The word “friend” had barely reached her lips before the young nurse swallowed it back down.
Ah… she had almost let it slip.
Last night, the hospital director had personally received a man wearing gold-rimmed glasses. He had a strikingly handsome face that looked like it had been crafted by the goddess Nüwa herself, stunning all the nurses on the night shift.
The man had looked very nervous, cradling an unconscious beautiful woman in his arms.
She had been fortunate enough to be selected and assigned to this ward.
The unconscious woman looked like a doll, with a delicate, straight nose and a pair of enchanting fox eyes. Her features were cool and distant, her skin fair and beautiful—absolutely stunning.
Both the man and the woman possessed top-tier looks and were incredibly well-matched, impossible to look away from.
The man was dressed in a suit, exuding an icy aura that warned others to keep their distance.
Only when facing the unconscious woman did his powerful presence soften, his face full of tenderness and utmost care.
The food on the table had been specially prepared by the man for the woman.
The young nurse had made up her mind based on first impressions, assuming the two were a couple.
Her reasoning was mainly because the love in the man’s eyes was scorching hot, impossible to hide. Anyone who saw him would mistakenly think they were together.
But before he left, he had told her not to let the woman know that he was the one who had brought her to the hospital.
The young nurse had instinctively asked him why.
The man had raised an eyebrow casually, giving only an ambiguous answer: “It’s not time yet.”
The young nurse automatically filled in the blanks—the two must have had a fight, and the man was trying to win her back, saving up a big surprise for her.
Jiang Zhi noticed the nurse had stopped mid-sentence and asked curiously, “What?”
Snapping back to reality, the nurse gave Jiang Zhi an awkward smile. “The man who brought you to the hospital… has already left.”
Jiang Zhi caught the key information. “A man?”
Somehow, the vague and dreamlike vision surfaced in her mind.
Could it be that it wasn’t a dream?
But the nurse’s next words overturned her assumption.
The nurse nodded. “Last night, a delivery man brought you to the hospital.”
With that, she pulled a note from her pocket and handed it to Jiang Zhi, relaying the message the man’s assistant had told her to say, word for word.
“The man said bringing you to the hospital was no trouble at all. If you really want to repay him, you could donate something to this orphanage.”
Jiang Zhi unfolded the note, which bore the name of an orphanage she knew all too well.
Because of the sins her father had committed, she often did charity work to atone for him, and this orphanage was one of her causes.
Since the person who saved her only wanted to remain an anonymous hero, she stopped dwelling on it.
After lunch, Jiang Zhi picked up her phone from her bag, thinking about buying some items to donate to the orphanage, only to realize her phone was off.
She instinctively pressed the power button—the phone still had over fifty percent battery.
It hadn’t shut down due to low battery?
Before she could figure out why the phone had turned off, her attention was drawn to dozens of missed calls.
Among those missed calls were some from Jiang Qinian, and the rest were from her aunt, Cheng Shuwen.
Jiang Zhi’s fingertips paused for a moment, and the next second, she blocked all of Jiang Qinian’s contact information.
Then, she deftly purchased some items online, filled in the orphanage’s address, and contacted the person in charge, donating a sum of money to the orphanage in the name of the delivery man who had brought her to the hospital.
Having done all that, Jiang Zhi was just about to call Cheng Shuwen back when Cheng Shuwen’s call came in.
A sharp middle-aged woman’s voice came through the phone. “Miss Jiang, you finally deigned to answer the phone? How impressive—now that you’re an ‘Best Actor’s’ manager, you’ve learned to put on airs?!”
“Don’t you forget who fed you and clothed you after your father went to prison! Now your uncle is in trouble, and you just hide away!”
“You’re nothing but an ungrateful wretch! If I’d known this would happen, I’d have let you starve on the streets!”
Cheng Shuwen rattled off a barrage of sarcastic remarks, and Jiang Zhi had long since grown accustomed to it.
Her father had been thrown in prison for corruption and bribery during her sophomore year of college, and her mother had passed away when she was a freshman in high school. Her uncle had become her only family.
Since then, she had lived with her uncle.
But her aunt, Cheng Shuwen, had never treated her well, seeing her as nothing more than a burden and a freeloader.
In places where her uncle couldn’t see, insults and even physical abuse were common occurrences.
When you live under someone else’s roof, you have to lower your head.
Cheng Shuwen was her uncle’s wife, and Jiang Zhi didn’t want her uncle to get into conflicts with Cheng Shuwen because of her.
Toward Cheng Shuwen, she had always maintained an attitude of swallowing her anger and avoiding her whenever possible.
As a result, Jiang Zhi rarely went home to stay. During college, she had lived in the dormitory almost the entire time, only returning for major holidays like Mid-Autumn Festival and Chinese New Year.
She had also started working part-time jobs early on. From her junior year until graduation, she had supported herself through living expenses and tuition.
But her uncle doted on her dearly—he was one of the few people who had shown her warmth.
He was never stingy with her, treating her like his own daughter.
She would never forget the stormy night her father was taken away.
Her uncle rubbed her head and made a solemn, gentle promise. “As long as your uncle is here, Zhizhi will never be without a home. Zhizhi will always be the princess of our Qin family.”
He didn’t know that, in truth, that night, she wasn’t sad at all.
Long before her mother passed away, her princess dream had already shattered, buried in the earth along with her mother, and she had learned to accept the cruelty of reality.
“Say something! Cat got your tongue?!”
Cheng Shuwen’s furious shout snapped Jiang Zhi back to reality.
Jiang Zhi composed herself and asked, “What’s wrong with Uncle?”
Right now, the internet was flooded with news about problems with Qin Corporation’s products. Cheng Shuwen thought Jiang Zhi was playing dumb to distance herself from the matter.
Cheng Shuwen sneered, “Jiang Zhi, don’t play dumb with me. You’re an agent—how could you not know what’s trending online? Don’t think I don’t know how much your uncle has spent on you…”
“What do you want me to do? Just say it directly.”
Jiang Zhi didn’t want to get tangled up with Cheng Shuwen any longer, so she cut her off coldly.
Cheng Shuwen was momentarily stunned, probably not expecting Jiang Zhi to be so direct.
Jiang Zhi held her phone to her ear, waiting for Cheng Shuwen to continue.
She thought Cheng Shuwen would at most ask her for money—she never imagined the problem would be beyond her capabilities.
But before Cheng Shuwen could speak, Jiang Zhi heard the noise of her phone being snatched away, followed by her uncle Qin Mingsheng’s furious voice.
“You actually went through Zhizhi’s room? That’s an invasion of her privacy!!”
As soon as he finished speaking, the sound of papers scattering to the floor came through the phone.
Cheng Shuwen didn’t seem to think she had done anything wrong. In fact, she even said with complete confidence, “Honey, for all these years, we’ve provided for Jiang Zhi’s food, clothing, and everything else. Now that the company is facing bankruptcy, it’s only natural that she repay us.”
“Besides, marrying into the Shang family is something countless women dream of! Jiang Zhi would be getting a good deal by marrying in—she wouldn’t have to go out and show her face, or bow and scrape to others. I’m doing this for her own good!”
Jiang Zhi’s heart skipped a beat.
It seemed Cheng Shuwen had dug out the marriage contract that her grandfather had entrusted to her before he passed away.