Hospital 444
Chapter 313 - 1 The Red Balloon

Chapter 313: Chapter 1 The Red Balloon

Twilight.

The sun had already been gradually swallowed by the horizon, and darkness was to envelop the land anew.

Yueyin, through the afterglow of the sunset, sat in front of the window, looking at a piece of paper before her.

On the paper it read:

"Write down your wish, tie the note back to the balloon, and let it go—your wish will come true."

Yueyin felt both annoyed and amused.

What was this?

Aladdin’s lamp? Dragon Balls?

"Who’s pulling such a boring prank," she muttered.

It all happened five minutes ago.

Coming back from school to the house she rented outside campus, she saw a red balloon floating inside. Her beloved dog A’bo was standing below it, looking up.

After securing an internship in her senior year and wanting to have the convenience to keep a dog, Yueyin moved out of the university and rented a house that was closer to her internship site. It was ten stories up, and as she left, she vaguely remembered the windows should have been closed...

How did this balloon float in?

She checked that the door hadn’t been pried open, there were no signs of anyone rifling through her place, and nothing had been left behind. Her pet dog A’bo showed no alarm, and surely he wouldn’t be this calm if a thief had entered while she was away.

The red balloon floated, touching the ceiling, while the string of the balloon was tied to a rolled up envelope.

At that moment, Yueyin wondered if someone was trying to find a pen pal this way. But what era was it now? With chat apps so convenient, who still wrote letters by hand?

Yueyin took the balloon down and unwound the envelope, pulling out a piece of paper.

On it, was content like this.

Yueyin could now be one hundred percent certain; this was nothing but a pure prank.

"Did I really forget to close the window?"

Looking at the open window, Yueyin felt something was not quite right.

Was the balloon blown in by the wind?

She was about to throw away the paper and release the balloon too, but just then, her cellphone rang.

The caller was her mother.

Yueyin answered the phone.

"Hello, Mom?"

"Yueyin, I’m thinking of bringing you some groceries this weekend. Don’t keep ordering takeout; it’s not healthy at all! I’ll cook for you myself, guaranteed fresh!"

"Mom..." Yueyin had really not intended to give her mother the address of her rented place, but she knew her mother’s character all too well. She would definitely find her way to the school and ask her classmates, and eventually, she would come by anyway. So, in the end, she had told her.

"I’m actually busy this weekend, um, Mom, the signal isn’t too good, I can’t hear clearly... Hello, hello..."

Without waiting for her mother to say more, Yueyin hung up the phone.

"Hmm..."

Distracted by her mother’s call, she began to gaze morosely at the room filled with clothes and assorted items strewn about, dreading how much her mother would nag when she arrived.

Yueyin sat at the desk, opened up her cellphone, and started scrolling through short videos to entertain herself.

Her parents both hoped she would go to graduate school, even saying they were willing to pay for her to study abroad. They believed "All is inferior; only education is supreme." Only Yueyin knew that she wasn’t really cut out for studying. Even getting into her current university was an exceptional performance in her college entrance exams.

After watching short videos for a while, she clicked into a few top livestreamers’ broadcasts. It had to be said, the leading broadcasters had an incredible ability to sell products. In less than ten minutes, Yueyin was already feeling the urge to splurge.

"I want all these shades, but... but... this money..."

If she wanted to buy all the lipstick shades she liked, for Yueyin... it would be more than just splurging!

"Ah, forget it, can’t afford it... Buying just one doesn’t come with any deals..."

She turned off the livestream and looked at the piece of paper next to her.

Idly, she picked up a pen and wrote down all the lipstick brands and shades she desired.

"Though it’s meaningless, writing it all down feels a bit comforting."

After listing more than ten shades, she placed the note back into the envelope, retied it to the balloon, and tossed the balloon out the window.

The red balloon quickly ascended before Yueyin’s eyes and finally disappeared from view.

"What am I doing..."

Yueyin also felt what she had done was quite foolish.

Afterward, she began making dinner for herself and feeding A’bo his dog food.

"If livestreaming can make good money, should I give it a try?"

Recently, Yueyin’s internship had also begun considering collaborating with top livestreamers to promote products. As long as one had a smartphone, anyone could be a blogger!

"But that being said, it’s not that easy either. There are many bloggers who rack their brains out and still don’t get any viewers," Yueyin only thought about finding a stable job as soon as possible. She really didn’t want to take the graduate school entrance exams as her parents wished.

"I guess my looks are still... okay, right? Anyway, those bloggers rely on beauty filters too, don’t they?"

At that moment, she was flipping through her phone’s photo album at the selfies she had beautified.

Fairly speaking, her looks were average at best; even with editing... she was just "above average."

Yueyin sighed, and then her eyes moved to a password-protected album within her gallery.

Inside were more than ten pictures, all...

They were shots Yueyin had sneaked of someone.

In the photos was a handsome and refined-looking man.

Some were of the man giving a speech, some showed him playing soccer, and some captured him dressed in a suit ready for a job interview at an on-campus employer.

"Ah."

She stroked her dog’s head beside her, having had a secret crush on him for nearly four years, but so far, they were only "classmates."

She quickly exited the gallery, feeling like a thief even though there was no one around.

That night, she hurried to bed.

But for some reason, as soon as she fell asleep, the image of that red balloon surfaced in her mind!

Speaking of which...

Who exactly released that balloon?

There was nothing written on the envelope, but the writing on the letter was exceptionally neat. In Yueyin’s memory, she had rarely seen anyone write so well.

"Who would be so bored as to do this kind of thing..."

Nowadays, even for pranks, most people would choose emails, where one accidental click could infect their computer with a virus. Using paper for a prank, wasn’t that a bit too retro?

...

The next day, in the morning.

She got up early, quickly washed up, got dressed, and then headed out, planning to buy breakfast on her way and arrive at the internship early to make a good impression on the leaders, hoping to increase her chances of being hired after the internship period.

But as soon as she opened the door, she saw a courier package at the doorstep.

"Huh?"

Yueyin didn’t remember ordering anything online recently. Could it be something her parents sent?

She picked up the package, verified the address was correct, and saw her own name as the recipient, but the sender’s address wasn’t her parents’ home.

"Who sent this to me?"

Without thinking much of it, she tossed the package inside the house, instructed Abo to guard the place well, and then quickly locked the door.

This time, she made sure the windows were closed properly.

After arriving at the internship, she hurried to her desk, turned on the computer, opened an Excel spreadsheet, and began completing the tasks assigned to the interns.

As interns usually do, she was tasked with the most hectic and mechanical work. After busily working half the day, the department manager threw a stack of questionnaires at her.

"You, along with Xiao Zheng and Xiao Jia, go downstairs and get all these questionnaires filled out. You can hand them out in any shopping area within five kilometers of the company, and don’t come back until they’re all completed."

"Okay..."

Having not eaten lunch, Yueyin had no choice but to grab a big stack of questionnaires and run out of the company.

Although this area was a business district bustling with people, who would be interested in a survey with no prizes to win? Most people turned away as soon as they saw Yueyin handing out questionnaires.

"Sir, could you, could you spare a moment to fill out a questionnaire for me? It won’t take much of your time. Our company, Fufang Cosmetics..."

"Miss, do you like wearing makeup? Our company is just in the grade A office building ahead. We’d like to do a survey on the current range of cosmetics on the market..."

By the end of the afternoon, only one or two questionnaires had been filled out from the hefty stack. And those that were filled had obviously fake contact information; the phone numbers didn’t even have 11 digits.

A dejected Yueyin sat down to the side when suddenly, she saw a red balloon falling from the sky.

"Huh???"

The balloon descended by itself, still tied to a letter.

She quickly untied the balloon string and took out the letter from the envelope.

The letter read as follows:

"Your wish has been granted.

In return, please make a child under the age of seven cry by 5 pm three days after receiving this letter, as compensation for fulfilling your wish.

If you fail to do so within the time limit, I will come to collect the price myself."