Li Jian returned shortly after sending the phone for repairs. “The shop owner said the phone can still be repaired, but they don’t have the same motherboard in stock. It won’t arrive until tomorrow afternoon.”
That meant they wouldn’t get the phone back until the day after tomorrow.
“Understood,” Lan An felt somewhat irritable. He touched Qi Zhi’s forehead again; the fever had already subsided. “Li Jian will stay with you. I’m going out for a walk.”
“Sure,” Qi Zhi stuck his bottom out as he played with his new phone, not even lifting his head.
Watching Lan An leave the ward out of the corner of his eye, Qi Zhi let out a soft sigh. In his heart, he silently prayed that the original manuscript could be recovered; otherwise, given Lan An’s temperament, Qi Zhennan would truly be a goner.
Receiving an intravenous drip was incredibly boring, and it made him need to use the restroom frequently. Assisted by Li Jian, he went to the restroom and then finished a bowl of porridge. Lying down, Qi Zhi felt somewhat drowsy. In his daze, he seemed to hear Li Jian say: “There is still plenty of fluid left in the IV. I’m going out to smoke a cigarette; just call me if anything comes up.”
“Mmh.”
Qi Zhi offered a muddled response.
Li Jian walked out.
Immediately following that, Qi Zhi heard the clack-clack sound of high heels approaching. He didn’t pay it any mind until the footsteps came to a halt right by the bedside, and a heavy slap landed squarely on his face.
Stung awake by the pain, Qi Zhi opened his eyes. It turned out to be Rong Li Qi Ran’s biological mother, and his adoptive mother.
“Mom… Auntie.”
It wasn’t that Qi Zhi was unwilling to call her mom, but rather that Rong Li wouldn’t allow it. Her reason was that she feared Qi Ran would feel wronged in his heart if he heard it, so she made Qi Zhi change his form of address to uncle and auntie.
Qi Zhi had been sad for a very long time because of this, though he was a bit better now.
Although Rong Li was over fifty years old, she maintained herself exceptionally well. Having studied dance, she possessed a slender figure, and since she knew how to dress up, she looked glamorous and opulent.
At this moment, however, her face was deathly sullen. Pointing a well-manicured finger at Qi Zhi, she roared: “You still have the face to call me? The Qi family has raised you all these years with good food and drink even a dog would have developed feelings by now, wouldn’t it?! Yet what have you done? You ungrateful white-eyed wolf actually let an outsider beat and injure Ranran!”
As expected, it was because of Qi Ran.
Regardless of right or wrong, regardless of what had transpired, the sole fact that he wasn’t her biological child was enough for Rong Li to pin all the blame onto Qi Zhi.
His chest felt suffocatingly tight and uncomfortable. Clutching his face, Qi Zhi looked at Rong Li as his eyes gradually grew red and flooded with a watery mist.
He wanted to ask his mother: Could she really not see the injuries on his own face and body? Did the affection of the past twenty years truly amount to absolutely nothing in the face of blood relations?
But he couldn’t bring himself to ask.
He had long known the answer.
“You still have the face to cry? You still have the audacity to weep?”
Rong Li seemed to have forgotten that switching the identity tags at birth wasn’t Qi Zhi’s fault, and she had also forgotten that Qi Zhi had also called her mother for the past twenty years. At this moment, she only wished to vent her fury.
“Kneel down for me! Go and kneel before Ranran to apologize, or else don’t even think about stepping foot into the Qi family home ever again!”
Disregarding the fact that Qi Zhi was still hooked up to an IV, Rong Li grabbed him by the collar and dragged him straight off the bed toward the floor.
Qi Zhi hurriedly ripped out the IV needle. With red eyes, he asked Rong Li in a choked voice, “Why should I apologize to him? Just because he is the biological one and I am not, you can completely ignore right and wrong?”
“Yes!”
At this moment, Rong Li’s mind was entirely filled with the image of Qi Ran, who after being injured, had called her mother in a thoroughly aggrieved manner and said it hurt so much. Gripping Qi Zhi’s clothes, she dragged him outward with all her might. “Just how much money did the Qi family spend to raise you? All of this is what you owe Ranran! Even if it is his fault, even if he slashes you with a knife, you have no right to strike back all of this is what you owe him!”
“…Is that so?”
Being dragged along, Qi Zhi didn’t resist. Tears spilled from his eyes, and his heart throbbed with sharp, wrenching pangs.
He had never imagined that the mother who once held him in the palm of her hand like a treasure would utter such words.
“What are you doing?!”
Just as they were about to exit the ward, a nurse on duty saw them. Hurriedly pulling Rong Li’s hand away, she supported the swaying Qi Zhi. “Is there anything that can’t wait until he recovers from his illness? Do you absolutely have to make a scene in the hospital?!”
“Hmph!”
Rong Li was also a person who cared about her public image; seeing this, she had no choice but to release her grip. However, she was genuinely furious, and her sharp high heel kicked viciously against Qi Zhi’s already sprained calf.
Qi Zhi’s face instantly turned pale from the pain.
Rong Li didn’t care in the slightest, her sharp words wounding Qi Zhi’s heart time and time again: “You must apologize to Ranran, or else don’t ever think about stepping foot into the Qi family home again!”
Having said her piece, she trod away in her high heels without looking back, leaving Qi Zhi with nothing but a cold, detached silhouette.
“Mom…”
The physical pain was far less agonizing than the heartache. Unable to endure it any longer, Qi Zhi slumped onto the floor, buried his head into the crook of his arms, and began to wail loudly.
Just as the nurse was about to comfort him, Lan An happened to return. “What’s going on again? Why are you sitting at the doorway?”
Only then did he realize that Li Jian was actually not around.
“Who provoked you this time?” Lan An hoisted the person up and placed him back onto the hospital bed, and the nurse changed the needle to re-administer his IV.
“Wu, wu, wu, wu~~~” Qi Zhi didn’t lift his head, weeping sorrowfully.
“Cry, cry, cry all you know is how to cry,” Lan An didn’t have much patience. He grabbed Qi Zhi by the back of his neck, forcing him to lift his head, only to see that new injuries had actually been added to the cheeks that had already been beaten black and blue by Qi Ran.
A palm print accompanied by bloody scratches one look told him it was scraped by a woman’s fingernails.
“Who struck you?” Lan An’s face instantly froze over with coldness.
“Mom… it’s Qi Ran’s mother,” Qi Zhi tilted his head up, looking at Lan An with tear-filled eyes. “Because of… Qi Ran.”
“If she strikes you, can you not dodge? If she curses at you, can you not talk back? What use is crying?!” Lan An felt exasperated by his failure to show resolve. “Weren’t you incredibly badass when you were writing my character settings? Slaying your biological brother, crushing your old man even when struck by a bullet, you could dig it out with your bare hands!”
Yet the author himself was actually this useless.
“Wah—!” Qi Zhi was already feeling incredibly miserable, and now being scolded by Lan An, he tilted his head back, opened his mouth wide, and wept even more brokenheartedly.
“What else do you know how to do besides crying?” Lan An released his grip.
“Wu~~~”
“Stop crying,” Lan An’s eyelids twitched; he was annoyed to the extreme.
“Wu, wu—”
Lan An: “…”
How could someone simultaneously emit the sounds of both a boiling kettle and an air-raid siren?
Lan An endured it for a short while, but truly unable to stand it any longer and seeing that the nurse had already inserted the IV needle, he simply clamped his hand tightly over Qi Zhi’s mouth, forcing him to stop making those demonic noises.
“Wu, wu~~” Unable to make a sound, Qi Zhi sobbed forcefully.
“If you cry any further, I’ll send you straight to Qi Ran’s ward right now and let the entire Qi family beat you up together,” Lan An threatened textually with vicious intent.
Qi Zhi instantly ceased his sobbing. Rolling with tears, he pried at Lan An’s hand. “Don’t, I’m not going.”
Lan An: “Then are you going to keep crying or not?”
“No… no more crying, hic~” Qi Zhi let out a crying hiccup, forcing himself not to make a sound. His entire face flushed completely red, yet his tears couldn’t stop rolling down.
“No… no more crying, please don’t… send me over there.”
Wiping away his tears, he exerted an effort to curl up the corners of his mouth, looking exactly like a pitiful stray dog that was terrified of being abandoned and had no choice but to try its hardest to behave well.
Seeing this, Lan An’s heart softened slightly. He gently touched Qi Zhi’s flushed face. “Does it hurt?”
“It hurts,” Qi Zhi already had injuries on his face to begin with, and having been slapped heavily by Rong Li, how could it not hurt? “And my leg, it was also kicked so hard that it hurts terribly.”
Lan An pulled up his pant leg, only to see a large patch of bruising on his calf.
Seeing this, the nurse beside them said, “Lie down properly for your IV. I’ll go get some medicine to treat it for you.”
“Th… thank you,” Qi Zhi lay down obediently, using one hand to tug tightly at Lan An’s sleeve. “You… don’t leave, I’m scared I’ll get beaten up again.”
“I won’t leave,” Lan An sat down by the bedside, letting Qi Zhi tug at his sleeve. His gaze drifted out the window, his expression gloomy, completely unreadable as to what he was thinking.
After the IV was finished and they had collected some medication, Lan An escorted Qi Zhi back to the school, arriving just as the dormitory was about to close.
After a simple wash-up, Lan An personally hoisted Qi Zhi up onto his bed. “Qi Ran probably won’t be back for the next few days; you can rest well.”
Qi Zhi’s pair of eyes were still red, and he nodded obediently: “Alright.”
Neither of them proactively brought up the matter of the novel’s original manuscript.
…
The Next Day
With Qi Ran injured, Zhang Dong also hadn’t returned to the dormitory for the time being, and who knew where Zhuang Yuexiang had run off to. When Qi Zhi got up, the dormitory was completely empty—just him alone.
Quite nice, peaceful and quiet!
Ding-dong—
The new phone suddenly emitted a sound; it was a message from Lan An: 【A caregiver named Lu Yuan will come shortly to substitute for Li Jian. If you need anything, just look for him.】
Knock, knock, knock.
The sound of knocking on the door echoed right on cue, and a unfamiliar male voice drifted inside: “Hello, Mr. Qi Zhi, my name is Lu Yuan, I am the newly arrived caregiver.”
…
The phone that had fallen into the water was only repaired on the third day. The motherboard had been replaced, and all data had been completely wiped.
It didn’t matter anymore. Qi Zhi had checked on the computer the original manuscript was still there. It was estimated that because Qi Zhennan had been too furious at the time, he had dropped the phone into the water after deleting the draft without clicking to save the changes.
That was for the best; it spared him from being beaten to death alive by Lan An.
…
A week later, Rong Li personally escorted Qi Ran back. Accompanying them was a servant carrying numerous large and small bags of nutritional foods.
“A head injury can be big or small; if you feel uncomfortable, tell Mom immediately,” Rong Li didn’t spare a single glance at Qi Zhi throughout the entire process, merely comforting Qi Ran in a soft, soliloquizing murmur: “For the upcoming period of time, don’t overexert your brain either. Nothing is more important than your health.”
“I know, Mom, you don’t need to worry,” Qi Ran glanced at Qi Zhi, who had his back turned toward them and was reading a book, deliberately biting down heavily on the word ‘Mom’ his tone filled to the brim with mocking irony.
Before leaving, Rong Li finally looked toward Qi Zhi, but it was to deliver a harsh, severe warning: “You keep your hands to yourself and behave. If you bully Xiao Ran again, see if I don’t beat you to death.”
She had actually wanted to change dormitories for Xiao Ran, or else have him move out to live.
However, Xiao Ran was unwilling, even saying that after a long time, Qi Zhi would accept him; they would be family in the future, and making things look too ugly wasn’t good either.
Just how magnanimous and kind-hearted was Xiao Ran?
Looking at Qi Zhi again she had been inside for this half of a day, yet he hadn’t even turned his head once, let alone call her a single time.
As expected of someone who wasn’t her biological child; raising him was completely in vain he was a thorough and total white-eyed wolf.
Then again, if the seed itself is rotten, how could a good sprout ever grow from it?
Rong Li didn’t count on Qi Zhi responding to her either. Treading away in her high heels, she departed with the servant.
The moment Rong Li left, Qi Ran relaxed, no longer acting like a well-behaved child. Sitting on his chair with his legs crossed, he asked Qi Zhi with a smile, “I heard you were beaten by Mom? Did it feel good?”
Qi Zhi turned his head, casting a glance toward his skull: “Is the hole on your head healed? Has the hair grown back? Did it leave a scar? Won’t Qi Zhennan loathe you for being ugly?”
“You…”
Qi Ran subconsciously touched the position where his head had been injured.
Because medication had to be applied, the hair near the wound had all been shaved off. Viewed from behind, it looked exactly as if a patch had gone bald; he himself felt it was ugly when he looked in the mirror.
Consequently, he had been unwilling to see Qi Zhennan these past few days, wishing to wait until his hair grew back out first.
Qi Zhennan was somewhat of a perfectionist; seeing him missing a patch of hair would inevitably cause him to feel distaste.
“A piece of garbage that nobody wants, what is there to be proud of?” Since his sarcasm hadn’t achieved its purpose, Qi Ran could only seize upon the point that Qi Zhi was unwanted and jab at it ruthlessly.
…