Ming Shu returned carrying the small cake Su Chuiyun loved the most, the exquisite paper box looked like a carefully prepared gift.
The moment Ming Shu stepped into the garden, she sensed something was wrong. She turned to the security personnel and asked, “Do we have a guest?”
The guard nodded. “Miss Song Xi is here. Miss Su invited her inside.”
Hearing Song Xi’s name, Ming Shu’s expression twisted for a split second, and her grip on the cake box tightened.
The Su family garden was vast, it took Ming Shu nearly twenty minutes to walk from the main gate to the primary residence. Under the eaves of the main house, Su Chuiyun had lifted her skirt while a white-haired old practitioner of Chinese medicine sat on a small stool, massaging her legs.
The doctor’s wrinkled hands pressed against a bruise on Su Chuiyun’s leg. “Does it hurt here?”
Su Chuiyun inhaled sharply, thinking to herself that it should hurt. “It hurts a little.”
“How about here?”
“A little bit there, too.”
“This hurts as well?”
“It… probably hurts, too.”
“Probably?” The doctor’s expression stalled as Su Chuiyun tried to act like she was dazed by the pain.
Song Xi had originally brought the doctor to apologize to Su Chuiyun and gain some favor in front of her admirer. However, looking at Su Chuiyun’s expression, it seemed her flattery hadn’t quite hit the mark.
Tap, tap, tap.
The crisp sound of high heels clicking against the stone path startled a magpie eating persimmons on a nearby branch.
“How lively,” Ming Shu remarked.
Su Chuiyun, holding a ringing phone, was startled. “Sister, you’re back.”
The ringing phone in Su Chuiyun’s hand was a call from Ming Shu. Ming Shu had intended to call her out for dinner, but after no one answered, she decided to come in and see what was happening.
As it turned out, she would have been better off not seeing it.
Ming Shu leaned against a pillar with her arms crossed. “Miss Song, long time no see.”
When rivals meet, sparks fly. Song Xi looked like a “pear blossom in the rain” delicate and pitiable. Compared to Ming Shu’s cold, “career woman” aura, any bystander would have felt sorry for the former.
Unfortunately, Su Chuiyun was “blind.”
Sensing the unusual tension in the air, the old doctor shakily withdrew his hand, though he couldn’t help but press one more acupoint out of professional curiosity. “Does this really hurt?”
“I guess so.”
“You guess?” The doctor choked.
Su Chuiyun didn’t know which acupoint it was, so she could only remain vague.
Ming Shu’s good mood evaporated the moment she saw Song Xi. “Doctor, how are her legs?”
The old doctor hesitated for a long while. “Has she really been receiving treatment for months?”
Ming Shu replied, “I can show you the medical records.”
The doctor squinted through his reading glasses at the records for a moment, then tucked them into his pocket. “Either Miss Su has a sensory perception issue, or the hospital misdiagnosed her.”
Ming Shu frowned. “Misdiagnosed?”
The private hospital she used was unlikely to make such a mistake, the doctors there were highly experienced, and the clientele were all prominent figures.
The doctor said, “Yes, misdiagnosed. This would usually result in paraplegia.”
Su Chuiyun: “…Doctor, you truly have a ‘miraculous touch’.”
At those words, everyone’s expression soured. Song Xi had hoped to win Su Chuiyun’s favor, but she hadn’t expected the doctor to give such an answer. If he were a common charlatan, she would have kicked him out, but this doctor was someone even high-ranking people struggled to get an appointment with.
Ming Shu uttered two words coldly: “Quack doctor.”
The doctor stammered, “But… but…” He looked at Ming Shu as if she were an Emperor in a palace drama shouting, “If you can’t cure her, you’ll all be buried with her!”
Finally, Su Chuiyun had to push herself up from the chair. “I’m not sick. I’ll walk a few laps to show you.”
Under the doctor’s horrified gaze, Su Chuiyun forced herself to walk five or six meters before “weakly” leaning against Ming Shu.
“My legs hurt, I want Sister to hold me.”
At that moment, Su Chuiyun’s legs were still covered in long acupuncture needles. Seeing the “dying” patient suddenly leap up, the doctor hurriedly removed the needles, looking utterly bewildered as he left behind a few prescriptions.
Strange. She doesn’t seem sick, but those bruises on her legs are real…
While the doctor was checking Su Chuiyun, Ming Shu and Song Xi stood to the side.
Ming Shu placed the cake bag on a mother of pearl inlaid square table. “Speak. What are you doing here with Su Chuiyun?”
A flash of loathing crossed Song Xi’s eyes. “You were in such a hurry to go abroad back then that you broke up with Su Chuiyun. Now you’re back and clinging to her shamelessly? Do you big bosses have no dignity?”
Ming Shu wasn’t provoked. She took out a cloth and gently wiped her rimless glasses. Her nearsightedness was mild, but she needed them for driving and looking at screens.
She chuckled softly. “Do you know how much this table is worth?”
“What are you trying to say?” Song Xi didn’t understand why she was talking about a table. She had wanted to mention how she met Su Chuiyun in a hospital, how Su Chuiyun was losing her sight and panicking in a hallway, and how Song Xi’s friend had picked up her phone, leading to Su Chuiyun clinging to her.
A blind person’s love is often reckless and intense. The old Su Chuiyun had wanted to use her as her eyes.
Ming Shu tapped the table with her knuckle. “This table could sell for 430,000. In your hometown, that buys a nice house. In this garden, the garden itself is the least valuable thing.”
Ming Shu was being conservative. For many guests, buying the furniture was just an excuse to build a connection with the Su family.
Song Xi’s eyes flickered. “How much?”
This “broken” table was worth more than the designer bags men gave her.
Ming Shu continued, “There are plenty of things like this in Su Chuiyun’s house.” She stepped forward, her fingers firmly gripping Song Xi’s chin, forcing the woman to look at her.
“You….ugh!”
“You got quite a few benefits from my sister while I was abroad, didn’t you? She has bad eyes, she’s easy to fool,” Ming Shu’s words were biting, her grip tightening. “Quit while you’re ahead, kid. You aren’t from our world. You can’t handle my sister’s wealth.”
A chill ran through Song Xi. Ming Shu wasn’t easy to fool like Su Chuiyun her eyes had seen too much human darkness.
“The wedding dress! I’m here to see the wedding dress,” Song Xi blurted out. “Su Chuiyun ordered a wedding dress for me. She wants to marry me; look, she even prepared the dress.”
Ming Shu: “…”
Song Xi expected Ming Shu to lose her cool, but the older woman simply let go of her chin and wiped her fingers with a disinfectant wipe as if she had touched something filthy.
“My sister ordered a dress to wear for her own fun. What does that have to do with you?”
Song Xi was stunned.
Ming Shu gestured, and security guards in black uniforms immediately stepped forward and grabbed Song Xi by the shoulders. “Escort her out. Don’t let her in again.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
After the woman was gone, Ming Shu sighed. “Go find out how much money Su Chuiyun spent on that woman. I want the report in two days.”
Ming Shu adjusted her glasses and whispered the words: “Wedding dress.”
Little liar.
Su Chuiyun had told her the dress was for her (Ming Shu) to wear, but it was clearly a lie.
But so what? Her sister was clinging to her now. The moment she entered the garden, her sister’s eyes had immediately found her.
A shadow of doubt crossed Ming Shu’s mind. Can a person really change this much?
She used to love that woman to death, and now she discarded her to return to Ming Shu’s arms. A young girl’s heart is like shifting weather impossible to predict.
After the doctor left, Su Chuiyun rubbed her legs, which were numb from the needles.
“Legs hurt? I’ll rub them for you.” Ming Shu placed the cake bag in front of her. “I bought your favorite flavor.”
Su Chuiyun dove into Ming Shu’s arms. “I want a rub. Sister, I can explain today. I didn’t see Song Xi on purpose.”
Ming Shu scooped her up and placed her on the canopy bed in the bedroom. As the layers of embroidered curtains fell, Ming Shu hooked her leg. “The doctor said you’re paraplegic. Let me check.”
She moved as if to tug at her skirt to check if Su Chuiyun’s tailbone had any reaction.
Her sister seemed angry.
Su Chuiyun watched as Ming Shu smeared cream onto her leg…
“Mm!”
Ming Shu arched a thin eyebrow. “Explain. Why aren’t you explaining anymore?”
Ming Shu suddenly whispered in her ear, “I just took a shower. Can you smell my body wash, little liar?”