My Chongxi Husband Is Faking His Coma novel · Chapter 3 of 24
Chapter 3: The Night Nurse
Lin Zhi bluffs a nurse with a syringe out of the room, faces the uncle at dawn, and learns the dose was meant to do more than keep his husband asleep.
The night nurse was a broad woman in her forties who walked without making a sound.
She came in with a steel tray and a syringe on it, and she did not look at Lin Zhi at all.
"His night medicine," she said.
Lin Zhi sat up on the sofa and rubbed his face.
He had been lying there for two hours with his eyes shut, listening to his husband breathe.
Now he had to pretend too.
"At three in the morning?" he asked.
"The doctor adjusted the schedule."
"Which doctor?"
She finally looked at him.
"Mr. Xie Guangping's doctor," she said. "Please move. I have other rooms."
Lin Zhi stood up and stayed between her and the bed.
"I'm sorry," he said, politely. "As of this afternoon I'm the spouse. Article four says any change to his medication needs my signature."
That was a fair summary of Article four, if you were generous.
"It's a standing order."
"Then the standing order can stand until morning, and the doctor can explain it to me."
"Mr. Lin," said the nurse.
"Ms. Nurse, he's my husband. I've been his husband for nine hours. Let me be annoying about it."
She stared at him for a long moment.
Then she said, in a flat voice, "Mr. Xie Guangping won't like this."
"I'll give him my condolences."
He held out his hand for the tray.
She hesitated, and then the syringe was in his palm, and she left with her empty tray and her mouth shut tight.
The door clicked.
Lin Zhi wrapped the syringe in a tissue and put it inside his sock, because he could not think of a better place.
He waited a full minute, and then another one.
"You can open your eyes," he whispered. "The door's locked. Rule one."
Zhaoran opened them.
"That was twice the size of my night dose," he said. "And it's the wrong hour. My night dose is at ten."
"How do you know the size?"
"I've had seven weeks to study what they put in me." His voice was a thread.
"The ten o'clock one is a small, bored sedative. That one was not bored."
"What was it for?" asked Lin Zhi.
"I don't know."
Lin Zhi sat down on the edge of the bed.
His hands were shaking a little.
He looked at them with interest, since they had not shaken while the nurse was in the room.
"She didn't argue enough," he said. "A real nurse with a standing order argues. She gave it up in about four sentences."
"Because she wasn't a real nurse tonight."
"I'm going to need a minute to feel that properly."
"Take it," said Zhaoran. "Then go to sleep. I'll watch the door."
"You can't sit up."
"I can watch it," said Zhaoran.
Lin Zhi slept for two hours in a chair pulled against the bed, with his head on the mattress.
He woke to a hand that was not quite touching his hair.
It had stopped an inch away.
When he lifted his head, it had gone back to the sheet, and the eyes above it were closed.
At six the corridor started to fill.
The Xie relatives had slept in the guest suites.
By half past they were all in the hall in robes and cardigans, drinking tea out of paper cups.
Xie Guangping, the Second Uncle, came last.
He walked up to Lin Zhi in the doorway with his hands folded, grey-haired, kind-faced, and wide awake.
"Xiao Lin, I hear you took something from the nurse," he said. "A bad night?"
"A careful one," said Lin Zhi.
"Of course. A husband should be careful. But hospital medicine is hospital property."
"I'd hate for there to be a misunderstanding. Give it to Pei Wen, and he'll return it."
A round-faced young man in gold glasses stepped forward with a lunchbox in both hands.
He looked at Lin Zhi, pale, and Lin Zhi realized this was Pei Wen, Zhaoran's assistant.
Everyone in the hall had gone quiet to listen.
Lin Zhi took the syringe from his sock, still wrapped in its tissue, and held it up where all of them could see it.
"I'll give it to the doctor," he said, "to test, before anyone puts it in my husband."
"There's no need for a test."
"Then there's no harm in one," said Lin Zhi.
"It's a sedative, Xiao Lin."
"Then the lab will say so." He smiled. "And you'll have lost nothing but an hour. I'm sure Mr. Xie wouldn't mind. He's so patient."
A cousin laughed behind her tea.
Xie Guangping's smile did not move at all.
"Of course," he said. "Of course. You're right. Pei Wen, give the boy a breakfast."
He turned and walked away down the hall, unhurried, and a dozen relatives let out their breath.
Pei Wen pushed the lunchbox into Lin Zhi's chest.
"There's congee," he whispered. "He likes the scallion. I mean, he would, if he were. I'm sorry. Please don't tell anyone I said that."
"I won't," said Lin Zhi.
When the door was locked again, Zhaoran was already looking at him.
"He'll try again," he said quietly. "And next time he won't send a nurse."
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