CEO’s Little Wife 5
After only a couple of bites, Qiao Yu put down his chopsticks and looked up at Aunt Zhou. “I’m done eating. I’ll go upstairs first.”
Under Aunt Zhou’s guilty gaze, Qiao Yu went upstairs again and crawled back into his warm covers. Since he had slept the whole day and no longer felt sleepy, he took a book at random from the bookshelf in Shen Yan’s bedroom and started reading.
But after only two pages, Qiao Yu’s arm began to ache from holding the book, and his mind drifted as he wondered why he couldn’t just turn the page himself.
Before he could figure that out, Aunt Zhou’s voice came from the doorway again. “Little Fish, are you asleep?”
Qiao Yu turned toward the sound and saw Aunt Zhou standing at the door with two small plates in her hands. Qiao Yu swore he meant to sit up, but his waist, after lying down for too long, couldn’t take the sudden movement. A sharp pain shot through it with a creak.
Numb.
Shen Yan, where are you? I need you.
With no choice, Qiao Yu could only shift from sitting up to leaning against the headboard. “What’s wrong?”
Aunt Zhou carefully set the things on the bedside table. Qiao Yu looked over and saw strawberries and a pomegranate. What surprised him most, though, was the small bowl containing half a bowl of ice cream.
A flash of delight lit up his eyes. Qiao Yu blinked at Aunt Zhou standing by the bed and felt as if she were glowing with a halo of righteousness.
It was truly moving.
“I saw that you didn’t eat much tonight, so I washed some fruit and got you some ice cream.”
Aunt Zhou looked at Qiao Yu lovingly, thinking how obedient he looked lying there in bed. After a moment, she added, “Don’t eat too much ice cream, though. Too much isn’t good for your stomach.”
Qiao Yu nodded repeatedly and quickly speared a strawberry with the little fork and put it in his mouth. The sweet-and-sour flavor burst across his tongue, and Qiao Yu narrowed his eyes in happiness, feeling that nothing in the world was happier than eating and sleeping.
He scooped up another spoonful of the cold, sweet strawberry ice cream, and Qiao Yu felt like he might cry. If being cannon fodder waiting to die meant he could eat strawberry ice cream every day, he would be more than willing.
After all, before 01 picked him up, Qiao Yu had not only been forbidden from eating ice cream, but even fruits like strawberries and pomegranates were off-limits.
After Aunt Zhou left, Qiao Yu couldn’t resist. He not only ate a lot of strawberries, he also finished at least half the ice cream. He only stopped when his stomach began to feel a little uncomfortably cold. As for the pomegranate, it had too many seeds, and Qiao Yu was too lazy to eat it.
But Qiao Yu seemed to have overestimated his own body. Less than half an hour after finishing the ice cream, he started feeling unwell. It was as if a huge block of ice had been stuffed into his stomach, freezing him until he began to cramp with pain.
Changing position, Qiao Yu clutched his stomach and buried himself under the covers, struggling to close his eyes and go to sleep. As long as he slept, the pain would stop. This was always Qiao Yu’s preferred way of dealing with things.
Qiao Yu didn’t know how long he drifted in and out of sleep. In the darkness, he vaguely felt someone shake his shoulder. The stabbing pain in his stomach seemed to ease for a moment. Qiao Yu struggled to open his eyes and saw Shen Yan’s slightly anxious face.
He had wanted to say, “You’re finally back,” but the moment he opened his mouth, a strong wave of nausea hit him. He couldn’t help gagging, though nothing came up.
Qiao Yu was so uncomfortable that tears spilled down his face. Shen Yan lifted him from the bed and gently patted his back, calling his name anxiously. “Qiao Yu? Qiao Yu!”
But Qiao Yu’s cochlear implant had long since been brushed off somewhere without him noticing. When Shen Yan called him, he couldn’t hear a thing, and his tear-blurred eyes couldn’t make out Shen Yan’s lip movements either.
With trembling hands, Qiao Yu pointed to his ear, indicating that he couldn’t hear what was being said.
After a moment of silence, a man’s loud voice slowly reached Qiao Yu’s ears, shouting his name. Qiao Yu struggled to lift his eyelids. He didn’t have the strength to speak, so to make it easier for Shen Yan to hear him, he even deliberately leaned in closer.
“You’re back…”
His stomach was far too uncomfortable, as if a knife were constantly twisting inside it. Qiao Yu could barely even pass out.
In that instant, something seemed to flash through his mind. Qiao Yu struggled to support himself on Shen Yan’s hand and gently rubbed his face against Shen Yan’s chin. A wave of warmth and comfort instantly poured through his body, and Qiao Yu subconsciously squinted in comfort.
Shen Yan’s voice suddenly fell silent. Qiao Yu, who had been rubbing against him quite comfortably, felt a little lost, as if he didn’t understand why there was suddenly no sound beside his ear.
Then, in the next second, his body suddenly left the ground. In his daze, he realized that Shen Yan seemed to have picked him up.
But before he could think further, Qiao Yu’s consciousness plunged into darkness.
By the time Qiao Yu fainted, Shen Yan was carrying him downstairs at a fast pace and rushing to the hospital. Aunt Zhou didn’t know what had happened. She only knew that Shen Yan, with a dark expression, was carrying Qiao Yu, who was wrapped in nothing but a coat, and walking out without saying a word.
“What’s going on?”
Shen Yan frowned and explained, “He’s sick. It must be because of the ice cream.”
He couldn’t think of any other explanation.
When he got back, he saw Qiao Yu with a pale little face, covered in cold sweat, clutching his stomach and sunk into the blankets, breathing in small, difficult gasps.
And on the bedside table was a small bowl containing melted ice cream.
He didn’t explain much. He simply hurriedly carried Qiao Yu into the car. Aunt Zhou stood there in shock, and the moment she heard the words “ice cream,” she stamped her foot hard.
Wasn’t that the ice cream she had given him?
Thinking of how Qiao Yu’s pretty little face had gone so pale, she was instantly so remorseful that she wanted to slap herself twice.
But by the time she chased after them and wanted to go along, Shen Yan’s car was already gone from the courtyard. She could only see a luxury car with red taillights in the distance, barely accelerating before it shot away.
Because it wasn’t rush hour, Shen Yan ordered the driver to run through three or four red lights. The car barely slowed at all and raced all the way to the Shen family’s hospital.
Just as Shen Yan had guessed, it was acute gastroenteritis, caused by that damned ice cream.
“The patient’s constitution is rather weak, and his gastrointestinal function isn’t very good. Try to avoid cold or spicy foods, and don’t eat anything hard or difficult to digest.”
“Keep him under observation for now. If nothing comes up, he can be discharged.”
Shen Yan nodded to show that he understood. After the doctor finished speaking, he left, and the entire ward was left with only Shen Yan and the unconscious Qiao Yu.
Sitting by the bed, the only thing he could hear was Qiao Yu’s weak but steady breathing, with more air going in than out. His chest rose and fell only faintly, and his bloodless face always gave Shen Yan the illusion that this person might disappear in the next second.
A little pitiful, and a little heartbreaking.
Shen Yan’s hand rested lightly on Qiao Yu’s wrist. Aside from the smooth, soft touch, what he felt was almost only cold, as if there were no human body heat there at all.
Shen Yan let out a long sigh. The place where his heart was seemed to sink a little, pressing down with a faint ache.
When Qiao Yu was unconscious, what exactly was he thinking?