Bitter Tea
He Suye was on his way to the hospital for work. Just as he got off the bus, he spotted Qiu Tian, swaying his head to the music from his MP3 player as he walked through the hospital gates. Curious, He Suye walked over and tapped Qiu Tian on the shoulder. "Don’t tell me you work here too."
Qiu Tian looked innocent. "What kind of world is this? You’re not even welcoming me? I’m so hurt!"
He Suye laughed. "You’re welcome, of course. I just can’t imagine any supervisor being able to handle you. I’m genuinely curious!"
Qiu Tian sighed. "You think getting a Ph.D. is some big deal? Hospitals are full of them. I still have to trail behind my boss and do the grunt work. Besides, our hospital’s cardiovascular department isn’t that strong. I’m just sticking around for now—who knows, I might jump ship someday."
He Suye stayed silent, empathizing with the sentiment. Qiu Tian continued, "Suye, I’d actually love to work under your dad. Too bad I can’t—I’m not in the military."
He Suye paused. "Right, I guess you can’t. That’s the Military General Hospital—you’d need military status."
Qiu Tian gave him a look that screamed, "You’re so dense," and reached out to pinch him, sighing dramatically. "I really don’t get you. You didn’t go to military medical school, fine. But you even chose to study traditional Chinese medicine for your graduate degree and didn’t go abroad. Your dad’s a hospital director, a major general, and a nationally renowned cardiovascular expert—such amazing prerequisites, and you’re just wasting them!"
He Suye shrugged helplessly. "These things can’t be forced. I just prefer traditional Chinese medicine."
Today, Professor Gu was on duty, and the TCM building was packed. He Suye and another female Ph.D. student under the professor sat to the side, observing patients, taking notes, and calling numbers. Professor Gu was notoriously strict, and the female doctoral student hesitated several times while writing prescriptions, earning her several sharp glares.
Finally, a phone call summoned the professor away. The doctoral student exhaled in relief. "Every time the boss does a shift, I lose a month of my lifespan."
Just then, a nurse called out, "Doctor He, Professor Gu wants you in the Internal Medicine Building, Gastroenterology Department."
Only then did the female doctoral student notice his name tag—"Attending Physician." She sighed inwardly. No wonder the professor valued him so much. She was just a resident; by seniority, she should be calling him "senior brother."
The day was unusually hectic. After assisting in the TCM building, he handled a patient in Gastroenterology, then got called away to Hematology. Finally, his supervisor mentioned a new drug he was developing and asked if He Suye would be willing to help.
He Suye smiled wryly, thinking to himself how tough the year-end was turning out to be.
The application form for the University of Pennsylvania’s medical program lay buried under his desk, untouched for a long time. Professor Andy had repeatedly expressed his reluctance to lose such a talented practitioner of integrated Chinese and Western medicine, saying he’d wait as long as needed.
The momentum of TCM research in their own country paled in comparison to that in the U.S. across the ocean. The thought saddened him.
It seemed everyone was swamped as the year drew to a close. Li Jie was drowning in exams, constantly pestering He Suye for study tips. Fang Kexin hadn’t been seen in a while either—rumor had it the Imaging Department was also overwhelmed. Grandma He called to say He Suye’s father had gone to Japan and might not be home for the New Year.
Lately, the relentless busyness had left He Suye irritable. He bought some bitter tea leaves to brew and drink.Bitter tea leaves are bitter in taste and neutral in nature, capable of quenching thirst, improving eyesight, dispersing wind-heat, clearing the head and eyes, detoxifying, reducing inflammation, and stopping bleeding from wounds. They are mainly used to treat wind-heat headaches, red and swollen eyes, and also have the effects of lowering blood pressure and lipids, aiding weight loss, fighting cancer, and anti-aging.
He had a preference for the bitter taste of bitter tea, drinking it like plain water.
The second heavy snowfall of the year had arrived, heavier and fiercer than the first. The meteorological department issued a series of alerts in succession. Highways and railway hubs were damaged, airports were forced to close, and the city fell into a quiet hush, as if isolated from the world.
He Suye also felt cut off. Apart from Qiu Tian and Li Jie, no one spoke to him.
Even Shen Xifan seemed to have vanished without a trace. That sometimes noisy, sometimes quiet girl had disappeared into thin air, like evaporated snowflakes, leaving no trace, making it impossible to find her.
He Suye wondered if sending her a message would be too abrupt, and moreover, was it even necessary?
This winter was truly cold. The warmth of a cup of tea was far from enough.
These past few days, he had been immersed in pharmacological research, busy with his boss's new drug formulation, including studying the operation of the 1.5-million-yuan liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry instrument and the 650,000-yuan gas chromatography-mass spectrometry instrument.
His desk was piled high with all sorts of books, manuals, theses, and reports. He Suye's things had never been this messy before, but he had no heart to tidy up, letting the chaos grow.
Reaching out to pull the "Complete Compendium of Chinese Pharmacopoeia" buried at the very bottom, he accidentally knocked over all the books above it. Among them, he found a blue letter tucked inside Li Jie's materials.
The handwriting was Shen Xifan's—elegant, refined, and with a lively charm.
"Above the city, vast swathes of clouds drift swiftly across the sky. Suddenly, a pigeon cuts through the heavens, its delicate silhouette framed by the steel wires hanging from the neighboring balcony, embedded in time like sorrowful notes plucking the heartstrings of a lovelorn soul.
This scene feels so familiar. Haven’t we had days like this before? You and I walked hand in hand down the rain-washed avenue, and when I asked you what happiness was, you said happiness is spending a lifetime bickering and laughing with the one you love."
"I’ve grown accustomed to it—holding an umbrella alone, shopping alone, smiling alone, getting drenched in the rain alone. So on this rainy afternoon, I wandered alone from the east end of the flower market to the west, then back again. Eventually, I grew hungry and stepped into that Hong Kong-style tea restaurant by myself, ordering the seafood noodles you always loved. Bit by bit, as if consuming memories, I ate the food before me.
Gazing wistfully, amid the cries of lone geese, I stand till the slanting sun fades. How have you been, in these days without me?"
A sour ache rose in his heart. He Suye sighed softly, recalling Shen Xifan's tear-reddened eyes the last time they met and her strange question about "love lost and found." He should have realized something was wrong then.
Shen Xifan must have loved someone deeply—the person in this letter—with all her strength, like a moth to a flame, burning fiercely until only ashes remained. And now, had that person come back to find her?
A girl like her—good-hearted, simple, adorable, a little mischievous yet earnest and hardworking in everything—deserved to be cherished and protected, held gently in someone’s hands. Not to be hurt, abandoned, and then begged for forgiveness after the fact.Her recent sudden disappearance—could she have encountered some difficulties, or was there something she couldn't figure out? He was a little worried, though it felt somewhat strange.
In the end, he sent her a message, but it was like a stone sinking into the sea. He waited all night, yet there was no reply. When he called, a cold, mechanical voice responded, "Sorry, the number you dialed is currently switched off."
Raising his teacup, he tasted a faint bitterness on his tongue for the first time. With a mischievous thought, he wondered if he should add a little sugar to it.
Actually, it wasn’t Shen Xifan’s fault. That evening, while attending her cousin’s wedding banquet, her four-year-old nephew from her aunt’s side had thrown a tantrum, crying and demanding to go home. She had carried the child to the staircase landing to let him vent, taking out her phone to play music and distract him.
But the moment she turned away, the little rascal grew restless, clutching the phone with both hands—only to lose his grip. The phone plummeted from the second floor, crashing onto the marble floor below and shattering into pieces.
She felt the year-end was truly hard to endure—lonely, boring, and now financially draining.
Unbeknownst to her, someone had been thinking about her all night.
The next day at work, Shen Xifan realized how impossible it was to function without a phone and decided to buy a new one after her shift to solve her communication woes.
Coincidentally, a courier arrived with a package. Curious, she signed for it and opened it, only to be genuinely startled. The Chow Sang Sang logo was unmistakable, and inside lay a diamond necklace—she faintly recognized it as the "Platinum Heart Shadow" collection.
Her jaw dropped. The scattered diamonds shimmered under the orange light, casting a dreamlike, iridescent glow, like the radiant shimmer of moonlight. No wonder women adored diamonds—it wasn’t just vanity but a profound fulfillment of their aesthetic desires.
She was no exception. But this gift was far too extravagant. It wasn’t that she didn’t want it—she simply couldn’t accept it.
She thought of calling Yan Heng but felt using the hotel’s landline might not convey things clearly. Then she noticed a note tucked inside the jewelry box. Picking it up, she read it carefully before gently repacking the necklace and tucking the box deep into her bag.
She decided to meet him at the café and return the gift. She would tell him, "Please let me think about it."
This was the best approach. After all, wounds couldn’t be casually erased, and emotions didn’t simply vanish into thin air. She wasn’t ignorant of these truths—she just didn’t want regrets in her life.
She would think it through before speaking. Time would reveal the right path forward.
He Suye stayed unusually late in the lab. A fellow graduate student had been careless, miscalculating the dosage of a reagent, forcing them to start over. What should have ended by five dragged on until past seven.
He planned to grab a quick bite at a street stall, but as he turned toward the ramen shop, he spotted Shen Xifan—chopsticks in one hand, a tissue in the other—happily slurping down a bowl of spicy hotpot, thoroughly enjoying herself.
He suddenly felt torn between laughter and exasperation—both at his own unwarranted concern and this carefree girl’s obliviousness.
Shen Xifan was cheerfully picking at lettuce in her bowl, the broth a fiery red from the chili oil, her mouth puffing out breaths from the heat. Then she noticed He Suye holding a bowl, gesturing if he could sit across from her. She was curious—since when did that guy eat stuff like this?Sure enough, he was the reserved type—plain broth, how boring. What's the point of spicy hot pot without the "spicy" part? She looked at him disdainfully and pouted.
He Suye's face turned cold. "I'm having a heaty body, can't eat spicy. Don't look at me like that, I've been in a bad mood lately!"
So even the gentle and amiable traditional Chinese doctor had his moods. But Shen Xifan was in an even worse mood, her irritation flaring up over the spicy hot pot. "I'm the one who's pissed! Not only did my phone break..."
He Suye froze, muttering, "Phone broke? Oh, so that's why..."
A bite of food got stuck in her throat. Shen Xifan took a breath, sucked on her chopsticks twice, and sighed. "Losing money is one thing, but then my ex shows up out of nowhere giving me free stuff. Think I scored? Not at all! I gave it all back. I'm so frustrated!"
These words didn't sit well with He Suye. His thoughts raced—so the person in that photo really was her ex. That pitiful look she had that day was for him too. Now she couldn't stop talking about him, and he was sending her gifts? What, trying to win her back? At least the girl had principles and stood firm on the right side.
In over twenty years, He Suye had never despised anyone, but now he had strong opinions about this ex of hers.
Wait, what was wrong with him? What kind of nonsense was he thinking about?
The meal was utterly flavorless for He Suye, while Shen Xifan finished hers cheerfully and even reached over with her chopsticks to pick at the gluten in his bowl, acting as if the ex-boyfriend matter didn't bother her at all.
Watching her eat, she suddenly sighed. "I'm so pent up, my heart's burning with anger. Don't be fooled by how I look now—I might seem happy, but I'm actually miserable. He Suye, what should I do?"
Desperate times call for desperate measures. He felt she should go to the emergency room first for a sedative shot, then transfer to neurology. She couldn't even speak properly, asking him what to do without explaining the reason.
"Kuding tea, to cool the heat," he replied. To back it up, he added, "I've been drinking it lately too."
Shen Xifan gasped. "He Suye, kuding tea? Are you trying to lose weight?"
Exasperated and defeated, He Suye rubbed his temples and snapped, "Lotus leaves can help with weight loss too, but no one said they can't also clear heat, uplift yang, cool the blood, and stop bleeding."
Before he finished, Shen Xifan burst into giggles. "Su Ye, lotus leaves... you really have all the benefits covered."
On the way home, both were lost in their own thoughts, walking in silence until Shen Xifan couldn't hold back. "He Suye, I think forgetting isn't that easy. Like with my ex—rationally, I know it's impossible, but I can't help thinking about him. It's hard to describe. Maybe I liked him too much before, got hurt too deeply, and now I can't forget."
"How long were you two together? I mean, with your ex."
"Two years, to be exact—764 days..."
"Oh... did you get your phone fixed?"
"Just bought a new one. So annoying. By the way, did you text me?"
"Yeah, it was nothing. Just wanted to ask what you were up to."
"Sorry..."He Suye returned home, brewed a cup of bitter tea, and picked up the letter again. Under the soft lamplight, the blue stationery folded into a faint melancholy—her words, her heartache, he could feel it all.
Reading it once more, it wasn't just a sour sensation. His heart ached for her. So the little girl still carried scars from her youth, seemingly healed but in truth buried deep in her bones, capable of erupting into overwhelming pain at the slightest touch. No wonder she had never had a boyfriend—she didn’t dare to bring it up again, to love again, only to be hurt once more. Such a sensitive girl, fragile enough to stir a protective instinct in anyone.
As he took a sip of the tea, He Suye frowned. Bitter. So bitter. A dull ache pulsed deep in his chest, soft yet persistent, drop by drop, tightening around his heart.
He must have fallen for her. He was so preoccupied with her, loved watching her every smile and frown, that utterly feminine pout when she was annoyed. A few days without seeing her made him miss her, worry for her, resent her ex-boyfriend—all these inexplicable jealousies were proof that he liked her.
Joy and helplessness seized him at once. There was a bottomless pit in that girl’s heart, and he didn’t know how to fill it. She refused to move forward, and he couldn’t force her out. But how could he make this girl—who made his heart ache, who stirred such a sense of responsibility in him—bathe in sunlight, laughing with happiness and joy?
Just making her happy would be enough. He was willing to stand by her side and wait quietly.
OpenNovel