365 Ways 2
Hello Sister
The ward wasn’t big. Including the bathroom, it is about 20 square meters, but there are not many things either. There’s one bed, one table, and two chairs. The windows are made of almost bulletproof glass so it can’t be smashed, and there are no sharp objects around. The tables and chairs were also tightly wrapped in cloth blankets, so that no sound is produced when they are moved. The entire room was turned into silent mode.
After Chu Yu entered, she sat on the chair behind the table. She did so as silently as possible, and even the sound of her breathing dropped, fearing that the other party would reject her.
The patient is sitting on the bed at the moment and leaning on the window sill, looking out the window. It is uncertain whether she’s taking a nap, watching her reaction, or just doesn’t want to talk to Chu Yu, so she turned her back to her.
Chu Yu calmly looked at her back, thinking: What’s her name again… Xia Yihan, indeed she’s as cold as frost, and it’s similar to Xia Bingbao. How did her parents name her this? Why can’t they change her name to Xia Sihuo, or Xia Nuannuan? If someone calls her like that every day, maybe she would be a bit more alive in her heart.1
While her mind was galloping like a wild dog running off the rein, Chu Yu’s body remained motionless. Except when entering through the door, she made no sound during the whole process, just quietly accompanying the patient Ms. Xia.
She didn’t know how long it took before Xia Yihan turned around and looked behind her.
Chu Yu stared at her and smiled. The corners of her mouth raised thirty degrees, which was neither exaggerated nor stiff. This was the professional smile she developed after visiting countless mentally ill friends, which perfectly concealed her true thoughts and mood.
In fact, Chu Yu was slightly startled by the girl’s face. For a moment, her facial features were extremely beautiful, like a sketch of a landscape drawn with a pencil. She looked elegant and because she had her back to the light, the contours of her face were emphasized. This added to her clear and delicate frame.
Xia Yihan got off the bed and sat across from Chu Yu. Although she did not have makeup on, she didn’t look haggard. Her eyes were black as ink, her lips were rosy, and her hair was black and shiny. With the volume and quality of her hair, Xia Yihan looked like a potential spokesperson for advertising shampoo.
“Your hair is beautiful.” Chu Yu said with a warm smile.
Xia Yihan did not respond. She folded her hands and placed them on the table. Her two index fingers stood up opposite each other, making it seem as if she was chanting a spell.
Chu Yu adopted her look and made the same hand shape while sitting opposite her. At first glance, it really looked like the two of them were having a secret cult exchange.
“Are you afraid to live alone in this room?”
Xia Yihan changed her gesture. She formed fists, overlapped them, and lightly rubbed.
Chu Yu followed along and asked, “Is it like this, with the left hand up?”
Xia Yihan stared at her hand for a moment. Then, with ten fingers intertwined, she started making complex and varied gestures.
This time, Chu Yu did not copy her. Although imitation of the mental patients’ actions can gain their favor, she suddenly thought whether these gestures were this doll’s own sign language, the one where she is the only person that understands! What if she is making fun of her? For example, folded hands mean: you look like an idiot, lol!
She thought for a moment, then humbly asked, “I don’t understand this gesture. Can you teach me?”
Xia Yihan leaned forward and propped her head up with a palm. She stared at Chu Yu with both of her eyes, not speaking a word.
Chu Yu felt uncomfortable, in a triangular patch from her eyes to her forehead. If she was stared at by others, there would be a sense of oppression, like the tension created in an interrogation room. Usually, few people would look at others that way.
Chu Yu examined Xia Yihan’s appearance, but she was only seventeen or eighteen years old. She looked even younger because of her bangs. She had stopped nursing for only a little over a decade, so how could she look at people like that?
Not afraid, Chu Yu stared back. The two stood in a stalemate for a while, with Xia Yihan not intending to cooperate at all. Chu Yu’s eyes dimmed, preparing to perform mandatory hypnosis.
Suddenly, Xia Yihan lifted her head and grinned, showing her teeth, “Hello, sister!”2
Chu Yu was taken aback, almost unable to control her expression. She quickly adjusted her state and nodded, “Hello.”
“At first I wanted to call you Aunt, but I was afraid that Sister would be angry.”
Hey, this dead child!
Chu Yu was extremely offended. She is only 4 or 5 years older than this doll, but she wants to call her Aunt! Using this logic, when Xia Yihan was born, wouldn’t she have to call the 5 year old her, Aunt?
With a heart galloping like ten thousand horses, Chu Yu put on a reasonable smile on the surface, “You may call me that, do as you like.”
Xia Yihan rubbed her nose, thought for a while, and said “I’ll call you Sister, it makes me sound more sensible.”
Chu Yu kept smiling. If a normal young adult said this to her, she would definitely retaliate with a needle on her backhand.
“Then can you tell sister, what do those hand gestures from before mean?”
“Hand gestures?” Xia Yihan opened her eyes wide, looking confused. Then she suddenly reacted and exclaimed, “Ohh, my fingers were bitten by pesky mosquitoes yesterday. They’re a bit itchy, so I was scratching them just now.”
Chu Yu: “…”
Over the years, having met many abnormal people, Chu Yu can, for the most part, navigate with ease. It is she who leads the other person’s thoughts and peers into their problems, then prescribing the right medicine. However, this one today doesn’t feel quite right according to the script.
At the same time, she had calculated in her heart. Dean Hu mentioned that Xia Yihan had adult autism, with language and social impairment. Even if she communicates with people, she should mostly be perfunctory, unable to grasp the tone and read the atmosphere. Just now, when Xia Yihan talked, her language was correct and her feelings were evident. She also made facial expressions, like a smile or eyebrows lowered in thought, which rules out the idea that she had adult autism.
Could it be bipolar disorder?
While thinking, Chu Yu suddenly heard Xia Yihan say, “Sister, I want to touch you.”
Chu Yu was stunned again. This was the first time she heard a patient say this to her. Mental patients usually resisted the real world, avoiding close contact with others except when they kill and fight.
“Why?”
Xia Yihan smiled embarrassedly, with her lips bent into a crescent arc. She folded her arms, and rested her head on them while looking up at Chu Yu. Her eyes projected a clear, innocent light.
“Because Sister must be very slippery, like meat from the gills of a fish.”
“Fish gills?” Chu Yu felt weird.
“Yup,” Xia Yihan straightened up, comparing one hand to a knife and the other to a fish. “When using a knife, you cut the fish from the middle, divide it into two, and take out its internal organs. Then aim it at the gills and dig out a piece of flesh. Because it is connected to the gills, this piece of meat is more elastic and full of life. It feels so nice.”
As she said this, she stretched out her hand towards Chu Yu’s neck. Her neck was thin and pale, as if it could be broken by a twist of a hand.
Chu Yu was listening earnestly, so she was surprised and reacted quickly. As soon as Xia Yihan’s fingers touched her skin, she stood up, and the chair toppled over with a loud crash.
Chu Yu touched her neck. The affinity she had with her had all been swept away from her eyebrows and eyes, becoming cold and serious. She placed her left hand on the alarm button, and her right hand near the doorknob, ready to leave at any time.
Xia Yihan’s eyes were wide open and her double eyelids looked very delicate with the corners of her eyes upturned. Her eyes were like peach blossoms, round, watery, and appearing to be harmless.
“Sister, what’s wrong, did pop rocks suddenly grow on the chair?”
Chu Yu had goosebumps and her body was stiff with adrenaline. In fact, Xia Yihan’s movements were quite gentle just now, like lovers stroking each other’s cheeks or helping each other tidy up their clothes. However, Chu Yu has always been vigilant, so her every move will affect her nerves.
Chu Yu repeatedly told herself: This child is not violent, and will not be violent. Look at her thin arms and legs!
Two seconds later, Chu Yu regained her composure and lifted the chair from the ground. “Please excuse me, the chair’s legs suddenly became brittle. I will ask for it to be repaired.”
Hearing this, Xia Yihan stood up and patted the back of her chair, “Sister, you sit here. That chair was cursed by me this morning. The spell happened to activate just now and it broke.”
Of course Chu Yu knew that the chair was normal, but she relaxed and sat on the other chair. When she sat down, the back of her neck was cold because of Xia Yihan, so she touched her neck again.
Inside, she gave the hospital’s diagnosis report a red X and even wanted to give an F— Xia Yihan can talk, laugh, and touch. If it’s adult autism, she would chew her Psychology textbook to shreds.
“Just now, you reached out to touch my neck. Did you want to see if my neck and fish gills feel the same?”
Xia Yihan jumped to the side of her bed in a few steps and sat down with her hands supporting her body. Wearing the hospital’s spring and autumn season striped medical gown, her shoulders raised the thin fabric high, making her appear very thin.
“Yes, Sister is so smart!”
Chu Yu couldn’t help but smile, her lips raised in a beautiful arc.
Being complimented by her mentally ill friend for being smart, should she say “Thank you, I’m flattered”?
“Do you like to eat fish?”
Seeing that Xia Yihan entered into a normal conversation, Chu Yu seized the opportunity to strike while the iron is hot, trying to understand her inner world through indirect questions.
Xia Yihan wrapped her fingers around the corners of her clothes and began to fiddle around. She looked up at Chu Yu with a look of interest, “I like to kill fish.”
“Since you kill the fish yourself, how did you kill it?” Chu Yu thought to herself, could it be that she wanted to cast a spell again, so that the fish would instantly die?
“Sister wants to know?” Xia Yihan laughed with a secretive face, “I will teach you next time.”
From childhood to now, the only living creature that Chu Yu killed were the bugs that she crushed underfoot. Never mind those chickens, ducks, or fish, she can’t even restrain them, much less kill them with a knife. However, she did often use scalpels to dissect corpses and open the cranial cavities of living people. When it comes to using scalpels, her hands are steady, but when it’s used on animals, they’re not.
Faced with Xia Yihan’s invitation, Chu Yu did not refuse and went along with her words. At the same time, she raised hidden questions, hoping to judge the clarity and coherence of her thinking.
The two of them talked back and forth with each other. Before they knew it, it was already time for lunch.
A knock sounded on the door, so Chu Yu opened it to find a young nurse pushing in a food cart with a look of expectation.
“Doctor Chu, have you found anything?,” the nurse said with a lowered voice.
Smelling the scent of rice, Chu Yu’s eyes lingered on the lunch boxes, “Not yet.”
After speaking, she picked up two boxes and smiled at the nurse, “Yuxiang shredded pork3,the hospital’s food is really good.”
After turning around, the smile on Chu Yu’s face disappeared as she felt the situation was getting more and more complicated. The conversation lasted for two hours, but almost nothing was achieved. Except for discovering how Xia Yihan did not have autism, there was no new development — she wasn’t sure if that girl really didn’t understand, or just pretended not to because she always avoided the most important topics. If Chu Yu hadn’t been trying to keep a clear head, she would’ve been led away from the subject!
After entering the room, Chu Yu put a smile on her face again. She opened the stainless steel lunch box, letting the smell come out.
“It’s lunch time, do you like this dish?”
Xia Yihan stood by the window, only giving it a quick glance before saying, “I won’t eat it.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I want to eat the food you cook.”
Chu Yu almost blurted out: Even my father has never eaten a dish I made!
When the words reached her lips, she swallowed them down and replied, “Okay, I will prepare it for you and bring it tomorrow.”
(En, I’ll just order a takeaway tomorrow.)
Xia Yihan shook her head, “I want to eat it now.”
“I will cook for you if there’s a chance in the future. The head chef is already in the cafeteria, I’m afraid he’ll drive me out.”
(I’m afraid I’ll blow up the cafeteria and be blasted out.)
Xia Yihan frowned and puffed out her cheeks, feeling wronged, “But I want to eat the dishes made by Sister, I want to eat them now, please?”
Chu Yu trembled all over, feeling an electric current rising from the soles of her feet, numbing every cell in her body. She is usually indifferent, and never experienced pampering or coquettish people. Few people dare to make a mistake in front of her. Now that Chu Yu is suddenly hit by Xia Yihan’s crit hit, she feels that her spine is going to crinkle into dust. She feared that if she didn’t say yes, little girl Xia would cling onto her body.
Two minutes later, the head nurse was called outside the ward by a bell, followed by a wave of young and strong medical staff. Looking at them, it seemed like they wished they could wield machine guns to protect Chu Yu.
“Doctor Chu, what happened?”
Chu Yu folded her arms and leaned on the door frame, “I just want to ask, may I cook some food in the cafeteria right now?”
Nurse Yang looked at Chu Yu’s slender hands, and cautiously asked, “Is the food in the cafeteria not to your liking?”
“That’s not the case,” Chu Yu sighed almost inaudibly. “This little girl wants to eat the food I cook, or she will go on a hunger strike.”
The nurses looked at each other, and then lowered their voices, “How about this, you will go to the kitchen with us, but when we’re there, we’ll let the cook in the back kitchen cook another one. Then you’ll bring it over and say that you made it…”
Before they finished their words, the door behind Chu Yu suddenly opened. Xia Yihan stood behind her with a smile and sunny eyebrows, “Let’s go, we’ll go to the cafeteria together! I want to see my sister cook and learn from her!”
The medical staff in the corridor all shut their mouths unanimously, as if their lips were sewn shut. They all stared at Xia Yihan as if they had seen a ghost in broad daylight.
The author has something to say:
Xia Yihan: I want to touch Sister (=^▽^=)
Chu Yu: No, you want to murder me →_→
—
I have a mysterious problem. Whenever I enter a question mark on my phone, it would be swallowed up by JJWXC. I don’t know where they’re all going, but if you see a blank spot without punctuation, just treat it as a question mark, hehehe.
TL would like to say something too ε=ε=ε=ε=ε=ε=┌(;￣◇￣)┘:
Hello, I’m A-chan. This novel is really good and while it may seem boring right now, I promise the mystery/action will start before chapter 10. Word count for this chapter is actually double the previous, if you couldn’t tell and there will be one with significantly less. However, the release schedule will not change.
365 Ways updates every Sunday, 8 pm Eastern Time at the latest.
Also, I put the author’s notes in green, but it’s only visible in Light mode. Just a heads up.
Translator's Notes
- Xia Yihan’s name means coldness or frost. Chu Yu thought of Sihuo, which includes the word for fire and Nuannuan, which means warm/fluffy.
- Pinyin is Jiejie, the Chinese equivalent of Onee san. Comment below if you think I should change it to Jiejie.
- A common Sichuanese dish. Link
