It was right that Lu Boyan had his concerns.
It had only been a while after he left that Su Jianan vomited again, including everything she had for breakfast. This time, she threw up non-stop. In the afternoon, she was nearly dehydrated. Dr. Han had no choice but to put her on an IV.
“This doesn’t seem right.” Aunt Liu looked at Su Jianan caringly. “I am calling the young master.”
“Aunt Liu,” Su Jianan stopped Aunt Liu while shaking her head, “I checked his schedule. He has a very important meeting this afternoon. Let’s not disturb him.”
“But…”
Su Jianan understood what Aunt Liu was worried about, so she put on a smile. “Just invite Old Madam to come over.”
With Tang Yulan present, Aunt Liu and the other workers would not be too panicked.
After receiving the phone call, Tang Yulan went to Dingya Villas very quickly, as if she had taken a rocket. Seeing Su Jianan, who was fine the day before, pale and lying in bed, Tang Yulan was heartbroken and helpless. “Jianan, it must be hard for you.”
Su Jianan grinned. “It’s okay, Mom. I am good. Don’t be so worried.”
At first, she had borne all the pressure and misunderstanding and she had gotten through it. Now, she had Lu Boyan and Tang Yulan with her, and Luo Xiaoxi had come back. Also, Lu Enterprises had overcome two major crises. All she needed to do was keep her children safe and sound.
There was no reason that she couldn’t get through this.
Tang Yulan patted Su Jianan’s hand, feeling relieved. “When these two little guys come along, I must go tell your mom. Oh, right. When do Yicheng and Xiaoxi plan on having a child? When your mom knows that she is going to have her own grandchild, she will be thrilled.”
In the past, Su Jianan had always avoided talking to her mother. Whenever she had thought of things that happened 10 years ago, she would feel sad.
But now, maybe because all the happiness she had been having took up all the space in her heart and healed her, she didn’t feel sad anymore. She just missed her mom, and that was all.
She smirked and said, “I think Xiaoxi wants to focus on her job first, so they probably won’t be thinking about that right now.”
Tang Yulan pondered over this matter and smiled. “Yeah. Young people like you guys wouldn’t want to rush into having babies. But it doesn’t matter. As long as you are happy with each other, you can have babies anytime.” She then tucked in Su Jianan’s blanket. “Have some rest. I’m here for you.”
Su Jianan nodded and closed her eyes.
When she was almost asleep, she heard the phone ring. It was Tang Yulan talking gently and softly. “…Yeah, it’s me. Jianan is sleeping. No worries. I am here taking care of her…”
It went without saying that it was Lu Boyan calling. Seemingly, he was calling right before the conference when he had little time.
Su Jianan smiled and fell asleep peacefully.
……
……
In the private hospital…
The painkillers wore off. Xu Youning felt painful as hell again. She gritted her teeth, gripping the bed sheet, and was bathed in cold sweat unstoppably.
Even the care worker felt sad for her. “Miss. Xu, just take another painkiller.”
Xu Youning shook her head. “No, I will take it tonight.”
Painkillers have side effects. She couldn’t be over-reliant on that.
On the contrary, she needed to train her pain-suffering ability. This kind of pain could be one training test for her.
The caretaker shook her head, feeling that is was unbelievable. “How are you gonna take this?”
Xu Youning beamed with stiffness. “I have my way.”
The way was to think of something delightful. Like this morning, the police released an announcement, saying that after examination and investigation, the explosive found on the scene of the collapse incident of Fanting Garden was confirmed to be a new type of bomb with destructive power.
It indicated that the incident had been from a human cause, and it had nothing to do with the constructor and Lu Enterprises.
In the afternoon, Lu Enterprises hosted a press conference as they had promised, which Lu Boyan attended for only five minutes.
Within those five minutes, he answered a few direct questions. At last, one of the reporters asked, “Boss Lu, the truth has come out in the wash. How do you feel?”
Lu Boyan took a few seconds to think over the question and said at rapid speed, “Lu Enterprises Property Agency will not forget our own promise: To build an unshakable home that would never collapse within the property rights period for the people in this city. We will make our best effort to enhance our work.”
He left after saying this, leaving the rest for Shen Yuechuan to deal with.
Lu Boyan’s speech and the investigation result that the police had released were able to solve the crisis of confidence of Lu Enterprises.
To alleviate the pressure of guilt, Xu Youning kept thinking of these things, resulting in her forgetting the pain she had been suffering.
At 11 p.m., when Xu Youning was about to take a painkiller before going to bed, simultaneously, she got a message on her phone.
She read the text and told the night-shift care worker, “Aunt Liu, you can go now. Take some rest.”
“What?” Aunt Liu thought that Xu Youning was a bit unconscious because of the pain. “Miss Xu, maybe I should ask the doctor to check on you.”
“I’ve taken the painkiller already. It’s likely that I will sleep soundly, so I don’t really need to be taken care of during my sleeping time.” Xu Youning grinned. “Aunt Liu, you have reached a certain age that sleeping in a hospital would be bad for you. Also, don’t you have a grandchild to take care of at home?”
After consideration, Aunt Liu took off her care worker uniform. “Then, I will come by tomorrow morning. And by the way, I live nearby. So if you need anything during the night, just call me. I will have my phone on.”
“Okay,” Xu Youning said. Aunt Liu left the ward. Immediately, she opened an application on her phone to delete the message she had just received. This app could assure that there would not be any threads of the prior existence of the message. Even if someone looked into it, they wouldn’t be able to find out that Kang Ruicheng had texted her.
Kang Ruicheng texted her that he was coming.
Xu Youning had already known why he was coming. The moment she decided to turn that thing in to Mu Sijue, she was mentally prepared.
Thinking of that, Xu Youning took another painkiller, lay on the bed, and closed her eyes.
In a distant future from now, she would be locked up in a tiny room, thinking of the days when she could still see the sunlight. And today would be the day that came to her mind. She would be impressed by herself that even though she had known that she was in trouble, she could still fall asleep.
At night, Xu Youning was shocked and woke up. She opened her eyes, and there was a tall guy standing next to her bed. That guy came with some light cigarette smoke and the atmosphere of death and threats.
Fear was like a vine spreading, twining around Xu Youning’s heart in baby steps. She clenched her fists under the blanket. Looking through the darkness, her gaze landed straight on this guy in front of her, for whom she had once madly crazed.
“Why did you do that?” Kang Ruicheng asked, without any emotions.
“Last time, Jianan and Lu Boyan nearly divorced because of me. I owed it to them.” Xu Youning seemed calm. “What are you gonna do to me? Whatever it is, I will take it.”
“What am I gonna do?” In the dark, every word he spat out was like ice. “A Ning, I brought that thing back to the nation from the factory, and had it explode in Fanting Garden. Do you have any idea of how much time and effort I had to put in to make it work? And you just wrapped it up and turned it in. All of a sudden, Lu Enterprises is clean, and everything I did was useless!”
“If I could choose again, I would have still turned it in.” Xu Youning looked away. “I can keep spying on Mu Sijue. But I can no longer do anything that might hurt Jianan.”
For Kang Ruicheng, it wasn’t a surprise that Xu Youning rejected him. That’s why when he had to ask her to look into Lu Enterprises, he hadn’t told Xu Youning what that information would be used for. If he had told her, Xu Youning would surely not have given that information to him if she had found out.
“A Ning, I am disappointed in you.” Kang Ruicheng pressed on Xu Youning’s injured leg. “You forgot the ultimate requirement for you people—be emotionless. But it’s not your emotion affecting your rationality.”
Xu Youning’s wound was painful already. So she nearly screamed when Kang Ruicheng pressed on her wound.
But after all these years, the best outcome of what she learned was endurance. She held back her screams back. “Even animals have emotions. You think everyone is like you? So monstrous that you abandoned your own four-year-old son in the US.”
“You have no ground to give me a lesson!” Kang Ruicheng pressed her even more vigorously. “A Ning, that dumbass, Han Ruoxi, failed. Now, you are the only one who can easily get in touch with Su Jianan…”
There was a moment that Xu Youning forgot the pain in her leg when she stared at Kang Ruicheng furiously. “What do you want?”
“I want you to kill Su Jianan’s unborn babies,” Kang Ruicheng said, remaining calm, yet cold, as if he was just talking about something normal.
“Not gonna happen!” Xu Youning rejected him without the least hesitation. “Kang Ruicheng, I would rather be killed than do something so sick.”
Seemingly, the answer of “no” was expected by Kang Ruicheng. He smirked and said, “Then let go of Mu Sijue, retarget him, and help me deal with him. This you can do, right?”
Xu Youning understood that Kang Ruicheng was playing mind games. He was her boss. She had rejected his order once. It wouldn’t make sense if she rejected him one more time, let alone that Kang Ruicheng was suspicious. If she held back, she would be highly suspected.
“Without saying it, I would let go of him, and retarget him.” Xu Youning looked down and said plainly, “Don’t worry. I can do this.”
“Great.” He was smiling with satisfaction. But even then, Kang Ruicheng still looked creepy. Xu Youning had a bad feeling. Expectedly, the next thing he said was, “I am glad that you are still so submissive. However, you turned the evidence in. I can’t let you go like this. Gotta set an example for other people who worked for me, right?”
Xu Youning was in a cold sweat. “What do you want?”
Kang Ruicheng pulled his hand out from the pocket of his coat. He was holding a little glass bottle, in which was an infusion needle and a tube swirling around the bottle lip.
“No…” Xu Youning wanted to escape from him, but she couldn’t move at all.
Kang Ruicheng ignored her resistance. He pressed the bottle lip against her neck. The colorless liquid inside the bottle was slowly injected into Xu Youning’s body.
“A new toy. I was worried that I couldn’t find people to test it on.” Kang Ruicheng stared at Xu Youning with contentment. “Get a good feel of it. I will need a detailed report.”
Kang Ruicheng left the ward after speaking.
Xu Youning switched on the light on the nightstand and drank down a few glasses of water. And that was when it came to her that this was a drug that had been studied and enhanced by Kang Ruicheng. Drinking water was, of course, useless.
Xu Youning’s hand trembled when she was in deep thought, and the glass dropped on the floor and broke.
Consecutively, she broke out in a cold sweat. Then, an unbearable pain swept all over her body.
