Four Strange Dreams

  On the bed in ward six lay a patient who was as thin as a rake, with sunken eyes and dry, pale skin.

  Zhen Ming sat on the edge of the bed, peeling an orange in his hand.

  The patient looked at him and blinked three times in a rhythmic manner.

  This is a predestined bitter encounter, he can't speak with his mouth, but they have an agreed-upon eye language, one blink means "yes", two blinks mean "no", three blinks mean "why" or "how".

  "Are you asking about blind dating?"

  The patient blinked his eyes.

  "I met her today, she's got a pretty solid and rich appearance, but the figure isn't quite ideal. You know me, I like women with bigger busts, most importantly, they need to have a slim waist and big hips, it's easier for them to give birth and nurse. What if I were to marry someone who's as flat as an airport runway? The kid would go hungry, and their nutrition wouldn't be enough, and in the future, when the kid grows up with a small build like mine, how am I supposed to explain that to them? You see what I mean? With my standards, it's hard for me to find a wife."

  The patient blinked three times, with a hint of anxiety in his eyes.

  "You're in a hurry, but it's no use. I don't want to settle for anything less. I have to think about my future children, after all. Don't worry about this matter, just wait and see, I'll bring back someone beautiful, virtuous, and with a good figure, guaranteed to make your eyes wide with wonder. Come on, open your mouth..."

  The patient had difficulty opening his mouth.

  "Is it sweet?"

  The patient blinked, and Zhen Ming smiled wryly. In fact, he had known that his uncle's sense of taste had been gone for five years. His uncle was just deceiving him so as not to make him sad. He couldn't bear to expose the truth, and every time he fed his uncle, he would ask if it tasted good.

  "Tomorrow I'll take a day off, take you out for a stroll, get some sun, get rid of the lice and fleas, and buy you a new set of clothes, haven't bought new clothes in a year, right?"

  The patient's eyes kept moving back and forth on him, Zhen Ming bitterly understood his meaning, smiled and shook his head: "This set can't be given to you, I'm still keeping it for the next blind date."

  After feeding the orange, she wiped his mouth clean. Zhen Ming got up from his bitter vigil, walked out of the ward, went to the hot water room and fetched a basin of hot water. He returned to the ward, took a clean towel hanging on the head of the bed, wet it, and carefully began to wipe down the patient's body.

  The head nurse pushed the door open, holding a plate of hot dumplings in her hand, and said with a smile: "You child, everyone says you don't have to wipe him yourself, there are special nurses in the hospital who will do it for him."

  "It's okay, my uncle is a bit of an oddball, one of those people who gets more charming with age. If such a beautiful nurse were to wipe him down, he'd be too embarrassed, so it's better if I do it."

  The head nurse chuckled, this young man had a reassuring quality about him, no matter what happened, he was always calm and composed, never showing any signs of frustration or despair in front of others.

  Many nurses are willing to chat with him, but only limited to older nurses with some life experience.

  "This is the dumplings I just bought, can't finish so many, you help me eat them, don't waste." The head nurse put a plate of untouched dumplings on the bedside table.

  She was afraid that Zhenming had not eaten dinner, so she bought a box of dumplings on purpose. She thought the child was good in every way, but he had one flaw: his self-esteem was too strong, and he never wanted to accept other people's small favors. However, if someone asked him for help, he would never refuse. He said that his uncle was stubborn, but actually, he himself was also very stubborn.

  "Thank you, Sister Lin."

  "Don't mention it, just help yourself and don't leave any leftovers, wasting food is a shame." The head nurse smiled and pushed the door out.

  Zhenming bitterly looked up at the nurse and said, "Uncle, in the future we should marry a wife like Lin sister, who is so understanding and considerate. Marrying such a wife would make a man happy for his whole life, don't you think?"

  The patient blinked his eyes and a hideous, knowing smile spread across the twitching corners of his mouth.

  The two exchanged a glance and then smiled slyly at each other.

  ……

  Coming out of the hospital, it was already past 12 o'clock at night. The night wind was a bit chilly, so Zhen Ming pulled his collar up and started jogging slowly along the bike path.

  For the convenience of taking care of his uncle, he rented a house near the hospital, only a few bus stops away. After finishing work, he would come to the hospital first, wash and dress him cleanly, feed him some fruit, and then jog back home, grasping this rare spare time to exercise.

  This is a habit he has cultivated over the past five years, unchanged by wind or rain.

  Tomorrow is his only day off this month, and every month on this day, he will push a wheelchair with his uncle to stroll around. Tomorrow, he plans to take his uncle to the department store to buy him some clothes. In a few days, it will be his uncle's 50th birthday, and he wants to celebrate it well.

  Back to the large rental house with a bird cage, took a cold shower, sat on the bed and went online. The laptop was bought from a second-hand forum for over 500 yuan, although its performance is not as good as before, but it's solid in quality, surfing the internet, listening to music, watching movies are all manageable.

  He opened the China Merchants Bank website, logged in to his account, and took a look at the credit score. Every month, he uses his credit card to pay for medical expenses, not because he doesn't have money, but mainly to earn credit card points. Over the past five years, his credit card limit has been upgraded by the bank to 30,000 yuan.

  This year prices have risen terribly. He has spent nearly 100,000 yuan on his card this year and accumulated nearly 20,000 points.

  He went on Taobao and exchanged the 20,000 points for nearly a thousand yuan in cash, planning to buy his uncle a nice set of clothes tomorrow. After finishing all this, he read some news and chatted with friends on the forum, then turned off the computer and fell asleep hugging his quilt.

  The next morning, he was woken up by the alarm clock. He sat up abruptly, opened his eyes, and recalled the strange beautiful dream he had just had, in which he proposed to the girl he secretly loved in middle school, who still looked as white and gentle as she did in her third year of junior high school, a sight that had often appeared in his dreams before, but this time he not only dreamed of her, but also mustered up the courage to propose to her in the dream, and unexpectedly she agreed.

  However, there is a slight imperfection - his uncle, who always stands beside the two of them, getting in the way and awkwardly intervening just when he's about to take further action.

  In his dream, his uncle said a lot of words that were not respectful to the elderly. Specifically, he said something, but he couldn't remember it very clearly. He only remembered the last few sentences, which roughly meant thanking him for taking care of him for a few years and leaving some things for him before he left. As for what things, he didn't say, but just like usual, he winked at him mysteriously and said that he was actually the Moon God in charge of marriage in heaven. Because he accidentally messed up the mandarin duck's score, it caused men to be with men, women to be with women, men to become women, and women to become men. He was punished by the Heavenly Emperor to come down to the mortal world to experience love tragedies.

  His uncle has always been disrespectful to the elderly and unreliable. Zhenming was also puzzled, but didn't think deeply about the meaning of it, only wondering where he was going.

  "Uncle, where are you going? You're not taking care of me?"

  "You've had a good life, so just go back to where you came from. You'll naturally have someone to take care of you in the future, I'm not capable of taking care of you now. Do whatever you want, these years have been hard on you, and Uncle doesn't have much to leave for you anyway. When Uncle passes away, we can even arrange a few marriages for you, so it won't be in vain that we've been uncle and nephew all these years."

  His uncle still had a playful and mischievous look, blinking his eyes, when he was young, whenever he got surprised, his uncle would tease him in this way.

  Since he was young, his uncle has been a mysterious figure. He had left home to become a monk and went to Wudang Mountain to become a Taoist priest. He practiced Wudang Tai Chi Fist and spoke in a way that made people ponder the meaning of his words. Those who didn't know him thought he might be some kind of pyramid scheme leader or a cult master, but his Wudang Kung Fu skills were genuine.

  Just as Zhenming was about to ask, his uncle turned around and walked away with a carefree attitude, getting farther and farther away. He wanted to chase after him but couldn't catch up, and finally disappeared into the wedding hall. Then the alarm clock rang.

  He got up, washed his face, poured a glass of milk from the refrigerator and drank it. As soon as he finished drinking, the phone rang. It was the head nurse calling. He answered it and rushed out of the door without even putting on his clothes, wearing only his pajamas.

  Ran all the way to the emergency room door of the hospital, just saw a group of doctors with serious expressions coming out from inside, followed by the nurse on duty last night.

  The head nurse saw Zhen's miserable fate and was stunned for a moment. Then her expression turned gloomy and she looked away.

  Zhen Mingsu's heart sank, and as expected, his uncle's attending physician saw Zhen Mingsu arrive and patted him on the shoulder comfortingly. "Acute kidney failure, go take a look, condolences."

  Zhen Ming was stunned for a long time before asking: "Did he leave smoothly?"

  "It doesn't hurt."

  "That's good, that's good." Zhen Ming muttered to himself, walking into the hospital room with a somewhat dispirited and listless air.

  The head nurse had never seen Zhen Ming in such a state, and was just about to go in and accompany him when the attending physician held her back and shook his head slightly.