Chapter 9

Jin, Yi and Kai had left in the middle of the night the train in the city Lanzhou and spent the night in a hotel room to gain energy for the next day.

Inside the room, Jin lied on a single bed sleeping with his eyes covered with a red sleeping mask. The shepherd mixed breed Kai lied in front of the other bed, which was placed a little further away from Jin's bed on a chaise lounge. The bed behind Kai was uncovered and beside the bed was a door, which just got open and Yi came out walking towards the dog, then went down on her knees and placed her hand on the dog's head caressing him, causing him to wag his tail and open his eyes as he recognized his owner.

"We're going out later I promise," Yi told the dog, which nudged her hand with his nose as she placed her hand in front of him, wanting more attention. "I know you love it" Yi added patting the dog on the head making it purr due to the joy he had from the girl.

"Jin you gotta listen to Kai," Yi said looking at the boy, which was still sleeping. Yi rolled her eyes at Kai and smirked, then walked up to Jin and glanced back at Kai and held her index finger down signing the dog to get to her and he obeyed her and stopped in front of Yi, then she pointed at Jin and Kai placed his front legs on the bed sniffing the duvet of the boy and reached with his nose the boy's face, then he started to lick him on his face making him smile and Yi covered her hands from the situation.

"Oh that's so good" Jin mumbled followed by Yi's chuckles getting louder from the fun she had seeing this scene. "Oh yeah!"

"This is so funny," Yi said falling down on the floor laughing, while Kai turned his head back to see the girl on the floor laughing, then the dog started to lick Jin again on his face, making him giggle at the feel of the sticky tongue on his skin.

"Please stop that" Jin commanded, then opened his eyes and widened them in shock as he caught Kai licking up his face. "Wah!" Jin cried while crawling aside to stay far from the dog.

Yi was rolling on the ground laughing at her friend, which furrowed his eyebrows annoyed.

"What's so funny?" Jin asked watching Yi sat up on the floor, slowly coming back to herself.

"It was funny to see you talk while Kai was all over you" Yi mentioned watching Jin uncover himself to reveal himself in pajamas. "I still can't believe you brought your jammies"

"What? Only real men wore them" Jin mentioned making Yi giggle.

"Alright then Gunther….Should we check now, where Peng is at the moment or….." Yi asked, then her phone started to ring and she looked at the night table, that stood on the wall between her bed and Jin's bed and she grabbed her smartphone and saw it was the phone number of Jin's mother.

"It's your mother Jin, she must be looking for us" Yi warned the boy, making him sank his head down.

"Do I have to lie again to my mother?"

"We could say the truth too?" Yi suggested, making Jin think about the suggestion.

"Maybe both...I do both" Jin answered picking up Yi's phone to attend the call.

"Good morning mom. Hey great that you called….I went to Beijing to show Peng the city together….Yi's also here and she's gonna show him her school too"

Yi watched Jin on the phone, then turned around and started to make her bed, then rolled her eyes back at the boy listening to his call.

"Also we might be here for two weeks because there's a….science…..slumber party at our dorms which you probably would like it. There will be no alcohol nor anything and Peng can be with us too without a problem. Yi is there too…..she's going to meet the girls from my school and….then I meet hers at her school, but we're there for a uhm I forgot the name of that"

"A convention…..to…..show everyone, what we have learned during the first year" Yi invented looking at Jin trying to help him.

"That exactly, thanks, Yi. A convention to show everyone their learned….stuff…."

Yi adjusted her pillow and placed it on the top of the bed, then observed Jin continuing his call.

"I left it in my dorm charging, that's why I couldn't attend your call" Jin answered, then widened his eyes at another question of his mother. "Maybe I turned on the do not disturb mode instead of turning the wifi off. It's not the first time I pick up the wrong symbol when I want to turn it off for it to charge faster…..alright mom, we'll call you back, if we stay longer or go back earlier, yeah, bye mom…...what do you mean?…...Mom, why are you looking through my stuff?...,just leave it there, okay and don't say that to anyone!…..bye…..yeah me too." Jin finished the call and crossed his arms a little annoyed.

"What happened?" Yi asked making Jin wide his eyes.

"Oh she just found an old letter of me trying to confess to a girl I had a crush on….years ago"

"Interesting, who was it?" Yi asked making Jin furrow his eyebrows serious at the girl.

"Come on Yi, we can talk about that later. We have to find Peng first" Jin warned the girl, which nodded at the boy.

"Sure, I was just asking, but I respect it if you don't want to say it," Yi said standing beside Jin, which typed down his phone number again and pressed on the update button to track the current location of Peng.

Meanwhile, Dave stood together with Peng at a sign with a bus symbol on it and under it was another sign with the times, the bus would stop on that spot. Behind the sidewalk they were standing on was a small wall, that separated the sidewalk from the river that split the city from the other part.

"In about 35 minutes our train departs to Urümqui. According to the site, we will be for about six hours inside the train" Dave mentioned earning a nod from the child.

"And it's a high-speed train, right?" Peng asked.

"Yeah. Besides if it was a regular train, you would be sitting in there for about 12 hours more or less" Dave explained, then a smartphone started to ring and Dave looked down at his black-colored pants and took out from his pocket a silver-colored smartphone. "It's my wife, may I?"

"Sure" Peng responded, then Dave answered the call and leaned against the wall while listening to the person on the other side. Peng looked across the street at a playground to see two raven-haired twins playing together with a younger boy basketball. The older boy passed the ball to the shorter boy, which then threw it from far at the board of the basket, falling on the ring and entering the basket to score for the team. The boy ran at the boy, that had passed him the ball to hug him, followed by him caressing the boy on the head complimenting him.

Peng sank his head in disappointment as he thought back on his older cousin Jin, which helped him practice for the school tournaments. Peng took out the smartphone of Jin from the bottle pocket of his backpack and looked at the display, which showed him in the middle of the screen and on the left side stood Jin with his arm stretched forward since he was the one holding the smartphone and on the other side was their female friend Yi holding her right hand up, which wasn't captured on the display this leaving for any other viewers the wonder, if she was just waving or holding her index and middle finger up for the peace sign similar to the bunny ears Jin had done with his free hand behind Peng's head, which he hadn't noted on that time. Peng pressed the aqua-colored message button opening the message list of Jin's long friendship list, which made the boy sigh. He pressed on the search bar and typed down the name Yi and it showed two phone numbers, one of them was Yi's while the other one, was saved under Yi's mother.

Hello Yi, it's me, Peng. I know you and Jin are worried about me, but I'm good. One of Miss Burnish's employees is here with me. He's nice and all, but I miss you guys. The trip isn't the same without you in it. Dave and I are right now in the city called Xining. If you want to know it. I love you guys"

Peng sent the message away and placed his phone back in the pocket of his backpack and looked at Dave, which was still on the phone with his wife. Dave put his phone back as he was done with the call and walked back at Peng to see, he looked down with a sad face and Dave bend down at the boy to look at his face. "You're alright?"

"I'm okay…..I just thought about Jin and Yi," Peng hinted.

"You miss your friends?" The adult questioned earning a quick nod from the young child. "You want to go back home?" The man asked seeing the boy shake his head in disagreement.

"I promised I would bring the ashes up at the Mount Everest and scatter them over there. It's now a long way back home. I don't want us to have wasted our time in coming only this far, just to get back home again"

"So you want to continue?" The raven-haired man asked earning a nod from the boy. "Alright, you can always say anything if you change your mind"

"Sure" Peng confirmed making Dave smile, which stroke the boy on his hair. "You make me think a lot on my son"

"You've got a son?" Peng asked surprised earning a nod from the adult.

"He's around your age. He's not very fond of sports like you, but he likes to read and to draw"

"That's cool" Peng mentioned making the adult smile, then he rolled his eyes at the side as he saw a white-colored bus stop in front of them and the doors opened up and in the middle, a woman walked out backward pulling out a baby wagon, afterward the two raven-haired guys entered into the bus and sat on the first two seats in front of the entrance.

"Hey, would you like some cookies?" Peng asked as he had placed his backpack over his lap.

"I could take one, if you don't mind" Answered Dave and the cousin of Jin took out from his backpack a red-colored cookie pack and opened the already loose end, pulling the plastic with the cookies out and let Dave take a biscuit out, then Peng took two and closed his pack and as he shoved it into the backpack he noted down in the backpack lied under the urn, where the remains of Mr. Burnsih are a black phone cover, which Peng couldn't recognize from anywhere. Peng squinted his eyes to recognize it, but then he shrugged his shoulders and closed the backpack.

Yi and Jin sat on the next train along with Kai traveling to the final destination of the route. Jin sat next to the window reading a book, while Yi had her head lied on the seat feeling dull about the ride.

"You're sure you don't want to read the book along with me?" Jin offered making Yi shake her head.

"I think reading anything about medicine will just frustrate me more, cause I won't understand half of the words in it," Yi answered to the friend.

"Well, not everything here is complicated. It's actually quite good explained" Jin mentioned, then Yi looked at the title of the book to find out, it was about human diseases.

"Are there any reasons written in how heart attacks happen when a person is younger?" Yi questioned the boy, which shrugged his shoulder and moved back to the contents of the book. "I think it's in part two of this book series"

"Okay"

"Were you wondering about your father's sudden heart attack in the past?" Jin asked earning a nod from Yi. "I don't know, but I remember your grandparents saying he suffered a heart attack as he went to work. Also tragically cardiac arrests have the highest death cases for humans per year. Most of them come out of nowhere, others already had that issue and passed away at some point of their live"

"That's just crazy to think about it. My dad was always active, he didn't overwork too much, Nai Nai and my mom watched that we had at home enough healthy food too for dinner. But it just happened like that"

"Your father isn't the only one. It happened to some even life on TV, remember a few years ago, that one basketball player, that after he scored for his team, minutes later he stood in the middle of the field and suddenly he felt down on the ground?"

"Wasn't he around the 26th or something?" The girl questioned earning a nod from the friend.

"That's awful to know when people who are this young have to leave the world just like that"

"Believe me it is" Yi hinted making Jin look remorseful at the friend.

"Sorry" He apologized seeing Yi smile a little.

"You don't need to apologize. You've done nothing wrong"

"Oh I thought it was because of the talk I had made you feel bad"

"You didn't Jin"

"That's great. The last thing I want would be hurting you" Jin mentioned making Yi chuckle softly.

"It's great to know I have a friend like you" Yi noted earning a courteous smile of the teenage boy. Yi mirrored his expression gazing up at the maroon eyes of the boy, then watched him lean his head closer to Yi and the girl closed her eyes, then she opened her eyes in shock as she heard someone yell for help, which also caused Jin to stop his move and look across the cabin to see a woman look around in panic.

"My baby is choking!" The woman shouted a few seats away from the trio. Yi looked at Jin, which was looking at the woman, then he glanced back at his best friend.

"I know, what to do" Jin mentioned getting up, while tripping on the dog Kai, making him get up and jump at Yi's lap and looked bewildered at the boy running across the cabin to the woman.

Jin arrived seeing the woman hold her baby with the face down at the floor with her right arm and using her left hand to hitting carefully on the back of the baby in despair of the situation.

"Ma'am, I can help you" Jin offered seeing the woman looking up at the teen in panic. "I'm a medicine student"

The woman nodded almost unnotable and the Chinese boy kneed beside the chair of the woman, then the woman handed the baby out fast at the teen, which lied the baby over his left arm with his hand supporting the baby head.

Yi sat beside the woman, that was watching in shock her baby, then saw Yi place her hands on the shoulder's of the mother to comfort her.

"Everything will be alright" Yi professed watching Jin firmly giving back blows on the baby back, similar to the woman before. During the back blows, he watched the baby, then moved his hand under the baby to lower the head more down, than its chest and continued to hit the infant on his back while the mother watched. Yi swallowed hard at seeing Jin practicing the first aid on the toddler, noticing Jin's face slowly turning tense at the situation, but he kept working on it.

"What did your baby swallow?" Yi questioned carefully, then the woman pointed at the sill a half-full blueberry yogurt with a spoon inside it and she placed her hand behind the young mother's back gazing at her with an apologetic face, then looked at Jin still back blowing the infant afterward out from the baby mouth fell out one in crème and saliva covered berry, followed by the baby coughing hard. "Whoa" Yi wide her eyes in surprise as she looked at the floor, where the baby had let out the berry, it had choked on. The baby started to cry, then Jin held the infant up looking at the face of the shorthair watching him. Jin smiled euphoric at having saved the baby's life, then looked at the mother, which was now crying even more at the heroic deed of the raven-haired boy and he carefully handed the baby back to the woman.

"Here your boy is alright" Jin mentioned as the woman took her baby back into her arms to soothe him. "I suggest you to pass by the doctor or the hospital just to make sure everything is okay with your son"

"Thank goodness you were here" The woman thanked making the boy smile, then offered the woman his hand for her to shake, but she instead wrapped her arms around the teen with the baby, making Jin wide his eyes surprised. "Heaven send me an angel at the right moment"

"Uh….yes" Jin answered, then rolled his eyes down at the baby to see he marked a stain with his saliva-covered mouth on his checkered shirt. "Oh I think you need a tissue little man" Jin mentioned, then the mother sat back on her seat with her baby and searched in her handbag for tissues.

"This is…..amazing" Jin mentioned looking at Yi and the adult woman. "This is the first time I save someone's life. I had learned this in the first months during the beginning of my education and It…..It felt good" Jin mentioned making his friend Yi smile.

"You did a good job in assisting her Jin," Yi complimented making Jin smile bashfully.

"I'm glad it went well" The med student mentioned looking at Yi, which rolled her eyes down smiling enamored.

"Are you two leaving the next station?" The woman asked and Jin shook his head. "Oh, I would have liked to offer you two a tea or something else. As a thank you for your engagement"

"I just did what I had to do. The thanks and the happiness in the face of both of you are reward enough," Jin mentioned earning a nod from the woman.

"But at least sit here together with me. It's just for one station"

"Sure" Jin answered exchanging looks with Yi, then Jin sat vice versa to Yi and the two looked at the baby, which was passing his fingers over the watch at the mother's arm switching between the modes on watching curiously how the numbers switched.

"I think around here somewhere is the Gobi desert" Yi mentioned looking at her male friend.

"Really?" Jin questioned seeing Yi nod. "Maybe we will pass beside it?" Jin mentioned seeing Yi shrug her shoulders and look out of the window sighing amorously while Jin observed the toddler playing with his mother's watch.