Joya’s legs felt weak.
“Have you had any physical contact with him recently?” the woman asked.
Joya shook her head vehemently, her voice breaking as she said, “No, no, but we did kiss…” Consequently, she felt nauseous, the mere thought of potential transmission making her stomach churn.
“Have you been scratched or injured by him?” the woman on the phone asked.
In response, Joya felt a fleeting sense of relief and answered, “No, no.”
“That’s good. It shouldn’t be too serious. He doesn’t suspect you at the moment, correct? Send us your location and try to act normally while leaving. Miss Joya, if he attacks you while you’re leaving, don’t resist. Cooperate with him to protect yourself, and we will handle things once we arrive.”
Joya glanced at the window in the bedroom, which was blocked by an anti-theft net. The thought of opening the door and crossing past Sun Zhou made her want to cry.
“Can I just stay in my bedroom and lock the door?” Joya asked, her voice trembling. Given that Sun Zhou was in the living room, she felt safer behind a locked door.
The woman on the phone sighed gently, “It’s okay, but it would be better to find something to block the door.”
Although the other person couldn’t see her, Joya nodded frantically. She recalled the horror movie “The Shining,” where the male protagonist went mad and tried to break down a door with an axe. This memory unsettled her deeply.
After ending the call, Joya sent her current address with shaky hands. Determinedly, she took a deep breath, steeled herself, and began to push the dresser in her room behind the door as quietly and carefully as she could.
…
Sun Zhou didn’t knock on the door. Instead, he remained absorbed in the TV, oblivious to the cheerful music playing. Meanwhile, Joya, clutching the base of the desk lamp and sitting with her back against the dresser, shivered with fear. The woman’s words echoed in her mind: “It shouldn’t be very serious.” Yet, she wondered if it was really not serious.
Time seemed to stretch on endlessly. The high tension made Joya both highly alert and incredibly exhausted, and eventually, she fell into an uneasy sleep.
In the middle of the night, a loud crash and scuffle from the living room startled her awake. However, the noise soon stopped. Subsequently, footsteps approached the bedroom door, followed by a gentle knock.
“Miss Qiao, are you okay?” It was the woman from before.
Joya’s relief was palpable; her voice faltered as she replied, “Okay, okay.”
She grabbed the edge of the table for support, managed to move the dresser away, and opened the door. A woman in a protective suit and mask stood outside, with only her gentle eyes visible. Behind her, a few figures in similar attire moved about in the living room.
Overwhelmed, Joya saw them so well-protected while she felt exposed and vulnerable. The woman briefly showed her ID, which Joya could only vaguely see as “XX Branch” with a steel seal and a striking red stamp.
“Miss Qiao, I suggest you get a blood test in the next two days,” the woman advised. “This disease is primarily transmitted through blood. As long as your blood cell count is normal, you should be fine.”
Relieved that a blood test seemed manageable, Joya nodded weakly.
“We’ll contact your family for follow-up and sign confidentiality agreements, so I won’t keep you longer.”
Joya nodded again, this time more mechanically, as the figures in the living room began to withdraw. The woman turned to leave, but Joya hesitated.
“That…” Joya finally spoke up, “Can Sun Zhou be cured?”
The woman’s reply was grim. “We will do our best. However, even if he is cured, there is a high probability he will carry the bacteria for life. Additionally, he might lose fertility and face a risk of paralysis in the later stages.”
Joya had hoped to be taken downstairs, but the woman’s words left her paralyzed with fear. Consequently, she grabbed the door frame to steady herself, unable to move.
As she watched the woman’s figure disappear down the hallway, she heard the distant sound of a car, and then everything fell eerily silent. The silence was so cold, it felt like an emptiness in her chest.
Although she should have felt sadness, Joya instead understood the saying, “Husband and wife are birds in the same forest; they fly separately when disaster strikes.” Even though she and Sun Zhou weren’t married, she still felt the sentiment deeply. She wondered why women should feel embarrassed by other women.
If she could avoid carrying the bacteria for life, she wouldn’t be able to stay with someone who was ill. Furthermore, her family had always warned her against hepatitis B. The thought of being unable to bear children or care for a paralyzed patient was unbearable. Thus, the idea of suffering through it seemed too much to bear.
…
In the back seat of a spacious off-road vehicle, Quecha removed her hat and sighed. She then roughly cut off the one-piece protective suit with scissors.
The man in the passenger seat looked back at her. “Did everything go well?”
“It went well,” Quecha replied, glancing at the fake work card. “The girl was naive and easy to deceive.”
Shan Qiang, sitting beside her, smiled. “You were once a naive girl too, and now you’ve grown up and deceived others. “Why should women feel embarrassed by other women?”
As laughter filled the off-road vehicle, Sun Zhou lay in the back compartment like a struggling, dying fish, occasionally flailing about.
Meanwhile, Quecha laughed along, but her thoughts were somber. She gazed out the window, contemplating the situation. Although she thought it was a grave injustice, she ultimately believed that removing Sun Zhou from Qiao Ya’s life was the right thing to do, even if it meant she had been the villain in this story.