A quarter of an hour ago, Zong Chi carried a basket of bananas up to the Burn and Plastic Surgery Ward.
At the Nurse Station, he explained his purpose.
The nurse told him that Dr. He Dongli had just finished her shift and left shortly before.
Zong Chi thanked her and was about to turn away.
The nurse noticed he was wearing a piece from the Spring/Summer Series—just like her favorite idol recently wore on the runway—and couldn’t help but take a second glance.
Then she reminded him, “Dr. He often buys snacks at the convenience store next door in the Maternity and Child Building. You might find her there.”
The man thanked her politely.
The nurse pressed, “Are you here to see Dr. He for medical reasons?”
He replied, “Yes,” and then disappeared into the elevator.
Now that he saw clearly, she was carrying a pack of bread.
Zong Chi reached out and took one without needing to guess, “Red bean filling.”
He Dongli was momentarily speechless but let him take one.
Across from them, Zou Yan received a reply from Feng Qianxu.
The earlier interruption by this young master Zong Chi had put an end to his protests.
He told Dongli, “Then I’ll pick you up Sunday evening at seven.”
He Dongli nodded silently.
The atmosphere felt a little strange, and she understood exactly why.
She glanced at Zong Chi, who quickly finished his red bean bread in just a few bites.
Before Zou Yan left, Zong Chi handed the bananas to He Dongli.
She looked at him as he said he was a little choked up and needed to buy a bottle of water.
Then he asked her, “Have you paid for these?”
He Dongli replied firmly, “I already paid.”
She warned him with a tone that implied, “If you don’t have money, don’t buy anything. No one’s paying for you.”
Zong Chi chuckled, pulled out his phone, and showed her the screen.
“I’m helping you pay, He Dongli. You’re almost thirty. Can you try to have a bit more generosity? A bowl of beef noodles, you just can’t get past it!”
He Dongli caught the sharp emphasis on ‘thirty’ and immediately retorted, “I really can’t. Back then, six yuan was almost my entire savings, nearly a fifth of it.”
Zong Chi sneered.
He teased Zou Yan, “When she was in school writing essays, she was so precise she wrote that oceans accounted for exactly 97% of Earth’s water.”
He Dongli was once again at a loss for words.
Zou Yan said nothing, just started to address Dongli, “Dong—”
At the beverage shelf, Zong Chi grabbed two bottles of mineral water and called out to Zou Yan, “Doctor Zou, what would you like to drink?”
Zou Yan felt the blatant provocation and isolation.
Whether it was a suggestion to bring gifts to his aunt’s house or a team dinner, he was always the one left out and then singled out: “Zou Yan, what do you think? Senior brother, what do you want?”
This time, before he could respond, He Dongli stepped up and defended him.
She took a bottle of water from Zong Chi’s hand and put it back on the shelf.
Originally, she wanted to say, “None of us are drinking it. You buy your own,” but as she replaced the bottle, the door closed too sharply.
Zong Chi blamed her, “You came into my hands, missy.”
He Dongli quickly reopened the door.
Through the glass door, Zong Chi looped his left hand around and showed her his index finger—a clumsy but unavoidable apology.
“Sorry about that.”
Zong Chi hummed lightly, “Got it.”
He Dongli hadn’t even turned around before Zou Yan said behind her that he was leaving.
The cash register beeped as items were scanned.
He Dongli felt she hadn’t finished talking with Zou Yan.
Was it rude to ask so bluntly about his friend’s affairs?
She’d returned the water only because she feared Zong Chi would say more nonsense.
She wanted to tell Zou Yan not to bother with Zong Chi, because he was…well…
She thought this earnestly, but then heard loud gulps nearby and glanced sideways.
The accused was cracking the mineral water bottle, making a crunching sound, and He Dongli resigned herself to the situation.
Zong Chi saw that she had been watching her comrade for over ten seconds.
Neither broke the silence.
As the two walked out one after the other, the clerk reminded them, “You forgot the bananas.”
Zong Chi called out to the person ahead, “This is yours, take it back.”
“That was Jiang Xingyuan’s gift for you.”
Neither seemed willing to go back for them.
Zong Chi immediately added, “If you don’t say anything, how would she know and send so many? What is this, my Fruit Mountain?”
He Dongli was so used to his tone she didn’t bother arguing, turned back, and took the basket of bananas.
The water drinker had finished half a bottle—it was taken from the freezer, refreshing but chilling to the bone.
He stood by the low boxwood in the flower bed, poured the remaining half bottle over the tree trunk, then crushed the bottle along its creases into the smallest size for recyclable trash.
He tossed it into the nearest bin and turned back to see He Dongli returning.
Her birthday was in the coldest month of winter, but everything she loved had nothing to do with winter.
Spring hikes that were so energetic even Zong Chi was surprised, “You’re not eating rice, you’re drinking 95-octane gasoline, are you?”
Summer moon viewing.
Zong Chi once took her to a private exhibition, where she instantly fell in love with a painter named Master Yan.
She said she had never seen such exquisite greens—grass green, pale green, deep green.
“Zong Chi, look! This full moon is painted so stunningly. I finally understand what ‘water and sky blend as one’ means.”
After the private exhibition, they went straight to the painter’s studio.
The painting was completed thirty-five years before they were even born.
Zong Chi teased his companion, “The moon from thirty-five years ago must have been pollution-free.”
He Dongli scolded him for being a buzzkill.
He defended himself, “If I’m a buzzkill, you wouldn’t be here.”
To honor that night when he stayed up with her to chase and admire the moon, she tugged his tie hard, then stood on tiptoe to kiss him—from cheek to lips.
Autumn’s tuna.
He Dongli only developed a liking for it because Zong Chi pushed her.
Busy with papers and experiments, she had lost a lot of weight.
Zong Chi forced her to get checked; nothing was wrong.
Then following a nutritionist’s advice, he insisted she eat more high-protein fish and red meat at brunch every day.
When he came back a month later, she begged him to stop.
“Zong Chi, my little pond,” she said, holding him close and biting him, “I feel like your mouth is the same density and softness as a tuna’s belly now.”
Zong Chi laughed but sternly said to keep eating.
“At least, Doctor He’s imagination has gotten richer and fuller. Keep nourishing yourself, keep it up…”
And winter.
That year, He Dongli was trapped in a villa on the mountain, unable to make a single call.
Zong Chi told her the villa had signal jammers.
It was a property Old Zong had purchased for meeting certain officials and negotiating secret deals.
She asked Zong Chi, “Are you planning to imprison me, Zong Chi?”
He came over and took the phone from her hand.
He was pleading with her to change her mind.
“I just want to spend a peaceful New Year with you, undisturbed.
Xixi, I don’t want you to become a homeless child every winter, every Spring Festival.”
At the last moment, all that came out was a blurt: “Unless you drop the idea of breaking up, you’re not leaving the mountain.”
“Zong Chi, I’m just your thing. That’s why you still don’t understand why I want to break up. After all, your watch, your suitcase, and your car keys don’t have the right to talk division with you, do they? If so, it’s only your subjective abandonment, right?”
“Yes, it’s not wrong for you to think so. He Dongli, I want you to be mine. To listen to me.”
For five years, Zong Chi would repeat this dream.
No matter how he tried to change his words, in the dream she remained trapped there, leaning against the floor-to-ceiling window, watching the falling snow.
Her weary, hopeless voice: “Zong Chi, if you insist on this, then let’s stay here forever. At least I’m not alone. You know, I’m most afraid of winter.”
The one who feared winter most still couldn’t learn to behave properly even as she neared thirty.
Wearing so little, even if she could handle the weight in her hands, Zong Chi stubbornly wanted to scold her.
“Don’t carry these useless heavy things. What’s wrong with me wanting you to live comfortably?”
He Dongli walked right up to Zong Chi.
The closer she got, the more his heart tightened involuntarily.
The next second, she asked, “Are you really not taking it?”
“What?”
“The bananas.”
“No, I’m taking them to our department tomorrow to share.”
Zong Chi hesitated for a second.
Before she could speak, He Dongli moved as if to bring them upstairs.
He called out to her.
She looked up.
Zong Chi reached out, “You’re not going upstairs to deliver the bananas? Give them to me.”
“Give them to you.”
Without a word, she handed him the totebag.
Her tone betrayed her logic.
“I have to pass here on my way home anyway. I’m not going to go out of my way because of you. If you want to help carry them, I’d appreciate it.”
Zong Chi was at a loss for words.
Before he could speak, she hurried upstairs.
He muttered curses as he took the totebag.
He didn’t even have to open it to hear the jingling inside.
He wasn’t surprised by what she carried—after all, she was the type to bring a sewing kit on a hike.
When He Dongli came back down, she saw a tall figure standing there, shoulders slumped under her bag.
Just as the duty nurse had said, a man wearing Saint Laurent had come looking for her.
“It was scary. He said he was here to see you for medical reasons.”
He Dongli was speechless and only managed a vague reply.
“Ah, their dog got into a fight with another dog, so I bandaged it. He came to thank me. This basket of bananas is from him. You can share it.”
The nurse was half in doubt.
“What kind of dog does he have? I mean that Saint Laurent man.”
“He has a Bernese Mountain Dog.”
The nurse gasped.
Yet when He Dongli faced the Bernese Mountain Dog’s owner, she swallowed her questions, afraid of bad news.
She chose another topic—one she actually wanted to ask.
“Today, our director told me the Liang Family’s matchmaking story doesn’t exist. It was your doing.”
Zong Chi turned to her, not returning the bag.
He responded coldly, “Mm.”
“How much did you promise Liang Jianxing to make that happen?”
“Business is about deals, not promises.”
“That’s not like you, Zong Chi,” He Dongli said.
“You never would have even met someone like Liang before.”
“You also said ‘before’.”
She glanced up at him.
The tall man continued calmly, “The reason I met with Liang was under one condition, one restraint. The condition: he’s not allowed to bother you anymore, because I won’t accept my ex having a matchmaking history. The restraint: his mother is a leader in your hospital, so I had to be cautious.”
He Dongli felt as if boiling water had been poured into her insides.
Almost instinctively, she avoided his careful approach.
In haste, she reached to take back her bag.
Zong Chi shamelessly reached for it too.
She quickly withdrew.
They stood awkwardly face to face.
Zong Chi was a little displeased by her obvious resistance.
He dropped the last part of his restraint and spoke in a mercenary tone, mixing threat and social coercion.
“How are you going to thank me?”
He Dongli, unable to retrieve her bag, was speechless at his extortion.
“Thank you for what?”
“For removing the unavoidable matchmaking from your life. For introducing your friend to some sponsored activities.”
“………..”
He Dongli didn’t want to argue about the Liang Family anymore.
She just mentioned her close friend.
“You name it. Dinner, buying something…”
Before she finished, Zong Chi interrupted decisively, “Fine. Dinner and buying stuff. Make sure you bring enough cash or cards, don’t come up short. Sunday evening at seven. Come pick me up.”
The time sounded familiar to He Dongli.
After a moment, she suddenly understood.
“Sunday I…”
“He Dongli, if you dare to flake, I’ll unilaterally revoke all the promises I made to your best friend.”
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