withered lover

In the middle of the night, the elevator of the high-rise apartment opened slowly, and a shaky figure came out of the elevator.

He hunched over and walked towards the depths of the corridor, water was dripping from the ends of his hair and the hem of his clothes soaked in the rain, and a few drops of dark red water dripped from his fingertips.

His shoes were filled with rainwater, and every step he took made a sizzling sound, and everywhere he passed was a meandering water stain.

The sound of pattering rain drowned out the sound of walking. He walked to a door, stroked the doorknob with his wrinkled fingers, and gently pressed the doorbell.

"Ding-dong-"

When the doorbell rang, Du Zhinian had just downed a glass of whiskey.

The cold liquid slid down his throat, Shen Guiwan's dissatisfaction and anger for breaking the appointment rapidly expanded under the soak of alcohol, crowding his brain.

He ignored the loud doorbell and poured another half glass of whiskey.

The doorbell rang a few times, and the visitors outside saw that no one answered, so they knocked on the door lightly a few more times.

Du Zhinian drank half a glass of whiskey in one gulp, put down the glass heavily, and opened the door of the apartment angrily, "Who—"

His voice stopped abruptly, and the irritable expression froze on his face, which merged with the astonished gaze in his eyes into a very funny look.

The person who knocked on the door did not laugh at Du Zhinian, he took a step forward and leaned his wet body into Du Zhinian's arms.

"I'm sorry." Shen Guiwan's voice was hoarse and trembling, "I'm late."

His head rested on Du Zhinian's warm neck, his cold, unconscious face slightly rubbed against Du Zhinian's shoulder, and the light red liquid flowing down his body gathered into a pool on the wooden floor Puddles.

Du Zhinian hugged Shen Guiwan's cold body, his mind went blank.

Shen Guiwan's dripping coat wet his body, the wind howled through the open door, and a biting cold pierced into the skin through the damp cloth.

Du Zhinian fought a cold war, and finally came back to his senses.

He dragged Shen Guiwan into the bathroom, turned on the warm light, and took off Shen Guiwan's heavy clothes.

The rain-wet clothes were thrown on the ground, making a muffled sound with the sound of water, and the water accumulated on the clothes slowly overflowed.

Without the cover of his clothes, Du Zhinian saw the fresh and hideous wound on Shen Guiwan's back. The flesh was torn obliquely from the left side of the shoulder blade to the right side, oozing with traces of bright red tissue fluid.

Du Zhinian raised his hand, his fingertips were wet and bright red, and the blood slipped from between his fingers to his palm, staining the lines on his palm red.

Shen Guiwan lay on the edge of the bathtub with her eyes closed, soaked in warm water from the waist down, her upper body was exposed to the air, the skin on her shoulders and chest had no temperature, and there was a light blue-purple in the paleness.

Du Zhinian knelt beside the bathtub, and used a hair dryer to blow Shen Guiwan's hair until it was half dry, and wiped off the remaining rainwater on his body, then he fished him out of the bathtub, wrapped him in a towel and carried him to the bed.

Although the wound on Shen Guiwan's back was not deep, the long wound almost tore his entire back in half. Even if Du Zhinian avoided the wound, the flesh would inevitably be pulled when moving it.

The person in his arms was trembling with pain, and Du Zhinian's hand that peeled off the bath towel also trembled. When he pulled off the bath towel, the clothes on his back were already wet with sweat.

Du Zhinian wiped off the cold sweat from his brow, and found the medicine box from the cabinet.

In addition to the lacerations on the back, Shen Guiwan also had large and small bruises on his shoulders and arms, and a deep wound in the palm of his curled right hand.

The wound was much more serious than the one on the back. The torn flesh rolled ferociously, as if it had been repeatedly cut open by some kind of blunt sharp instrument. The rolled flesh was soaked white by the rain, and the air was full of blood and blood. taste.

Du Zhinian had needles and thread to suture the wound at home, but no anesthetic.

He fed Shen Guiwan two painkillers, but it had little effect, and Shen Guiwan was still in pain and unconscious.

"Wanwan, Wanwan?" Du Zhinian patted Shen Guiwan's face, only seeing a pair of slack eyes.

Shen Guiwan's wound was soaked in rainwater, and if left untreated, it would become inflamed and infected. Du Zhinian took out iodine from the medicine box, and the hands of the doctor who frequently came and went to the operating room trembled faintly while holding the tweezers.

He carefully disinfected the wound, iodine seeped into the torn flesh, Shen Guiwan's back twitched in severe pain, blood mixed with iodine flowed out from the wound, fell along the shoulders and waist, dripping on the on a white sheet.

"Be patient." Du Zhinian pressed Shen Guiwan's shoulder, leaned down and kissed his side face.

Shen Guiwan woke up, lying on the bed panting, with broken moans in his throat, cold sweat dripping from the tip of his nose and forehead, his pale lips trembling.

The good left hand gripped the sheet tightly as the stitches threaded through the edge of the wound.

After Du Zhinian treated the wound on his back, he pulled Shen Guiwan's fleshy right hand over and disinfected it with a cotton ball soaked in iodine between his tweezers.

Shen Guiwan was in severe pain, and his bloody fingertips kept trembling.

Du Zhinian was wearing medical gloves, unable to wipe off the cold sweat on Shen Guiwan's face, he could only rub his wrist to comfort him.

"Be patient, it will be fine soon." He kissed Shen Guiwan's trembling lips, coaxing in a low voice, "Be patient, be good."

Shen Guiwan turned his back to him, moaning in pain mixed with many things that Du Zhinian couldn't bear to listen to.

Although he said he would be fine soon, the stitching process lasted for a long time, Shen Guiwan lost consciousness halfway through, Du Zhinian wasn't sure if he was so tired that he fell asleep, or the pain caused him to pass out, or both.

After the wound was sutured, Shen Guiwan opened his eyes again.

He seemed to be in less pain, and moved his bandaged right hand, but Du Zhinian pressed his wrist and pressed him back on the bed.

Du Zhinian took off his medical gloves and rubbed his brows wearily, "Don't move around, be obedient."

Shen Guiwan blinked blankly, and nodded after a while as if he had come to his senses, his shoulders and back exposed outside the quilt trembled slightly, covered with bruises.

Du Zhinian touched Shen Guiwan's back, turned up the temperature of the air conditioner a few degrees, and took a clean blanket to cover Shen Guiwan's gauze-wrapped body.

He sat on the ground, brushed the strands of sweat-soaked hair behind his ears, and asked in a slow tone, "Who hit you?"

Shen Guiwan pursed her lips, refusing to answer Du Zhinian's question.

His face was pale, and although the blood on his fingertips and back had been wiped clean, there was still a strong smell of medicine and blood on his body.

Shen Guiwan always answered questions with silence, Du Zhinian used to let it go, but seeing him injured with his own eyes today, he couldn't help but raise his voice: "Is it Shen Lu?!"

Du Zhinian's questioning was sharp and piercing, Shen Guiwan frowned, shrank his body into the blanket.

His wet eyelashes trembled, and his flimsy look made Du Zhinian realize that his words were too violent and inappropriate.

"Uncomfortable?" Du Zhinian lowered his voice, stretched out his hand to caress Shen Guiwan's face, smoothing his eyebrows wrinkled due to pain little by little.

Shen Guiwan rubbed Du Zhinian's warm palm, "Headache."

The palm was rubbed against the cold and soft cheek, and Du Zhinian suddenly felt a tightness in his chest, as if something was pressing on his heart, and he was so heavy that he couldn't breathe.

He sighed, leaned over and pressed his forehead against Shen Guiwan's.

Du Zhinian closed his eyes and felt it for a while, then took out a board of capsules from the medicine box, peeled one and handed it to Shen Guiwan, "Maybe I'm going to have a fever, take the medicine."

Shen Guiwan swallowed the capsule, curled up on the bed and curled up into a ball.

He was breathing heavily, Du Zhinian stroked his shoulder, "Go to sleep, I'll be here with you."

Shen Guiwan replied vaguely, and fell asleep again not long after.

The wound on Shen Guiwan's body was still hurting, and he kept frowning when he fell asleep. Du Zhinian carefully touched the bandage on his palm to make sure that the wound was not open and bleeding before withdrawing his hand.

He turned off the chandelier on the ceiling, left a bedside lamp on, closed the door gently, and began to clean up the mess in the room.

The rain mixed with snowflakes was very cold. Shen Guiwan didn't know how long he had been in the shower. The water stains spread from the door all the way to the bedroom. The rain mixed with blood wet the wooden floor of the living room, and also stained the sheets and carpet.

The wooden floor will be soaked, and the blood-stained carpet is difficult to clean, but Du Zhinian is not in the mood to worry about these irrelevant details.

Shen Guiwan's clothes were piled up on the bathroom floor, and the blood smeared on the cloth burned Du Zhinian's retina, hurting his nerves.

He rubbed his hair irritably, lifted Shen Guiwan's clothes from the ground, and the phone in his pocket "clacked" onto the tiles in the bathroom.

Du Zhinian bent down to pick up Shen Guiwan's mobile phone. The screen of the mobile phone was covered with cobweb-like cracks, and water was flowing from the charging port.

He pressed the power button a few times, but the phone didn't respond.

No wonder I can't get through the phone.

Du Zhinian closed his eyes wearily, and put the completely scrapped mobile phone on the coffee table in the living room.

He threw the blood-stained clothes into the washing machine, mopped up the water stains in the living room, and took the mop to deal with the traces outside.

Shen Guiwan walked all the way, blood dripping all over his body, the dripping water droplets and the accumulated water overflowing from the soles of his shoes drew the trajectory of his actions on the ground.

This broken track meanders from the elevator entrance to Du Zhinian's door. If you leave it alone, the neighbors who get up early the next day will see the large dry and solidified traces on the ground, and they will probably think that a murder has occurred in the tightly guarded apartment. .

Du Zhinian had no time to care about the traces in the elevator, so he could only simply clean up the section from the door to the elevator.

The color of the blood is very light, dripping on the impermeable tiles, it disappears without a trace after being wiped lightly, but the wounds on Shen Guiwan's body will not heal overnight, even if the broken skin fibers are stitched up, they will not heal. Probably no trace.

Du Zhinian didn't wear a coat, and stood shivering in the corridor without heating and air conditioning.

He couldn't tell whether he was shivering from the cold or something else.

Shen Guiwan's whole body was soaked by the rain, the heavy winter coat pressed against his injured back, the biting cold seeped into his skin from the damp cloth, and the pain would penetrate into his wound like fine needles.

Du Zhinian didn't dare to think about how much pain he had suffered all the way, and he didn't dare to imagine what he was enduring when he was sitting in the car blowing on the air conditioner.

He knew Shen Guiwan's situation clearly, but he got angry with him because of such a trivial matter, and he was talking about the kind of person he was.

Du Zhinian stood in the corridor, his sigh turned into white mist in the cold air, drifting into the dark night.