Mud beads

Room 1206 was packed with people.

The doctor stood in front of the bed, two nurses stood guard on either side of it, and a caregiver stood against the wall, clutching a wad of blood-stained gauze. All the overhead lights in the ward were on, casting a stark white light that clearly illuminated every messy corner of the room.

Yu Zhu was restrained to the bed with straps.

Her arms were pressed down at her sides, her wrists secured with wide, soft straps. Several layers of gauze were wrapped around where the IV needle had been, with a small patch of dark red seeping through the edges. A bruise swelled on her forehead, dried blood clung to the area below her nostrils, and a few drops of blood splattered on the front of her hospital gown.

She lay there quietly. Her eyelids were half-open, her expression serene, like Snow White just awakened by a prince.

Echigo took a slow breath in, then exhaled, and raised his hand to pull his half-open coat closer.

Half an hour ago, the hospital called him, saying that Yu Zhu was emotionally unstable and unwilling to cooperate with treatment, and that he should come over.

He had just come out of the bathroom when he hung up the phone, his hair still wet. The jacket he was wearing was something he'd grabbed on the way downstairs, and he was still wearing light loungewear underneath.

"Mr. Yue."

When the doctor saw him coming, he quickly moved away from the bedside and pulled him aside.

The events are quite simple.

Yu Zhu ran out of the ward, bumped into the wall, and was held down by a nurse at the nurses' station. She refused to go back to the room, pulled out the IV needle from the back of her hand, struggled to leave, and wouldn't let anyone near her.

Three nurses and caregivers were unable to calm her down. To prevent her from further injuring herself, the doctors had to use restraints to immobilize her.

After listening, Toru Echizen's brows furrowed slowly, and his gaze returned to the hospital bed.

Yu Zhu remained lying there peacefully, her unfocused gaze seemingly fixed somewhere, her expression indifferent, as if she were not the one who had just struggled to escape the ward.

The doctor reminded him that her emotions were still unstable. Yuejian Tetsu acknowledged and asked the medical staff to leave first.

The ward door was closed, and the room became quiet again.

Tetsuya Koshima didn't say anything.

He silently took off his coat, walked to the bedside, and bent down to untie the restraints on her right hand. The metal buckle snapped open with a "bang," and Yu Zhu's wrist remained motionless on the cushion.

Next is the left hand.

Several obvious red marks were pressed into her fair skin, her fingers were slightly curled, and there was still a bit of wall dust left on the edge of her nails.

Echigo stared at the grayish-white spot for a moment, then quickly came to his senses, walked to the foot of the bed, and untied the bindings around her waist and legs.

One by one, the soft straps were pushed aside, and she was like a fish that had been entangled in seaweed and then regained its freedom, yet she remained quietly in the same place.

Echigo pulled out a chair and sat down on the edge of the bed, crossing his arms over his chest, finally relaxing his shoulders a little.

"What?" He looked at the dried blood under her nose, leaned back slightly, and the veins on the side of his neck tensed. "You don't want to live anymore because of him?"

Yu Zhu's eyelashes fluttered.

She turned her head at the sound, her empty eyes blinking. After a moment, she braced herself on the mattress and slowly sat up.

"Is that not allowed?" she asked calmly.

Soon, she laughed again. Dried bloodstains lay below her nose, making her pale face appear both beautiful and sinister.

"What's it to you?"

Echizen's face turned cold.

"You're giving up your studies, your work, your friends—all of that?"

Before she could answer, he stared at her and continued, "On the Qinling Mountains, you have quite the nerve. You said you would climb upwards, without stopping for a moment."

Yu Zhu seemed to have anticipated his words, and her smile deepened rather than diminished.

"Who says I can't go back on my word?"

Echizen Toru was speechless for a moment.

The curtains in the ward were not drawn, and the darkest night sky pressed against the glass, framed by the overhead incandescent light, turning it into a dead black.

Yu Zhu suddenly reached out and touched the bed rail, grabbed it and brought her body close to the edge of the hospital bed.

"Don't you find what you just said hilarious?"

She laughed, her dark eyes flashing with scorn: "When have you ever cared about my studies, my future, my life?"

"You don't care. Nobody cares." She shook her head, then looked up again. "You just want me to be like your pet cats and dogs, able to reach out, roll around, and do novel things that others wouldn't do."

Her hand left the bed railing and continued to grope forward, from his knees to his legs.

"You never care what I'm thinking or what I want; all you care about is yourself."

Yu Zhu's hand trembled as it left Yue Jianche's leg and groped towards his chest, finally stopping at his collarbone.

"Do I need your expectations? Do I need your pride? Do I need your approval?"

Echizen Toru frowned under her barrage of questions.

Yu Zhu suddenly grabbed his collar tightly: "You want to see me wipe away my tears, stand up, and start over, right?"

She pulled him towards her, her trembling fist occasionally pounding his jaw: "And then? Are you going to sing my praises, extol me, and tell me I'm amazing and strong?"

She tilted her head back and laughed, her unfocused eyes filled with light, sparkling brightly.

She lowered her head, tears welling in her eyes: "I'm a person, a living, breathing person! Have you ever treated me like a living, breathing person?"

"certainly--"

"Liar!" she interrupted him sharply, her chest heaving more and more noticeably. "Do I really have to keep moving forward? I can't regret anything, I can't be sad, I can't become bad or worse—can't I hate?"

"Yes." Yuejian Tetsu's heart skipped a beat as he looked at her face contorted with anger. "Yes. Yu Zhu, you can."

He grasped her shoulders and pulled her towards him. Beneath his palm, her bones pressed against his thin hospital gown.

He quickly said, "Alright, I was wrong just now—"

"I hate it so much!"

Yu Zhu seemed not to hear.

"I hate Yu Zhaozu, I hate Yu Laidi, I hate Yu Dahai... I hate you!"

"Why?!" She turned and broke free from him, shoving her hand hard into his chest. "Why can they get away with five million? Why should someone like you, who doesn't value anything, be born with everything?!"

Echigo Koshima, who was sitting in a chair, was pushed back half a step by her. The collar of his loungewear was ripped open, and a button came undone, hanging diagonally across his chest, rising and falling with his breath.

Yu Zhu suddenly leaned over to get off the bed, but her thigh tripped on the bed rail and she stumbled.

Echizen Toru quickly got up and caught her.

"You're actually quite smug inside, aren't you?" She looked up at him, her tear-filled eyes so close they didn't reflect his face. "He's dead, no one's standing in your way anymore, you've won again, haven't you?"

"I--"

"You know perfectly well that I have nothing to do with the Yu family anymore! Why did you still call me over that day!" she finally screamed, grabbing the man's collar again and pulling him closer. "Why didn't you just kick her out? Why, why did you have to call me over..."

Echigo was jolted by her tug, and strands of his half-dry hair slid from his temples to his forehead, obscuring his eyes.

Yu Zhu suddenly took a breath.

"Am I not trying hard enough?"

Her tears finally welled up and slid down her cheeks, drop by drop.

"What did I do wrong?! What did I do wrong?!"

Echizen Toru's arm, which was resting on her shoulder, slowly stiffened.

Yu Zhu burst into tears, and the congealed blood below her nose quickly spread.

Why?

She tilted her head back, her empty gaze seemingly piercing through the concrete slabs to look at the sky: "Why can't I even have a little bit of happiness?"

Koshima Toru's Adam's apple bobbed slowly: "It's not your fault."

"Isn't that right?"

Yu Zhu laughed again, but the laughter quickly turned into a sob: "Whose fault is it?"

Before she finished speaking, she reached out and punched him in the face.

The punch landed on Echizen Toru's chest.

He didn't hide.

Yu Zhu reached out and slapped her again.

This time, the burden fell on his shoulders.

"So why wasn't it you who died?"

Yu Zhu finally lost control.

She stopped speaking and only screamed. She kept hitting him—slaps and fists rained down on his face, chest, and shoulders without any pattern, some of them not even touching him, just passing through the air.

Echizen Toru stood silently.

He let her hit him, the cuffs of his pajamas rolled up to his elbows, revealing the prominent veins on his forearms.

Only when her fingernail scratched his cheek, leaving a thin, long bloody mark, did she finally lower her hand, exhausted, and her body slowly slid down his arm.

Koshima Tetsu held her up.

Yu Zhu slumped softly into his arms, her face turned to one side. Blood from her nose mingled with tears, staining his light-colored loungewear and leaving a messy, unsightly stain.

Her eyes were closed, the corners of her eyes and the tip of her nose still flushed from crying. She was breathing rapidly, her body spasming intermittently with each sob.

Echizen Toru held her tightly in his arms.

Only when her trembling gradually subsided did he slowly lean down and gently touch his temple to her tear-stained cheek, as if testing a distance she no longer had the strength to refuse.

Yeah.

He closed his eyes, letting the damp, cold liquid cling to his skin.

It's fine to just hate like this.