ISWMQ – Chapter 129

After Zhang Nanchuan left, Rong Guang cautiously walked over to Chacha’s side.

Looking at Chacha’s condition, Rong Guang’s nose tingled, and tears began to stream down without her consent, falling in large drops.

She wiped them away haphazardly with her sleeve and carefully touched Chacha’s hand.

Ever since Chacha had been with her, she had never done any heavy labor again.

Rong Guang had spent nearly a year nurturing Chacha from her previously thin and small state to being fair and plump, healthy and happy. But in just a few hours…

Everything was gone.

Chacha’s head, arms, exposed calves, the tops of her feet, and even her chest were all wrapped in thick gauze.

Rong Guang couldn’t see the wounds hidden beneath the plaster, but the bruises all over Chacha’s body were clearly laid out before her eyes.

Now, Rong Guang finally understood why Chacha used to cry with heartache whenever she applied medicine to the bruises Rong Guang got from work.

She hardly knew where she could even touch.

In the end, Rong Guang could only gently touch Chacha’s fingertips.

Her fingertips were limp and weak, showing no sign of squeezing back.

There were still monitoring instruments attached. Rong Guang carefully examined the scrapes on Chacha’s face and said in a low voice, “Sister, pass me the medicine box over there.”

Chu Feiliang didn’t stop for a moment, constantly assisting Rong Guang.

Grandma Chu watched the scene inside the room, then beckoned to Chu Siyue and led her out.

Chu Siyue was also covered in injuries. Grandma Chu looked at her and asked softly, “Does it hurt?”

Chu Siyue shook her head, a weariness she didn’t show to outsiders finally surfacing. She held Grandma Chu’s hand and said, “Minor injuries. I’m fine.”

Grandma Chu stroked her hair.

Chu Siyue was a little dazed.

After a moment, she said, “If I had gone up a few minutes earlier, if I hadn’t waited for a while downstairs at the abandoned school building, I would have had a chance to pull Chacha back.”

Grandma Chu waited quietly for her to continue.

Chu Siyue said, “At that moment, I had already touched Chacha’s hand.”

Her fingertips tightened for a moment. After a while, she pressed her brow and said, “But Chacha pushed me away—she pushed me away before she fell.”

Otherwise, she would have fallen down with Chacha.

At that time, she had wanted to step forward and separate the three people who were tangled in a brawl.

But at that moment, the three of them, having almost lost all reason, were completely unaware that they had reached the edge of the rooftop.

The edge of the old school building actually had a regulation railing over sixty centimeters high.

On top of that, there was a one-meter-high iron fence. But due to years of disrepair, no one had expected the iron fence to be completely corroded. It couldn’t bear the weight of three people and simply gave way, sending them all falling.

Chu Siyue had grabbed Chacha’s hand just before they went down.

But she was pushed back.

That scene… she would never be able to forget it for the rest of her life.

The young girl fell before her eyes, her beautiful new dress fluttering in the air like a blooming flower.

But the flower fell onto the roof of her car and quietly closed its eyes.

Chu Siyue let out a long, long breath. The corners of her lips twitched, making it impossible to tell if she was crying or laughing.

Grandma Chu patted her shoulder and said after a moment, “You need to pay close attention to this matter.”

Chu Siyue’s eyes were filled with a cold light as she said sternly, “I know—I’ve known the name Jiang Lianming for a long time. Tiantian asked me to investigate him before. He has ties to Star Cluster. At the time, I thought he was Rong Guang’s stepfather and it wasn’t appropriate for me to interfere in her family affairs, so I didn’t investigate too deeply. Now…”

Chu Siyue gritted her teeth. The image of blood splattering like ink was impossible to erase from her mind. She said, “I know what I have to do. Please don’t worry.”

Grandma Chu finally nodded.

She looked inside through the small window on the wooden door and said after a moment, “Rong Guang is a good child. She knows what’s important.”

Chu Siyue recalled what Rong Guang had said earlier and also peered through the door.

After observing for a while, a hint of a smile finally appeared on her face. Seeing Chu Feiliang being ordered about by Rong Guang, she said with a smile, “Yes. And she’s always known how to handle Tiantian—they say Tiantian is always pushing her and provoking her, but when something really happens between them, Rong Guang is still more level-headed than Tiantian.”

Given Chu Feiliang’s current state, the busier she was, the less her mind would wander, and the more she would feel that she wasn’t being blamed.

Rong Guang was clearly aware of this, and she ordered people around with considerable ease.

Zhang Nanchuan’s arm was also dislocated.

After all, a person had fallen on him from a fifth-floor platform.

Li Mingming wasn’t very heavy, not even eighty jin, but with a distance of over ten meters from the fifth floor to the ground, it was the greatest of fortunes that such a large object falling on him hadn’t caused internal bleeding.

After leaving the room, Zhang Nanchuan subconsciously reached for his pocket, only to look up and see the no-smoking sign on the wall.

He sheepishly lowered his hand and, leaning on the arm that was wrapped up like a pillar, walked toward the corner.

Even though he was an adult, the gruesome sight of splattered blood and flying limbs had still shocked him.

But fortunately, it was a case of evil getting its just deserts—the two young girls had injuries of varying severity, but their lives were not in danger. With proper care and treatment, they could make a full recovery after being discharged.

As for the man, when he fell, he had the misfortune of landing on a broken piece of the iron fence. His body was practically torn to pieces—one arm was severed at the elbow, and he lost a foot and a lower leg respectively.

His life was saved, but from now on, without his legs and hands, he would be nothing but a cripple.

He deserved it.

Zhang Nanchuan walked toward the stairwell, an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips.

Pei Lingxi reached out and tightly gripped Zhang Nanchuan’s hand.

There was no wedding ring on her hand, not even the faint white line left by one, but the scars on that hand still made Zhang Nanchuan’s eyes sting with emotion. He recognized it at once.

He said in a low voice, “What’s wrong? Aren’t you going in to keep the old lady company?”

Pei Lingxi’s hand gripping Zhang Nanchuan’s was trembling. She said, “That little girl named Chacha, how old is she this year?”

Zhang Nanchuan took the cigarette from his mouth and frowned in thought for a moment. “Fifteen, I think. Not yet sixteen. Why?”

He only had a rough idea of Chacha’s age, guessing it was between fifteen and sixteen. She was definitely not over seventeen, but she also didn’t look like an undeveloped eleven or twelve-year-old, so he gave a reasonable range.

Before Pei Lingxi could even speak, her eyes had already turned red.

She gripped Zhang Nanchuan’s hand almost frantically and said, “I just heard—I heard that Chacha isn’t Rong Guang’s biological sister. Maybe she was found and adopted. Could she be Xixi? Huh?”

Zhang Nanchuan pursed his lips.

Then he sighed and said, “Lingxi, you’re overthinking it… As far as I know, Chacha had parents, they just died early. That’s how she was transferred to Rong Guang’s family and adopted.”

“But she has the exact same crush injury on her foot as Xixi!” Pei Lingxi finally burst into tears, clutching Zhang Nanchuan’s arm and sobbing, “I heard it, I heard the doctor say it—he said Chacha has a chronic crush injury on her ankle. When Xixi was one and a half, she had just learned to walk and ran into the courtyard by herself. The rear wheel of a reversing Audi ran over her foot. Her entire foot bone was shattered. Her foot had just healed when she was taken away… She was so little then… Chuan, I’m begging you, go ask, go ask her…”

“Rong Guang doesn’t know about the crush injury on Chacha. An injury that severe, if she were really a girl from the countryside, it’s impossible that no one in the entire village would know about it. I’m begging you… I’ve been looking for Xixi for ten years…”

Pei Lingxi slowly sank to the ground, burying her face in her knees and covering her face, crying her heart out.

Few people could understand her pain.

First, she had been busy in the kitchen and failed to look after her daughter, allowing her to suffer such a terrible injury. Then, she had lost her daughter.

A full twelve years.

For twelve years, self-blame and guilt had nearly driven her insane.

She was in and out of hospitals, at one point so severe that doctors had to forcibly hospitalize her for injection therapy. But that was just a vicious cycle. Later, her condition worsened daily. Only when she was on the road searching did she feel like she was atoning for her sins.

As Zhang Nanchuan listened, his expression changed too.

Frustration and years of guilt erupted suddenly, finally causing the spine of this always-diligent man to slump.

He took a deep breath, feeling a raw pain in his lungs.

“I’ll go talk to her.” Zhang Nanchuan’s dry lips parted. The unlit cigarette was already crushed into a ball in his clenched fist.

When he opened his hand, the tobacco inside slowly trickled through his fingers.

He subconsciously reached out to grab it again.

In a daze, he seemed to have returned to twelve years ago, to the moment when two-year-old Xixi was abducted by human traffickers right in front of him.

Several times, he had almost touched Xixi’s arm.

Soft and tender.

But countless times, that little hand reaching out to him had slipped away from his grasp.

He had a deep burn scar on his palm, a scar left from when he had frantically clutched a lit cigarette in his hand while chasing the traffickers.

He had never quit smoking all these years, but every time he touched a cigarette, he felt like he was stabbing himself in his own organs.

He was unwilling to let himself forget the past.

So he forced himself to remember.

He caught the tobacco.

Zhang Nanchuan stood up in a daze and said, “I’ll go talk to Rong Guang.”

Pei Lingxi raised her head.

She was a very beautiful woman.

But now, her temples were damp with sweat, and tear tracks had smeared her delicate eyeliner and foundation, creating a mess on her face, yet she no longer cared.

People hurried past, but in a place like a hospital, no one could stop to ask what was wrong.

Most people wanted to help but were powerless. Asking would only reveal more despair, and they couldn’t offer any real assistance.

Pei Lingxi wiped her tears, pushed herself up, licked her dry lips, and tugged on Zhang Nanchuan, saying, “I’ll go with you.”

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