Zhang Qingqing first met Li Fengyan in a hospital corridor. He was leaning against the wall smoking, the hem of his white coat stained with blood. The cigarette ember glowing and fading at his fingertips looked very much like that perpetually broken streetlamp at the entrance of her old home village.
"Family of the patient in Room 307?" He stubbed out the cigarette, the tip of his leather shoe brushing against the disinfectant traces on the floor. "The patient's condition is rather unstable. Prepare yourselves mentally."
Her hand gripping the hospital bill suddenly began to tremble, the edges of the receipt creasing in her palm. Later, she often thought that if she hadn't looked up into his eyes that day, hadn't seen a fleeting flash of tenderness in those pool-like depths, she wouldn't have spent the ensuing years turning herself into a thorn in the palm of his hand.
Chapter 51