The Sickly Beauty Gives Up Struggling [Rebirth] Chapter 11

Night had fallen completely. The autumn wind carried a sharp tang of rain, sneaking through every crevice in one’s clothing.

The plastic running track was littered with damp, withered leaves. Every step crunched audibly beneath the weight.

Most of the students had private cars waiting to pick them up. Li Rong, however, did not.

Unsteady on his feet, he was visibly unwell. A white hat was perched on his head, and his high collar shielded most of his flushed face from view.

Few people were willing to take him to the hospital: Lin Zhen was one, the homeroom teacher another, and then there was Cen Xiao.

Yang Fenfang placed her hand against Li Rong’s burning forehead and exclaimed anxiously, “Why didn’t you say anything sooner? You’re burning up! How could you take an exam in this condition? If this turns into pneumonia, what are we supposed to do?”

Her frustration was evident.

Li Rong had been giving her constant headaches recently. He used to be a quiet, diligent top student who rarely caused trouble. Now, it was as if something had triggered a change in him. In just a few short days, he’d managed to stir up an endless string of problems.

Lin Zhen wrung his hands in worry.

He had an important vocal training session that evening with a renowned international musical theater performer. Missing it would be a significant loss for his college entrance preparation. Yet, he genuinely wanted to accompany Li Rong to the hospital.

Li Rong looked so sick, so pitiful. If he left now, guilt would weigh on him forever.

But his parents would never understand his sense of camaraderie. To them, his future and college prospects were far more important. They would chastise him as immature, foolish, and overly sentimental, insisting that with a teacher present, everything should be left to them.

Yang Fenfang didn’t make things easier. “I’ll take Li Rong to the hospital. You all should head home; your parents are probably waiting for you.”

Lin Zhen’s heart sank further. Yang Fenfang, too, was telling him not to stay.

Meanwhile, Jian Fu, impatient as ever, grabbed Cen Xiao by the arm. “Let’s go, let’s go. We agreed to practice shooting. This time, there’s no way I’m losing.”

He gave Cen Xiao a tug, but Cen Xiao didn’t budge.

Jian Fu was momentarily stunned.

Li Rong was panting lightly, his breathing labored. His eyelids drooped, and his mind seemed foggy. Yet, upon hearing Jian Fu’s words, his hand instinctively reached out, clutching onto Cen Xiao’s clothes.

He thought he was using great force, but it was hardly anything to Cen Xiao.

However, even such a feeble grip seemed to have its effect. Cen Xiao didn’t shake him off.

Glancing down at the pale fingertips gripping his jacket, Cen Xiao coolly said to Yang Fenfang, “I’ll take him to the hospital. It’s on my way home.”

Yang Fenfang immediately objected. “No, absolutely not. How could I entrust something like this to a student?”

“Then we’ll go together,” Cen Xiao countered, his arm sliding behind Li Rong’s back to support his shoulders. He pulled him closer into his arms. Despite Li Rong’s burning temperature, he was trembling.

Yang Fenfang had no retort this time.

Li Rong, for all his slenderness, was still a teenage boy. She really couldn’t manage him alone.

Jian Fu let out a deep sigh, rolling his eyes dramatically toward the ceiling before grabbing Lin Zhen. “Come on, let’s go. What are you still staring at?”

Lin Zhen hesitated, glancing back at Li Rong one last time before reluctantly leaving with Jian Fu.

Cen Xiao had refused the use of a driver ever since turning eighteen and now drove himself.

Yang Fenfang offered, “Let’s use my car. You help him into the backseat.”

Cen Xiao didn’t refuse. He helped Li Rong into the car, his steps steady despite the rain still falling lightly around them.

The drizzle was so fine it felt like threads on silk, leaving only a faint trace of dampness where it touched.

The moment Cen Xiao sat down, Li Rong leaned heavily against his shoulder.

The white hat perched on Li Rong’s head squashed against Cen Xiao’s neck, the brim bending out of shape to cover his brows and eyes.

Even in his weakened state, Li Rong possessed an unusual beauty. His prolonged illness and poor appetite had left his profile pale and delicate, yet now it was tinged with an almost translucent flush. The earlier rain had left a faint sheen on his skin, clinging to the tiny, nearly invisible hairs, like fragile petals of peach blossoms.

Cen Xiao turned his head slightly, catching only the elegant curve of Li Rong’s nose and the subtle movement of his slightly parted lips.

His pronounced jawline betrayed his malnourished state, but it didn’t detract from the meticulous precision of his features. Cen Xiao thought, if he could just eat a little more, he might look even better.

But getting Li Rong to eat was often harder than feeding a three-year-old.

Li Rong, meanwhile, had unreservedly rested his full weight on Cen Xiao, dozing fitfully in the swaying car.

Within minutes of the drive, Li Rong’s phone began to vibrate.

Li Rong stirred slightly, his brows furrowing as though he were on the verge of waking.

Cen Xiao fished the phone out of the warm pocket of Li Rong’s jacket, glanced at the screen, and, without a word or consultation, declined the call with a cold expression.

The caller ID read Song Yuanyuan.

Without the phone’s disturbance, Li Rong’s frown slowly smoothed out, and his head drooped even lower.

Cen Xiao waited until he was sure Li Rong was sound asleep again before carefully raising his hand to shield Li Rong’s ears.

Outside, the rain pattered against the windows, the tires squelched in the mud, and the engine hummed softly—all of it muffled in Li Rong’s world.

At the hospital, Yang Fenfang parked the car, and Cen Xiao supported a semi-conscious Li Rong out of the vehicle.

While Yang Fenfang went to register him for treatment, Cen Xiao guided Li Rong to a hospital bed to await a blood test.

Li Rong coughed faintly, tugging at his collar in discomfort. “My throat hurts a little.”

Cen Xiao, standing beside the bed, signed a consent form and glanced at him. He didn’t say anything.

Li Rong pouted slightly, sulking.

Once Yang Fenfang returned, the nurse on duty began preparing for the blood draw. She rolled up the sleeve of Li Rong’s warm jacket, exposing his arm.

The veins on his arm were strikingly visible. As the needle pierced his skin, crimson blood began to flow through the slender tube, gradually filling the small test vial.

Li Rong lowered his head, watching his own blood being drawn as though the fragile warmth that kept him alive was leaving him too. Without a word, he glanced up, catching a glimpse of Cen Xiao’s gaze fixed on his arm. His face, however, betrayed no emotion.

Yang Fenfang jogged back into the emergency room, wiping sweat from her forehead as she fussed, “The blood test results will take fifteen minutes. If there’s nothing else, a fever-reducing injection should suffice.”

Li Rong managed a faint smile. “Thank you, teacher.”

He pressed his left hand over the needle puncture while his right hand reached for his phone. The screen lit up, revealing a missed call. Li Rong raised a brow.

It was his girlfriend. 

Despite being pragmatic and timid, she seemed to still harbor some lingering feelings for him. Or perhaps, the once cold-faced Li Rong was less worth holding onto, while this current version—with a smile in his eyes—was harder to resist.

Li Rong muttered, “My girlfriend called to check on me, and you hung up for me?”

Cen Xiao squinted, his tone indifferent. “Got a problem with that?”

Yang Fenfang, standing nearby, awkwardly chimed in, “…The school has a strict no-dating policy.”

Li Rong, summoning a hint of energy, straightened against the bed’s edge and teased, half in jest, “Of course I do. We haven’t broken up yet. Even if you like her, you’ll have to compete with me fairly.”

Yang Fenfang felt her heart seize.

She had never known her students’ personal lives to be this… complicated.

Li Rong, the top student in her class, had apparently been dating all along. And now, Cen Xiao, ranked at the bottom, seemed poised to steal his thunder. What appeared to be a tense deskmate relationship had morphed into an even more intense rivalry.

Clearing her throat, Yang Fenfang attempted to regain control of the conversation. “I must emphasize that relationships are strictly forbidden. You’re both in the critical year of senior high school, and your priority should be—”

Before she could finish, Cen Xiao pulled out his phone, swiftly unlocked it, and opened a chat interface with a few taps. Casually, he tossed it onto Li Rong’s lap.

“Fine. I’ll return the favor. Fair competition.”

Puzzled, Li Rong picked up Cen Xiao’s phone. The screen displayed Cen Xiao’s chat history with Song Yuanyuan.

[Song Yuanyuan: Hi! I heard from my mom that you’ll be attending my coming-of-age party too.]

[ Song Yuanyuan: We haven’t really talked much before. I used to see you often when I went to find Li Rong.]

[ Song Yuanyuan: Have you picked a dance partner yet?]

Li Rong raised a brow, his smile tinged with amusement. “You didn’t agree to it?”

Ceng Xiao didn’t respond at all.

He looked at Li Rong, who wasn’t hiding his delight, and asked lightly, “What do you think?”

Li Rong clicked the lock button on Ceng Xiao’s phone and pushed it away, righteously declaring, “How could I casually look at someone else’s phone? That would be so rude.”

Ceng Xiao: “Ha.”

Yang Fenfang realized she was being thoroughly ignored—completely and utterly.

She wanted to interject, but there wasn’t a single opening for her to do so.

It was Li Rong who noticed her first, but unfortunately, the moment he did, it was to politely send her away.

“Teacher, it’s late. You still have to go home and take care of your child. Ceng Xiao can stay with me. I’ll transfer the medical fees to you on WeChat,” Li Rong said.

Yang Fenfang wanted to decline, but Li Rong turned to Ceng Xiao instead. “I want to ask you something in private.”

Yang Fenfang sighed. “…Alright, then I’ll head home. Call me if anything comes up.”

Once Yang Fenfang left the emergency room, Li Rong hadn’t even started speaking before he was overtaken by a violent coughing fit. He clutched the edge of the bed, his eyes red and watery, as though he might cough his lungs out.

Ceng Xiao’s gaze lingered on Li Rong’s protruding shoulder blades, and he had the sudden urge to touch that frail back.

Li Rong’s back rose and fell with each cough, like a trembling poplar tree in a sandstorm. It was a tree that had grown in the desert, accustomed to harsh environments. Ceng Xiao knew that this little storm wouldn’t break it, but he couldn’t help feeling a pang of pity.

Li Rong’s voice came out in fits and starts: “The investigation team… confiscated my dad’s computer. Can you keep an eye on it for two months?”

He didn’t dare submit his paper to a domestic journal. He didn’t know who the reviewers were, whether they’d dare approve a submission with Li Qingli’s name on it, or how far the influence of Li Baishou—or the people behind him—extended.

The journal From Zero would take at least ten weeks to publish his work. To avoid unnecessary complications, he needed everything to be flawless.

Right now, the only connection he had to keep an eye on Hongsuo was through Ceng Xiao’s father, Cen Qing, the president of the United Commerce Association.

“Why?” Ceng Xiao asked.

Li Rong had no intention of lying. He rubbed his chest with one hand while looking sincerely at Ceng Xiao. “There’s unpublished data on it. The institute and others have their eyes on it. Your dad wouldn’t want Hongsuo to develop something that could make a fortune and weaken the Association’s influence in the future, right?”

Ceng Xiao’s voice remained calm. “You know I’d have to go to Cen Qing for this.”

“I know,” Li Rong replied.

He knew that at this point, Ceng Xiao didn’t have the authority to use the Association’s resources. He also knew that the relationship between Ceng Xiao and his parents was strained and would only worsen in the future. Asking him to approach Cen Qing was no small request.

Ceng Xiao chuckled. “I knew it. How could you stay at home for one day and end up this sick?”

Li Rong’s eyelids trembled ever so slightly.

In his past life, he had resisted Cen Xiao countless times. Their conflict reached its peak when Song Yuanyuan publicly confessed to Cen Xiao. That night, he had pointed a gun at Cen Xiao’s forehead.

Unfortunately, he didn’t know how to shoot back then, and the missed opportunity allowed Cen Xiao to disarm him.

It was during that tumultuous time that Li Rong realized something: harming himself could sometimes make Cen Xiao relent.

That time, his research team had developed a quick coagulant spray, designed for patients with congenital bleeding disorders. Portable and effective, it could stop bleeding faster than natural platelet aggregation.

As a member of the research team, Li Rong decided to test the new coagulant spray on himself first.

At the time, he was in a cold war with Cen Xiao and didn’t bother explaining. Sitting in his bedroom, he calmly took a knife and made a clean cut on his own arm.

That was the first time he had ever seen Cen Xiao flustered and at a loss.

Taking advantage of the situation, Li Rong proposed staying in the dormitory for a month, and Cen Xiao agreed.

Though it felt shameful to exploit someone’s sympathy, at least it worked.

So, after finishing the first draft of his paper, Li Rong filled the bathtub with cold water and soaked in it for an hour, shivering the whole time. Then, he stood by the window to let the midnight breeze chill him further.

Sure enough, his frail body gave out within half a day.

Cen Xiao took a few steps forward and yanked the long blue curtain closed, cutting off Li Rong’s small bed from the rest of the ward and trapping them in a not-so-private space.

His gaze darkened, and his jaw tightened briefly as he restrained certain impulses.

Lowering his voice, Cen Xiao said coolly, “You manipulated me.”

Knowing he was in the wrong, Li Rong pursed his lips and extended his arm—the one freshly bruised from the blood draw. Pressing his palm lightly against Cen Xiao’s chest, he softened his voice. “I was wrong. I won’t do it again. Help me this once.”

Li Rong was clever enough to know when to play coy to get by and when to offer a genuine apology.