Chapter 4, Pain

Shen Zhifei caught the falling Zhao Xiaokui in her arms. Holding her body up, she could feel Zhao Xiaokui’s body shiver as a cold sweat began to spread across her body. Sensing something wrong, the driver got out of the driver seat.

“Do you want me to call 120 for you, ma’am?”, asked the driver as he walked over to check on the situation.

“No, call my personal doctor, have them go directly to my house and wait for me there.” Shen Zhifei held little trust for the integrity of the media. They could spin a tale of an actress visiting the hospital for a health check up into a tale of a tragic miscarriage or abortion, aiming not to report on the truth, but to generate as many clicks and views as possible. Shen Zhifei could only feel pity for the artists  like Zhao Xiaokui who didn’t dare go to a hospital even if they were sick, for fear of how the paparazzi would sensationalize the news.

The driver, understanding Shen Zhifei’s intentions, turned around, and quietly entered the car again. Shen Zhifei readjusted the unconscious Zhao Xiaokui, cradling her in her arms. Shen Zhifei regularly worked out to stay in shape, so she was confident that she could carry Zhao Xiaokui, but was shocked when she fully lifted off the ground by how light her body actually was. She had long known that celebrities would keep strict diets in order to watch their body weight and shape, but it appeared that they were much more demanding of themselves than she had originally thought. As she carried Zhao Xiaokui into the car, she began to wonder if Zhao Xiaokui had fainted due to low blood sugar. Looking back on it, they had met at the café at around 5, a time most people would start eating dinner. Even Shen Zhifei had ordered herself a small snack with her cappuccino to replenish her energy. But during that time, Zhao Xiaokui only had a small espresso.

Restarting the car, the driver smoothly pulled away from their parking spot. After watching the scenery outside for a moment, Shen Zhifei shifted her focus downwards and studied the “rival” that stole her fiancée’s heart.

She remembered the first time she had heard about Zhao Xiaokui, the conversation had been mostly about how unique her face was. And when she saw Zhao Xiaokui in an advertisement later on, she couldn’t help but agree. She thought Zhao Xiaokui looked beautiful. But seeing her up-close in person, she suddenly felt that the commercial had failed to truly capture her looks. She could also see why someone as arrogant and selfish as Rong Zhen was so smitten with her. Before she knew it, Shen Zhifei had grown absorbed with staring at Zhao Xiaokui, dumbly staring at the ill and pained face on her lap. It wasn’t until a car passed by theirs that she fell out of her trance.

Suddenly feeling hungry, Shen Zhifei pulled out a bar of chocolate and broke off a piece to stick in her mouth. As she ate the piece of chocolate, she once again looked down at Zhao Xiaokui.

“You should really treat your body better when you wake up.” Shen Zhifei said, as she broke off another piece of chocolate, and touched it to Zhao Xiaokui’s delicate ruby red lips, only drop it in surprise as the lips underneath the chocolate opened and snatched the piece of chocolate, quickly eating it. Shocked, Shen Zhifei checked to see if Zhao Xiaokui had woken up, but received no response. Wondering if it was an instinctive reaction of the comatose Zhao Xiaokui due to low blood sugar, Shen Zhifei fed another piece of chocolate to the unconscious Zhao Xiaokui.

Unbeknownst to Shen Zhifei however, was that Zhao Xiaokui’s current state was not due to low blood sugar, but instead a fundamentally different problem, one that Zhao Xiaokui forgot to consider in her excitement to be human again. This problem is also the same reason Zhao Xiaokui asked Shen Zhifei to not bring her to the hospital. Her body was too weak to accommodate her soul.

Pain is usually a signifier that something is wrong, and that one needs to stop what they’re doing or go get help. Oftentimes however, pain can be a sign of growth or improvement, like growing pains children feel or aching muscles after a workout. Zhao Xiaokui’s pain was a mixture of both. In the other world, Zhao Xiaokui had learned that one's soul and body were deeply and intimately interwoven and connected with one another, growing and decaying in tandem. Sometimes however, people had a soul that was too weak or too strong for their body to handle.

Someone could be born with a weak soul or incomplete soul, or their soul could be damaged in an accident. This could result in psychological or physical problems that could affect one's ability to learn or communicate. However, one's soul could grow or heal to accommodate the body once again. Souls too strong for their body on the other hand were a much more serious problem. Sticking a soul into a body too weak to hold it was like sticking a fat man in a small suit. Either the man is strangled in the suit, or the suit tears at the seams. Fortunately for Zhao Xiaokui, her soul was just within the limits of her original body. If it hadn’t been strong enough, then the café would have received a new interior design.

Now fate could sometimes feel like a cruel jokester playing an ill-gotten prank on you. In the world of mermaids, Zhao Xiaokui’s soul was too weak for her body, resulting in her stunted growth. So while the other mermaids her age were reaching the second or third rank, she had just barely brought her soul and new body into harmony with one another, allowing her to just reach the bottom of the first rank. The qualitative change in one's soul between the unranked and the first rank was not too large, but the difference between the second and first rank, not to mention the unranked, was much larger. So if her soul had been even a rank higher, her body would not have been able to accommodate it, exploding on the spot. So while being of the first rank was a curse in the other world, in this world it was a blessing in disguise.

So the reason for Zhao Xiaokui’s current condition was caused by her soul changing and forcefully remodeling her body to better accommodate it. Unfortunately this process wasn’t slow and subtle, but violent and sudden. Which is why Zhao Xiaokui couldn’t go to the hospital. She herself didn’t know what was happening to her body, so she was worried that if a doctor saw it, she would suddenly find herself trapped in a laboratory somewhere. Scared of the possibility, decided to take a bet on Shen Zhifei, and hoped she followed her request.

One of the abilities one gains as they advance in rank, was the ability to receive energy directly from the air. Most unranked creatures must eat regularly in order to provide the necessary energy for their bodily functions. However, the higher in rank a person was, the more energy they could extract from the air. A person of the first rank, like Zhao Xiaokui, could draw enough that they could go without eating or drinking for much longer than a normal human being. But that was in a normal situation. Zhao Xiaokui, in the midst of her transformation, required a lot more energy than what she was able to draw from the air, so the transformation began to use the energy stored in her body. So while not for the reason that Shen Zhifei thought, the chocolate did provide some help to Zhao Xiaokui, as it provided some supplemental energy, allowing her to ease the pain and speed up her body’s adjustments.

Shen Zhifei herself wasn’t a big fan of chocolate, but still kept a few bars in the car to eat as a quick energy supplement. One of those bars was quickly devoured by the person resting on her lap. Zhao Xiaokui, like a greedy child, had eaten the entire bar of chocolate, piece by piece.

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“This is the last piece,” Shen Zhifei told her, as she placed the chocolate before her lips. She didn’t know if Zhao Xiaokui had heard her, but when she fed her the final piece of chocolate, Zhao Xiaokui’s tongue stuck out and licked the fingers holding the piece of chocolate. Feeling the tongue against her fingers, a shock traveled up her arm and into her brain. Surprised by the sensation, Shen Zhifei quickly took back her hand and wiped it off with a napkin.

Holding Zhao Xiaokui’s body in her arms again, she could feel her body trembling, and could see her biting her lips as if she was trying not to howl in pain.

“We’ll be there soon,” Shen Zhifei said as she tried to comfort the unconscious Zhao Xiaokui, gently stroking her hair. Resting her hand on Zhao Xiaokui’s forehead, Shen Zhifei noticed Zhao Xiaokui’s forehead felt as cold as a block of solid. Growing worried, she asked the driver to turn off the AC, afraid that the cold air might affect Zhao Xiaokui. Unfortunately, Shen Zhifei’s thoughtfulness this time did nothing to help Zhao Xiaokui, as Zhao Xiaokui no longer noticed the changes in temperature outside. Despite feeling cold to the touch, Zhao Xiaokui personally felt like she was burning up inside as she unconsciously tried to retain all the heat within her body, to aid and provide energy for her transformation.

Shen Zhifei’s house was in a high-end gated community, and boasted excellent security and privacy. Her own private single family villa was hidden away from the world by a bunch of greenery, and when one looked around, the most they could see were only the rooves of the other buildings. In front of the door to her place, Shen Zhifei could see her personal doctor waiting for her with her medical supplies.

With the car coming to a slow stop, Zhao Xiaokui finally woke up, and quickly looked around, breathing a faint sigh of relief that Shen Zhifei had followed her request. If she had awoken at the hospital, she was afraid she wouldn’t have been able to escape if they had noticed anything wrong with her.

“Are you starting to feel better?” Asked Shen Zhifei as she felt the movement of the one on her lap.

“A tiny bit, thank you for your help,” said Zhao Xiaokui through her trembling lips, which betrayed how she was actually feeling.

“I know you didn’t want to go to the hospital, so I brought you to my house and called my personal physician instead, is that alright?” After seeing Zhao Xiaokui nod her head in response, Shen Zhifei quickly stepped out of the car.

“Ms. Shen,” greeted the doctor, who had begun to slowly approach the car.

“Please wait a moment, the patient is still in the car.” replied Shen Zhifei. Going around the car to the other door, she opened it to find Zhao Xiaokui had been leaning on it, holding onto the handle. The sudden opening motion of the door startled Zhao Xiaokui, who lost control of her body and began to fall out of the car. However, the feeling of hitting the gravel below that she expected never came. Instead, she was greeted by a firm embrace and the scent of grass. It’s a good smell, she thought as she tried to stand herself up. Seeing her struggle, Shen Zhifei once again lifted Zhao Xiaokui up into a princess carry, cradling her in her arms.

Seeing Zhao Xiaokui’s face, the doctors grew surprised, as she had long heard about her and her supposed relationship with Rong Zhen. Because of that, she grew curious as to why Shen Zhifei appeared to be so intimate with her, considering the rumors that surrounded them. Despite her confusion, the doctor pushed aside all the thoughts in her head, and focused instead on Zhao Xiaokui’s current condition. Even if she was curious about the rumors circulating around, the patient had the right to confidentiality, and she as a professional wasn’t allowed to pry.

Still carrying Zhao Xiaokui in her arms, Shen Zhifei headed inside and entered the guest bedroom on the first floor. Laying Zhao Xiaokui down on the bed, Shen Zhifei left her to the doctor as she went to grab a glass of water from the kitchen. Laying her bag on the floor, the doctor pulled out a stethoscope and listened to Zhao Xiaokui’s breathing. Enduring the pain emanating from her body, Zhao Xiaokui forcefully slowed down the rate of her racing heart, hoping the doctor wouldn’t notice the abnormality and send her to the hospital. After a few other tests, her efforts had paid off, because as Shen Zhifei walked back in with a glass of water, she could hear the doctor talking to Zhao Xiaokui.

“Your body seems fine aside from the low blood sugar. To relieve the current symptoms, a bottle of glucose should be administered through an IV drip. Once the symptoms are gone, I recommend that you eat more and resume a normal diet and keep your body weight in a healthy range as much as possible. You may have  only fainted this time, but low blood sugar can cause shock and death in a patient.”

Showing a weak smile, Zhao Xiaokui thanked the doctor.

As if she would diet to lose weight. She had just lived in a world where the only meal she could eat was raw fish. She planned on eating everything that caught her eye. As for the future, she planned on quitting whatever job she currently had, as she believed she would be unable to do the work it entailed, plus she needed time to readjust herself now that her body had undergone such changes.

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