The early morning of the late winter, the temperature is low.
Xu Qin is sitting on the road side near the ruins, she is wiping her bloodied hands with the wet tissue.
She hears footsteps behind her, Song Yan is coming over and stopping beside her.
He stands there for two seconds and finally sits down on the stone in front of her.
Song Yan doesn’t look at her and just smokes.
They don’t have anything to talk to each other so they just stay silent.
The other firefighters are either laying down or sitting down on the road side. They are resting for a while.
Song Yan just finishes his cigarette and Xu Qin still keeps on wiping her hands till it’s so red.
Song Yan looks at her and says: “Stop wiping it.”
Xu Qin stops for a second and wants to wipe it again. Song Yan says: “It’s clean.”
Xu Qin stops and clutches that wet tissue.
Song Yan doesn’t say anything, he stands up: “Let’s go.”
Those resting firefighters sit up and go to the next location.
When he stands up, suddenly there’s a little earthquake. Song Yan stops and extends his hand toward Xu QIn. He holds her shoulder till it stops.
After a second, it’s gone.
He takes his hand back and leaves.
Xu Qin lifts up her head to look at Song Yan.
He goes to the middle and says few words to the firefighters. Then they leave.
Xu Qin suddenly yells: “Wait!”
All of them stop, Xu Qin runs toward the ambulance and finds several bottles of water and hardtacks. Those are given by the emergency center this morning.
Xu Qin holds all of it and returns back. She goes and stuffs it inside Song Yan’s firefighter suit and says: “Remember to drink water, eat something. For every hour, close your eyes and sleep for around ten minutes. Something will happen if you keep on enduring this. You might have sudden death.” Then she gives some of the hardtacks and bottles of water to other firefighters: “You guys should too.”
Song Yan looks at her and says: “Thank you.”
Xu Qin shakes her head.
Song Yan: “Bye.”
Xu Qin looks at him. When he passes by her shoulder, she says with a low voice: “Stay safe.”
All of them just leave and disappear in front of her. Xu Qin stands there for a while…….
Then she returns to the emergency center and goes to see the baby first. The baby is in normal condition and the nurses are taking a good care of him.
The news about this baby spreads around, the media comes over to interview and report about it. It makes the ward be so crowded. Several young mothers come over to volunteer to help the baby be breastfed.
Xu Qin watches that baby from far way. She sees how the small the baby is. He is clean so now he is sleeping sweetly inside the warm baby box.
At side the reporters take his photo cautiously, they are afraid to disturb him.
The liaison department’s person-in-charge asks Xu Qin to receive an interview but Xu Qin refuses.
In between her work, Xiao Bei holds her phone and shows Xu Qin the news. She reads: “The rescuer of the baby is the surgeon from third military hospital, Xu Qin. Because Xu Yi Sheng worked strenuously on the disaster area, we couldn’t interview her. But we would update you in more detail……”
The news shows Xu Qin’s photo in her white doctor robe.
xu Qin: “…….”
Xiao Bei: “All the people should see this, Xu Yi Sheng, you are famous. Everyone is thanking you.”
Xu Qin: “Record those injured patients.”
Xiao Bei: “Oh……”
Xu Qin suddenly asks: “Xiao Bei.”
“Ay?”
Xu Qin: ‘Would soldier be punished when he defies order?”
“It should be.”
“Em.” Xu Qin continues to work.
“Why are you asking this?”
“Nothing.” Xu Qin says: “This time there’re a lot of parentless children, do you know how would they be taken care of?”
Xiao Bei: “It’s no use to talk about it now. A lot of them are separated and couldn’t be contacted. No one knows whether they are really parentless children. But for the adoption, there would be according the procedure.”
Xu Qin: “Em.”
It’s a busy day for Xu Qin. In the morning she is busy at emergency center, in the afternoon she would go to the various location. She would only ten minutes sleep for a day, she never rests fully.
At night, a lot of the patients are sent to the emergency center are soldiers.
There are soldiers who are injured because during the rescue, there are some who are exhausted and fainted.
Xiao Nan sighs: “I don’t know what happened to the firefighters?” She is worried about Tong Ming, those doctors and nurses know about it.
Xiao Xi comforts: “They would be alright. They are very strong. Now the electricity is on, they would have their tool now. They don’t need to do it based on their strength anymore. Don’t worry. They would be okay.”
“Ay, before I heard the people said that the firefighters are the most professional one.” Xiao Dong says: “I didn’t know before.”
Xu Qin listens to them and doesn’t join the conversation. She just listens and thinks about Song Yan.
Then she calms herself down as she needs to do another surgery.
The time she is in surgery, the ground seems to shake gain. Xu Qin and several nurses are used o it now so they are clam.
But after an hour when the surgery is done, the ground starts to shake more violently.
Everything starts to fall down.
It seems that this earthquake is not small. She has a bad feeling but she keeps her attention.
Xu Qin is calm and just finishes her operation.
She doesn’t divert attention and just be calm.
When the patient is sent back to the patient’s room, several nurses are sweating coldly. They are relieved that surgery is done, actually they never do it when there’s an earthquake.
Xu Qin walks out. She still has a bad feeling. She looks in front and notices that there’re Xiao Ge and Tong Ming. Xiao Ge’s forehead is bleeding, he is holding Tong Ming, who is injured on his leg and abdomen.
Xu Qin: “What happened?”
“Aftershock.” Xiao Ge says: “We were in a collapsed apartment.”
Xu Qin is startled and asks: “Song Yan?”
“I have no idea. I was close to Tong Ming so when I saw that he is injured, I just sent him over here.”
Xu Qin’s hands get cold, her mind is at loss. When she regains herself, both of them are inside. She goes over and asks them for the location, and then she leaves with her medicine box.
The wind in late night is so cold. She could hear a yell: “Help to lift it up! There’s someone under this!”
Xu Qin walks faster and notices a group of people near the ruins. There are firefighters and soldiers.
Xu Qin’s heart is beating quickly, she pants. She looks around, she recognizes Yang Chi so she comes over and asks him: “Where is Song Yan?” She isn’t aware that her voice is so shaking.
“He is below.”
Xu Qin looks over. She feels that her head is on blow. Several people block her gaze. She just sees there’s a man’s hand under the broken wall. The fingers are curling weakly. There are blood and dust.
Xu Qin’s heart feels so broken, she knows that it is his hand.
She kneels down and holds his hand. It’s too cold, hoarse and feels cold.
It’s been ten year, she didn’t expect that the time she once again could hold his hand,it would be in this kind of moment.
The people around move away, in a flash she could see Song Yan. His eyes are close, his face is full of blood. A crossbeam is pressing him down. The dust has covered him. She even couldn’t know the color of his cloth.
He is like a death person.
Xu Qin’s tears start to fall down. She opens her mouth she wants to Song Yan something but nothing comes out from her mouth. She covers her mouth and runs toward the other side. She doesn’t yell or cry out-loud. She just bites her own fingers to calm her feeling. She doesn’t want to disturb the rescuing process.
She blinks and watches those people. She watches the firefighters using their own tools to help Song Yan. She watches them successfully break the wall pressing his leg down. Then he is lifted up.
The time she sees that he is lifted, she once again loses control of herself. She wants to wipe his face to determine whether he is alive or not. But the time she is about to touch him, she is bumped by someone.
His face is so pale.
Those firefighters and military men should not know their relationship so she couldn’t blame them.
The rest of people continue to help other injured people so they don’t mind Xu Qin.
Here being alive or dead, it is normal. It is so normal that it somehow unusual, yet it’s hard not to accept it.
…………
That moment Lu Jie and his group are helping to rescue people in a collapse high school building. In two nights, they have saved 96 students and several corpses.
Looking at those dead young people’s faces, a lot of soldiers’ eyes are red. They are controlling their tears.
Lu Jie nods and looks up at the sky.
He looks at a student ID on the ruins, it’s student ID’s of a young female students.
Lu Jie recalls someone.
That time his eyes turn red.
“I remember her.” He grumbles.
“What?”
“I remember where did I see that surgeon.”
His classmate, his war buddy, he always brings a female student’s photo.
Up to now, he still remember him, Song Yan. “The time I pass this and be a successful person, I would go back and marry her.”
88tangeatdrinkread 
This chapter just made me sad. That sentence from Lu Jie too 😦
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