“Why all the secrecy? Who even wants your stupid junk?” Vương Thành muttered again. Lão Trương discreetly jabbed him with an elbow.
The young man riding with me was named Thạch Khang. His face was cold and expressionless.
I tried to strike up a conversation, hoping to pry out some information, but he wouldn’t answer and acted superior.
The trip went smoothly. As we neared the hospital, I saw one golf course after another, along with villas on the hillside. The surroundings were beautiful.
The hospital was called Thụy Hòa. It was a general hospital, but not many locals knew about it.
The grounds were enormous, with plenty of trees all around. We entered through the back gate. Unlike the hospital’s grand front entrance, the back gate was discreet.
Thạch Khang told me to stop in front of an experimental building. It was an ordinary four-story building, standing by itself in front of the hillside, far from the other buildings on the grounds.
Liễu Ngũ’s workers were already waiting. As soon as our vehicle stopped, they gathered around and carefully unloaded the wooden crates. I got out and stood beneath a tree to smoke and rest.
Vương Thành and the others arrived one after another in their vehicles. The men got out grumbling. Liễu Ngũ’s people were clearly arrogant and didn’t like making conversation.
I was thinking that a hospital like this must be expensive when a figure flashed at the edge of my vision. I circled around the front of the vehicle and saw a skinny leg disappear behind it.
I hurried after it. Before I could get a clear look, I heard Thạch Khang shriek, “What are you doing? Get out of here…”
I went over and saw that it was a little boy in a hospital gown!
The boy was curious about the wooden crates and was pulling back the tarpaulin to see what was inside.
Thạch Khang grabbed the boy by the arm. He looked about the same age as my son, and was so thin he was practically skin and bones. His head was perfectly round, which made it look even bigger.
Before the boy could react, Thạch Khang had grabbed his arm and thrown him aside. Luckily, I was nearby and stepped forward to catch him.
The child was clearly seriously ill. His pale arms were covered in needle marks.
“You…” I wanted to settle things with Thạch Khang, but I was afraid of frightening the boy. I bent down to look at him and saw that his eyes were brimming with tears. He wanted to cry but was trying to hold it in.
“Don’t be scared. I’ll take you somewhere else to play.”
I picked him up. He looked at me a little fearfully, but curiosity won out over fear. “Mister, you’re so tall!”
I smiled. I didn’t know what illness the child had, but he weighed less than half as much as my son.
“The workers are working over here. Where’s your family? I’ll take you over to them.”
The boy turned to look at my vehicle and pointed. “My dad has one like this, too. It’s really tall and big.”
I lifted him into the cab and set him on the seat.
The boy was thrilled. “It’s just like my dad’s vehicle! He lets me sit in it, too!”
“Then where’s your dad? Is he here?”
The boy shook his head. “Dad went to earn money. The lady said when I get better, I’ll be able to go home with him.”
The boy seemed to come from an ordinary family, not a rich one.
I was puzzled when I heard someone behind me calling, “Tiểu Hàng! Tiểu Hàng? Where are you?”
“Auntie!” The boy heard her and immediately called back.
I hurried outside with him in my arms and looked back. A pregnant woman in elegant clothes was there, with several nurses carefully escorting her.
When she saw me, she stiffened slightly and seemed nervous.
I set the boy down. He ran straight to her, excitedly saying, “Auntie, that man has a big vehicle just like Dad’s! He let me climb in and play!”
The woman hurriedly hugged Tiểu Hàng and checked him over carefully. Then she said gently, “Why did you wander off? Everyone in your room was looking for you. Didn’t you promise you’d be good and get treatment, take your medicine on time, and not make the nurses worry?”
Tiểu Hàng scratched his head sheepishly. “I saw a vehicle like Dad’s from upstairs, so I thought he’d come.”
“Your dad’s working hard for you, Tiểu Hàng. He’ll come visit in a few days.”
The woman stroked his head.
Just then, her breathing suddenly grew labored. The nurses grew anxious. “Ma’am, we’ve found Tiểu Hàng. Let’s go back to your room and rest. You need to lie down more.”
The woman was quite far along in her pregnancy. She let the nurses take Tiểu Hàng away, nodded to thank me, then left with their support.
I didn’t know what relationship Tiểu Hàng had to the woman, but she looked like a wealthy lady and seemed very kind.
The next day, I went back to the work site.
To my surprise, Đại Thuận didn’t show up that day.
When I called him, his voice sounded weak. “Brother Long, I don’t know what’s wrong. I have no strength today, and my body temperature is low, too. My wife just gave me some medicine. I really can’t drive today.”
“It’s all right. Get some good rest.”
I told Đại Thuận to rest. I figured there wasn’t much cargo anyway; if it didn’t all fit, I could always make another trip.
Liễu Ngũ arrived. He didn’t complain about one truck being missing, and still led his people into the building to pack the crates.
Vương Thành nervously came over to me and said he needed to use the bathroom. He asked me to go with him because he’d heard the workers say the restroom here was kind of creepy. I glared at him, but went along anyway.
The restroom at the work site was a makeshift shack, not far from the building. I stood in the shade, watching Liễu Ngũ’s people coming and going.
The wooden crates were very heavy. Even two muscular men struggled to carry one.
It was dim inside the building. Even near the entrance, everything looked gray and murky.
I was watching two workers carry out a crate. The man in front had stepped over the threshold, and the one behind was just about to follow when he suddenly staggered!
A dark red shadow suddenly appeared behind the worker. As if someone had shoved him hard, he pitched forward.
The wooden crate tipped with him and slammed onto the ground. Its lid flew open, spilling out a pile of concrete blocks. On closer inspection, they looked like small pieces of marble floor tile, with the same pattern as the hospital hallway.
Why had Liễu Ngũ gone to so much trouble to transport these things?
Before I could think it through, Liễu Ngũ heard the noise and hurried out.
When he saw the broken marble scattered across the ground, he raised his hand and slapped the worker.
The group was frightened. They carefully picked up every broken piece and tried to fit them back together. By the time the cargo was loaded, Liễu Ngũ’s expression had darkened. My suspicions grew.
Before I knew it, there was another problem when the truck was only half loaded. Two workers were pushing a wooden crate onto it when one suddenly let go. The other tried to hold it, but couldn’t. The crate slid down and scraped the back of his hand, tearing his glove open. Blood flowed at once.
“Are you crazy? What are you standing there gawking for?” Thạch Khang shoved the worker who had just let go.
To everyone’s surprise, the man immediately burst into tears, sobbing as if he’d been worked into a frenzy. Before anyone could react, he began speaking through his tears—but it wasn’t his voice. It sounded like a woman’s: “She’s given birth! She really has!”
The worker covered his face and sobbed. His movements and behavior had completely changed. “I never expected it. There’s blood everywhere—my hands are covered in blood… It hurts so much…”
The worker’s voice suddenly rose to a shriek. He fell to the ground and writhed around.
The commotion drew a lot of attention. Vương Thành and Lão Trương came over to me, their voices trembling. “What’s going on? It looks like he’s possessed.”
I was about to step in and help, but Liễu Ngũ was quicker. I didn’t know what he’d smeared on his handkerchief, but he rushed over and pressed it over the worker’s mouth and nose.
The man was smothered until his eyes nearly rolled back, then suddenly began coughing violently.
Liễu Ngũ let go. The worker coughed violently and spat out a glob of black phlegm.
“It’s fine. This guy has asthma. He’ll be okay now that he’s coughed it up.”
Liễu Ngũ smiled warmly. The people around him could only manage awkward smiles in return.
That day, I deliberately drove slowly. I knew Lão Trương, Vương Thành, and the other young men were feeling uneasy. Besides, tomorrow was the Ghost Festival. Fortunately, we made it to Thụy Hòa without a hitch.
To my surprise, Tiểu Hàng showed up again while we were unloading. This time, the boy didn’t run out on his own; a woman who looked like a nurse’s aide came with him. I lifted Tiểu Hàng into the truck and let him play in the cab.
The nurse’s aide watched the people coming and going from the experimental building and asked curiously, “What are they so busy doing? That building’s always been empty.”
“Looks like they’re renovating it. Maybe they’re going to put it to use soon,” I replied casually.
“Goodness, apart from those kids, this hospital hardly has any patients. There are lots of empty buildings.”
“There are a lot of children here?” I asked, puzzled. I’d thought Tiểu Hàng was a special case.
“A lot—two or three dozen, from newborns to five- and six-year-olds. It’s thanks to ông bà Trần. They’re wealthy and sponsor treatment here for lots of children from poor families. All the kids have hard-to-treat illnesses. Without those two kind souls, their families would have no choice but to accept their fate. Take Tiểu Hàng, for example. His father works himself to the bone to earn money, and it probably still wouldn’t cover even one day of his medicine.”