The Beginning

Chapter 3: The Fifth Time Cycle (II)

Li Shiqing was surprised by the outcome of the successful drop-off, but was then overwhelmed with joy.

She really ran out!

Really got out of that car!

Boy, who got out of the car with Li Shiqing, was startled by her sudden outpouring of tears and took a half-step backwards, his mouth opened and closed several times but no words came out, probably because he thought Li Shiqing was not in her right mind.

So what if you're treated like a psychopath?

She got out at last!

"Hey, you ......"

Boy with glasses shows a worried look.

But Li Shiqing couldn't hear what he said to her next, because she had already run out onto the pavement, in the direction she had come from, without looking back.

She had imagined countless times what would happen if she got out of the car, but when she did, Li Shiqing had only one thought in mind.

--Run!

Stay away from this piece of shit car, stay away from these inexplicable people and things, and better yet, never see it again in your life!

"Hey, are you really sick in the head? You need to go get cured if you have a brain problem!"

She heard Boy, who had been pulled out of the car by himself, shouting behind her.

In the past, Li Shiqing would have turned around and said, "You're the one who's mentally ill".

But now, she won't be offended by anything anyone says.

What's more, the way she wore an ecstatic smile and wept while running wildly did look like a psychotic anyhow.

Passers-by heard Boy's shouting and saw Li Shiqing's rampage and gave her a look of horror as they moved out of the way, allowing her to run further away.

"Boom!"

As she ran, there was a loud, earth-shaking sound behind her, as if a thunderbolt had suddenly exploded through the air, shaking even the earth for a moment.

Li Shiqing, who had been running with his head in the sand, was caught off guard by the jolt and turned around, but lost his balance and crashed head-on into a telephone pole in front of him...

"Look over there!"

A harsh scream exploded through the crowd.

"No, no ......"

The familiar sharp pain and dizziness came and Li Shiqing stared in vain, trying to stay awake while her consciousness drifted away.

The last image in my memory is of people turning back with frightened expressions at the startling noise ......

--

"Ho!"

Awakened from her nightmare, Li Shiqing's eyes snapped open.

What kind of nightmare had she just had?

Looks like it was on a bus ......

Bus?

What bus?

The pungent smell of antiseptic drops at the end of her nose, the frequent footsteps of bystanders walking to and fro in her ears, a drip needle in her arm and an IV bottle dangling from a hanger above her head.

"Where am I?"

Li Shiqing touches the IV tube and looks to the sides with confusion.

A pale green curtain is drawn next to the bed, the brightness of the fluorescent light makes everything invisible, and on the left hand side there is an instrument of some kind on the bedside table, which is ticking away.

Isn't this a hospital?

She struggled to sit up.

Yet she moved only slightly and a raging vomiting sensation washed up in her throat, unpleasantly.

In order not to soil the hospital blanket, Li Shiqing had to continue to lie like a salted fish, resigning herself to the sound of weakness.

"Is anyone there?"

"Nurse Zhang, the patient in bed 9 is awake!"

"With a swish, the curtain on the right was pulled aside and a nurse came towards bed 9, first turning Li Shiqing's eyelids with a torch and asking her several questions in succession.

"Do you remember what your name is? Was there anything that was very uncomfortable? Do you remember what happened?"

"My name is Li Shiqing. I have a terrible headache and I want to vomit."

Li Shiqing replied, bewildered and panicked, "I don't remember how I was injured or what happened. How was I brought to the hospital?"

Just the thought of what had happened earlier made her mind go blank.

"You suffered a blow to the head, which was tentatively judged to be a concussion, and someone took you to the hospital, saying that you fell on your own. This is the emergency room of the fifth hospital."

The nurse was very patient.

"Concussion?"

Li Shiqing is dumbfounded.

She can fall herself into a concussion?

"Don't worry too much, little girl."

The nurse thought Li Shiqing was scared and calmed her down, "We have taken a cranial CT and you have no brain haemorrhage, it's normal that you can't remember anything that has happened recently. This is 'retrograde amnesia', which can be as quick as a few hours or as slow as a few days, and usually recovers without amnesia. As for the headaches and vomiting, most of them go away in three to five days."

"Nurse Zhang, there's another patient with severe burns to be carried in soon, prepare to take it to the emergency room!"

There was an eager urging.

"Got it!"

The nurse tucks Li Shiqing in and pats her on the arm.

"Take some rest and don't move around. If there are any problems you ring the caretaker's bell at your hand and you will be looked after. We've contacted your school based on your student ID and your teacher will be here soon."

When she heard that a teacher from the school had been contacted, Li Shiqing quickly asked the nurse, "Where are my belongings? I want to make a phone call to my family."

It always feels unsettling to not have your phone at hand.

"Wait a while and I'll have it delivered."

As she watched the nurse's sister leave in a hurry, Li Shiqing's mind became increasingly suspicious.

"I ran and fell?"

She was beginning to feel a little out of sorts.

She clearly remembered that I was going to take the bus to Jiangbei to buy something today, so why did I still give myself a concussion?

Could she have been chasing a bus at that time?

"Quickly, quickly, this patient over here is experiencing respiratory distress!"

Someone called out.

"Severe burns to head and face, check airway!"

Li Shiqing had no time to think about it before the hectic scene in the emergency room drew her full attention.

Not far from her, a human figure with a charred face was brought in, "human" because all his bare skin had been burned away, leaving him a bloody mess, with half of the broken frame of his glasses hanging from his face, like a skinned frog with bulging eyes.

"Vomit ......"

She already wanted to vomit, and when she turned her eyes to this, she couldn't help it any more.

On the other side of the room, a burn victim who was already in shock had both thighs burnt to blackness, and the doctor who was working on him was shouting things like "establish intravenous access" and "anti-shock treatment". There were countless green-clad nurses running around the emergency room with various tools.

This ...... is where the fire is?

The already noisy emergency room was now full of "doctors, doctors" and "help, help, help", with many of the patients being brought in with extensive burns, even the least severely injured Many of the patients were brought in with extensive burns and even the least injured were bleeding from the head.

In the emergency department, almost all the medical staff joined in to apply wet compresses to the patients, and a slightly acidic smell of medicine, mixed with the smell of burning and blood coming from the patients, filled the emergency room, leaving Li Shiqing breathless.

What a human tragedy this is!

She looked at it for just a few moments and could not bear to look at it again.

Why did she have to wake up so early?

If I had known, I would have just laid there, even if I had been dizzy.

"Scary yo, I heard it was a bus that crashed into a tanker and caused a chain of explosions ......"

A few family members of the patients who were accompanying the bed for the infusion whispered next to them.

"It's just over the bridge over the river. It's a good thing I didn't go on the bridge today, otherwise I might have had an accident too."

When she heard the words "the bus hit the tanker", Li Shiqing's body involuntarily cringed and tears even came to her eyes, so much so that she quietly covered half of her face with the quilt on her hospital bed.

She didn't understand what this inexplicable surge of strong emotions was all about.

It's like she doesn't understand when her empathy got so strong and how she could be so upset just hearing about a car accident.

The A&E department was a war zone, with everyone bemoaning the tragedy and some of the family members of patients with minor injuries offering to ask what they could do, while Li Shiqing didn't even want to look at them.

Her soul felt like it had been split in two by a headache, half of it carrying the raging emotions that inexplicably came with it, grieving uncontrollably for these wounded people

The other half was alarmed and wondered where she had gotten such inexplicable emotions.

"Have I really banged my brains out?"

Li Shiqing laughed to herself as she lay in bed staring blankly at the infusion overhead.

Slowly, the IV dangling from her head is nearing the bottom and the mobile phone Li Shiqing is waiting for is not being delivered.

But with so many life-threatening people being brought in, it's only natural that they couldn't care less about her little matter.

Li Shiqing pondered that it would be better not to cause any trouble at such a soldierly time, so she simply adjusted the infusion raft to off herself and continued to lie quietly.

She felt so tired just lying there, as if she hadn't slept in a long, long time, but she couldn't really sleep because of the discomfort she felt, and listening to the wails of pain around her, she only wished that the school teachers would come quickly, or that someone would come and push her out of the emergency department.

It didn't take long for Li Shiqing's dream to come true.

A doctor-like man with a mask hurriedly led two able-bodied men and had her taken to some ward.

"Where are you sending me?"

Li Shiqing asked in surprise, a little panicked.

"You'll have to vacate your bed for other patients who need it, and the hospital has arranged a quieter place for you to rest."

This doctor was not as gentle as the nurse sister before and her tone was a bit cold.

Hearing his explanation made her less flustered.

It was also true that she had only hit her head and could recuperate from her injury in another place, so she might as well give the bed to an injured person who needed the care of an emergency department doctor close by.

So she was quite happy when Li Shiqing was carried on a stroller by the two men and led by the doctor to the inpatient wing.

If anyone says that the doctor-patient relationship is tense and doctors are not good people in the future, she will definitely tear them apart!

Look at this hospital, how good they are to patients, not only are they allocated according to their needs, but they even moved her to a single ward, considering that she is a concussion patient who can't stand the noise!

Li Shiqing closed her eyes happily after being sent off with a "thank you" to the doctor, who was in a rather isolated and quiet area.

Finally a quiet sleep!

She had just closed her eyes, ready to rest, when she heard someone talking at the door.

"Is that the little girl?"

"Yes, she just woke up and we put her here after we got your call."

The voice at the door was also familiar; it was the doctor she had just thanked.

"Thank you for the hospital's cooperation, we'll go in now and take a look."

Who's here?

Is it a teacher arranged by the school?

Wow, that's so generous of the school to get the hospital to give her a single room!

Now Li Shiqing couldn't sleep again and tried to keep her eyes open to thank the teacher who had "taken time out of her busy schedule to come and visit her students".

The push of the door sounded softly and she looked over with a smile that faded to a frosty grin.

Why were there two uniformed police officers coming in?