After they returned from the hospital, it began to rain outside.
Wen Ning gazed at the deserted street outside the window, his unease growing stronger and stronger. Old Zhao probably would not make it.
That night felt unbearably long. There were no pedestrians, no sounds except the rain striking the ground, so oppressive it was hard to breathe.
In the end, Old Zhao did not survive that rainy night. He passed away without a sound in his shabby, drafty rented room.
No family stood beside him, and no tears saw him off. He lay curled beneath a thin, worn quilt, his face free of pain, bearing instead the peace of someone finally released.
He still tightly clutched the change left over from buying porridge for his wife. Empty painkiller boxes lay scattered beside his bed. The pain that had tormented him day and night, the worries that had kept him from daring to die—all of it finally came to an end on that night, without anyone knowing.
He went quietly, without making the slightest sound, as though he had simply fallen into a deep sleep. He no longer had to force himself to keep going or endure the torment of his illness.
At dawn, the rain stopped. Sunlight barely pierced the clouds and spilled onto the street, but it could not dispel the chill that seeped into the bones.
The next day, Wen Ning had just opened the front door when heart-rending wails came from the direction of the residential complex. The voice was hoarse with despair, so broken it hurt to hear, and it instantly gripped Zhou Qing's heart.
It was Old Zhao's wife.
After a neighbor discovered that Old Zhao had passed away, they immediately notified the hospital. The nurse deliberated for a long time before finally breaking