Chapter 3

Wang Cuilan had Mrs. Zhang sitting upright, her face wiped clean. A plate of cut fruit sat on the bedside table, and Wang Cuilan was carefully spooning her water. The head of the bed was raised.

Li Mei’s eyes immediately reddened. She took Wang Cuilan’s hand and thanked her for all her hard work.

She didn’t know that the moment she stepped out the door, Wang Cuilan lowered the head of the bed flat again, left Mrs. Zhang lying there, then curled up on the sofa watching short videos at full volume.

Auntie Liu only found out later, when she peeked through the crack in the door.

That went on for several more days.

Then Professor Chen went to the neighborhood clinic for a follow-up. I was at his house, simmering snow-pear soup.

My phone suddenly began buzzing nonstop.

I wiped my hands on my apron and picked it up.

The residents’ chat had more than ninety-nine unread messages.

I opened it. Messages were pouring in one after another.

“Did anyone see an ambulance pull up outside Building 3?”

“Zone 3! It was Zone 3!”

“They carried someone out on a stretcher, but I couldn’t tell who.”

“Was it Mrs. Zhang’s place?”

“I just went downstairs to throw out the trash and ran into Wang Cuilan crying in the hallway. She was bawling. One of her shoes had fallen off.”

“Oh my God, did something really happen?”

“Wasn’t she fine this morning? I saw her carrying youtiao home after seven.”

“Fine? I’ve been saying something was wrong for days. Remember that bedsheet, all soaked and yellow?”

“@Li Mei, Li Mei, check the group! Something happened to your mother!”

## Chapter 5: The Truth Is Laid Bare

The residents’ chat exploded.

“Wasn’t Mrs. Zhang doing fine a few days ago?”

“Where’s Wang Cuilan? Wasn’t she watching her around the clock?”

“Don’t ask me. I just saw her crying in the hallway. She looked devastated.”

“What good is crying now? She should’ve thought of that sooner.”

I read the messages and turned my phone face down.

Professor Chen called to me from the living room. “Xiao Song, what’s going on downstairs?”

“Nothing, sir. Someone called an ambulance.”

Truthfully, I knew exactly what would happen to Mrs. Zhang after these past few months.

From the first time Wang Cuilan posted a photo of herself feeding her with the bed flat, I knew this day would come sooner or later.

Feeding someone with the bed flat is the worst possible position for an elderly person with dysphagia.

I’d told them. I’d written it on the very first page of the handover notebook.

No one listened.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I reopened the group I’d muted and read through every message.

Mrs. Zhang had been taken to the emergency room with aspiration pneumonia and a fever of 39.8 degrees. She was delirious with the fever.

Li Mei came straight from work that night and cried outside the emergency room.

I stared at the words “aspiration pneumonia” in the dark for a long time.

Early the next morning, I asked Mr. Chen for half a day off and said I had something to take care of.

He didn’t ask questions. He only said, “Of course, Ms. Song. Take care of what you need to. I’ll look after my father.”

I changed into clean clothes and brought some fruit to the hospital.

I wasn’t there to interfere. I just wanted to see Mrs. Zhang and make sure she was still alive.

Sixth floor, inpatient respiratory ward.

I hadn’t even reached her room when I heard an argument at the far end of the hallway.

It was Li Mei’s voice, sharp enough to pierce the ceiling.

“Wang Cuilan! Stop right there! Why are you running?”

I stopped and stood around the corner.

Wang Cuilan’s voice was shrill too, hurried and full of excuses.

“I’m not running! I’m going to pay the hospital bill! Be reasonable, Ms. Li!”

I heard pounding footsteps as the two of them argued and struggled their way down the hallway, from the hospital room to the nurses’ station.

Li Mei’s eyes were swollen like walnuts. Her makeup was smeared, and she clutched a stack of bills, raising her hand as if to slap Wang Cuilan with them.

“You told me my mother was eating and sleeping well! You said she laughed so hard she got wrinkles! Look at this! Open your eyes and read what it says!”

Papers scattered across the floor. I didn’t pick one up, but I caught a glimpse of the words:

“Stage-three pressure ulcer over the sacrum and coccyx, with infection extending to the periosteum.”

I squeezed my eyes shut.

A stage-three pressure ulcer, with tissue necrosis down to the periosteum.

It came from lying still without anyone turning her or checking her skin, rotting layer after layer.

First the skin turned red, then it broke, then the sores began to smell. Finally the rot reached the bone, and the flesh around it began to stink too.

I’d cared for Mrs. Zhang for six months. I turned her every two hours and checked her sacrum each day. I’d gone through three jars of skin cream without letting a single sore develop.

Wang Cuilan had been on the job for three months and let the woman develop a stage-three ulcer.

“That’s just a bedsore! What does it have to do with me?”

Wang Cuilan stubbornly argued, “Old people get sores. It’s fate! Every old person gets them sooner or later. My late husband had sores down to the bone, and that was normal—”