With an entertainment hall like that operating under Lihe, how could the owner and the owner’s daughter not know whether things inside were clean or not? Ying Qiuman could tell as much from the investigation file Xu Shuyuan had given him.
Those people had been carrying out certain transactions inside, even using coded language. Xu Shuyuan had interpreted it for him it was roughly about some kind of resource issue in the entertainment industry, but what exactly it referred to was probably known only to the people involved in the deal.
When Ying Qiuman heard Ying Yelin’s words, he raised his eyes warily, only to find that even the slight trace of coldness from earlier had vanished from her gaze, leaving only gentleness.
“Mm. A friend’s family isn’t very well-off, and they didn’t know that drinking was expected there, so…” Ying Qiuman went along with Ying Yelin’s line. She nodded and changed the subject again.
“Mm-hmm. Then remember to remind your friend.” She lowered her head to look at the table full of dishes, a sense of relief on her face. “The two of you have a good relationship.”
The wariness in Ying Qiuman’s heart had not subsided, his gaze stayed fixed on Ying Yelin.
She noticed his attention, but only lifted her eyes to meet his briefly. Still, Ying Qiuman always felt that the looks they exchanged were like being separated by a layer of hazy gauze.
After the meal, Ying Qiuman still had quite a lot left over. Ying Yelin packed it all up for him, piece by piece, planning to send it over to Li Tian.
Ying Qiuman felt a little awkward about this, thinking it wasn’t right to give leftovers to someone else, so he stopped her. “I’ll keep it and take it home to eat tonight.”
What he got in response was still a smile. Before Ying Yelin could say anything, Li Tian came down from the office, looking somewhat aggrieved. That big figure rushed over, planted both hands on one of Ying Yelin’s shoulders, and bent down to rest his head on them.
“Mom, I feel awful.” Li Tian had entered the feverish phase. Seeing this, Ying Yelin helped him sit down and released soothing pheromones, making Li Tian sniffle without thinking.
Ying Qiuman had read this world’s novel, but since social order hadn’t grown unstable because of AO physiology, he hadn’t really seen what an alpha’s susceptibility period looked like.
Xu Shuyuan was rather clingy and had unfulfilled desires. During his previous susceptibility period, the contrast had felt enormous, making Ying Qiuman mistakenly think the man’s mind was blurred and his memory confused. Only recently had he come to realize that the clinginess was simply part of Xu Shuyuan’s personality.
As for the alpha he’d met that time at the mall, Ying Qiuman thought he’d been fierce, like a beast driven by instinct.
But Li Tian was quite different even unlike how he was described in the original book. Could it be because the one soothing him carried his mother’s pheromones, which made him seem so much like a child?
After a short while, Ying Qiuman noticed that the tip of Li Tian’s nose had already turned a little red, as if he felt terribly wronged. Ying Yelin called the hospital to have someone come pick him up, but Li Tian seemed unable to set many things at ease, wearing a worried expression as he insisted on pulling Ying Qiuman over to nag at him.
“Ah Li is coming for an interview this afternoon. Tell him I can’t come because I’m in my susceptibility period!”
Ying Qiuman nodded and agreed.
“And get the senior brothers to try to finish the work before the holiday!”
Ying Qiuman sighed and agreed as well.
“Mom, Xiao Man is being sarcastic toward me!”
“?”
He had clearly agreed to everything.
Ying Yelin raised her hand to tease him, then pulled Ying Qiuman over to sit on her other side. “How is Xiao Man being sarcastic to you?”
Li Tian lifted his eyes to glance at Ying Qiuman, thought for a moment, then pouted and said, “He didn’t wish me a happy birthday and kept staying with that guy surnamed Xu!”
What Li Tian actually wanted to say was: why does Xu Shuyuan have someone to keep him company even when he isn’t in his susceptibility period? He wanted that too. But then he thought again he hadn’t even succeeded in pursuing the person yet.
Then again, in his susceptibility period, how much could he really think? He wished Ye Li would just descend from the sky right now.
But he couldn’t say any of it. Ye Li’s family wasn’t well-off, Li Cong wouldn’t agree, and if Ying Yelin found out, she’d keep trying to talk him out of it.
To avoid being dragged off to blind dates with other omegas the moment he left the hospital after his susceptibility period ended, he couldn’t bring this up yet.
Ying Qiuman hadn’t yet figured out what to say when Xu Shuyuan called him.
“Manman, are you done eating?”
“No, you ordered too much.” Ying Qiuman had barely started speaking when Li Tian realized who was on the other end. His mouth curled, and, lying against Ying Yelin’s shoulder, he began to sob.
Xu Shuyuan, unaware of the situation, went on, “You’re too thin.” So thin that one hand could wrap around his waist.
Actually, Ying Qiuman wasn’t thin anymore if he went out passing himself off as an alpha, people would believe it. But he didn’t gain weight easily. Earlier, to work out and build muscle, he’d put in quite a lot of effort just to achieve a little bit of result.
It was only in front of Xu Shuyuan that he still got compared to a bamboo pole.
“I’m not thin.” He had a lean layer of muscle, Ye Li said this was the best-looking kind.
The two hadn’t exchanged more than a couple of sentences on the phone before Li Tian turned sour with jealousy, tearful as he tried to butt in. But Ying Qiuman didn’t hang up, and Li Tian didn’t dare say anything out loud. He only mouthed words without sound, which made Ying Yelin laugh so hard that Li Tian cried even more miserably.
“Oh, our Tian Tian wants someone to keep him company during his susceptibility period too, doesn’t he?”
“Mm.”
“Should Mom and Dad introduce a few people to you?”
“No.”
Ying Qiuman hung up the phone. Watching Ying Yelin coax Li Tian like a child, he instinctively lowered his head and shifted slightly away, as if getting any closer would make other children come and push him aside.
Li Tian rejected Ying Yelin’s suggestion, but she went on gently, “Then how about Mom asking Ah Li to come keep you company?”
“!” Li Tian suddenly sat bolt upright, then, trying to cover it up, shook his head. “No!”
“Then who is this Ah Li you just mentioned?”
“What Ah Li? There’s no Ah Li. Xiao Man, did you hear anything?”
His exaggerated winking and gesturing were too obvious. Even though Ying Qiuman didn’t want to see it, he still had to play along and lie: “No.”
Ying Yelin watched the two of them coordinate and laughed, giving each of them a light punchnot hard, but Li Tian made a show of crying twice. Ying Qiuman suddenly felt a strange sensation.
The hospital staff arrived, and Ying Qiuman and Ying Yelin helped get Li Tian into the car.
He glanced at the hospital’s logofour square frames connected in different directions. It was a private hospital, and also the hospital he had been in when he’d just arrived in this world: Tongxin Hospital.
But when he looked again, he was surprised to find that the bottle of perfume Xu Shuyuan had given him bore the same logo.
It was probably similar to a specialized hospital in reality this private hospital most likely focused on researching the ABO secondary-gender system.
However, before Ying Qiuman even had time to look into this guess, it was proven wrong.
After Ye Li finished his interview and came out, Ying Qiuman had just wrapped up his own tasks. The senior brothers on his side didn’t need any more help, so he went with Ye Li to the café downstairs and sat for a while.
And it was right at that moment that the cleaner, Uncle Yan, collapsed by the roadside.
He had an old leg injury that, for some reason, had suddenly flared up. From what Ying Qiuman could see, it looked like a femur fracture.
The nearest hospital was the very Tongxin Hospital that had just admitted Li Tian. Before Ying Qiuman could even voice his guess, Ye Li had already made the call.
Tongxin Hospital was a private hospital everything started with payment at the door. Uncle Yan’s consciousness was already muddled, but he still waved his hands in refusal.
Ying Qiuman couldn’t bear it and reassured him, “It’s okay, Uncle Yan. Don’t worry. I’ll cover the cost for you first.”
The pain and worry on Uncle Yan’s face left Ying Qiuman heavy-hearted, as if something were piercing through his bones and stabbing him, making his chest ache.
He knew he had strong empathy, but in the past he could barely take care of himself, so he had always kept his distance and had never really looked into the eyes of people like this.
Now, looking more closely, he saw eyes that were cloudy, lost, and full of fear.
The ambulance arrived quickly. When they reached the hospital, Ying Qiuman learned that it was actually a general hospital.
The doctor examined Uncle Yan’s leg and concluded that a previous fracture had never fully healed and had broken again, repeatedly. It was already fortunate that it hadn’t left any serious long-term damage.
Ying Yelin had originally gotten Li Tian settled and was preparing to leave, but for some reason she detoured to the emergency department and saw Ying Qiuman.
When she heard him introduce Ye Li by name, she gave a surprised glance, then smiled gently and looked at Ying Qiuman again. That look seemed to say: I understand now.
Ying Qiuman was slightly startled, but from Ying Yelin’s reaction alone, he felt things might be taking a turn for the better.
“Is he going to be all right?” Ying Yelin glanced toward the operating room. She didn’t know this cleaner, but she believed that someone Ying Qiuman was willing to help probably wasn’t a bad person. So she took a card out of her bag and handed it to him.
“Remember to ask him for his medical insurance card. Tell him it can reimburse a lot. He doesn’t seem to have it easy, don’t ask him for money.”
The woman’s worried expression also carried a kind of gentle compassion. It could dissolve, at first sight, any resentment that might once have been buried in the original body. Even Ying Qiuman himself felt she was beautiful like someone born to love others, like a mother he had never truly known.
“Mm, I understand.”
After seeing Ying Yelin off, the two of them waited outside the operating room. During the wait, the doctor asked them to contact Uncle Yan’s family.
However, the numbers stored in Uncle Yan’s phone either belonged to relatives living in faraway rural areas, or to people who hung up quickly because they couldn’t understand the dialect. There was also one contact named “Xiao Ling,” but when they called, a rough-voiced older man answered and cursed at them, calling them crazy.
The two of them, feeling quite worn out, eventually gave up. Fortunately, in a private hospital, everything runs smoothly as long as you pay, and the surgery proceeded without much trouble.
By the time the sky had gone completely dark, Uncle Yan’s surgery was finally over. To ease his psychological burden, Ying Qiuman had arranged a three-bed ward for him, though in reality he was the only patient there.
“This place must be very expensive… I, I probably can’t afford it,” Uncle Yan said the moment he woke up, his first glance sweeping over the room’s furnishings. Ying Qiuman feigned calm and tucked the blanket in for him. “After the medical insurance reimbursement, it won’t be much. You can pay it back slowly.”
Uncle Yan still wasn’t at ease. Ying Qiuman could only lie and give him a rough estimate. After hearing it, Uncle Yan looked as if he could accept it, and even afford it, finally relaxing his brows and falling into a peaceful sleep.
Once he’d finally been calmed down, the two of them left the ward in silence. Neither of them was suited to staying and looking after Uncle Yan, and if they hired a caregiver, they didn’t know whether he’d again insist on being discharged and going home.
His fracture seemed to have grown serious precisely because it had been left untreated for too long. If he went home again and toughed out the pain on his own, today’s surgery would have been for nothing.
“Let’s come visit more often. We’ll just say the caregiver is a friend of the hospital, someone we asked to help look after him?”
“That’s the only way.”
As they talked, they bought food from the cafeteria and got ready to head back. On the way, they passed a corridor connecting to another ward building. The lights in that building were all on, but there wasn’t a single person in the hallway.
“Hey, have you heard?” Ye Li nudged Ying Qiuman with his elbow, lowering his voice mysteriously. “That building over there… it’s supposedly haunted.”