The door of her room opened again. Brian stood at the door and looked inside. In the dim light of the bedside lamp, Molly was curled up in the quilt. He came up to her bed and watched her face. Molly's face was flushed out of color. Furrowing his brows slightly, he stretched out his hand and put it on her forehead. As soon as he touched her skin, he was startled by how hot she was.
"Mol!" Brian tried to wake her up, but Molly only replied him with a moan of pain. He quickly took out his phone and dialed a number, "Come to the villa in half an hour. Mol has a fever."
After a moment's pause, the man said, "Okay," his tone was polite. Brian stroked Molly's cheek tenderly, while his brows furrowed in concern.
He stood up and strode out of the room. He returned with an ice pack and put it on Molly's forehead. He just got more worried when he saw Molly's face relax a bit at the coolness of the ice pack.
The doctor arrived at the villa in less than half an hour. Almost every attending doctor at the hospital understood how important Molly was to Brian so they always followed his orders.
After taking Molly's body temperature, the doctor looked at the number on the thermometer and frowned, "40.3 degrees centigrade. There're also some symptoms of a cardiopulmonary infection."
With knitted eyebrows and tightened lips, Brian watched from the side and kept silent.
The doctor took out some drugs from his kit and put Molly on a drip. After another check-up, the doctor finally said, "Mr. Brian Long, Mrs. Molly Long is suffering a nightmare. She needs to rest or else she'll just get worse."
Brian glanced at Molly and nodded, "Okay, I see."
"I'm going to get going now, Mr. Brian Long," the doctor said as he placed more medicine on the table, "Make her take these when she wakes up."
After the doctor left the room, Brian sat down at the edge of the bed. He grabbed a towel and wiped Molly's sweat off her cheeks and freshened up her ice packs.
"Ugh," Molly's body started burning again. She groaned because of her headache.
Brian knitted his brows in worry. He glanced at the drip, and exchanged a new ice pack for Molly. Because of her fever, Molly's lips were slightly chapped out of dryness. Brian noticed that so he poured a glass of water and dipped a cotton swab in it and pressed it against her dry lips. Molly stuck out her tongue and licked her lips when she felt the rush of coolness run through her lips.
Brian just watched her closely. He dipped more water and dropped them on her lips, and Molly licked them off with the tip of her tongue instinctively. Gradually, the look in Brian's eyes shifted.
His hand froze in the air. Molly kept licking her lips yet there was no more water. Her face puckered with annoyance, and her tongue moved uneasily. She seemed to be really thirsty.
With her eyes closed and her eyebrows knitted, she breathed heavily and murmured something in a low voice. Brian leaned his ear towards her but couldn't understand her. With a soft sigh, he pulled away from her and continued to wet her lips with the cotton swab.
The thunder continued to roar in the rainy night. Molly's breathing was shallow and difficult. She felt anguished as if her head was pulled ahead by something. Some words just kept echoing in her brain.
"As God is my witness, I, Brian Long, take thee, Molly Xia, to be my wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, in prosperous heaven, or thorny and dark hell, till death do us part, according to God's holy ordinance and thereto I pledge thee my faith...."
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