As soon as Bai Ran signed her name on the final consent form, there was a commotion in the corridor. Doctors and nurses were crowded around a wheeled bed, pushing it forward as they ran alongside the patient. They entered the operating theatre.
Bai Ran caught a glimpse of the patient lying on the wheeled bed. It was her mother.
The doctors and nurses hovering around the bed were shouting anxiously, so she heard the exchange between them…
“Her blood pressure is dropping! Her heartbeat already stopped for fifteen seconds—”
“Prepare the AED. Start with 180 Joules— ”
“Quick! Quick! Quick! Give me the Atropine—”
All the terms the doctors and nurses used were technical jargon, so they made no sense to Bai Ran at all. What did that say about her mother’s condition? She couldn’t understand it at all.
The only thing that she could understand without any explanation was the fact that the patient’s heartbeat had stopped for fifteen seconds…
She also caught sight of the unmistakable horizontal line across the electrocardiogram and the whirring of various machines rang loudly in her ears.
All of Bai Ran’s biggest fears came crashing down on top of her in relentless waves.
Not once in her life did she ever imagine there would be a day where her mother would be lying down on an operating table and fighting for her life.
Even when she was younger, she prided herself in being able to take care of her mother, of being able to do everything by herself. She never expected to find herself so helpless and useless, while her mother struggled alone. To be unable to even get the money for her mother’s surgery…
“I’m really…
“…the most useless daughter!”
Bai Ran scolded herself sharply, “If I knew this was going to happen…then I would have worked harder to earn money. If I knew this was going to happen, I would have gone home earlier instead of looking for Xu Chenglin to get my ring back.
“What if I could have avoided all this by staying beside Mum the whole of this afternoon instead?”
Bai Ran’s legs felt weak. She could not cry but she had to lean against the ice-cold wall outside the operating theatre to support her weight. She slid down to the ground and sat there, unable to get up.
“Mum… Please be alright!”
The lights of the operating theatre remained switched on for a long time. Bai Ran refused to leave and did not move from where she waited at the entrance of the operating theatre.
By the time Quan Rui reached the hospital, half an hour had passed.
Luo Wei had informed Quan Rui of the situation as soon as Bai Ran’s mother’s surgery began.
Quan Rui came dressed in a black suit. When he arrived, that corridor of the hospital was deserted, and the surgery for Bai Ran’s mother was still in progress.
“Young Master, Miss Bai is over there.” Luo Wei pointed to where Bai Ran sat.
Quan Rui nodded his head and he walked up to Bai Ran.
Bai Ran was hugging herself, pressed up against the wall on the ice-cold ground. Quan Rui stopped in front of her, bent down, and grabbed hold of her shoulders with both his hands. He pulled her up and sat her down in a nearby chair.
Bai Ran’s eyes were glazed as though she was in a trance. When she saw Quan Rui’s face beside her, the sorrow in her heart burst out and the tears she was holding back flooded out of her eyes.
She gazed at him with tears running from eyes. They flowed with anxiety, sorrow, and fear.
Quan Rui frowned at her vulnerable expression and parted his cold cruel lips to say something nice. “Don’t worry so much. The doctors here are the best in the city.”
Perhaps it was because she had bottled up everything in her heart or because she suppressed herself for such a long time now, that she felt like such a failure.
There was nobody Bai Ran could turn to for help and so, she finally realized how helpless she was.
“Nobody would help me…
“Only Quan Rui.
“Did he rush over here because I asked for his help?”
Bai Ran looked up at him.
He remained standing, glaring at the operating theatre while she sat down next to him.
He had appeared by her side so suddenly and consoled her in an unusually gentle tone of voice.
To Bai Ran, his presence beside her was like that of a deity.
Or perhaps it was because of the words he said to her.
Bai Ran began to cry and buried her face in Quan Rui’s chest. Before she knew it, she was bawling loudly with complete disregard for her image.
“Please! Please save my mum!”