Chapter 37 Relief
Glioblastoma.
Grade 4 malignancy.
The tumor located in the temporal lobe was difficult to remove; the invasively growing mass had nearly fused with Li Yuan's brain tissue, making surgery impossible. The effects of radiotherapy and chemotherapy were minimal. Optimistically, Li Yuan had two months left to live.
Vice President Gao’s mention of an episode wasn’t referring to stomach pain but rather epilepsy caused by abnormal electrical discharges in the brain. It was as if there was an electric chair in his head—the severe headaches and increasingly frail body were unbearable. Once this switch was triggered, he could die at any moment.
The one who told her all this wasn’t Song Xu, but Zhou Lin.
He'd returned early and, instead of going to the hospital, met her directly at the coffee shop in the W Hotel.
He brought a thick stack of documents.
Inside were all the medical records from the onset of Li Yuan’s illness to the present.
From its discovery two years ago to now, Li Yuan had undergone two surgeries.
During that time, he had received numerous rounds of radiotherapy, chemotherapy, and combined treatments.
Every doctor said that given the location and malignancy of the brain tumor, it was a miracle he had survived this long.
When Wen Bairan heard this, she was dumbfounded. Her first reaction was: How could this be?
He had only lost a little weight, only had stomach trouble. Just yesterday, he was reading original texts in his hospital room and was in good spirits while chatting with her. How could Zhou Lin be telling her today that Li Yuan had only days left to live?
“This isn’t a funny joke, Zhou Lin. He’s your brother,” she said sternly.
But when she saw Zhou Lin’s silent expression, the color drained from her face, and her voice trembled almost imperceptibly. “How long have you known about this?”
Zhou Lin replied in a low voice that he'd only found out a week before her. The Li family was still in the dark. Even when his father asked before he returned, he hadn't been truthful.
He said Li Yuan didn’t want to alarm anyone.
Wen Bairan was so shocked she couldn’t even pick up the documents. “How could this be...”
“That day we bumped into each other at Shenzhen University Hospital, I was going to tell you,” Zhou Lin took a deep breath.
Wen Bairan froze.
That day... she had gone to Shenzhen University Hospital to debug equipment and happened to run into them coming out of the elevator. She had wondered instinctively if someone was sick, but she never imagined it could be something this serious. Li Yuan had seemed so calm that she'd dismissed it.
That day, Li Yuan had indeed taken Zhou Lin to visit some old friends. Later, at the hospital, when he spoke with the head of oncology, he asked Zhou Lin to wait outside. Zhou Lin was curious—earlier, when meeting with business associates, Li Yuan hadn’t kept him away. Why now, just meeting a doctor, was there something he couldn't hear?
He doubled back.
Behind the door, he overheard snippets like “tumor continues to grow,” “the pressure isn't looking good,” and “two months at most.” Zhou Lin didn’t understand any of these medical terms.
He called Jiang Shijin and asked him to look it up.
Jiang Shijin searched online right then and read the results to him, unable to hide his alarm. “Damn... why are you asking me to look this up? Are you sick? No way, bro, don’t scare me. This disease is deadly!”
Zhou Lin reacted the same way. Who was sick? The department head? Or... Li Yuan?
How could it be Li Yuan?
He'd just gotten back from studying abroad. His aunt had been constantly nagging him to get married lately. And besides, didn’t he have a foreign girlfriend?
Wen Bairan remembered this too. “Right, does she know? Did they break up because of this?”
Zhou Lin said gravely, “What if I told you there never was such a girlfriend? Would you believe me?”
“How is that possible? I’ve seen the letters they exchanged...” She trailed off, suddenly struck by a realization.
One of the accompanying symptoms of a brain tumor is psychiatric symptoms.
The tumor growing in the temporal lobe had compressed the neural tissue, causing organic changes in neurological function. No matter how retro and romantic Li Yuan was, he couldn’t have been corresponding with a nonexistent person for three years.
Wen Bairan had innocently asked him before, “Aren’t you curious what she looks like? How can you be sure the information she’s giving you is real?”
Li Yuan had never been one to care about appearances. For him, a soulmate was about resonance—as long as the other person’s soul could harmonize with his, he once didn’t even mind their gender. But Wen Bairan’s words had planted a seed of doubt in his mind.
One day, on a whim, he investigated the home address the other person had mentioned in their letters and found it was just a flower shop in California, run by an elderly white couple with no children and no habit of corresponding with anyone.
From there, it was like opening Pandora’s box. As he followed up on every clue he had, he found they were all real, yet none matched what the other person had described in the letters. It wasn’t until he noticed that the café the other person often mentioned was actually a handicraft store he had visited while traveling that he realized something was off.
Even after being diagnosed with moderate schizophrenia, for a long time, Li Yuan couldn't accept that the person he had been corresponding with was actually himself.
He thought it was impossible.
There was no history of mental illness in the Li family for five generations, and his environment had always been positive and healthy.
He believed he couldn’t have gone insane for no reason.
So he went to the hospital again for a comprehensive check-up.
It was during this examination that he was diagnosed.
Glioblastoma, advanced, grade 3.
Surgery was needed as soon as possible.
Based on the size of the tumor, the doctor speculated he had been sick for some time and asked if he had experienced any symptoms other than mental abnormalities. How could he have waited until now to seek treatment?
Li Yuan tried to recall and realized the prodromal symptoms had actually appeared very early.
It started with headaches, but he’d had those since childhood—a leftover from the intense studying in his youth program. Rest usually helped, so he never paid much attention. Later, some mild motor impairments and memory decline he attributed to stress from Lianjie’s affairs and lack of sleep.
Only the matter of corresponding with himself defied explanation.
...
After returning, Zhou Lin looked up a lot of information—so much that he used translation software to go through English medical reports word by word, piecing things together with guesses and assumptions until dawn. Even then, he found it hard to believe.
How could Li Yuan have this disease?
How could he have kept it hidden from everyone?
In the elevator, Li Yuan’s frail figure appeared before his eyes.
Zhou Lin finally understood that he wore long sleeves and pants year-round not because he was cold, but because his body was already riddled with scars.
He didn’t want to be seen.
He responded to all concern and curiosity as if nothing was wrong.
‘Bro, why have you gotten shorter?’
"Just say you think your brother's too old already."
He joked with him about whether he could still get married and have children "while he's still alive."
Zhou Lin knew he was talking nonsense at the time, but hearing those four words still triggered a reflexive, vague dread in him.
So it was true.
His lifetime—just two months left.
Zhou Lin once fervently believed it must be a mistake.
The name of the illness, the person who was sick, the outcome of the sickness—all of it was wrong.
How could someone as capable as Li Yuan have only two months left to live?
When he said goodbye to the head doctor at the hospital office, he looked so healthy. Even the head doctor was smiling and talking to him—what doctor wears that kind of expression for someone about to die?
Zhou Lin dropped his head in frustration. "You don’t know how much I wish this were all a nightmare."
In the café, people came and went, the background bluesy jazz playing softly and cheerfully.
All around, a festive holiday mood hung in the air.
Wen Bairan couldn’t say a word.
The news came too suddenly—so suddenly that even Zhou Lin sitting across from her felt like an illusion.
How could Li Yuan, how could he be so ill?
She hadn’t detected a thing.
It couldn’t be.
She asked Zhou Lin how he'd gotten hold of these records.
The medical records here were all private, many seemingly from overseas treatment. If Li Yuan hadn’t given them to him himself, there was no way he could have found them.
Zhou Lin said, "I threatened his assistant."
Wen Bairan’s eyelashes fluttered. Threatened?
He shrugged, his expression somewhat defiant. "Exactly what you’re thinking."
The poor assistant, after taking a punch, held back his nosebleed and opened the safe, letting him copy them.
After hearing this, Wen Bairan’s brow furrowed deeper, then smoothed.
Though unexpected, it made sense given Zhou Lin’s personality.
He was tired, his body sinking lower into the armchair, sprawled out, head tilted back against the seat, hands covering his face, scrubbing hard as if trying to wake himself from this nightmare. But sadly, when he opened his eyes, nothing had changed.
"That’s just how he is—so willful and independent since he was a kid, even the adults were at a loss with him. Otherwise, how could it be that aside from his assistant, no one knows about his condition? Damn it." He muttered a curse, lacking his usual brashness, just weary.
Wen Bairan could feel his anger.
This rage had been brewing for a long time.
Zhou Lin knew it too.
These past few days out of town, he had no one familiar around him. There was so much to learn and remember for the project, every minute was full. This kind of packed schedule was very different from his old life. He could feel his brain constantly working, not numb.
Every night, lying in bed, listening to the hum of appliances in the room, he slowly realized his anger stemmed from helplessness in the empty noise.
There was nothing he could do.
Life, work, relationships.
Wen Bairan.
Li Yuan.
He didn’t understand how there could be so many things in the world he couldn’t accept and couldn’t fix at all.
He felt his fire trapped in endless cold, a thick, impenetrable layer of ice slowly smothering his fire.
He felt like he was disappearing.
But he couldn’t just disappear like that.
He was the only one who knew about Li Yuan’s condition now, perhaps even the only one who could take care of his arrangements after he was gone.
This damned responsibility was eating him up endlessly—he was in so much pain.
So much pain that only after telling Wen Bairan all this did he realize how much pain he'd really been in these past few days.
Originally, like Li Yuan, he had planned to keep this from her to the end.
Zhou Lin turned his head, half his face buried in the shadow of the wall behind him. Those once-fiery dark eyes were now gray and dull, looking dully at her. "Ran Ran, too much has happened lately. I can't hold on much longer."
He forced a smile, a bitter, hollow laugh that hung in the humid air.
Wen Bairan hadn’t heard him call her that in a long time.
Her heart still ached—it was a pity born of his helplessness, understanding that if he weren’t out of options, he would never let his guard down like this at a time like this.
They parted at the hotel lobby.
Wen Bairan said, "I think we should still tell your family about this. If he really is... A Lin, this is too big."
Her heart hurt too much to say the word; just mentioning it made her choke up.
Zhou Lin said he knew. This time he came back to discuss with Li Yuan when to let people know about his condition, but he was sure he wouldn’t win that fight. In the end, he’d probably have to act first and talk later.
He mocked himself—in the past, he would have just said it outright, at least not hesitated this much. But now, thinking of Li Yuan’s fragile condition unable to argue with him, he couldn’t make himself do it.
He looked too dejected. The river looked muddy under the overcast sky, the gloomy weather seemed part of this heart-wrenching scene.
For the first time, Wen Bairan sensed his powerlessness.
Before, it had all been games—Zhou Lin had never had to truly face such helplessness.
Now it was different. He had no choice but to be forced into this position.
It was as if Li Yuan was using his life to teach him that the stable first half of his life was over. From now on, what he had to face was reality.
Zhou Lin, this hothouse flower, was finally going to face the storm.
Wen Bairan sighed silently in her heart, stepped forward, and hugged him. "A Lin, everything from the past is insignificant now. But listen—you have to shoulder this burden for Li Yuan now."
"He entrusted you with the right to know about his life. Only you."
"Do you understand what that means?"
He had never faced death before, never truly understood the value of a human life.
But at this moment, there was nothing more she could do besides emphasizing the gravity of this and encouraging him to be strong.
"A Lin, this time, you must grow up." Wen Bairan stroked his back as she used to, telling him.
Zhou Lin’s slumped shoulders tensed for a moment under her touch, then gradually relaxed. He rested his chin on her shoulder, holding back, afraid to put his full weight on her.
She didn’t move, and only then did he gradually encircle her with his arms.
Holding her tighter, then tighter still.
It began to rain.
A fine mist settled on their faces, glistening like tiny beads on their lashes.
Even Zhou Lin’s voice sounded thick with emotion.
"I’m sorry, I’m really sorry."
Even now, his fear was something only she could understand.
But she was already at peace. "It’s okay, it’s all in the past now."
The heat of summer had faded.
Autumn had truly arrived.
Wind and rain swept through, leaching the life from the bustling street corner.
Song Xu sat in the car, watching as Wen Bairan pulled away from Zhou Lin’s arms. Zhou Lin’s anguished eyes trailed after her, still lingering on that hug.
Then—
Their eyes locked.
Across the street two hundred meters away.
Zhou Lin saw him.
Recognized him.
Song Xu’s impassive eyes narrowed faintly.
As if saying: It’s over—what’s left to cling to?
In an instant, every trace of vulnerability shed from Zhou Lin’s face, his innate fierceness flaring in his knitted brows.
Just then, the car door opened.
Wen Bairan got in.
The turmoil of the street corner was shut outside.
She murmured, "Let’s go."
Song Xu’s chilly glance shifted dismissively as the silver-gray car pulled away, leaving the street behind them.
…