At a public hospital in Jinghai.
Gu Moli was frantic. Her daughter had developed a high fever and lost consciousness.
After examining her, a female doctor frowned deeply, her face full of anger. "Your daughter has a congenital heart condition. Didn't you know that as her mother? How could you let her suffer such serious injuries?"
Gu Moli bit her lip without answering. Tears immediately slipped down her face.
How could she not know about her daughter's heart condition? She had always blamed herself for failing to give her a healthy body.
Now that her daughter had suffered such terrible harm, she was wracked with regret. If he had not arrived in time to save her, her daughter might already have...
"Hurry up and complete the admission paperwork. Your daughter needs urgent surgery," the doctor said coldly.
Hearing the word surgery, Gu Moli hastily replied, "B-but my daughter can't have surgery until she's ten."
Her daughter was too young to withstand the trauma of an operation. She had to wait until she was ten. Countless hospitals had given that same verdict.
"Fine. Wait until she's ten, then." The doctor turned to leave. At the door, she looked back and said coldly, "In her current condition, forget living to ten. Your daughter won't even last three days."
A buzzing filled her ears.
Hearing that her daughter would not survive three days, Gu Moli felt the world spin. She hurriedly braced herself against the wall to keep from falling.
"Doctor, please. Please save my daughter!" Gu Moli rushed forward and clutched the hem of the doctor's coat, sobbing.
All these years, despite falling from the life of a wealthy heiress to this, she had never complained or regretted it. Thinking of Xinyu filled her with boundless strength. However hard or exhausting life became, having her daughter made it happy.
Xinyu was her entire world!
"Oh, haven't I already told you?" Disgusted, the doctor pulled her coat free of Gu Moli's hands. "If you want your daughter to live, she needs surgery immediately."
"Yes. All right. Surgery, then." Gu Moli wiped the tears from her eyes. So long as her daughter could be safe, nothing else mattered.
The doctor took a form from her pocket, scrawled a few words on it, and said, "Go pay the fee."
"A-a hundred thousand?" Gu Moli stared dumbly at the figure on the form.
"What?" The female doctor rolled her eyes contemptuously. "You think a hundred thousand is a lot? That's only the initial estimated payment. There will certainly be additional charges later. Heart surgery is no minor operation."
Hearing that she would need even more money, Gu Moli began to cry again.
When she had been a wealthy heiress, that amount would have bought her a single dress. Get faster updates on g.com.
Over the past few years, she had taken her daughter to hospitals large and small, exhausting her meager savings long ago. To pay for her treatment, she had been forced to borrow money from Master Tiger at exorbitant interest.
"D-doctor, I'll find the money as soon as I can. Could you arrange the surgery for my daughter first?" Gu Moli pleaded.
"Are you joking?" The doctor looked utterly disgusted. "Do you think this hospital is a charity? If you have no money, go home."
Every day, the hospital saw patients who could not afford their bills. Payment first, treatment second—that was their principle of service.
"Please, Doctor. I'll find a way to get the money." Gu Moli begged desperately.
"Enough, enough. I don't have time to argue with you. I have plenty of other patients. If you have money, get treated. If you don't, go home." With that, she strode away.
Watching the doctor leave, Gu Moli sank to her knees and broke down sobbing.
The doctors passing through the corridor wore indifferent expressions. Scenes like this played out in the hospital every day. They had long since grown used to them.
Just then, Wang Huizhi arrived. Seeing her daughter kneeling on the floor in tears, she hurried over to help her up. "Moli, what happened?"
"Mom..." Gu Moli cried at the sight of her mother. "Xinyu needs urgent surgery, but it costs a hundred thousand..." She dissolved into sobs.
Wang Huizhi's heart clenched. A hundred thousand was an astronomical sum to them.
Ever since the three of them had been driven out of the Gu family, they had lived in severe poverty.
The Gu family had ordered every business and employer to deny all three of them work, leaving them to fend for themselves. No one had dared hire them.
To survive, Gu Moli had opened a tiny flower shop and scraped together a living.
Her mother, Wang Huizhi, washed dishes in a small restaurant, while her father, Gu Hai, had found work as a security guard.
The Gu family could not be bothered to interfere with jobs at the very bottom of society.
Their three meager incomes had barely kept them afloat. Then Xinyu's illness had been diagnosed, making their already straitened circumstances even worse.
They had spent everything they had and still could not make ends meet.
"I went to the Gu family, too. That old man is utterly heartless." Wang Huizhi shook her head helplessly. No matter how she had begged that day, they had ruthlessly thrown her out.
After a long silence, Gu Moli looked at her daughter, still unconscious in the hospital bed. She wiped the tear tracks from her face, stood up, and headed outside.
"Moli, where are you going?" Wang Huizhi watched her daughter stagger away, her face full of worry. Get faster updates on g.com.
"To sell the flower shop," Gu Moli replied, her eyes vacant.
"What?" Wang Huizhi gasped.
That shop was the fruit of her daughter's hard work, and her only source of income. If she sold it, how would she and Xinyu survive?
Gu Moli knew that perfectly well. But her daughter urgently needed money for surgery. Other than selling the shop, she truly had no way out.
...
Night fell over Jinghai, and the city filled with glittering lights as its nightlife began.
Luxury cars lined the entrance to an opulent club, where handsome men and beautiful women came and went.
Golden Goblet Club ranked among the finest exclusive clubs in Jinghai.
Inside an enormous, luxurious private room.
Twenty beautiful girls in skimpy clothes swayed their hips to the pulsing music.
In the center of the sofa sat a young man with a cigarette between his lips and a lecherous grin on his face. His hands roamed among the women around him.
"Oh, Young Master Wang, you're so bad!"
"Ah... Young Master Wang, you touched my breasts!"
The girls he groped cried out in coy voices.
All the girls here knew that being chosen by Young Master Wang meant a generous tip, usually starting at ten thousand yuan—far more than they normally earned.
Each of them did her best to show off her alluring figure.
"Did I? My apologies." Wang Tianhao pulled a girl into his lap, took out a thick stack of hundred-yuan bills, and stuffed them inside her clothes, squeezing her a few times as he did. "There'll be more tonight."
"Oh... you're awful." Despite her words, the girl pressed herself against him even more eagerly.
Everyone knew Wang Tianhao was a famous young heir with a vast family fortune.
Just then, a bodyguard approached Wang Tianhao and whispered something in his ear.
Wang Tianhao's eyes lit up. He gave a cold laugh. "Let her in."