The monitor's metallic beeping wove an invisible web through the ICU, every note striking Lin Wanzhou's spine with pinpoint precision. She curled into a tight ball, like a shrimp. Her right ring finger was barely three centimeters from the call button by her bed, yet it felt as distant as the ends of the earth. Her nerves were freezing at a visible pace under the grip of ALS. The joints in her fingertips had swollen like frostbitten dead branches, even her nails turning a bluish gray. Only her palm still held the warmth of the firefly jar her younger brother, Lin Xingye, had pressed into her hand during his last visit.
“Once the relocation compensation comes through, we can fix up that old courtyard house and live there.” Lu Chen's voice slipped through the crack in the door, mingling with the smell of disinfectant. Its familiar upward lilt was now like silk soaked in ice water. The tone that had once soothed all her anxieties made every word feel edged with ice. She heard the faint click of a lighter, Lu Chen's habit when he lit a cigarette. Smoke crept in through the gap, casting a warped shadow over the glass jar. A fine crack ran along it, from when Xingye had dropped it while collecting scrap in the rain. Inside, a dying firefly was using its last strength to batter itself against the crack. Its green light broke into tiny stars, illuminating the screen of her phone just enough to show Su Yan's social media post: the corner of a pregnancy test report curled upward, and the location tag, “Lu Chen and Wanzhou's home,” was like a rusty needle piercing her retina. At the same time, it pricked the oily film on the surface of the cold bowl of congee on her bedside table. Su Yan had thoughtfully brought it over that morning, saying it would help fight cancer.
