He Asked About My Driving

Xie Qingcheng had been a doctor, and his body knew it before his mind caught up — he shook off Bai Jing's wrist and dropped to his knees to check on the old man.

Clinically, acute myocardial infarction is among the most lethal cardiovascular emergencies, and a sudden violent shock to the emotions is one of the most reliable triggers in elderly patients.

Bai Jing hadn't registered what had happened. She was still cursing.

Xie Qingcheng rolled up his sleeves and began emergency care, twisting around to snap at her: 'What are you standing there for? Acute MI. Call an ambulance. Now.'

'Acute MI, what's — acute MI?!'

Bai Jing went blank.

The gold-lined eyes couldn't hold back the shock and fear flooding into them. Her face went bloodless in an instant, and she stood there gaping, unable to move forward or back.

Xie Qingcheng: 'You don't know the emergency number?!'

She probably had known it once, but under sudden crisis her mind emptied out completely: 'It's — what is it?'

'120!'

'Right, right, right—!' This was a life on the line, not what Bai Jing had bargained for at all. She fumbled for the phone Xie Qingcheng had thrown back to her and dialled.

'Hello? Is this 110? Oh, no, no! Don't hang up! I got it wrong! I'm not reporting a crime, I just need — there's an old man here who collapsed suddenly, acute unconscious inflammation — no wait, that's not it, acute myocardial — myocarditis—'

'Myocardial infarction!'

'Yes! That! Infarction, infarction!'

She stumbled through the call and ended it with a shaky exhale. Some of the panic drained out of her — but she still couldn't bring herself to go near Xie Qingcheng and the old homeless man.

Xie Qingcheng cleared the secretions from the old man's airway, carefully easing him onto his back to prevent aspiration. Sweat was already running down his forehead. He looked up at Bai Jing: 'Help me.'

Bai Jing immediately recoiled: 'I am not touching him. Do you know how disgusting that is? What if he has HIV, what if he's contagious? And this outfit cost a fortune — one stain and it's ruined.'

Xie Qingcheng's fury broke through: 'HIV doesn't spread that way. Which matters more to you — your clothes or this man's life? Get over here.'

'That's moral coercion. Do you have any idea how long I had to work for this one outfit, how many hours on my feet? And he clearly had an underlying condition before this — it's not my fault he collapsed. I—'

The old man let out another wet retch, a gush of white foam at his lips. Bai Jing's throat tightened at the sight; she nearly gagged and kept backing away. 'Don't force me — I can't do it. I really can't.'

It was then that one woman broke from the ring of onlookers and came forward. She turned on Bai Jing first: 'Young lady, do you have a conscience? You'll be old yourself one day. Dressed up so pretty and your heart is that rotten?'

Bai Jing: 'I—'

The woman rolled her eyes and wrote her off. She turned to Xie Qingcheng: 'Tell me what to do. I'll help.'

That's how crowds work sometimes. Everyone hangs back in silence, too far away and too careful to step in — until one person opens their mouth, and then others follow like shoots after rain.

Suddenly the ones who had been watching from a cautious distance were crowding in: someone offering to run to a nearby pharmacy for emergency medication, someone else fanning the old man to keep him cool, and just like that, Bai Jing was edged out entirely.

But all the goodwill in the world couldn't solve the immediate crisis. There was nothing left to do but watch the seconds drag by.

Then, as if things weren't bad enough, Bai Jing's phone rang. The hospital, calling back.

'We've run into a problem. One of the roads into your area has a collapsed water main — the whole trunk road is flooded, there's no way around it. The other way is through the old streets, and we can't get through, dead gridlock, and it's one-way going the wrong direction. We'll have to turn around.'

Bai Jing relayed this to Xie Qingcheng, who didn't stop working. He asked sharply: 'How long?'

Bai Jing wilted and turned back to the phone: 'How — how long?'

'Fastest we can manage after the turnaround is thirty minutes.'

Xie Qingcheng looked at the old man. Thirty minutes. That was a death sentence.

How was it possible to be this unlucky? A collapsed water main on the main road, of all things, right now?

He was still trying to think when two bright headlights swept across the intersection — rectangular tail lamps lit with unhurried precision, and a black Cullinan, its little wings unfurled, rolled silently out of the blaze of city lights, steady and unhurried, and turned down the one-way street toward the scene.

Bai Jing had an irrepressible urge to go live for anything luxury, and even now, with a man's life hanging in the balance, her hand moved on instinct, phone rising to frame the big Cullinan — terrified of missing a single second before it drove away.

But the Cullinan didn't drive away. It slowed and stopped beside them.

Bai Jing stared, wide-eyed and uncomprehending.

Then the next moment made her pupils nearly shake out of her head: the rear window of her dream car descended in silence, a girl leaned out, and called across to Xie Qingcheng, who was still working over the old man—

'Dage!'

Bai Jing: '???!!'

'He Yu asked me out for barbecue and we were passing through — I saw a figure from way back and thought it looked like you, so I made him come check — and it really is you... oh! God, what happened to the person next to you? Is something wrong?!'

Xie Qingcheng glanced up. On the far side of the Cullinan's interior, nested in dark leather, He Yu sat half-lost in shadow; only a composed, elegant profile was visible to anyone looking in, the lines of it strikingly handsome and refined — yet if you looked carefully, you could almost sense something else underneath, a faint, unmistakable air of depravity.

Xie Qingcheng had no desire to drag He Yu into this. But there was no room for that now. 'There's a patient. Acute MI brought on by emotional shock. I've done what I can here, but he needs to get to a hospital immediately.'

Xie Xue's face changed: 'What about the ambulance?'

'Called. Road conditions are bad. Thirty minutes at the earliest.'

Xie Xue didn't hesitate — she threw the door open and jumped out, hurrying to the old man's side, no trace of aversion on her face. She just didn't know first aid; she stood there beside Xie Qingcheng in helpless uncertainty, not sure where to put herself, until the anxiety drove her to shout toward the car: 'He Yu! He Yu, come down and help!'

The elegant degenerate got out of the car, took one look at the old man's purpling lips, and made the call: 'He rides with us.'

Xie Xue, bless her: 'But what if no one gives way? It's peak hour, look at this traffic.'

He Yu smiled coldly: 'They're welcome to try ramming us.'

He turned to his driver: 'Old Zhao, how steady are you?'

'Steady, but I drive careful by habit — I can't promise fast—'

And even if you told me to ram someone, Young Master He, I would not be doing that.

'Then get out.' He Yu rolled back one sleeve, swung his long legs into the driver's seat without a backward glance, yanked off the parking brake — still chewing his gum — and said: 'Get in. I can have us at Municipal Hospital in ten minutes.'

Xie Qingcheng: 'Do you have a licence?'

He Yu, expressionless: 'No. Are you getting in?'

'He does!' Xie Xue had completely given up on both of them, He Yu especially — all this, and he still had to pick a fight with her dage. 'He just converted his foreign licence to a domestic one! Dage, stop taking his nonsense!'

Under Xie Qingcheng's direction, the old man was lifted carefully and laid flat across the Cullinan's rear seat. Everyone piled in. He Yu buckled his seatbelt and was about to floor it when the little three-legged dog came scrambling over and, as the door eased shut, began barking at the people inside from the narrowing gap.

Xie Xue was soft-hearted. She watched the scruffy, limping little thing trying to keep up outside the car and couldn't help saying: 'Poor thing…'

He Yu glanced at her. The passenger door swung open again. 'Bring it.'

Xie Xue jumped back out, reached around, cupped her hands beneath the little dog's front paws, and lifted the filthy little yellow creature into the car.

The small yellow dog: 'Mm… mm…'

As if it understood it hadn't been left behind, the dog turned first to look at the old man lying on the back seat, then raised its fuzzy muzzle — black-bean nose working with gratitude — and nuzzled Xie Xue's cheek; then it turned toward the driver's seat, stretched out its small wet tongue, and very carefully licked the young man's face.

He Yu ignored the dog's gratitude entirely. With one touch he restored his driver-side mirror to its saved position, wrapped his long-fingered hand around the wheel, and said: 'Call back the ambulance dispatch — let them know the situation while we're on the road. Let's go.'

A small mercy within the disaster: because the old man had received proper emergency care in the first moments, and because they reached the hospital in time, after most of a night's worth of effort, he was finally out of danger.

Outside the night emergency ward, Xie Qingcheng worked through a stack of forms, opened his banking app to pay — and found the balance short. He was still working out what to say to the window attendant when a hand reached past him from behind and slid a card through the service hatch.

He turned. He Yu's face.

'Why is it you?'

He Yu: 'It's nothing. Don't thank me.'

Because the old man was homeless, had no family they could locate, and was carrying no identification, some of the paperwork was a nightmare. If Xie Qingcheng hadn't once worked at Municipal Hospital, and if the night-shift attending director hadn't known him personally, the whole thing would have been far messier. The old man was out of danger now, but many procedures still needed to be filed and followed up on; the hospital had also contacted the city's homeless services unit and asked them to come handle things on their end.

He Yu and the others, as public-spirited bystanders, couldn't leave just yet either.

'The woman named Bai — she's your blind date?'

After covering the bill, He Yu and Xie Qingcheng walked out to the hospital's back garden to get some air. He Yu asked.

'Yes. Where is she?'

'In the basement parking garage with Xie Xue — it's late, they're both getting sleepy, and Xie Xue didn't want to leave you alone up here, so she sent me.' He Yu paused. 'How did you end up on a blind date with someone like that?'

Xie Qingcheng kept a flat face: 'Just a meal. Nothing more.'

'Then you should have turned the matchmaker down from the start. I don't see much effort on your part. And she's about Xie Xue's age, isn't she? You're middle-aged now — not exactly ideal.'

Xie Qingcheng was more relaxed now, and he found He Yu profoundly irritating — thirty-two and middle-aged? If not for He Yu's help tonight, he'd have already told the little pest to mind his own damn business. But He Yu had just served as his personal driver and his personal ATM, and that made it hard to come out swinging too hard. So Xie Qingcheng just narrowed his bloodshot eyes and swallowed the 'middle-aged' without comment, saying coolly: 'Noted, Young Master He. I'll admit, I have no patience left for children under thirty.'

'…'

The brat and the middle-aged man traded barbs, neither drawing blood, and Xie Qingcheng finally just turned his face away.

The wisteria trellis corridor in Municipal Hospital's back garden was long. Xie Qingcheng walked it with his hands in his pockets, face composed, saying nothing. He had walked this path often ten years ago, when the garden was still half unfinished — not the curated, scenic stretch it was now, each bend arranged for effect. Back then, unlicensed street vendors would set up along both sides whenever the city wardens weren't looking, selling jianbing, zhou, rice balls.

Then he had resigned from Municipal Hospital, and in all the years after that, he had never walked this wisteria path again.

Something about returning to an old place gets into you. Xie Qingcheng was quiet for a long moment before he spoke: 'Hey. Kid.'

'Mm?'

'Is it true that young people these days all want to be influencers?'

'Not me. But the money is real, so plenty of people want in. Is Bai Jing an influencer?'

'…How did you know.'

He Yu smiled: 'Figured it out.'

Then: 'The old man's episode — she had something to do with it?'

The night breeze moved through the garden. The wisteria rustled.

'He mistook her for his daughter. Bai Jing started filming him, chasing him with the camera. The whole time he was trying to get away from the lens, begging her to stop — she couldn't hear him. All she could see was how many viewers were coming into her stream.'

A pause. Then, cold and flat:

'What a thing to be.'

He Yu let out a slow breath: 'Xie Qingcheng, the things you don't care about are the exact things some people stake their whole life on. You look at them chasing fame and think it's strange; they find you just as baffling. We're the same species, but we're also the species most walled off from each other — we can't trust one another, let alone understand each other. Sometimes two people look at each other and may as well be looking at a different order of creature entirely.'

He Yu was still talking when his phone rang. Old Zhao. It turned out He Yu had driven like he owned every road in the city, and the patrol officers who'd been furious enough to chase him had followed the car all the way to the hospital.

Old Zhao: 'Young Master He, should we ask the doctor to explain the situation — this was a special circumstance—'

He Yu: 'Leave it. Give them the licence to dock points and pay the fine. Don't waste the time.'

He hung up.

Xie Qingcheng: 'Money to burn?'

'Time is money to me. I don't like wasting time on things that aren't worth it. Like explaining myself to public officials. Next thing you know there's a journalist writing a tear-jerking human-interest piece about it.'

He Yu lowered his eyes — those dark irises looking flat, detached, touched with something quietly unsettling — yet the corner of his mouth still held a smile: 'I'd rather spend the time talking to you, honestly. They do the same things you do anyway, right? Checking my licence, for instance.'

'…'

Seeing the look on Xie Qingcheng's face, He Yu let the mockery at the corner of his mouth dissolve slowly up into his eyes. Hands still in his trouser pockets, gaze drifting forward, no longer resting on Xie Qingcheng's face — falling on some indeterminate point ahead. Then he tilted forward, angled his face toward Xie Qingcheng's throat, lowered his head, and stopped — thin lips hovering just beside the carotid artery, not quite touching.

He held that slight, inclined posture, eyes on the middle distance, voice dropping low against the man's ear: 'Gege — how was my driving?'

Lower still, thicker with irony: 'Did I serve you well enough, gege?'

'…'

The expression on Xie Qingcheng's face got considerably worse.

He was still holding a grudge about being asked for his licence? How petty could one person possibly be? How vicious a tongue?

He let out two cold laughs: 'More practice wouldn't hurt. Don't rush it, kid — you could make a decent chauffeur someday.'

Then he decided he was completely done talking to He Yu, turned his face away, brushed aside a trailing stem of wisteria, and walked on ahead.

He Yu wasn't finished needling him — or maybe he'd just gotten a taste for it. He kept going, all syrupy malice: 'Director Xie, if I'm your driver, what car do you set me up with? What's the monthly salary?'

Xie Qingcheng didn't look back. His voice floated over: 'A Wuling Hongguang and a prescription. Take the job or don't — your call.'

He Yu stood there with his hands in his pockets, watching the retreating figure, one foot scuffing the ground lightly, something sick and quiet in his eyes. He said, barely above a breath: 'A prescription… you really are something else, Xie Qingcheng. I really have it coming with you.'