Even though Shen Le greeted them warmly, the father and son didn't say much. They nodded to him and started unloading the air conditioners.
Working together, they carried the two heavy units over one threshold after another and into the third courtyard on West Road.
They moved the two air conditioners over one threshold after another and into the third courtyard on West Road.
The indoor unit weighed over ten pounds, and the outdoor unit weighed more than twenty. They didn't ask Shen Le to help. The father bundled up the boxes, hoisted one onto his back, and set off inside, while his son gave him a hand.
On such a sweltering day, even Shen Le was sweating all over as he walked empty-handed. The father, carrying dozens of pounds of equipment, had it much worse. After just one trip, his chest and back were soaked through. He set down the outdoor unit and went back for the second load.
"Um... would you like some water?"
Shen Le felt bad for them. He took out two bottles of chilled soda and handed them over. The son watched eagerly, but his father just smiled and waved him off before bending his head and getting back to work.
The air conditioners were each rated at one and a half horsepower. The indoor units weighed ten kilograms, and the outdoor units weighed a hefty twenty-nine. They shouldered, lifted, and carried everything into place. By the time both units were installed, the father and son were drenched. Water dripped from their shirts without anyone needing to wring them out.
Shen Le stayed close by, keeping them company.
"You're working so hard..."
"It's no trouble, no trouble. Your single-story house is the easiest kind to install an air conditioner in. A few days ago, we installed one on the twenty-fifth floor. A real beast—a three-horsepower unit. The place for the outdoor unit was on the side wall, with nothing above or below it. We had to lower it from the roof..."
The twenty-fifth floor...
The side wall...
Just imagining it made Shen Le dizzy and weak in the knees. His fear of heights kicked in. Then another thought occurred to him.
"A three-horsepower air conditioner? How heavy would the outdoor unit be?"
"More than fifty kilos!"
As the father answered, he directed his son to help lift the outdoor unit. They headed toward the spot behind the house where it would be installed, and Shen Le followed, asking curiously:
"Then... how do you get the air conditioner down?"
"We tie it up with a rope!" the father replied with a cheerful laugh.
"Once it's secured, we lower it slowly and set it on the bracket. Then we untie the rope. One person lowers it from above, and the other receives it below. Once it's in place, we untie it."
Shen Le looked at the father. He was under five-foot-seven, thin as a rail, with no visible muscle on his arms beneath his short sleeves.
Then he looked at the son. The boy was clearly still a teenager. He'd grown tall, but he was nowhere near sturdy.
Those two—or really, maybe just one of them—used a rope to lower a fifty-kilogram outdoor unit from the roof?
Just thinking about it made Shen Le's heart tremble. He tried to imagine himself doing it. He'd struggle just to lift fifty kilos off the ground, let alone lower it carefully from a window or rooftop.
What if he lost his grip...?
"Um... wouldn't it fall and hit someone?"
"Don't worry. These air conditioners are insured." The father smiled and shook his head as if it were nothing.
"They're insured in case they fall and break, or damage something or hurt someone. The air conditioner company pays for it!"
"Then... what about your insurance?"
The father fell silent. Shen Le opened his mouth, about to say, "You should get insurance for yourselves, too," but stopped himself.
Installing air conditioners meant climbing up and down at dangerous heights. Ordinary insurance policies wouldn't cover such high-risk work. The policies that did would come with steep premiums.
Would taking out their own insurance only add to the financial strain on this family, already in such a difficult position?
He kept quiet and watched the father and son busy themselves, installing one air conditioner and then the other. As soon as they finished, he hurried to fetch two more bottles of chilled soda, pressing one into each of their hands.
"Take them, take them! You've worked so hard in this heat... Or, if you don't like cola, there's Sprite, orange juice, and mineral water in the fridge."
"Oh, you're too kind..."
The father couldn't refuse, so he unscrewed the cap and took a couple of sips. The son had clearly been hoping for that, too, and gulped his down.
The father watched his son fondly, screwed the cap back on, and seemed about to save the rest of the cola for him. Shen Le noticed and stopped him with a smile.
"I've got several more bottles here. It's fine. Go ahead and drink yours!"
Zheng Xiaohua nodded and smiled at him, then gulped down the rest. He downed all five hundred milliliters of ice-cold cola in one go, and the refreshing sensation spread through his body. He couldn't help drinking faster and faster.
"Ah... that hits the spot..."
A rush of heat rose up, and he let out a burp, then another. A string of belches later, just as he started to feel a little better, a sharp pain suddenly seized his heart.
"!!!"
The father unconsciously clutched his chest and bent over. The next moment, he curled up and fell to the ground, motionless.
"Master Zheng!"
Shen Le cried out in alarm. The boy rushed over, practically screaming.
"Dad! Dad!"
"Call 120! Then go wait by the back door to meet the ambulance! Hurry!"
Shen Le gave the boy a shove, then dropped to one knee and checked the middle-aged man.
Breathing... it seemed to have stopped. His heartbeat... where was the carotid artery? Where? I can't feel a pulse. His heartbeat? Should I put my ear to his chest and listen?
Shen Le didn't hesitate. He rolled the middle-aged man onto his back, then leaned over him.
He listened. Nothing. He tried another spot. Still nothing.
He scrambled up and started CPR!
In the midst of it all, he pulled out the Copper Fragment and pressed it against the middle-aged man's chest, praying it could heal him—or at least keep him alive—then quickly recalled the steps.
Thank goodness I learned a little in college... Wait, am I pressing in the right place? Am I sure?
Am I pressing deep enough? Is the rhythm fast enough?
It feels like I'm putting my whole body into it... Right! That song! The life-saving song!
"Vast! is the! horizon! where my! love! lies!
At the foot! of the! green hills! flowers! bloom! in profusion!
What kind! of rhythm! is the most! the most! exhilarating!
What kind! of singing! is the most! the most! joyful!
Breathe!
Breathe!"
Shen Le sang it silently as he panted and pressed down. Sweat poured from his forehead, splattering across the middle-aged man's face.
It felt like he'd been pressing for ten thousand years before he finally heard the ambulance siren drawing closer. Then, after another ten thousand years, hurried footsteps pounded toward them.
"Here! Over here!"
"Okay! Move aside! We're here!"
Shen Le rolled away and collapsed onto his side. He watched as two people in white coats checked the man's breathing and heartbeat, then set up the AED.
"Stand back!!!"
A sharp crack of electricity rang out. They paused, checked him over, then shocked him again. And again...
At last, the middle-aged man's heartbeat and breathing returned. They lifted him onto a stretcher and carried him toward the ambulance. Shen Le wiped away his sweat and looked down at his palm with a wry smile.
A distinct imprint had been pressed into the center of his right palm, shaped like the strokes on the Copper Fragment.
It was lucky his palm hadn't been scraped open... Maybe the man had survived until the ambulance arrived because the Copper Fragment had given him some help?
Otherwise, with Shen Le's haphazard rescue attempt, the man probably wouldn't have made it.
He turned around. Clatter, clatter, clatter—the Ink Marker was still hopping about in the room, making a huge racket. Shen Le sighed, went inside, picked it up, and headed to the hospital.
All right, I know you're worried about your original owner. I'll take you to see him, okay?
The town was small, and there was only one second-class hospital. Shen Le had already been there once when he visited the owner of the Little Puppet, so he didn't need to ask for directions. He found it with ease.
He went into the emergency department and looked around. It didn't take long to spot the man, his face waxen, lying on a treatment bed. The numbers on the monitor at his bedside kept changing.
His wife sat beside the bed, wiping away tears again and again. Every so often, she looked at the monitor or got up to check how much fluid remained in her husband's IV bag. When she saw Shen Le, she hurried to her feet, her legs buckling as she started to kneel.
"We owe you so much for what you did today..."
"Please, don't!"
Shen Le quickly helped her back into her chair. Her face was just as waxen as her husband's, and the anger she'd shown during their quarrel was nowhere to be seen. She held her husband's hand, stroking the back of it with her thumb.
"The doctor said his heart stopped. He almost died... If you hadn't gotten to him in time..."
"Oh, it was the right thing to do. Anyone who saw him would've helped..."
Shen Le waved his hands repeatedly. His wife gave a choked sob, tears rolling down her cheeks.
"I know how hard he works. I know his back is bad, but I really didn't know... We had a fight just last night, and it went on until midnight. He didn't get enough rest..."
She wiped away a tear, picked up a towel, and bent over to wipe the sweat from her husband's face. He'd only just been brought back after resuscitation and was too weak to speak, but the tenderness in his eyes as he looked at his wife was unmistakable.
Several relatives who had hurried over gathered around them, trying to comfort her.
"It's good that they saved him..."
"Just don't fight anymore from now on..."
"Take good care of each other. Your son's grown up and can earn money now. What's there you can't get through together?"
"Mm, mm!" His wife nodded over and over, tears falling without pause.
"I'll never scold him again... Honestly, it took something like this for me to realize that none of those things matter. As long as he's alive, that's enough. As long as he's alive..."
She slowly bent down and pressed her forehead against her husband's hand, hiding her endless tears against it.