Chapter 22

The next day, Li Kai developed a high fever that wouldn’t break. He drifted in and out of consciousness, sometimes lucid, sometimes delirious. I wanted to take him to the hospital, but whenever he was lucid, he refused, insisting he had just caught a cold the night before.

Denial of illness is a terrible thing.

But I quite liked it.

I gave him some fever medication. I happened to have the day off, so I could stay home with him. If his condition worsened, I would call an ambulance immediately.

I was not so noble as to take meticulous care of him.

I was simply preparing to personally send him to the place he deserved to be…

By evening, his fever had finally subsided, and his face was no longer flushed. But his temper suddenly became explosive. He nitpicked at the porridge I had painstakingly cooked, and in the end, he threw a fit and refused to eat.

It would have been better to just let the fever take him.

But when he was alone, he would start talking to himself, becoming withdrawn and depressed. At his worst, his eyes would look vacant.

When I called his name, it would take him a while to pull himself out of his thoughts.

Sometimes he would respond. Other times, even if he heard me, he wouldn’t react, at most raising his head to look at me blankly before lowering it again, lost in his own world.

I recorded all of his behavior today.

Seeing him in this state of manic depression, my heart bloomed with joy.

It was almost time. I would soon be free from having to live under the same roof with him, wearing this mask.

These past two weeks have felt like an eternity.