It's difficult to live a normal life when nobody else can see your 'friends' and everybody thinks you're a crazy man who speaks to himself.
Wei is a lonely man with a special talent and an unexpected crave for sweets.
After helping a stranger he fi...
Wei wasn't used to have LiLing around so much. She was always so quiet, she never got out of the house and she rarely spoke a word.
The last few days though, she had been hovering around him all the time. She still spoke very little, but somehow her presence made him feel like a child with a comfort-blanket.
He had been quite out of spirits, that scene with Yunlan had distressed him more than he predicted. He had told himself he would just go back to the way his life was before, but it wasn't that easy.
At the company, he was constantly reprimanded by Jay for the poor quality of his work, and had to make so many corrections he felt ashamed of himself.
Gelan was with him as always, she never left him, but she stayed behind now, letting LiLing get closer.
She was basically hugging him all the time. Instead of taking energy though, he felt like she was giving some to him.
He didn't know why she was acting like that, or maybe he knew but didn't want to think about it.
Just the day before Gelan had volunteered a question that had startled him. "Do you want to talk about it?"
He had replied that there was nothing to talk about, but he knew what she meant.
Was Yunlan angry at him now? Disappointed? Wei thought that he had every right to be. Maybe he was even afraid of him now?
Wei sighed. He did that a lot these days.
Why had he gone that far?
Wei scolded himself, wasn't it the whole point to get Yunlan to stay away from him? Getting involved with other human beings had never worked before. He had tried a few times, but it never worked out. Humans only brought troubles.
He sighed again, and LiLing sighed with him.
Suddenly he heard a beep coming from his phone. He checked it and his eyes widened. Yunlan had sent him a message.
He stared at the name a long while before finally reading the text.
He frowned, then considered it. Could he really be of help? Did Yunlan believe him now? Did he still trust him?
He thought of the poor man. Wei had been able to help Li Fan, could he help this man too?
He stood up and began taking his stuff away. Not surprisingly Jay complained that the work wasn't finished, but it would have to wait.
He regretted not taking his car that morning. Now he had to go home. He walked quickly, he wouldn't even stop by his apartment to put the bag away if he didn't have to get his car keys.
He got back out in a hurry and drove to the hospital following Yunlan's instructions.
"Visiting hours are over, could you come back tomorrow?" the nurse told him after he tried asking about the patient. He hadn't even finished the question.
Wei couldn't come back the next day, he wanted to see the man now. He thought of something, and before the nurse went back to his work he stopped him with a question.
"Did the police arrive here to see a patient today?"
The nurse eyed him curiously. "Yes, they were here, but I saw the police car drive away an hour ago."
Just a bit disappointed but mostly relieved, Wei thanked the nurse then he moved around, pretending he was looking for the bathroom, until he was distant enough from anyone's ears.
"Luca!" he called. He wasn't with him now, but he knew his friend would feel his call and reach him anywhere he was. It had always been like that. Whenever he called them, his friends would appear at his side.
They were linked somehow. They felt his energy, that was how they found him and why most of them stayed permanently at his house.
As expected, Luca appeared at his side mere seconds later. "I need to find a man. I've got a bad feeling, can you help me find him? Can you sense bad energy?"
With Lucas's help, Wei was sure he could find the man. More than once he met someone on the way, and he called for LiLing's help to distract them so they wouldn't notice him.
LiLing turned out to be the perfect choice. Nobody noticed anything out of the ordinary, but when she got closer to them their eyes became unfocused as if they were taken over by nostalgia. A doctor even took out his wallet to look at a picture. Wei couldn't see it but he guessed it had to be a family picture.
He reached the room he was looking for and checked the man's name on the chart beside the bed. It was him.
Luca stayed behind by the door, Gelan and LiLing were at his side. He took a chair and sat close to the bed.
Like he did with Li Fan, he took one of the man's hands and asked Gelan if she could reach out to his soul. He tried to convey his own energy into him, but this time it wasn't working.
The poor guy wasn't simply deprived of his own energy, his whole being was saturated with the dark energy that only comes from the Shadows.
Wei looked around himself to be sure that he was alone.
"You stay there, warn me if someone comes here." He thanked Luca for his help then turned his attention back to the man.
"We can't do it alone," he murmured.
"Qing!" he called. Three seconds passed and Qing appeared at his side. Wei smiled.
"Can you cure him?... you can sense it? Good... yeah, I can't do anything for him alone... little is basically nothing, but you could... of course I'll help, you take all you need, I trust you."
Wei closed his eyes in concentration, and let his energy flow.
~~~
Outside the patient room, far enough so not to be noticed by Wei, Yunlan's gaze never left him for a second.
He saw him talking for a while, then he watched him as he sat still, holding the man's hand.
Yunlan hadn't yet reconciled with everything that had happened. How could he believe in ghosts? Ghosts didn't exist, it was stuff to scare the children, not something grown-ups should waste their time with.
What happened to him at Wei's house was something unreasonable and he had no explanation for that, but did it really matter now?
Yunlan wasn't prone to panic, he didn't get scared. Come what may he always reacted trying to find a reasonable explanation and then a solution.
Although Wei's voice that day had been harsh, cold, angry, Yunlan hadn't been hurt in the slightest.
Despite everything, Yunlan believed him to be a good person. Wei had already saved two lives, Li Fan and little Yang, and he wanted to trust him.
He wished he was closer to better see what was going on, but he didn't dare to move.
That is, until he saw Wei's head shaking as if he was having an epileptic seizure before he collapsed onto the bed.
Yunlan didn't think twice about it and ran into the room.
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