My Aloof Ex is Trying to Lure Me In Again Today chapter 5.1

Chapter 5 PART 1

Ruan Xinshu opened her eyes.

She tried to sit up, but her head felt heavy and groggy, leaving her momentarily unable to distinguish between dreams and reality.

The vibration on the nightstand buzzed over and over again; Ruan Xinshu realized it was her phone ringing.

She coughed once and picked up the call. “Hello?”

As soon as she spoke, Ruan Xinshu realized her voice was hoarse, hurting as if she had swallowed razor blades.

She was familiar with this symptom—so familiar that she immediately knew exactly what medicine she needed to take.

“Caught a cold again?” Fang Xisu asked.

Ruan Xinshu rubbed her throat, her voice still raspy. “Probably.”

She glanced at the alarm clock by her bed. It seemed to have gone off once already; she didn’t know when she had hit the snooze button.

It was already three in the afternoon. There was only half an hour left until Chu Yu was scheduled to arrive at her studio.

“What time did you go to sleep?” Fang Xisu asked from the other end of the line.

“Nine,” Ruan Xinshu replied after a moment’s thought.

Fang Xisu was furious at the answer.

“You stayed up until nine in the morning? Does your time zone run on the other side of the globe?”

“…” Ruan Xinshu pressed her fingers against her temple.

Fang Xisu knew her too well; playing dumb wouldn’t work anymore.

Ruan Xinshu didn’t respond. Holding the phone, she got up and walked to the refrigerator. It was basically empty, save for an onion on the verge of rotting and a beer that had been sitting there for who knows how long.

She pulled a bottle of mineral water from a cardboard box next to the fridge.

Her prolonged silence confirmed Fang Xisu’s suspicion.

Fang Xisu had originally called to ask why Ruan Xinshu hadn’t arrived at the studio yet, but now, out of frustration, she slapped her desk. The sound of the impact traveled clearly through the receiver.

“What did I tell you last week? What did I say!”

“…” Ruan Xinshu poured some mineral water into the kettle and set it on the stove to boil.

Knowing she wouldn’t answer, Fang Xisu shouted, “I said the temperature is dropping, so take care of yourself and don’t catch a cold.”

—Did she say that?

Ruan Xinshu felt like her memory was failing her.

“I’m sorry,” Ruan Xinshu sighed.

Fang Xisu didn’t accept her perfunctory apology and continued to diagnose the problem. “With your days and nights flipped like this and your irregular eating habits, how could you not get sick?”

Ruan Xinshu actually felt a hint of abnormality in her lifestyle as well, but she had indeed added layers of clothing, and she had turned on the heater at home in advance.

But her body was just like this. One couldn’t exactly control one’s health at will.

“I can’t fix it,” Ruan Xinshu said, her voice still hoarse.

Hearing the state of her voice, Fang Xisu let out a long sigh. “Have you gone to the hospital?”

“I’m not going to the hospital.” Ruan Xinshu hated hospitals.

She used to catch colds often as a child, and every time she did, her father would take her to the hospital for an IV drip.

Her father was a rough-around-the-edges man of science. He lived a rough life, and consequently, he raised his daughter in a rough manner.

He believed that injections and IV drips were the fastest and best way to cure a person. So, every time she got sick, he sent Ruan Xinshu to the hospital for a shot or an infusion.

He was the kind of father who would only drive his daughter to school when she was sick.

After the hospital visit, he would, on those rare occasions, drive Ruan Xinshu to school.

Sometimes he would take her for a meal before dropping her off, but invariably, he would admonish her at the school gate to study hard.

To this day, Ruan Xinshu wasn’t sure if her father was actually worried about her back then, or just afraid she would skip class.

All she knew was that the hospital smelled of disinfectant, blood, infection, and death.

The murmurs of dying patients, the coughing, the footsteps—everything seemed to spread through the air like bacteria.

And her father would stand beside her, arms crossed, watching the doctor insert the needle into her vein. Then he would drive her back to school in that car that reeked of suffocating air freshener.

Whenever she sat in that car, neither of them spoke.

When it rained, the sound of the windshield wipers only made Ruan Xinshu more irritable.

Every time, Ruan Xinshu would think: People don’t go to the hospital because they are sick; they get sick because they go to the hospital.

Her body was already unhealthy; she didn’t want her mind to become unhealthy too.

Ruan Xinshu dug out some pills and capsules from a drawer. In a raspy voice, she told Fang Xisu, “I’ll take some medicine and come over in a bit.”

She took out a bottle of her usual rapid-relief cough syrup and took a swig. On the other end, Fang Xisu said worriedly, “Why don’t you just rest today? I’ll tell the client you can’t paint today.”

Ruan Xinshu paused. She looked at the calendar; it was Thursday.

Normally, unless she was so sick she couldn’t move, she wouldn’t want to take a break. But today’s work involved meeting Chu Yu.

Even though she had agreed to the job last week, she still didn’t know how to face this “client” in her heart.

She held the phone in silence for a long time. Finally, she agreed to Fang Xisu’s suggestion. Although communicating schedule changes with clients was usually Ruan Xinshu’s responsibility, she really didn’t want to talk to Chu Yu today.

“Then could I trouble you to explain it to the client?”

Fang Xisu nodded understandingly. “Sure, I’ll talk to her.”

“Thanks.”

The water on the table boiled. Ruan Xinshu picked up the kettle, poured hot water into a cup, stirred in the granules, and took a sip.

“It’s fine, just rest well,” Fang Xisu sighed. “Don’t let this illness drag on. After this, you need to exercise more. Go get a membership at that new gym.”

“I’ll think about it,” Ruan Xinshu said. She downed the medicine in one gulp, instantly forgetting about the gym.

Evening.

Ruan Xinshu opened her eyes in bed.

Her head was still heavy. She didn’t know if the fever had gone down a bit, but she felt hungry.

However, she had absolutely no desire to get up and cook. Compared to cooking, she felt that closing her eyes and starving through it was a more practical method.

However, perhaps because she had been lying down all day, her senses were exceptionally sharp now. She tossed and turned but couldn’t fall back asleep.

So, after a while, Ruan Xinshu grabbed her phone from the nightstand and opened a food delivery app.

Modern society has really progressed, she thought.

“…”

She looked at the delivery options on her phone. There were very few places in Xuan City delivering at this hour, and the variety was limited.

Barbecue, hot pot, spicy broth.

Mn, these were things she usually liked, but looking at them today, she had no appetite. Just looking at them made her throat hurt.

Ruan Xinshu touched her throat; she felt like she wanted to drink some porridge.

In the end, she chose KFC, because it was the only place in Xuan City selling porridge at this time.

Ruan Xinshu calculated the delivery fee, picked a few things she felt she could stomach, and lay back down, closing her eyes again.

A short while later, the doorbell rang.

Ruan Xinshu looked at the clock in the room. It hadn’t even been fifteen minutes.

“So fast,” she couldn’t help but marvel.

When a chain can achieve a consistent taste everywhere in the world, at every time of day, with high speed, guaranteeing the consumer won’t be disappointed… its success is probably inevitable.

Thinking this, Ruan Xinshu coughed twice, peeled off the cooling patch from her forehead, and walked to the entryway to open the door.

She reached out, intending to take her delivery.

But the person at the door merely moved slightly, quietly placing a hand over hers. “Is this your way of asking for a hug?”

Hearing that clear, clean voice, Ruan Xinshu’s tense shoulders trembled.

She looked at Chu Yu, unable to figure out how she had found her home. After thinking about it, the most likely explanation was that Fang Xisu had told her.

Chu Yu gently placed the items she was holding on the floor by the entrance. With one foot, she invaded Ruan Xinshu’s private territory, seemingly sensing none of the homeowner’s internal protest.

“Assistant Fang told me you were sick.”

Ruan Xinshu sucked in a breath and leaned against the wall, coughing a few times.

She felt she might still have a low fever, and her head was throbbing a bit.

I might still be dreaming.

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