Chapter 3: One Thousand Eight Hundred and Twenty-Five Days

At 10 a.m., I sat on a bench outside the school’s academic affairs office waiting for my leave of absence paperwork to be completed. The sun was already blazing, and the air conditioner unit outside the administration building hummed loudly, blowing hot air onto my face. I opened the calculator on my phone.

From July 15, 2024 to July 15, 2029. 1826 days. No, 2024 is a leap year. 1827 days. Still no, how was it calculated again? Half the month is over, should we subtract it…?

Never mind. Let’s just keep it as 1825 days and round it up.

1825 days. From now on, every day I open my eyes will be a countdown.

Thinking about it made my stomach hurt again. I rubbed my stomach, took out a crushed biscuit from my pocket, and took a couple of bites. I hadn’t eaten breakfast, and the cold coffee from last night was still churning in my stomach.

The door to the academic affairs office opened, and a middle-aged male teacher wearing glasses poked his head out, holding the leave of absence application form I had filled out. “Shen Qi, your reason for leaving school is ‘family financial difficulties requiring temporary work’?”

”right.”

He adjusted his glasses, hesitated for a moment, and said, “Your grades are above average; you could actually apply for a scholarship…”

”Thank you, teacher. I’ve thought it over.” I stood up, trying to make my smile look sincere. “I’ll take a year off first, and then I’ll go back to school when things get better.”

He glanced at me, probably sensing a stubborn refusal to listen to reason in my face, then handed the form back to me for a signature. Stamped, filed, done. My university life was paused; the procedures were ridiculously simple.

Stepping out of the administration building, the July sun beat down on me. I squinted and pulled out my phone to check nearby rental listings. The area near the hospital was too expensive; there were a few options in the old town near the No. 1 Middle School. Yimin Residential Area, fifth floor (walk-up), one-bedroom apartment, 800 yuan per month.

Eight hundred. I currently have three thousand four hundred yuan in my bank account. That’s enough to pay four months’ rent. I must pay it within four months.

Find a stable source of income, otherwise you’ll starve.

My phone vibrated. It was a WeChat message from an unknown account with no profile picture. The message contained only one sentence: “Delivery locker downstairs, compartment A07, pickup code 1015.”

No source. Clicking on the profile picture reveals a blank page, no Moments, and no personal information.

I stood there staring at the message for five seconds. A chill ran down my spine. The parcel locker was on the side of the administration building. I walked over, squatted down, and entered the pickup code. The locker popped open, revealing an A4-sized kraft paper envelope with no sender information.

open.

Inside was a complete set of identification documents: an ID card, a household registration transfer certificate, and a high school diploma. The name was “Su Qingqing,” and the photo was my mother’s twenty-year-old face from this morning. The birth year was listed as 2004, and the place of origin was a rural area I’d never heard of. The relationship to the head of household was listed as “niece,” but the head of household information pointed to a distant relative on my maternal grandfather’s side with whom I had long lost contact.

It was done flawlessly. The household registration information, educational records, and ID card chip were all authentic and verifiable. It wasn’t forgery; it was creating a legitimate “Su Qingqing” out of thin air.

I put the envelope in my bag and took a deep breath. That underworld messenger in the gray jacket was indeed more efficient than the human administrative system.

I don’t know whether to say thank you or curse.

I called my mom after leaving the administration building. She was still waiting for me in the ward. The nurse had already prepared a new admission assessment for her, and all her indicators were normal. The doctor was puzzled and suggested another comprehensive physical examination.

”Bao’er, when are you coming to pick up Mom?” Her voice came through the receiver, filled with barely suppressed anxiety. “The nurses keep asking me what happened, and Mom doesn’t know how to answer. What do you expect Mom to say? That Mom took some kind of miracle drug and became younger? People would think Mom’s crazy…”

”Mom, don’t worry, I’ll pick you up this afternoon. I’ll handle the discharge procedures.” I stood under the bus stop sign, the sun making the back of my neck burn. “Just say you’re my cousin who’s here for a check-up, don’t say anything else.”

”And what about your mother’s identity? What about Su Qingqing? The forty-year-old one?”

”It’s been taken care of.”

What do you mean by “it’s been resolved”?

My throat tightened. The sentence, “She no longer exists because you are now twenty-year-old Su Qingqing,” stuck in my throat, impossible to utter. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to explain, but I simply couldn’t physically say it. The underworld’s clause had taken effect.

”Everything’s arranged, so don’t worry about it.” I coughed to cover up the strange sound in my throat. “I’ll pick you up at three o’clock this afternoon. Pack your things.”

I hung up the phone. The bus arrived, I got on, found a window seat, and pressed my forehead against the glass. The glass was so hot you could fry an egg on it.

I started making a list in my head.

First, we’ll discharge her from the hospital this afternoon and then take her to see an apartment. It’s apartment 502 in Yimin Residential Area, 800 yuan a month, and she can move in tomorrow.

Secondly, work. Night shift at an internet cafe, morning shift at a courier sorting station, and daily pay at a construction site. If all three jobs are held at the same time, the monthly income would be around 8,000 to 10,000 yuan.

Third, register her for the transfer exam. The science class at No. 1 High School starts in September. Her file is already in place; we need to find connections to get her in or go through the proper transfer process. This needs to be done quickly.

Fourth, buy insurance. Accident insurance. I need to make sure she has adequate protection for the next few decades, since she can’t die prematurely.

Fifth, write a plan. What she does at home when she’s not in school, what she eats every day, how much pocket money she gets each month, and a budget for the next five years…

Five years. The bus lurched, and my temple hit the glass. I hissed in pain.

Only five years.

My phone vibrated again in my pocket. I took it out and looked at it. It was a WeChat message from my mom, a voice message. I opened it, and her voice was nagging: “Baby, remember to eat lunch, don’t skimp on a few dollars and starve yourself. Mom asked the nurse in the ward for a bowl of porridge, don’t worry about Mom. Oh, and don’t come home too late tonight, and smoke less.”

She paused for a moment, then added, “Even though Mom has become like this… Mom is still Mom. Don’t dislike Mom.”

I rested my phone screen on my lap, facing the window. The bus passed Jianshe Road, the leaves of the plane trees lining the road curled up in the sun, and the cicadas’ chirping had become hoarse. The city in July was as hot as a sauna. Everyone was going about their lives—going to work, coming home, buying groceries, picking up their children. No one knew that in the back of this bus sat a person with only 1825 days left to live.

I turned off the screen and put my phone back in my pocket. I sniffed.

I didn’t cry. My nose just felt a little sore. It was so hot, and the air conditioning was making it worse.

I’ll pick her up this afternoon. We’re moving tomorrow. I’ll start working the day after tomorrow. I’ll look for a school the day after that.

Take it slow. One day at a time.

”We’ve arrived at the station, please move aside.” An older woman in the back row, carrying a watermelon, was about to get off the bus when she bumped my seat back with her knee. I got up to let her pass. The woman left, leaving behind a lingering scent of floral water.

I sat down again, took out my phone, and typed a line in the notes app.

Day 1/1825.

Chapter Four is the hardest hit area.

”The intervention group’s nutrition plan design: Breakfast consists mainly of multigrain porridge, paired with a boiled egg and an appropriate amount of fresh vegetables. The author suggests using three types of multigrain: millet, red beans, and barley, in a ratio of 2:1:1.”

Things are still normal up to this point.

Next paragraph.

”For lunch, we recommend steamed fish or stewed pork ribs as the main dish. The specific method for stewed pork ribs is as follows: Put 500g of pork ribs in a pot of cold water to blanch and remove blood foam. After blanching, put them in a separate pot with water, three slices of ginger, a section of green onion, and two tablespoons of cooking wine. Bring to a boil over high heat, then simmer over low heat for one and a half hours. Note that you should not add salt too early; add salt ten minutes before the end of cooking. This method can retain the protein and trace elements in the ribs to the greatest extent.”

I put down the printed copy.

”mom.”

”Um.”

”This is a thesis.”

”yes.”

”Not a recipe.”

She stood up from the sofa and walked to the dining table. Her bare feet made almost no sound on the wooden floor. She bent down to look at the page in my hand. Her hair was hanging down. The pencil was about to fall. She reached for the pencil with one hand, her back bent. The back of her T-shirt was pulled up, revealing a strip of white skin on her lower back. Her shorts were loose at the waist, and from behind, you could see a gap between the shorts and her waist.

She didn’t notice. She was looking at the section of the paper I had circled in red.

”What’s wrong with this?” She picked up the paper and started reading. “What’s wrong with pork rib soup? Pork rib soup is a nursing method. Do you know that insufficient protein intake is a serious problem for the elderly? Stewing pork rib soup is the most practical way to supplement nutrition.”

”You can write ‘high-protein diet intervention’. You don’t need to write a specific recipe.”

”High-protein diet intervention is like saying nothing at all. If you tell Grandpa Zhang’s daughter what high-protein diet intervention means, she’ll understand immediately. But if you tell her to stew a bowl of pork rib soup, she’ll understand right away.”

”The readers of your dissertation are the dissertation defense committee, not Mr. Zhang’s daughter.”

She slammed the paper down on the table.

”What I write is meant to be read by people. What’s the point if they can’t understand it? It’s all so academic.”

I continued flipping through the pages.

Chapter Four. The data analysis section is alright. The tables are neatly formatted. The data is accurate. She did indeed diligently record the dietary changes and indicators of each elderly person during her community internship. This part doesn’t need major revisions.

But in Chapter 4, Section 3.

”Patient Ms. Li, 78 years old, lives alone. I visited her home every Tuesday and Thursday to provide nutritional guidance. During the three-month intervention period, I found that Ms. Li had a severe problem with low appetite, mainly because ‘eating alone is not interesting.’ To address this issue, in addition to nutritional guidance, I would chat with Ms. Li during each home visit, asking her what TV series she had been watching recently and whether her grandson had called. Ms. Li’s food intake improved significantly in the third week. I believe that emotional support is an indispensable auxiliary means in nutritional intervention.”

She wrote this very well.

real.

It wasn’t because of the format. It was because she truly understood how to care for people. She had cared for people for twenty years. She knew that an elderly woman living alone wouldn’t stop eating not because of a physical problem, but because of someone else. None of the textbooks in her four years of university taught her this. This was something she had learned from forty years of life experience.

But this is a research paper. Research papers cannot be written like this.

Next to this paragraph, I wrote a line of red text: “Change to ‘Positive impact of emotional support on eating behavior’ and delete the specific dialogue content.”

After I finished writing it, I found this line of red text really annoying.

We changed it to a little after 11 o’clock.

She went to the kitchen to heat up a kettle of water. She made me a cup of tea and then made herself some goji berry tea in her thermos. When she came back, she was carrying two cups as she passed by me. The hem of her T-shirt brushed against my arm.

She sat back down on the sofa, placed the laptop on her lap, and began revising the parts I had marked.

She revised very slowly. She read each revision aloud.

”Patient A…this is so strange.”

”That’s how papers are done.”

”I’ve developed a bond with Grandpa Zhang. You want me to call him Patient A? That’s so cold.”

”A thesis should be cold and impersonal. Don’t add any emotion.”

”You used to correct my math problems like this too. ‘Su Qingqing, please remember not to let your personal emotions get into your work.'” She mimicked my tone.

”You do bring your personal emotions into math problems. You even complain about the ‘given conditions,’ saying things like, ‘Who knows these things? It’s not like I’m the one who knows them.'”

She chuckled on the sofa.

When she laughs, her toes curl. Her bare feet are resting on the edge of the sofa. When she laughs, all ten toes curl downwards at once, then relax.

Could you please check the format of the references for me again? I’m unsure about a few of them.

Send it to my email. I’ll adjust it for you tomorrow.

”Tomorrow won’t be enough. The final draft is due the day after tomorrow.”

”Then send it. I’ll look at it now.”

She did something on the computer. My phone rang. Email.

List of references. Seventeen. The first fifteen are formatted correctly. The sixteenth.

”mom.”

”Um.”

”You quoted from ‘Yang Sheng Tang’ (a health and wellness website).”

”What’s wrong? What Yangshengtang said makes a lot of sense.”

That’s a television program. It’s not academic literature.

”What’s wrong with TV programs? They feature experts.”

”Academic papers cannot cite television programs. You should cite original sources. That expert must have published papers in journals. Find their papers and cite them.”

She sighed.

”That’s so troublesome.”

”Papers are such a hassle.”

”I almost passed the math section of the college entrance exam back then. Writing a paper was even more of a hassle.”

11:20.

Her typing speed has slowed down.

I helped her adjust the reference formatting at the dining table. I deleted the entry from the health website, searched for journal articles by the same expert on CNKI (China National Knowledge Infrastructure), took screenshots, and sent them to her. I told her to cite them according to that format.

She replied with one word: Okay.

Then five minutes passed without any movement.

I turned my head.

Her head was resting against the back of the sofa. The laptop was still on her lap. The screen was still lit. Her fingers rested on the keyboard, not moving. Her eyes were closed.

My breathing has become even.

Twelve hours. From eight in the morning until now. She has been sitting on the sofa revising her paper for twelve hours. She made lunch and dinner in between. The rest of the time was spent revising.

She’s sleeping in a bad position. Her head is tilted to one side. If she sleeps like that, her neck will hurt tomorrow.

I took the laptop off her lap. She stirred. She didn’t wake up. I put the laptop on the coffee table.

Her legs were still crossed on the sofa. She was barefoot. There was a faint callus on her big toe. On the outside of her right ankle was a faint mark left from when she wore dark purple socks.

I moved her legs down and laid her flat. The sofa wasn’t long. Her feet were resting on the armrests. Her T-shirt had rolled up again as she shifted position, revealing her waist and stomach. Her stomach was flat. Her lower back was concave. There were marks from the sofa cushions on her skin. She had been sitting on the sofa for too long.

I took my coat and draped it over her shoulders.

As I was helping her, my hand touched the back of her neck. The back of my hand brushed against the fine layer of sweat on the back of her neck. She was curled up on the sofa, sweating. There was a little stickiness on the back of her neck.

Her lips moved slightly.

”References…”

Talking in one’s sleep.

”I’ve taken care of it for you. Go to sleep.”

”Article Sixteen…”

”The health information website has been removed. It’s been changed to a journal. The format is correct.”

She hummed in agreement. She turned over, facing the back of the sofa. Her coat had slipped halfway down.

I put my coat back on.

Then we returned to the dining table.

Finish formatting the remaining references. The one she cited in reference number seventeen wasn’t entered correctly in the author list. The author name was written as “Professor Chen.” I looked up her full name: Chen Zhiyuan.

Professor Chen.

This paper is her. Every page is about her. She crammed her forty years of life experience and twenty years of caring for others into the shell of an academic paper. There were places where it wouldn’t fit. The recipe for bone broth wouldn’t fit. Grandpa Zhang’s name wouldn’t fit. The health clinic wouldn’t fit. But Grandma Li’s part fit.

Finished writing the last reference. 11:40.

Even breathing could be heard coming from the sofa.

The printed copy on the table was covered in dense red ink marks. I put the red pen down. My fingers were stained with red ink. Exactly the same as four years ago when I helped her correct her college entrance exam mock tests in the rented room. Red pen. Stacks of papers. She was asleep beside me. I finished correcting the rest for her under the lamp.

The page for 2028 in “Su Qingqing’s Life Guide for the Next Fifty Years” reads: “January: Prepare for your graduation thesis defense. Don’t leave it until the last day.”

She didn’t procrastinate. Judging by her approach to writing papers, she definitely never did. But I had to help her delete recipes from every single first draft. From her junior year final paper until now. Every single time.

The lamplight illuminated the red pen writing on the printed document. The breathing on the sofa calmed down.

I turned off the main light. I left the desk lamp on.