The hour hand pointed to four in the morning. Yet the light of the emergency room still had not gone out.
Ming Yu sat on a chair without speaking, quietly waiting.
Xie Dingyuan’s contemplative gaze swept over him, but soon returned to Jiang Fuyue.
Her head rested against his shoulder, face downward, eyes tightly closed. No one could see the expression she had at that moment.
Just then, a burst of hurried footsteps came from the end of the corridor.
“Where is my son? Where is my son?!”
Hearing this voice, Jiang Fuyue suddenly opened her eyes.
Sixty-eight-year-old Fu Choujun wore a gray-blue long velvet qipao, with an overcoat draped outside. Accompanied by two bodyguards and a lawyer, she hurried forward.
If not for a few loose strands falling from her pinned hair, the slightly panicked sound of her footsteps, and the faint tremble in her voice, just looking at her outfit alone one might think she was going to attend some banquet.
“Where is Mingshen? Where is my son?!”
The duty nurse from the next room came out and opened the door. “Quiet! No noise is allowed in the hospital. Don’t disturb other patients!”
After speaking, the door slammed shut with a bang.
Here, whether you were a wealthy madam of a powerful family or a common peddler, you had to shut up!
Fu Choujun’s expression looked ugly. Suddenly, her gaze landed on Ming Yu sitting nearby.
Lou Mingyue’s ill-fated fiancé?!
A very bad feeling suddenly rose in her heart. This feeling had never appeared in the more than twenty years since Lou Mingyue’s death, but it surfaced abruptly at this moment.
“Ming Yu…” she walked over. “Why are you here? What exactly happened to Mingshen? What did you do to him?!”
Ming Yu did not speak.
Fu Choujun even tried to push him with her hand, but Ming Yu raised his eyes coldly. “Perhaps you should ask what he did back then.”
Back then…
Fu Choujun frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Do you need me to say it even more clearly? Twenty-three years ago, Mingyue…”
“Enough!” Fu Choujun suddenly interrupted, panic flashing in her eyes.
Ming Yu sneered.
Although he did not know the details, if Lou Mingshen were truly innocent, things would not have come to this point.
And how much of it had been the handiwork of this old woman?
Fu Choujun cautiously stopped speaking, afraid of provoking Ming Yu into saying something else.
But just now she had asked her bodyguards and lawyer to find the responsible parties and contact the police. Yet those people seemed to have been dealt with in advance, there was simply nowhere to start.
So Fu Choujun was completely confused now. She did not know what had happened, only that her son had been injured, was undergoing emergency treatment, and was in critical condition.
Suddenly, her gaze fell on Xie Dingyuan and Jiang Fuyue sitting on the other side of the bench.
“My son’s injury has something to do with you?” She stepped forward, looking down from above, questioning coldly.
Jiang Fuyue turned her head away, clearly not wanting to look at the old woman even once.
Xie Dingyuan seemed to notice her disgust and gently patted her back with a hint of comfort.
“I’m asking you a question. Why aren’t you answering?!”
Xie Dingyuan lifted his eyes coldly and said only one word: “Get out.”
Fu Choujun nearly fainted from anger. “You! You people!”
Just then, the light of the emergency room went out. Lou Mingshen lay on a hospital bed and was pushed out while the instrument tubes were being removed.
There was still blood on the sheets. His face, neck, and shoulders all had severe abrasions. After being cleaned, layers of bright red flesh were exposed.
“Family members, step aside. The patient needs to be transferred to the ICU immediately!”
Fu Choujun hurriedly moved aside. Looking at her unconscious son on the bed, tears covered her wrinkled old face.
“Mingshen… Mingshen… what happened to you? Wake up, look at your mother!”
Unfortunately, the person on the hospital bed remained completely unresponsive, eyes tightly shut, showing no reaction to external stimuli.
Soon, the bed was pushed away, leaving the doctor behind.
“Doctor, how is my son? Is his life in danger? When will he wake up?”
“Six ribs are fractured. Three of them are displaced, just a little more and they would have pierced the lungs. Fortunately he was brought in time. He has currently escaped life-threatening danger. If no infection or other complications occur later, his life will be saved.”
“But his injuries are extremely severe. He must remain in bed to recuperate. Without a year or half a year, he won’t recover. Your family will have to take good care of him.”
…
At six in the morning, Lou Mingshen was successfully transferred into the ICU.
Jiang Fuyue stood outside, staring steadily through the glass wall at the person lying in the hospital bed surrounded by machines and tubes.
How dare he?!
Atonement? Or a threat?
Yet before falling, he had not even said a single word asking for forgiveness.
What was the point?
So foolish and stupid!
Didn’t he know that someone as cold-hearted as her, even if he jumped down and died, she still would not forgive him?
He was gambling!
What a real b*stard.
“…Let’s go,” Jiang Fuyue said as she turned around and linked her arm through Xie Dingyuan’s.
“Okay.”
He did not ask anything and simply led her away.
“Stop.” Fu Choujun strode toward them aggressively and raised her hand, preparing to slap Jiang Fuyue.
Before Jiang Fuyue could dodge or counterattack, Xie Dingyuan caught that hand in midair, quietly applying pressure with his palm.
“Ah,” Fu Choujun cried out in pain. “You, what are you doing?!”
Xie Dingyuan said, “I should be asking what you think you’re doing.”
“This woman harmed my son. What does it have to do with you if I teach her a lesson?!”
Fu Choujun knew who he was, Xie Dingyuan, heir of the Xie family and president of Hanqing Biotech.
Under normal circumstances she would not mind giving him some face, but now her heart was full of anxiety with nowhere to vent it. Only by grabbing this woman and slapping her a few times could she vent her hatred.
Xie Dingyuan wrapped one arm around Jiang Fuyue’s waist, pulling her close, and raised his eyes coldly. “She’s my woman. What do you think it has to do with me?”
“…Your woman?!” Fu Choujun was slightly stunned and began seriously sizing up Jiang Fuyue.
Her looks were quite good, nose a nose, mouth a mouth… but when she met those indifferent peach-blossom eyes, she suddenly froze.
An invisible panic abruptly seized her throat. Fu Choujun’s breathing stalled, her hands and feet turning cold and stiff.
In a daze, it felt as though through those eyes she saw another person.
That person… the one who made her restless day and night, the one who filled her with cold sweat and terror whenever she thought of her!
No… impossible!
Lou Mingyue was already dead! Her bones had long rotted into dust in the ground.
She told herself this again and again, yet the fear clung like a shadow that could not be shaken off.
“You… who are you? Why… why was Mingshen injured?!”
Since being reborn, this was the first time Jiang Fuyue had properly looked at Fu Choujun.
The woman had aged. Her temples were white, her face full of wrinkles.
Those once cunning, ambitious eyes had become cloudy and dim, covered with bluish haze.
Her once slender and graceful figure was now shriveled and hunched. Even though she wore a qipao, it was nothing more than forced elegance.
Back then, for Lou Mingxin to dare act and even make use of Lou Mingshen, it was impossible that she had possessed such courage by herself.
So who had been behind her, offering plans and schemes?
Jiang Fuyue’s icy gaze fell upon Fu Choujun’s face. The answer was ready to emerge.
“W-what are you looking at?!” Being locked onto by such a cold gaze, Fu Choujun’s breath caught. Her eyes dodged away as she instinctively refused to meet Jiang Fuyue’s gaze.
Jiang Fuyue said, “Looking at the murderer.”
“W-what?” The woman’s entire body trembled. Immediately she flew into a rage. If Xie Dingyuan had not been there, she might have jumped up and beaten Jiang Fuyue. “Do you know what you’re saying? I, I can sue you for slander! I’ll send you to prison!”
Jiang Fuyue curled her lips in ridicule. “Go ahead and sue.”
She leaned closer, her voice hoarse, speaking word by word: “Don’t think that just because more than twenty years have passed, no one knows what you did…”
Fu Choujun’s expression changed drastically. “You, you…” Who exactly are you?!
But aside from a few stuttering “you”s, her trembling lips could not form a complete sentence.
Jiang Fuyue hooked her arm with Xie Dingyuan’s and walked past her, leaving.
By the time they exited the hospital, the sky was already bright.
Jiang Fuyue got into Xie Dingyuan’s car, leaned back, and a weary exhaustion showed at the corners of her eyes and brows.
The next second, the man’s coat was draped over her.
“I already called the old man. No need to rush back yet. The apartment is closer, so we’ll go rest there first. If you’re sleepy, take a nap in the car.”
He had arranged everything and thought through every detail.
Jiang Fuyue smiled at him. “Okay.”
Xie Dingyuan drove back to the apartment.
When they arrived, Jiang Fuyue had already fallen asleep.
“Yueyue…”
“Mmm?” She hadn’t slept deeply; a gentle call woke her.
“Good girl, go upstairs and rest.”
The two returned to the apartment. Jiang Fuyue took a shower, changed into Xie Dingyuan’s T-shirt, and collapsed into bed.
The man pulled the curtains closed for her and turned off the lights. Then he lifted the blanket and lay down too, holding her as he gradually drifted into sleep.
Jiang Fuyue didn’t know how long she slept. When she woke up, her head no longer hurt and the fatigue had completely disappeared.
Outside the window was a heavy darkness; the night was deep.
She was curled in Xie Dingyuan’s arms, like leaning against a big warm furnace.
She couldn’t help rubbing against him.
“Awake?”
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