Jiang Ning’s hand gripping the phone suddenly tightened, her fingers turning white from the force.
She spoke hoarsely, “I understand.”
Jiang Yanjing wanted to say more, “Do you want me to go with you?”
Before he could finish, Jiang Ning hung up.
She hadn’t actually met her granduncle many times.
After her grandparents and mother passed away, aside from her granduncle, she was the only remaining blood relative on her mother’s side.
If her granduncle were gone too…
Not counting that bastard Jiang Jintao, there would be no one left in this world who shared her blood.
No matter what, she ought to go.
She took a moment to steady her emotions, exhaled deeply, and stepped out of the small dark room.
Only to run straight into Xi Yue, who was shamelessly eavesdropping.
Xi Yue showed no guilt for listening in, even lazily asking, “Who were you talking to?”
“The director.”
“You’re so close now that he calls you Ningning?”
Jiang Ning either genuinely didn’t catch the sarcasm in his tone or pretended not to. “It’s fine, just normal.”
Xi Yue’s expression turned sour. “What were you talking about?”
Jiang Ning made something up on the spot. “The director’s worried about getting attacked online, so he asked me to go to the hospital for a follow-up and post the results.”
Xi Yue: “What a coincidence, me too. Want to go together?”
Xi Yue was spouting nonsense with a straight face.
Leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, from his long legs to his waist, back, shoulders, and neck, he exuded a sharp, taut energy like a drawn bow—noble yet tinged with a careless, languid weariness.
Someone like Xi Yue, if he truly wanted to, could easily make any girl fall for him.
Jiang Ning didn’t consider herself particularly special. So why would someone like Xi Yue—a prodigy bathed in light and applause—cling to her like this?
Jiang Ning sighed and decided to tell the truth. “My granduncle is in critical condition. I need to go back.”
Xi Yue’s expression softened slightly. “How long will you be gone?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’ll take you.”
“No need, I’ve already booked a flight.”
Jiang Ning responded properly to everything Xi Yue said.
But for some reason, hearing her words made Xi Yue uncomfortable.
She always seemed to hold an indescribable sense of rejection and resistance toward him.
As if every sentence was a clear sign of shutting him out.
…
Jiang Ning wanted to hurry back as soon as possible.
But things didn’t go as planned. Her flight was delayed due to special circumstances, with no confirmed departure time.
Xi Yue: “Let me take you.”
Jiang Ning frowned, anxious but not showing it.
“I’ll go find my dad.”
Xi Yue: “Do you believe that if you ask him to take you now, you’ll never come back?”
It was true. Jiang Ning couldn’t argue.
She didn’t want to be trapped forever in Hong Kong either.
That place was once a dreamland for many mainlanders hoping to strike it rich.
But for Jiang Ning, it was a terrifying, gloomy prison.
“Can you stop rejecting me all the time?” Xi Yue’s tone was calm. “Apart from being a bit annoying, I won’t do anything to you.”
His voice lacked its usual nonchalance.
Jiang Ning opened her mouth but didn’t know how to explain.
It wasn’t that she wanted to reject him.
Nor was it that she found him annoying.
But if she really spoke it out, the relationship between them would become truly tangled and impossible to sort out.
…
The consequence of Jiang Ning not knowing how to explain was being forcefully taken by the increasingly bold Xi Yue onto his private jet, flying directly to Hong Kong.
Xi Yue had come along too.
Jiang Ning no longer had the energy to question him.
He always had all sorts of reasons.
The hospital’s disinfectant was pungent. To Jiang Ning, it felt like countless sharp needles piercing her nasal cavity, mercilessly eroding the psychological defenses of every patient and family member coming and going, making the atmosphere increasingly oppressive and despairing.
When Jiang Ning rushed over, only her grandaunt and relatives from that side were gathered around the hospital bed.
Her granduncle lay on the bed, kept alive by machines, clinging to his last breath.
Tubes were inserted all over his body, as if bound tightly by countless cold shackles.
The steady, slow beeping of the heart monitor inexplicably felt like a countdown stripping away life.
When the grandaunt saw Jiang Ning arrive, her expression turned unfriendly, but she still stood up from the bedside. “He has something to say to you.”
Her gaze shifted to the masked Xi Yue beside Jiang Ning. “Who is this?”
Jiang Ning: “A friend of mine.”
“Then go in alone.”
The grandaunt didn’t want to say more to her and ushered the room full of relatives outside.
Only Jiang Ning and her granduncle lying on the bed remained in the hospital room.
Her granduncle was very old, his cheeks sunken, his entire body exuding the lifeless aura of someone on the brink of death.
Jiang Ning walked over and took his hand. “Granduncle.”
He barely opened his eyes, his lips moving slightly, forming a mist on the oxygen mask.
But Jiang Ning could still make out the upward curve of his lips, the outline of a smile.
She heard him say, “Good child, all these years, you’ve worked hard.”
…
Xi Yue waited outside the hospital room for who knows how long, unaware of what Jiang Ning’s granduncle had said to her. After Jiang Ning called the group outside back in,
not long after,
a heart-wrenching, agonized cry erupted from the room.
Jiang Ning’s granduncle had passed away.
Xi Yue had no right to enter and could only watch from outside as medical staff surrounded the bed, performing final emergency measures.
Instinctively, Xi Yue peered through the door’s viewing window to gauge Jiang Ning’s reaction.
She had already been pushed to the outermost edge by the granduncle’s many relatives, her figure backlit, head bowed, her expression unclear.
Xi Yue heard Jiang Ning’s grandaunt let out a tearful, hoarse shout before shoving Jiang Ning. “Your family’s inferior genes!…”
Xi Yue instinctively moved to push the door open but saw Jiang Ning glance up at him.
That look held a silent yet unmistakable plea.
It made Xi Yue forcibly halt his hand, poised to push the door open.
Fortunately, Jiang Ning’s grandaunt only made that one rude and hysterical move before crouching down, covering her face and weeping.
Jiang Ning bore her grandaunt’s baseless anger alone.
It seemed like she was both allowing the other to vent and atoning for something.
The medical staff slowly filed out of the room, followed by the granduncle on the bed, now covered with a white sheet.
It took Xi Yue’s usually clear and logical mind quite a while to process what had happened.
He stopped one of the nurses and asked, “How did this patient pass away?”
The nurse glanced at him. “Severe depression. Wrist-cutting.”
Xi Yue’s fingertips trembled slightly.