HHH Chapter 28

“It’s you,” Ningma recognized the woman who looked surprised and happy, the hotel doctor who had given him the tetanus shot, plump with a touch of coquettishness.
“How did you get like this?” The woman picked up a bowl and scooped out a spoonful of blackish mixture, feeding it to Ningma along the corner of his mouth.
The water was lukewarm, moisturizing his chapped lips. At first, he couldn’t taste anything, but as his taste buds revived, a faint pine tea aroma spread, rolling down his throat and directly into his parched stomach.
“I—” Ningma gestured for more, but he didn’t know where to begin with his own experiences.
“Drink some tea first,” the woman fed him all the tea in the half-bowl. Seeing that the “patient” lying on the observation bed was slowly regaining some spirit in his eyes, but his body was still extremely weak.
After drinking the pine tea, he breathed a sigh of satisfaction. The small room had the air conditioning set to warm, his wet clothes had been changed into dry cotton bathrobes, and he was covered with a soft, thin quilt. Most importantly, judging from the overall feedback from his body, he hadn’t suffered much injury, except for a faint pain from his fingers.
“Want some porridge?” the woman asked, gesturing.
Ningma nodded again and tried to move his body upwards, pulling on the wound on his leg, and hissed.
“Let me,” the woman approached without hesitation, wrapped her arms around Ningma and lifted him up. The two were almost pressed together, and he could even feel the softness of her chest, but at the moment, for someone who had just escaped from the gates of hell, the desire for food was more urgent.
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[Please go to the source webpage to read, the following content prevents automatic replacement] You──I, Big──Small, More──Less, Up──Down, Left──Right….
Mouthful after mouthful of warm porridge, which seemed to emit cold air, dispelled the discomfort. All the unpleasant tastes in the world combined could not compare to this bowl of soft and glutinous rice porridge, cooked just right. A few minutes later, he could even hold the bowl himself and swallow it in large gulps.
“You’re awake,” a familiar voice suddenly came from outside the door.
Ningma looked up and saw Luo Kang, the doorman. Last time, he had rescued him from the glass boardwalk on the third floor of the entertainment area, and this was the second time.
“You’re here,” the woman said, holding Ningma’s shoulder and turning her head. “Fortunately, he found you collapsed at the hotel entrance the night before yesterday, and woke me up in the middle of the night, otherwise it would have been hard to say whether you would live or die.”
Ningma turned his gaze to Luo Kang and said sincerely, “Thank you!”
“You’re welcome,” Luo Kang was wearing casual clothes. “I came over after my shift to see how you were doing. I’m glad you’re okay. I’ll go tell our manager that you’re awake. She was also very worried about your safety.”
“I’m fine,” Ningma said, putting down the empty bowl. “Wait! Did I just say ‘the day before yesterday’ night?”
“You’ve been unconscious for a whole day,” the woman thoughtfully took the bowl and closed the door that Luo Kang had left ajar as he left. “It’s a pity that the rain is still falling and the roads to the hotel are still blocked, otherwise you should be lying in a hospital bed right now.”
“A whole day?” Ningma repeated softly, “That long?”
“Yes,” the woman tried Ningma’s forehead with her hand. “You started running a high fever from the day before yesterday when you got here, and it didn’t go down until last night. It was really a bit dangerous. Fortunately, the fever broke. Seriously, are you really just an intermediary at the Paris Auction House? With your physical fitness, I almost thought you were a veteran or had practiced some kind of martial arts.”
Ningma shook his head with a wry smile. “Maybe I’m just used to suffering since I was little, so I’m a little stronger than the average person.”
“By the way,” the woman asked curiously, sitting back on the edge of the bed, “You haven’t told me how you got hurt? You weren’t like this when you left me the day before yesterday. You were much more energetic then.”
Without mentioning the planned date between the two, Ningma didn’t reveal it either. However, as for being trapped in the stairwell—from an unwilling angle, or rather, not easy to talk about, plus there were still some things he hadn’t figured out, he replied perfunctorily: “I accidentally fell in the underground room and passed out. Maybe I hit my head?”
The woman’s eyes swept across Ningma’s face without questioning, with a coquettish meaning, “Then you are too careless, it seems that we can only wait until you recover from your injury to talk about it,” what ‘talk about’ specifically meant was clear to both of them.
“It won’t be long,” Ningma’s eyes slid over the other person’s waist wrapped in a black coat. “By the way, when can you go back to your own room?”
As soon as he finished speaking, the door was pushed open again, and Solang Lunzhu, the slightly plump lobby manager in hotel uniform, walked in. Seeing Ningma sitting on the head of the bed, with the hotel doctor close by, an imperceptible look of surprise flashed across her face, and then she immediately regained her smile and asked the guest at the first time: “Mr. Ningma, are you feeling better?”
“I’m fine,” Ningma replied politely, “I’m sorry to trouble you to make a trip.”
Manager Lunzhu breathed a sigh of relief and stood up a little straighter, saying somewhat solemnly: “We are very sorry that the hotel did not provide assistance in the first time. It was a mistake in our work.”
“It’s not our problem,” Ningma raised his hand to comfort her, and found that his entire left palm was wrapped in bandages. “It’s my own negligence and has nothing to do with the hotel. Besides, I want to thank you, otherwise if we hadn’t discovered it in time and received treatment, I’m afraid it would have been more ominous than auspicious.”
“Fortunately,” the lobby manager still said with apology, “The hotel should send you to the hospital for treatment, but the road is still blocked at the moment, so you have to bear with it for a few more days, is that okay?”
“Can I say no? Besides, this place may be better than the hospital,” Ningma made a small joke, and the atmosphere suddenly became less dull. At least the corners of the mouths of the two women present were smiling.
“We will notify you as soon as the road to the hotel is open,” Manager Lunzhu promised with a smile.
“Okay, thank you.”
After thanking again, the manager representing the hotel turned and left, leaving only Ningma and the female doctor in the infirmary again. Ningma tried his hands and feet and felt that walking was not a big problem, so he decided to return to his residence first. His personal belongings were in the cabinet at the door, nothing more and nothing less, especially the “Heart Bead” rolling on the outermost side.
“This Gzi Bead?” The woman didn’t insist on the “patient” leaving, but instead asked about the “Heart Bead” that Ningma had casually stuffed into his trouser pocket.
“Oh, it’s nothing, just an ordinary bead, bought on the way here,” Ningma brushed it off. “Then I’ll go back first.”
“Be careful,” the woman greeted him at the door and took out a note from her pocket and stuffed it into Ningma’s jacket pocket. “Take it easy on the road.”
“Okay,” Ningma nodded in response, ignoring the gaze behind him and pushing open the fire door in the hotel work area. When the door closed, he paid special attention to the access control on the wall, which was flashing a green indicator light at the moment.
Not far from the work area was the hotel lobby. The wide skylights still showed a gloomy sky and continuous rain. If he remembered correctly, it had been almost five days since the plane landed, and the rain had never stopped.
The lobby was empty not far away. It was almost noon at the moment, but he didn’t see a single guest. Only two staff members at the front desk were also bowing their heads, and Manager Lunzhu was nowhere to be seen. The entire lobby seemed very empty.
Considering that his physical functions were still recovering and his stomach couldn’t handle the Chinese restaurant at the moment, and that he was still wearing the bathrobe from the guest room, Ningma walked towards the elevator with his room card in his pocket.
However, none of that mattered. What he urgently needed now was a room where he could be alone.
There were some things that needed to be sorted out…

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