Dou Liping asked Su Jing, "What's wrong with your husband? I noticed he's been coughing nonstop all night. It's only March, and the early spring heating isn't that warm anymore, yet he's still stripping to his waist and complaining about the heat?"
Su Jing replied, "Late-stage lung cancer."
Dou Liping's eyes immediately lit up—a business opportunity had arrived, clear as day.
Zhang Dexu asked, "How much longer does he have?"
Su Jing answered, "Just a few days now. The doctor said two months at most, and it's already been two months and ten days."
Zhang Dexu pressed, "Does he know?"
Su Jing shook her head, "No, we haven't told him."
Zhang Dexu insisted, "Shouldn't he be told before the end? He ought to know."
Su Jing responded firmly, "There's no need. What good would it do? It would only scare him senseless without solving anything. Why should he know? No one knows exactly how they came into this world, so why must they know how they'll leave? Just muddle through, ride this train to the final stop, hand in your ticket, and get off—no need to be picky. Lately, he's been blaming me, saying I'm not taking proper care of him, slamming things around in frustration. I even took him to China Medical University Affiliated Hospital, and the doctor told us to let him eat whatever he wants. What more can we do? There's no curing it. I've had enough too. They say 'a long illness tries the devotion of a Filial Son,' and now I understand why. He's tormenting! He knows you're good to him, yet he still tortures you—the porridge is too cold, the dishes too salty, he puts down his chopsticks and glares at you. You wait on him hand and foot, and he curses you day after day, accusing you of having someone else and wishing he were dead. Every day, I'm cleaning up after him and enduring his temper. This ordeal is nearly over."
Dou Liping asked, "Why is he like this? Is the illness confusing him?"
Su Jing explained, "He's frustrated too. He senses he might not make it."
Chen Junnan interjected, "It's not the illness confusing him. He's testing your limits. He feels he's being abandoned, going from the family pillar to a burden. He's panicking, trying to figure out how much you care and whether you'll abandon him. When he acts out and you endure it, he feels both agony and relief. He agonizes over being such a wretched person—knowing full well how well you're treating him, yet still snapping and scowling at you. It tears him up inside. But he's relieved that you still tolerate him and won't cast him aside. Patients at this stage all do this—they torment their families to feel secure. Seeing you stand by him despite his behavior gives him peace. But it doesn't end there. A few days later, some screw will come loose again, and he'll start the same cycle over. Just bear with him—there's no other way."
Su Jing's husband had a knack for tormenting others. If you bought him rice porridge, he'd complain his stomach felt acidic; if you bought millet porridge, he'd say it grated on his teeth. If you told him to eat it or not, he'd retort, "I'm this sick and you don't even care? What, waiting for me to die so you can run off with someone else? Let me tell you, I'm not dying. My arms and legs are just fine. Just you wait till I recover—if I ever rely on you again, I'll write my name backwards."Su Jing had already been worn down by him. While chatting with Dou Liping, she said: "There are men at the factory who treat me well. The moment they heard about his health issues, they started swarming around. During work hours, they'd stick close, cracking slightly suggestive jokes. Their eyes would roam all over, their expressions like telegraph machines—click-clack, sending signals, just waiting for my whistle to blow so they could immediately substitute onto the field. So full of vigor, like seeing a steaming dumpling they've never tasted before—even if it burns their mouth, they'd swallow it in one gulp. Not like this old married couple—what's the point? Eating dumplings without vinegar, no flavor at all, won't even spare a second glance. And when he finally does look at you, he complains you're a soggy, broken dumpling, all sticky and messy, not worth a second look, plus he insults you every day. Who can stand this suffocating anger..."
Dou Liping said: "Don't talk like that. We both have families and responsibilities. Your husband is still here."
Su Jing said: "So what if I have a husband? In soccer, don't they still score goals even with a goalkeeper? If I really can't take this treatment anymore, I might just relax a bit and find a man to smooth things over. I'm not asking for much—just to not be treated like this. Why should I handle everything—earning money, buying groceries, all the daily chores—and still not get a single kind look? Sis, I'm telling you, I've had enough. Don't think just because I take care of him every day now, I'd even be able to cry if something happened... He's just too unbearable."
Dou Liping said: "You're just venting. Those outside men only want your body—it's all physical, not emotional."
Su Jing sighed and said: "You're right. If it weren't for the fact that he truly cared for me once, I would've left long ago."
People from the Northeast are like this—their words may sound harsh, but actually acting on those harsh decisions is much harder. Were there men flirting with Su Jing? Absolutely. The young wife walked with such energy you could feel the spring in her step, the firmness of her curves visible even through her clothes. What is springiness? It's the vitality of muscle fibers—where there's vitality, there's charm, enough to spark endless imagination. When they heard her husband's health was failing, several single men in the factory immediately started getting restless. It was like a soccer match where a player gets taken down by a flying tackle, clutching his knee and writhing on the field in agony. The coach scans the bench, and all the substitutes start warming up, eager to jump in. When Su Jing brought plain vegetarian lunches to work, other men would say: "Little sister, why eat so plain? You'll ruin your health like this. Such a nice figure—it pains me to see you getting thinner. You need some meat—eating meat gives you energy, balances your hormones. When a woman's hormones are balanced, everything falls into place."
That's how they teased her. There was no helping it—everyone knew about her husband's condition. Su Jing didn't dare tell her husband these things, afraid it would upset him.Men are truly pitiable creatures, competing from the moment of conception all the way to the funeral urn. As children, they compete in wit and agility; as adults, they compare looks, earning power, and bedroom prowess; even after retirement, while dancing in public squares, they still vie to see who’s healthier and tougher. Zhao Benshan once quipped in a skit: "Oh, come on! Xiaoqin’s dad is even tougher than I am." Being tough externally means having deterrence and combat strength—something Su Jing’s husband had lost entirely. If she’s your wife but you’re not tough, she might not remain yours; if she’s not your wife but you share a deep bond, then you’d better be tough. This toughness doesn’t always require actual confrontation—sometimes it’s just symbolic. The men at the factory didn’t necessarily aim to win Su Jing over; they just wanted that feeling—the validation of sexual attraction. A few flirtatious glances, and it felt like everything was possible, yet it remained as pure as the bright moon and as pristine as the first snow of early winter. That feeling was enough.
This toughness is like a nuclear bomb—you can’t just set it off casually, but its mere presence can intimidate. Men have to keep up this facade, always teasing and posturing, until the day they can’t anymore. When they can no longer hold on, they suddenly deflate like a burst balloon—either wilting away or exploding.
No wonder the first atomic bomb was nicknamed "Little Boy."
The namer must have been a philosopher.
Within a few days, Su Jing’s husband began to swell, his blood oxygen levels plummeting rapidly, and the blood streaks in his cough gradually increased. He started complaining of dull, hidden pains in his head and chest, but by then he could no longer speak—only his lips moved, his breath as faint as a wisp, emitting the tiniest of sounds. Though he gasped for air, there was no vibration from his vocal cords. Su Jing sought out Liu Zhengliang, who came to examine him and privately told her, "Multiple metastatic lesions are affecting his organ functions. With such low blood oxygen levels, even a ventilator won’t help. The fact that he can’t produce sound means the cancer has eroded his vocal cords. He doesn’t have much time left."
By the twenty-fifth day, he had begun to sleep for long stretches. An old medicine peddler in his sixties slipped into the ward—his appearance a perfect replica of the Medicine Peddler from the TV series Liu Laogen—knocked, poked his head in, called Su Jing out, and tried to sell her some medicinal herbs.
Outside the Second Hospital’s inpatient department, there were over a dozen such quack doctors, all making a living off patients’ final moments. The Medicine Peddler said, "I have a therapy here—a secret family recipe specifically for lung cancer. Why don’t you give it a try?"
Su Jing asked, "What kind of remedy is this? Can you cure him?"
The Medicine Peddler replied, "Let’s be frank—he’s at this stage. If we can pull him back, then it works. Early last year, Old Ma from the machinery repair shop took my medicine. The doctors said he was terminal, but he pulled through and is still alive today. But that old lady at the end of the year—she was too far gone, and we couldn’t save her. Medicine can treat illness, but it can’t change fate. Whether it works or not depends on the person’s physical condition. No one can guarantee that if your husband takes my medicine, he’ll definitely survive."The Medicine Peddler's specialty was hedging his bets both ways. He'd even cited successful cases, though as for what Old Ma's real name was, he'd forgotten—everyone just called him Old Ma. If you had time, you could go ask around at the machinery repair factory. Anyway, that's the situation with your family member. As a relative, shouldn't you cling to even a sliver of hope with a hundredfold effort?
Su Jing asked, "How much is this medicine?"
The Medicine Peddler said, "Not expensive—nine hundred yuan."
Liu Zhengliang, who had appeared unnoticed behind the Medicine Peddler, remarked, "You've got quite the pricing strategy. Keeping it under a thousand, a few hundred yuan makes people willing to spend. But this is illegal medical practice. If I report you, you'll get at least six months in prison."
The Medicine Peddler chuckled awkwardly, "Look at you, always so serious. I'm just accumulating merit by doing good deeds. I have this invention that helps treat illnesses, and I sell it cheap. When someone has late-stage lung cancer with no hope left, if my medicine happens to work, they might live a few more years."
Liu Zhengliang ignored him and turned to Su Jing, "Don't waste your money. If he could cure cancer—I can't speak for everything, but every hospital in the world would have a statue of him at its entrance. Every doctor and nurse would have to bow to him coming and going. He'd win the Nobel Prize in Medicine for ten years straight. Is that possible?" Then he turned back to the Medicine Peddler, "Get out of here, and stop prescribing random drugs to my patients. If something goes wrong from taking them, you'll face a lawsuit."
Su Jing stopped Liu Zhengliang, saying, "Dr. Liu, I'll buy it. Even if it doesn't help, it probably won't harm him either. My husband has stopped taking his medicine now, saying nothing works. He's convinced I'm trying to abandon him, lying there coughing and crying. A person only lives once, and in his state, why be so strict? Giving him some novel medicine gives him something to hope for. Fooling a person is better than fooling a ghost. While he's still alive, giving him a bit of hope lets him depart with peace in his heart. After all, we were husband and wife. Though we didn't have many good days together, I've tried my best to find solutions for him, and he sees that. Spending nine hundred yuan to buy a path forward isn't expensive."
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