Mrs. Zhou’s voice was full of broken anguish. Zhou Yanli didn’t even have the courage to look back at her as he left the room.
When he returned, he had a cup of warm milk in his hand.
Mrs. Zhou ignored him. Once she had made up her mind, she wouldn’t change it.
Nothing he did could move her.
“Mrs. Zhou, Wen Xin’s life has been saved. Once she’s recovered, I’ll talk to her about everything, little by little.”
He sounded as though he were making her a promise, but Mrs. Zhou remained unmoved.
Feeling the covers being pulled back, Lin Shu sensed Zhou Yanli getting into bed and wrapping his arms tightly around her from behind.
He was so warm, like a winter hearth pressed against her back.
Wave after wave of heat washed over her, but Mrs. Zhou remained unmoved.
His lips drew near and moved to her ear. His warm breath brushed her earlobe and swept across her cheek. They were so close that the fiery memories came flooding into Mrs. Zhou’s mind like ghosts.
“Once she’s better, we’ll have nothing more to do with each other. I’ll always be your husband, your one and only man.”
He kissed her gently. Mrs. Zhou didn’t respond.
It wasn’t until his hand touched her face that he felt the coolness on her skin.
She was crying—
Zhou Yanli knew he had neglected his young wife lately, and that only made him more eager to make it up to her.
He kissed her cheek, then her shoulder, and gently slipped off her clothes. Testing the waters, he saw no sign of refusal and wanted to go further.
Their embrace was reflected in the floor-to-ceiling window, blurred and indistinct.
Mrs. Zhou caught his wandering hand and silently turned to meet his eyes.
“Zhou Yanli, have you slept with her? How many times?”
His dark eyes were unreadable, their depths shadowed. The look he fixed on Mrs. Zhou was impossible to decipher.
Mrs. Zhou waited for his answer. She wanted to know whether every time he made love to her, he then hurried off to Wen Xin and was just as impatient with her as he had been tonight.
How could men be so unbothered by the thought of getting dirty?
Before Zhou Yanli could answer, his phone rang.
It was a call from over there. Zhou Yanli immediately pulled away and got out of bed.
The space beside Mrs. Zhou was empty. Zhou Yanli’s low voice sounded in her ear.
“Wen Xin?”
Ha—
It was happening again.
Mrs. Zhou didn’t even want to imagine what would happen next.
“Daddy, come back quickly. Auntie Wen is throwing up blood.”
It was Zhou Shuang’s voice.
Zhou Yanli hurriedly got dressed. Mrs. Zhou felt cold from head to toe.
“Something’s happened to Wen Xin. I have to get over there.”
Zhou Yanli didn’t even look at Mrs. Zhou again before rushing out.
The milk remained on the bedside table, as though the tenderness Zhou Yanli had shown her just moments ago had been nothing but an illusion.
Amid her heartbreak, Mrs. Zhou thought of her daughter.
Something had happened to Wen Xin, so of course Zhou Yanli would go over there and look after her.
Zhou Shuang was only five. Who would look after her?
Lin Shu immediately got up and changed.
“Madam, you’re going out this late?”
Seeing that Sir had just hurried out and Madam was now leaving too, Nanny Wu assumed Madam meant to chase after him and start a fight.
“Mm.”
She had no time to talk to Nanny Wu.
Zhou Yanli’s black sedan drove into the snowstorm, with Mrs. Zhou’s Ferrari behind it.
He drove fast and didn’t notice that the red sports car in his rearview mirror had at first managed to keep close behind him. As the road grew more and more slippery, the Ferrari finally stalled.
A streak of red stood out beneath the streetlights against the vast white of the winter night.
Worried about her daughter, Lin Shu hadn’t noticed the snow outside growing heavier.
Sitting in the car and feeling the cold seep in around her, she took out her phone and began calling Zhou Yanli.
All was silent. On a night this late and cold, there wasn’t a soul on the road.
There was barely any fuel left in the car, and dawn was still hours away. No matter how thick her clothes were, they wouldn’t keep her warm for long. Without the heat, she would freeze to death.
Zhou Yanli’s phone rang incessantly inside his car. Lin Shu’s name flashed on the screen.
He glanced at it. It wasn’t his daughter calling, so he didn’t answer.
Wen Xin was throwing up blood. She’d only had surgery that day, and everyone had said it went well. How could she be vomiting blood?
He wasn’t in the mood to talk to Lin Shu about love and family right now. He had to save Wen Xin.
Just as Wen Xin had once risked her life to save him.
Lin Shu kept calling Zhou Yanli. She wanted him to come back and take her with him to Pan San Road to see their daughter.
If something really was wrong, she could bring her daughter home.
But no matter how many times she dialed, no one answered.
It grew colder and colder in the car. In another ten minutes, she would be frozen stiff.
With no other choice, Lin Shu left the car, which could no longer drive, on the roadside and opened the door to get out.
Snow covered the entire street. With every difficult step Lin Shu took, heavy footprints appeared behind her. She walked through the storm, calling him as she went.
Her hands were so numb she could barely hold her phone, but no one answered.
Zhou Yanli reached Pan San Road as quickly as he could.
The black sedan drove into the courtyard. When the servants saw his car, they hurried out to open the door for him.
“Sir, Madam has thrown up so much blood.”
Zhou Yanli didn’t notice that the servant had changed the way she referred to Miss Wen, calling her Madam instead. He took the stairs two at a time.
The hired caregiver was cleaning up the blood and changing the sheets.
“Wen Xin—”
Inside the room, Wen Xin was being fed liquid food. Zhou Shuang held out the picture she had just finished drawing, her face alight with a sweet smile.
“Auntie Wen, look! This is you and Daddy, and this is me. I drew all of us playing at the amusement park.”
Wen Xin weakly pulled her lips into a smile.
The tragedy he had imagined hadn’t come to pass, and Zhou Yanli let out a slight breath of relief.
For a moment, he had thought something had happened to Wen Xin.
“President Zhou, Miss Wen threw up some old blood. We’ve also started her on an IV drip. She’s fine.”
Zhou Yanli walked to the bedside. Wen Xin smiled at him, her face pale. “I’m fine. Don’t worry.”
Her voice was so faint that Zhou Yanli could only make out what she meant from the movement of her lips.
“Daddy, don’t go again. What if something happens to Auntie Wen?”
Zhou Shuang wrapped her arms around Zhou Yanli, afraid he would leave again.
He stroked her little head and said calmly, “Don’t worry. Daddy will stay here with you and Auntie Wen.”
“Then if Mommy calls, you’re not allowed to answer, either.”
Zhou Shuang was afraid Lin Shu would call Zhou Yanli back again. He ran his thumb over the phone, then finally chose to turn it off.
“Okay. I won’t answer.”