Chapter 39: Stubbornness

Qiao Lan just felt his heart jerking.

Why...why is there a scar...

She knew Tan Mo had had AS as a child and then a car accident that had crippled both legs, but... why was there such a hideous scar from the car accident in the first place?

But apart from this wound, there was no trace of anything else around it. A car accident should not have left such a flat wound, and the marks...

More like a scar from a sharp knife or something...

The skin on the teenager's legs seemed paler than the skin on his face and hands, and unlike the legs of the boys of his age who ran and played basketball in the playground, there were no visible muscles or muscles to hold up the curves, and the calves and ankles were unusually slender, not like boys but more like slim, light-skinned girls.

At first glance, it is pale, slender and very morbidly beautiful, but behind the scenes, it is the first signs of atrophy of the calf muscles.

The muscle starts to decrease in relative terms and the muscle fibre tissue starts to thin out a little and eventually fades away.

At the moment Tan Mo's legs were marked with blinding scars and his calves were trembling slightly, he bent down in a panic and hurriedly pulled the covers up to cover his legs.

He didn't want her to see it.

Didn't want him to see his sick and horrible legs.

But he was in pain because Qiao Lan had seen the bottle of medicine on his bed, which was designed to relieve nerve pain, neuropathy and so on.

Qiao Lan suddenly realized that Tan Mo did not have a stomachache, but a pain in her leg, a nerve pain in her leg.

"Qiao Lan rushed out and poured water, took the pills according to the instructions on the bottle and handed them to Tan Mo, who had no idea how painful the nerve pain was. Chan.

Uncle Chan received a phone call from Qiao Lan in the middle of the night was a big jump, shocked and busy asking what happened, after Qiao Lan said relieved but still very anxious, "every month will hurt so once or twice, no fixed time, he does not go to the hospital, the pain can only take medicine only hard to bear, medicine in his bedside drawer, eat two tablets do not eat more ...... I'm heading back tomorrow morning ......"

Qiao Lan hung up the phone and hurriedly put the medicine bottle away, went to the bathroom and soaked the towel in hot water, wrung it out until it was half dry and came back again, reaching out to pull back the covers.

Tan Mo, who had taken painkillers but was still in pain, was suddenly struck by a nerve when Qiao Lan lifted the blanket and held on to it, not letting her see it.

"Tan Mo let go", Qiao Lan grabbed his hand away, "your leg needs a hot compress."

"He knew what Qiao Lan wanted to do, and every time his leg hurt, Uncle Chan would help him with a hot compress and massage, Tan Mo never thought there was anything wrong with Uncle Chan doing this, but when Qiao Lan lifted the blanket, Tan But when Qiao Lan lifted the blanket, Tan Mo had only one thought in his mind, not to let Qiao Lan see.

With such ugly scars and abnormal legs, he didn't want Qiao Lan to see them.

He tried to push Qiao Lan's hand away and looked up at Qiao Lan with a gaze that was both lax and pleading, "Don't look", the teenager's voice, which was always smooth, was shaking with pain and embarrassment, "Don't look... it's hard to look ..."

"It's not ugly, Tan Mo", Qiao Lan grabbed the teenager's shaking hand, her voice was as soft as it had ever been, as if a little louder would scare the fragile teenager, "Really, it's not ugly at all, let go, okay, MoMo, do as you're told, take your hand away. "

Little by little, Tan Mo's fingers are broken and the hand clutching the quilt is removed, the quilt is lifted again and the pale skin and hideous scars are exposed again.

Qiao Lan placed a warm towel over Tan Mo's shivering calves.

"Is it hot?" Qiao Lan holds the towel in her hand, feeling that it is not very hot, but fearing that Tan Mo is too sensitive to the temperature.

Tan Mo sat stiffly and helplessly on the bed, watching Qiao Lan's hands cover his calves through the towel, before he whispered, "I don't know, I can't feel it."

He didn't know if it was hot or not.

Not only could he not feel the warmth of the towel, but he could not feel the strength of Qiao Lan's hands on his legs.

All he could feel was a nerve pang that sent a man running for the hills.

Tan Mo's words were so natural, but Qiao Lan felt unbearably uncomfortable when she heard them.

He couldn't feel the temperature or the strength, but he could feel the nerves hurting, couldn't he, and if the nerves hurt then didn't that mean they weren't irrecoverable?

The towel quickly cooled down, and Qiao Lan went to the bathroom to soak the towel in hot water again. After half an hour of hot compresses, Tan Mo's excessively white calves were slightly tinged with blood, and the scar had become even redder from the prolonged heat.

Tan Mo sat motionless as he watched Qiao Lan repeat his leg compresses over and over again with great care and concentration.

She seemed genuinely...not afraid and didn't feel bad about it...

The pain was still not as bad, but perhaps psychologically, Tan Mo could feel the strength of the hands pressing against his calf.

Tan Mo takes another uncontrolled step backwards.

Qiao Lan hurriedly withdrew her hand, "I'm sorry," she said, but then whispered, "...this scar, how did it come about, from the car accident?"

"No", Tan Mo tried to cover her legs with the blanket again, but Qiao Lan didn't put a towel over them this time, her hands pressed directly against them.

Uncle Chan said it would be good to massage after the hot compress, Qiao Lan is not good at it but a little squeeze is always good.

"Is that... someone else's injury?"

"No," Tan Mo's body tensed up again, her hands clenched together at her sides.

"I got it myself."

Qiao Lan's hand, which was being massaged, froze abruptly.

Get it yourself...

Self-harm...

Qiao Lan then remembered that there was a mention in the book that Tan Mo had suffered severe post-traumatic stress disorder after the car accident and had self-harmed.

The scar on his leg is a mark left from that time.

Qiao Lan's eyes could not stop souring, especially when looking at the scar so close. What kind of pain did Tan Mo, who was so emotionally stunted, go through to develop PTSD and stab the knife in his leg?

Wanting to reach out and touch it, but fearing Tan Mo's pain, Qiao Lan withdrew her hand again, carefully avoiding the bruise, and resumed her massage.

"I just saw that the bottle of medicine was for nerve pain, Tan Mo, the nerves are still responding, is your leg still treatable."

Tan Mo is silent again.

This is his reaction once he doesn't want to talk.

Qiao Lan had known him for almost a year and could see the signs of his lies and vaguely recognise what he meant when he was silent, that Tan Mo's leg might really be treatable.

"Why not go if you can be cured?"

Because you can't go, and you shouldn't go.

A man who should never have been born, a man who should have died in that crash, but by mistake lived, and the one who should not have died, died in that crash.

The scrap still lives on, but his mother, who suffered half her life for the scrap, is gone forever because of him.

He would always remember his grandmother telling him that he had been a drag on his mother from the time he was born, that he had dragged her down for over a decade and that he had even ended up killing her.

He didn't want to live, but he had to because of his mother's last words. But these legs, these legs that were crippled in the accident, since they were already crippled, let them stay crippled forever.

Qiao Lan eventually waited for Tan Mo's answer, but failed to understand what it meant, Tan Mo said.

This is what he deserves.

He wanted to push Qiao Lan's hand away and tell her she didn't have to waste her time on these legs, but in the end he didn't say anything, he was a bit reluctant to do so.

He could not feel the intensity, yet he still stayed with the feeling.

Qiao Lan carefully re-covers Tan Mo with the blanket and sits on the edge of the bed, gazing at his pale but delicate face.

The brow, which had never been furrowed, frowned slightly in sleep.

Even sleeping seems to be a torment.

Qiao Lan reached out and gently pressed her hand to the teenager's brow, slowly pushing away the furrowed brow.

Uncle Chan arrived back early the next morning at 8am.

After receiving a phone call from Qiao Lan last night, I couldn't sleep any longer and drove straight back to the house at dawn.

Tan Mo was too tired to get up last night and Qiao Lan had been up for half an hour, packing up the breakfast from the nutritionist.

Uncle Chan quietly opened the door to Tan Mo's holiday home, entered and then silently withdrew, looking back at Qiao Lan who was lost in thought.

Qiao Lan shouted in a low voice, Qiao Lan now came back to his senses, took out his breakfast and sat on the other side of the table, half a while later said, " Uncle Chan, Tan Mo's leg, it can actually be cured, right?"

Uncle Chan was silent for a long time before saying, "It can be cured, but it's very difficult, the success rate is less than twenty percent, and the treatment process is... very painful, and most of all, it's..."

"It was Tan Mo himself who didn't want to be cured."

Uncle Chan stared at Qiao Lan for a long moment, then nodded with bleary eyes, "Yes, he doesn't want to be treated at all."

It's all retribution, he said.

When she came out of the kitchen, Qiao Lan stood on the balcony and took a deep breath. She had never felt so powerless, not knowing what to do or what to do.

At 9.30am, Tan Mo finally got up and sat in his wheelchair looking at the girl with her back to him, her head still awake from her recent sleep, and suddenly remembered that last night Qiao Lan had looked after him for half the night and even massaged him with her hands.

The teenager's entire spine steeply straightened again.

Qiao Lan turns his head at the sound of movement. Tan Mo has just woken up, his soft hair still untidy, a few strands of it rising restlessly, the dull hairs instantly adding to the silly look of the still dazed boy.

Qiao Lan laughed unexpectedly.

Tan Mo looked at the smile on Qiao Lan's face, the girl's smile was brighter than the sunlight, and Tan Mo subconsciously wanted to give Qiao Lan the same look back.

But in the end, I didn't know how to smile, my facial muscles felt like they weren't listening to me, and I ended up with the same odd and comical look.

Qiao Lan clapped his hands and walked over, looking at the teenager, "I've thought of what I'm going to do today, Tan Mo , let me teach you how to recognise expressions and how to smile."