"What I mean by my words is that- it was not a hospital but a private research centre on an island owned by Mr. Zeng"
Feng Jianyu frowned, 'Again Mr. Zeng? What exactly is his relationship with her? Why had he taken her to his private island? Why had he summoned the best doctors for her treatment?'
"Mei, this means all your medical expenses were borne by Mr. Zeng? Errrr…. What did you say his complete name? I could not catch up before!"
She snorts, "What could not catch up? I hadn't mentioned Mr. Zeng's full name. Anyways, his complete name is Mr. Zeng Shihong, a very nice and jovial old man." She recalled his other question, "And yes, my medical expenses were borne by two people, Mr. Zeng and Xion"
"Xion?"
She nodded, "Yes… throughout my treatment, they were with me and never left my side." Xiu Mei's lips quivered as she remembered about the most important person of her journey. "And there was one more person whose contribution was the biggest. She gave me the courage at every step to fight through the situation but left me before I could see her or thank her personally."
"Who was she? Why did she leave you without meeting?" He noticed the change in her voice while talking about her, and understood that she is someone very important to her.
Grazing her finger over his palm, her voice sounded faraway as she spoke, "We met, yet we never met. We are together, yet we are far. We can see each other daily, yet cannot talk!"
"Huh?"
Again a silence engulfed in between them and all he could hear is her slow breaths as if she was gathering the courage to speak. He looked at her dejected face and patted her head to comfort her.
"She gifted me the most precious thing and left the world forever" Her lips pressed into a thin line, "My eyes, Jianyu…. These are her eyes that I got the opportunity to see this world again"
****
"Seven years back I was almost on the verge of the brink of losing my sanity when I came to know about my eves. My entire life came down crashing in front of me, taking away the motivation to live it."
"I was useless without my eyes, no computer, no inventions and no machines…. I cannot do anything… Just keep sitting in the corner and embrace the darkness"
"It's not that I didn't get the opportunity for transplant during that time, but according to the doctors my already injured body was so weak that it cannot withstand the pressure of another surgery. Collectively they decided to turn down the transplant opportunity twice during the first year." Her voice was low as she told him this. She was reluctant to remember the time seven years back but if her past is stopping her to embrace her beautiful present, it's best to let go of it permanently.
"To help me with my depressing state, Mr. Zeng asked someone to help me. She was a budding psychiatrist and Xion's girlfriend. With the help of her therapies and Mr. Zeng's continuous efforts, I started opening up to the people around me, and perceived things from a different perspective."
"So what if I don't have eyes, my talent was still with me. I started learning brail and to everyone's surprise, it hadn't taken me more than two weeks to master in it. It was like learning from the scratch, starting again from ABCD and reaching till 'Z' was an achievement for me."
"Everything was working fine, I was learning new things daily to defeat my disability and start everything once more."
"A year passed by... One day a team of doctors and Mr. Zeng stepped inside my room in the middle of the night and told me that they have extracted a pair of fresh corneas from a donor an hour before. In order to make my transplant 100% successful, it was mandatory to transplant it in the least possible time. Obviously, I was aware of this, during the last one year I had heard countless audio books on eye transplant. Without giving it a second thought I approved for the surgery" She paused for a minute to breathe, holding a glass of water near her lips he made her drink it and gently wiped the corner of her lips with his thumb. "You okay?" He asked and Xiu Mei nodded her head and continued.
"When I woke up after my surgery, it took more than two months for my vision to return to almost 40 %. I met everyone, but Xion's fiancée, my psychiatrist, my friend, she never came to meet me. And Mr. Zeng never mentioned it that it was her eyes due to which I'm able to see again."
"As a last resort to call my psychiatrist to meet me once, I adamantly refused to take medicines and any further treatments until I get to see her."