Lei Nuwa, despite his passion, could not accept. She shook her head.
"You said you were bringing me to the fancy infirmary? We have to go now so I can sleep well tonight."
"Lei Nuwa, I will prove to you that I am speaking the truth. We do not have to be friends. But you can depend on me– will see me as support. And I will not leave you to study abroad." The last part was said under his breath so that Lei Nuwa could not hear.
Lei Nuwa did not answer him, but instead took his outstretched hand and tugged him forward. In her mind, she was preparing for an attack– in case Xu Zihao was just a very good actor. Her hyper-vigilance only made Xu Zihao grumble. When she let go of his hand, he picked her up again.
"Put me down! They didn't hit my legs, I can walk!"
"You move too slow."
"I do not!"
"Yes, you do. See, we're already at the infirmary in just the time that you were crying." Lei Nuwa indignantly turned around and started walking away with a huff. Zihao rolled his eyes and grabbed her arm, dragging her into the infirmary.
***
Lei Nuwa was on the medical bed, trying not to strangle Xu Zihao. He was pressing hard on different areas of her torso, checking for breaks or irregularities. Every so often Lei Nuwa would be hit with an unbearable pain, and upon her reaction, Xu Zihao would focus on that spot for a few moments.
After about 10 minutes, Xu Zihao sat back and stared at Lei Nuwa.
"I am not in the medical school here, so I'm just guessing, but I think you have some broken ribs." Lei Nuwa's eye twitched in fury.
"You bastard! You just spent ten minutes torturing me and you don't even know what you're doing?" She looked for a medical tool to either beat him with, or cut him with.
"Hey, I helped you before and I didn't have medical experience." He said, offended.
"That was a few scratches! You just put a bandaid on! You could have punctured my lung, or my stomach, or my heart, or…"
Xu Zihao burst out in laughter. He pushed her back down on the bed and began to apply lidocaine numbing patches on the places where it hurt the most. The cold sensation was a relief to Lei Nuwa, and she let out a breath and closed her eyes.
"I'll give you a box of these to take with you, and some oral painkillers. Don't get caught, don't get addicted, and let me know how you're doing."
"How exactly am I going to do tha–" He held up her phone in front of her face.
"I took this a while ago. Put my number in and texted myself from your phone while you were screaming at me."
Lei Nuwa swiped her phone back and glared again. In all of her lives, she had not met a man as annoying and unpredictable as Xu Zihao. He was like a wolf in sheep's clothing; a snake with two faces. No matter how much she avoided him, he always seemed to find her. She thought of Zhang Fengge– the first one to help her, to save her in this life. She thought the same of him at first, but his intentions turned out to be pure.
Is it possible that Xu Zihao was the same? She shook her head. One nice person cannot remedy four lives of misfortune– and in order to make sure this life didn't end the same way, she could not take risks like knowing Xu Zihao.
Xu Zihao could see her thinking hard about something. He didn't know what it was, but when she snapped out of it, it seemed she had completely detached from him again.
"Thank you for your help. I'll be leaving now, Young Master Xu." She quickly ran out of the room after bowing and never looked back.
Xu Zihao threw a nearby first aid box in anger and frustration. He wished that he did not want her trust, her eyes to look at him like she looked at Zhang Fengge. Zhang Fengge– after the day at the cafe, he began looking into their relationship (and sending a few of his men to follow them around), he knew about their closeness. He envied it; so much so that he sent someone to Zhang Fengge's school in order to keep an eye on him. To protect him– no matter Xu Zihao's own jealousy, he wanted to make sure that he was safe for Lei Nuwa's sake, but to also observe him.
When his agent had reported back about Zhang Fengge's new relationship, he felt as if he could kill him with his bare hands.
'That bastard, he leaves and acts like Nuwa doesn't exist, and she still is here, resenting me!' Xu Zihao was an independent and strong willed person; all of that seemed to crumble when it came to that girl. In his mind, he reminisced about a dream that had been haunting him multiple nights.
In it, he had been walking through the same dorms that Lei Nuwa stayed in currently. He walked through a maze of hallways, finally reaching an isolated, dark room that seemed miles away from other students. He had knocked– once, twice, three times. There was no answer. The door was locked, so he had to force his way in. He kicked the door open, then quickly collapsed to the floor, gagging.
In the pale moonlight, he saw the corpse of Lei Nuwa. Her wrists had been slit– just like the scars he had seen that first day. Her eyes were open, empty, and the blade was still in her hand. Her eyes were no longer purple, but black. There had been so much blood that Xu Zihao had felt like he was drowning; and it always ended with him reaching for her– and every time, he would wake up before his hand was able to touch her.
He was certain his mind created a horrible scenario after seeing her scars– his own morbid imagination exaggerating something much less dramatic. But night after night he began to have this dream; and day after day he made sure to check that Lei Nuwa's eyes were still purple.