Shan Haoyu and Zhou Xiwei might feel the loving embrace of the universe, but the rest of them aren’t gifted with rose colored glasses. Even ignoring the young woman they buried and the young man who is still laying in bed, the day to day humdrum and the missed ones back home are enough to make everyone else eager to go.
Mother Song longs for the family dog and her aesthetician, nevermind the two symphony shows she’s already missed. Father Song is sure that the rest of the board is incapable of working without him, and that a half-dozen key deals have already fallen through due to their nervous inaction.
His second-in-command is a brother-in-law that is fantastic as a right hand man. And a mess as a leader. Really, one rather sets the stage for the other; the best followers are good precisely because they lack the ability to lead, and they don’t get silly ideas beyond their station, ah.
Watching the man wilt is why he’s always tried to correct those same tendencies in young Zhou Xiwei. After all, his best friend’s only son– simply can’t only rise to the level of a second! Seconds make a mess the minute they’re left alone, and he’s sure the tatters of his own company will prove it once he’s home.
And the stock price-
Ai, the stock price. He really doesn’t want to imagine it. Who knows how much the make up of the shareholders will change by the time he returns from being missing, presumed dead? Sure, maybe he’ll be able to buy back some shares at a steal, but it’s still an embarrassment!
As company and charity heads, Mother Song and Father Song have the most to worry about, but the young people are plenty desperate as well.
Qian Li has officially sketched everything worth sketching (and several reams of nightmares), and has now devolved to the point of lovingly drafting vistas of his favorite coffee shops and nightclubs back home. Zhang Zhiping had been trying to bribe him to draw beauties instead, but after one near-fistfight over ‘my KTV angel doesn’t look like that!,’ Qian Li had refused his patronage. He never claimed to be a portrait artist, yeah?!
Why did you see me drawing gothic nightmares and then expect artisanal porn?!
Speaking of Zhang Zhiping…
He’s miserable.
He’s slightly less handsome than Ding Dongqi (pre-fall), but he’s always been more diplomatic, and as a result, always been the star of their group when it came to bed partners. Until now. He’s a zero on the Kinsey scale, and thus, ironically, not at all interested in zeroes. Or ones. He’ll tease and shittalk with the rest of them, but he’s never so much as kissed a man. Not even in his dreams, not even drunk, not even on a dare with the prettiest femme. Having so few ladies to look at is sending him round the bend.
He’s so desperate that even Zhou Xiting, the big sister that’s always intimidated him by her skill and her indifference and her closeness to the Song family, starts to make his heart race. Unfortunately, wanting doesn’t equal getting, and Song Xiting remains completely indifferent to his overtures of affection.
It’s deflating, but not unexpected. After all, she’s part of their circle.
She knows all his bad points. She’s also decently good friends with his real goddess, and it’s obvious that no part of her is willing to throw a grenade into her social life for an ill-considered island romance.
Situations like this are what self-comfort is for, and after a few weeks adjustment, she doesn’t need battery-operated assistance to get there, so he’s left with ‘self-comfort’ as well.
Song Bai, who is so solid that no one thinks to check up on him, might be faring the worst.
His problems aren’t easy to pin down. It’s not boredom, or horniness, or missing anyone.
Well, that’s not quite right.
He- it doesn’t make sense, not when they’re here together, but he’s starting to miss Zhou Xiwei? It’s nonsensical, but it’s true. Despite honestly and earnestly wanting his XiXi to spread his wings and get over his little crush, Song Bai never really considered what it would look like once he did.
He didn’t think it would affect the amount of time they spent together. Or their closeness. He just thought it would scrub away some unwanted undercurrents.
That’s proving not to be true. Probably, he was foolish to think things could stay the same. But he’s still off-kilter. Some days — most days? — he only sees his little brother at mealtimes. It’s a far cry from their routine since he finished high school and had time to accompany him.
They don’t sit and read together anymore, XiXi doesn’t perch at his side and look to him for protection as they hang out with the young lords that he’s a part of– but not really. They don’t go to trade shows, or on little hiking trips, or just to eat dinner and talk about life.
XiXi doesn’t even need him to be his bodyguard in the showers anymore. For all Song Bai knows, he’s showering with that Shan Haoyu character.
Song Bai’s not jealous.
He’s- his heart is just a little sour, and he’s not sure how to fill the hours that he used to spend trying to coax and change Zhou Xiwei.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Song Bai has spent the last fifteen years of his life being a problem solver, a leader, a soft but determined older brother to someone who he felt needed his care. Now that he’s become an only child again (Zhou Xiting certainly doesn’t need his hovering), he-
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He can only sit here, where no one seems to need him. Where he doesn’t have anything to do but wait for rescue. He can’t even become Ding Dongqi’s savior– not with Xu Wang rededicating himself to the guy’s care.
Turns out, he’s the kind of person that needs a purpose. Without one, he wilts.
It’s very demotivating, and he’s sick to death of it. He’s ready for the ship to come. He’s ready for XiXi to need him again, even though he feels a little guilty over the thought. He certainly doesn’t want to sleep with his adopted brother, but maybe he’s not as indifferent as he’s always believed?
Or maybe he just needs his own person, to fill up the hours?
…That’s probably the real answer.
—
While the rest of them get stuck on small problems, Xu Wang carefully checks Ding Dongqi’s head and body, keeping him comfortable with the piety of a once-bloodthirsty general seeking redemption as a monk. His job here is an easy one– despite what all the literature and his own experience says, the patient isn’t succumbing to any of the secondary infections that you expect to see, when someone is bedbound.
It’s the strangest thing.
There are no sores– not even any weakening of his skin. There’s no rashes developing, no aspiration pneumonia from the feeding tube, not even much in the way of incontinence. It doesn’t make sense– no matter how diligent Xu Wang now is, there should be some signs of compromise on Ding Dongqi’s body.
Humans are delicate. They aren’t meant to be fed by drip. They aren’t meant to lie in bed so long. They aren’t meant to persist in such situations, especially absent the drugs and IV hydration and breathing tubes that most coma patients need to rely on. They need stimulation.
Yet Ding Dongqi is Sleeping Beauty.
It’s like- like he’s experiencing some romanticized version of illness, where the people stay beautiful and their bodies never become anything more than, ‘a little inconvenient.’ It’s like- like a child’s understanding of brain injuries. Not that Xu Wang is complaining, or taking it for granted.
He still does his part exactly right. He would very much like this to be a fairy tale, alright?
He doesn’t want his negligence to endanger Ding Dongqi ever again.
He couldn’t save Xu Mei, so now he has to save him. If they both die, there’s really no point, nothing to salvage from the wreck of the three of them intersecting.
Five days after burying Xu Mei, his dedication is rewarded by Ding Dongqi waking up.
Not for long- not even long enough to call over his friends, or complete the mental acuity tests that he’d get in any hospital worth mentioning. It’s only long enough for Ding Dongqi to wince, to grab Xu Wang’s shoulder, and to try to pull the feeding tube out from his nose.
Xu Wang messily captures his hands, voice as soothing as his grip is firm, “It’s okay, leave it, you’ve been asleep and we wanted to make sure you stayed well-fed.”
Ding Dongqi keeps swallowing, the strange feeling of the thin tubing making him instinctively want to swallow it down or spit it out. Xu Wang keeps comforting him. “Don’t worry, it’s just for now, now that you’re awake, we can definitely pull it in a bit and-”
“Is my mom-?”
Ding Dongqi fades back out of consciousness mid-sentence. Well, nevermind then.
If he can wake and stay awake, they’ll talk about it, but given how strange his situation has been so far, Xu Wang’s not in a rush to change anything about their arrangement. What if his luck changes again?
No thanks.
Better to leave his patient as he is, and just be grateful that he appears mentally sound. Abnormally mentally sound, but Xu Wang won’t look this gift horse in the mouth. Unless he has to check his airways again.
Xu Wang freshens up Ding Dongqi’s appearance and finds some little flowers and books and even an old Rubik’s cube to place near his bed, just in case he wakes up again. Just in case he wakes up during the one or two times a day when Xu Wang dares to be out of the room to attend to his own matters.
Just in case he wakes up, and feels worried or scared or alone. Just in case Xu Wang isn’t perfect, bedside distractions are good insurance. That way he won’t be bored, and maybe he won’t pull out his tubes. He even leans over his body and writes calming words on the wall, so that Ding Dongqi can feel attended to and reassured.
Little does Xu Wang know–
Ding Dongqi has never had this level of attention.
Not from his bedmates, not from his parents, not from himself. If he woke up hurt and alone, he’d just think that he was on another bender. If he woke up with a tube down his nose and no one by his side, he’d just assume he’d done something wrong, but not quite wrong enough to gain his parents’ attention.
Whether by guilt or by love, no one has ever been as invested in Ding Dongqi as Xu Wang is now.
—
Xu Wang is grateful for every day that passes for his patient, but the rest of the crew is far less optimistic. To them, each day is a guillotine slipping a little further down, with a fraying rope twirling above it. And they’re abnormally aware of the days passing. Engineer Di has always kept a calendar while on charter, and he didn’t stop when they sank.
Day in and day out, he’s been sure to orient himself– he’s probably the only one on the island that can correctly identify the date and day of the week if asked.
After all, on the black sand and gathered around the honey locust table, date and day have no meaning. There’s no television, no news, no way to work remotely and no schedules to keep, other than knowing when the sun rises and sets. Even that isn’t so important, in the recent days where clouds and misting rain turn the whole place into a wash of dissolute gray.
But habits are habits, and one of the first things Di Qing did upon arriving was find an old notebook and carefully take note of all he could remember– the storm, their heading, the last radio contact they’d made and the emptiness that he’d seen as they waited for rescue.
The next day, when he’d heard about that grocery ship, he’d turned the page and neatly sketched out a calendar, crossing off days and cramming tiny notes in the margins as things got stranger.
Because of the calendar, Di Qing is very clear: As of this morning, they’ve been on the island for 35 days.
With no rescue, and no delivery ship.
‘Once a month’ is a vague descriptor. Not as good as ‘always on the fifteenth’ or ‘the third Saturday of the month.’ But even if they just missed the last visit, no month has 35 days. Even if it was departing as they were being pulled from the ocean, it should have returned.
It hasn’t.
Going for broke, Di Qing brings that up during their 35th breakfast.
Shan Haoyu doesn’t even blink, or stop passing dumplings to Young Master Zhou. He just uses his most conversational voice to explain, “The weather turned. We use an independent contractor. Small outfit. His own boat. Not the kind of thing where he’ll risk navigating in these conditions. Not when he knows perfectly well that we’ve got enough provisions to miss two or three deliveries in a row.”
Di Qing’s fingers whiten around his chopsticks.
“That’s not what you said at the start.”
That little shit Shan Haoyu has an answer for that, too:
“The weather was good– really good. A miss didn’t seem likely, and I didn’t want to worry you unnecessarily.”
Di Qing relaxes a little. That’s true at least? Even he noticed.
Other than the storm that brought them here and the recent wetness, it had been decent weather. Overcast, a few storms at night, but decent. Still, the unfulfilled promise makes his teeth itch. It raises uncomfortable questions about if the boat exists at all.
Xu Mei had wondered the same, and look how she had ended up.
He’s caught between caution and the desire to ask more questions, when Father Song takes the burden away from him, leaning forward and pinning Shan Haoyu with that presidential look that always makes the junior employees tell the truth and do their best.
“Young man, are you telling me that a missed delivery- just means the month is skipped entirely? That we may well be spending another- you said 35 days?”
Di Qing nods, and Father Song thumps the table.
“Another thirty-something days, that’s the better part of a quarter. The things- by the time we return and everything is properly sorted out, who knows what will be left of the company. Those idiots–” Realizing that he’s throwing away his steady image, Father Song collects himself and leans back. Takes an elegant sip of the tea that his wife expertly passes over.
After a moment, he continues in a calmer tone, like this is a negotiation, and he’s still in control:
“Well, it’s unfortunate for many reasons. And you- I’m sure you boys have favorites that are running low, especially with extra mouths to feed. Who wants to survive on tinned meat and pickled vegetables, am I right?”
Shan Haoyu nods, on a delay.
Di Qing’s pretty sure that Young Master Zhou is giving him signals under the table. Trying to make the guy fit in better. As if that’s possible.
Fuck, that Zhou Xiwei would be annoying, if he wasn’t so genuinely good-hearted. Apologizing for his friends on the yacht, awkwardly trying to intuit what drinks and food and water toys were easiest for the crew, and only asking for those ones–
Now, they were smack-dab in the middle of a fight for survival, and he was being sweet and loving with a stranger so far below his social status that he might as well be a medieval serf. A stranger that was maybe a ghost? Or a cultist? Di Qing’s still not sure, and he prays that he never had to find out. He can’t imagine that reveal being good, no matter what kind of wrong the guy ends up being.
At least he’s keeping the guy too busy to murder them all?
Father Song is a good enough negotiator to not get hung up on his audience’s weirdness. Or their short, non-verbal version of a response.
“Of course you don’t! You want fresh meat! Chips! Maybe letters from old friends? So- surely, there’s some way to make contact. After all, Director Xi-” Director Xi drops his spoon, not used to being noticed or directly referenced. “-Just like me, he’s not a member of the younger generation. What if there’s an emergency? Surely you aren’t just stuck here?”
They’ve had this conversation before. And the answer hasn’t changed.
“We… are? The Director has always been healthy, and we have all the basic medicines here. Anything worse would… probably just be fate?” Shan Haoyu shrugs, like dying from a lack of access to medical care is still something normal, and not a rapidly fading injustice of the past.
Director Xi shrugs right along, not offended at all.
As a child of the lower class, Di Qing and the rest of the yacht crew understand, but Father Song is clearly aghast. Ai, the rich and their privilege. Yes, one of the leading causes of death for rural and lower income people really is lack of access to medical care. Yes, millions of people like Director Xi eventually die of strokes and infections and even just bad falls that would be easily treatable with money and access to a private hospital.
Honestly, Shan Haoyu’s bland answer and the calmness with which his brother and the old man accept it is the most normal thing about them, in Di Qing’s eyes. But for the Song family? For the first time, they look a little askance at their three hosts.
Huh. Funny how perspective can change things.
But as long as they’re on the right page now, maybe it doesn’t matter how they got there? As long as everyone– er, everyone except the puppy love Zhou Xiwei— as long as everyone is committed to speeding up their rescue, maybe the meal can be counted as a success?
Di Qing makes a little note in his notebook.
And decides that Director Xi, foggy as he is, is probably their best bet at trying to track down that impossible-to-source tubing. Or who knows, maybe there’s a spare engine hidden in a box somewhere that they can turn into the world’s jankiest retrofit. After all, he already told them the truth about the boat. Maybe he’s a little reliable? Maybe he also wants them off the island?
Di Qing is happy to give him the chance to aid them.
Author’s Corner:
Xu Wang: It’s like a child’s picture of what illness is…
Uto: 
Xu Wang: I don’t trust it.
–
Father Song: What if Director Xi gets hurt?
Director Xi: Guess I’ll die then?
Father Song’s Group: WTF
Yacht Group: Yes, finally something reasonable.
Father Song’s Group: WTF x2
After a break for mourning, the Discount Scooby Gang are back online, though they’ve shed a few members. And look at Shan Haoyu, trying to be communicative and open thanks to a certain guy caressing his palm under the table!
The Scooby gang : the return and they’re even more paranoid…
Thank you for the chapter !
they are so cute
Thank you for the chapter!
Thanks for the chapter ! ^^
I can almost see Father Song thinking that their Whatever attitude is why they’re all living in poverty 😄. He probably would never grasp the adaptability of someone like Xu Wang recognizing a fairy tale setting and switching over to fairy tale rules.
Father Song is definitely a completely confident ‘bootstraps’ kinda guy. 🙄