room was so quiet that only the regular “beep-beep” of the medical equipment and Qiao Qing’s faint, steady breathing could be heard.
This sound strangely soothed his anxious nerves, yet it also brought a deeper pang of sorrow.
Only now did he have the chance, free from the intensity of the argument and the sudden panic, to examine Qiao Qing so clearly and carefully for the first time.
Qiao Qing seemed to have lost weight.
Even in his unconscious state, a hint of unresolvable fatigue and melancholy seemed to be condensed between his brows.
Was it because of him? Lin Jinbai couldn’t help but wonder.
He remembered what Li Wenjie had said in the bar.
“He’s been serving you for over a decade…”
“You’re too cruel to Qiao Qing…”
“Could you accept it if he were with someone else…”
Those words he had deliberately ignored now surged into his mind like a tide, bringing a suffocating feeling like drowning.
He looked at Qiao Qing’s arm in a cast, remembering how these hands had cooked meals for him, ironed his suits, and packed his luggage for business trips.
On countless nights when he was working late, these hands had brought him warm milk.
He looked at Qiao Qing’s pale lips, remembering how these lips, even tonight, had spoken of love with despair and choked emotion.
“From high school until now…”
Qiao Qing’s bloodshot eyes from earlier that night clearly reappeared before him.
For so many years, with what kind of feelings had he stayed by his side, doing things that far exceeded the boundaries of “friends”?
And how had he, Lin Jinbai, so complacently enjoyed all of this, yet used the identity of a “friend” to nail all of Qiao Qing’s emotions and efforts to the pillar of shame?
Lin Jinbai slowly, and extremely carefully, reached out and very gently touched the back of Qiao Qing’s uninjured hand with his fingertips.
The cold touch made his heart tremble.
He hesitated for a moment, then finally covered that hand with his palm, trying to convey some warmth.
“Qiao Qing…” he called out softly, his voice terribly hoarse, with a tremor he hadn’t even noticed himself.
“Get well… quickly.”
The night outside the window was still heavy, and the regular sounds of the instruments in the hospital room seemed to beat against his heart.
Lin Jinbai maintained this posture, guarding the bedside without moving.
For the first time, he realized so clearly that if Qiao Qing no longer existed in this world…
The very hypothesis itself, more than any accusation or argument, filled him with a bone-chilling despair.