DLRAS Chapter 104

Chapter 104: Not only these

It wasn’t just these things.

Huo Niansheng had seen the dressings covering his face after the gauze was removed; he had seen the empty, cavernous eye socket after his eye was removed; he had seen him go through one plastic surgery after another, smashing the room to pieces in his unbearable agony.

Those were dreams of the past. Now, what Huo Niansheng felt was hatred. The man had been perfectly fine when he left the house that morning, and in less than half a day, he had encountered such danger.

Chen Wengang had said that having a bodyguard follow him everywhere looked improper, and since Huo Kaishan had passed away, Huo Niansheng hadn’t kept Kang Ming with him.

But on a day like today, how could he have been so careless? Putting Chen Wengang in a position to interact with Zheng Yucheng and the He family—what could possibly go right?

What a disaster!

Just then, Zheng Yucheng insisted on stepping into the line of fire—

He pushed the door to the outer suite of the hospital room open a crack. Zheng Baoqiu hesitated, trying to block him: “Hey, Brother, that…”

In this suite, they were all “brothers” of some sort; she stood at the doorway, looking troubled.

Zheng Yucheng brushed his sister’s shoulder aside, insistent. “I’m just going in to see him for a moment.”

Huo Niansheng took a few steps over and blocked the doorway, preventing him from entering. “Family being here is enough.”

Their gazes locked in the air for a moment.

Huo Niansheng leaned against the doorframe, hands in his pockets, one long leg stretched out to block the opposite side. He was practically wearing the word “slacker” on his forehead. He looked at Zheng Yucheng with a smile: “An outsider arrives and interrupts. Can’t you let the patient rest?”

Zheng Yucheng darkened his face, confronting him: “I don’t think our Zheng family qualifies as ‘outsiders’ to him.”

Huo Niansheng was too impatient to argue with him: “And so? What do you want to see? See that he just hit his head and didn’t get disfigured or blinded, and end up disappointed?”

That sounded strange. Zheng Yucheng felt he was cursing someone: “Huo Niansheng, damn it, don’t speak so maliciously!”

Just then, the door pushed open again. It was He Wanxin, who walked gracefully into the tense standoff.

She was still wearing her custom-made cocktail dress. For today’s engagement, she had applied an elegant makeup look, though after a day of running around, it no longer looked quite natural; the powder was visible on her pale cheeks, and her eyelashes were brushed into two heavy, black fans.

“This is malicious?” Huo Niansheng glanced at her, then back to Zheng Yucheng. “You can’t even handle just hearing it?”

“At least I know that if a person truly loves someone, they wouldn’t have the heart to curse them like that,” Zheng Yucheng glared at him.

“Yucheng, didn’t you hear?” He Wanxin had assessed the situation with just a glance. Her eyes rolled, and she looped her arm through her fiancé’s, covering her mouth to laugh. “They’re practically driving us away with a broom, and you’re still here, offering your hot face to a cold backside. Aren’t you being pathetic?”

She tugged at Zheng Yucheng: “Let’s just go.”

Huo Niansheng turned his gaze to her, his expression actually softening.

He smiled: “Coincidentally, I was just about to have someone send a message to Miss He. Looks like the two of us ran into each other here first.”

He Wanxin knew her place and didn’t ask whom he had sent the message to. “Hi, long time no see. I didn’t get to congratulate you on your ‘new marriage’.”

With the three of them forming a standoff, Zheng Maoxun marveled internally, watching it all like a rare, once-in-a-lifetime show.

Zheng Baoqiu finally snapped to her senses: “Alright… can you all not crowd into the hospital room? If the nurse comes by, she’s going to start hitting people.”

At that, Huo Niansheng pulled back his leg and stepped aside from the door. “Yes, everyone should hurry back.”

Zheng Baoqiu grabbed her second brother from the sofa and pushed her eldest brother out. She didn’t want the situation to get any uglier, and there was a pile of trouble back home that needed solving. Before leaving, Zheng Yucheng still wouldn’t give up, glancing at Huo Niansheng: “Don’t think that…”

Huo Niansheng interrupted: “The two of you are a perfect match. I look forward to your good news.”

He Wanxin hugged her fiancé’s arm coldly: “Yucheng, let’s go.”

Amanda brought fresh clothes from home for her boss. When she arrived, Huo Niansheng was not in the ward.

He had gone downstairs to a deserted spot to smoke a cigarette.

Huo Niansheng hadn’t originally had an obsession with smoking; he hadn’t even specifically thought about quitting or anything of the sort. It was just that whenever he lit up, Chen Wengang would always lean in. Huo Niansheng couldn’t be bothered to refuse him every single time, and at some point, it had become the way it was now.

Thinking about it now, the other person had changed him in more than just this one way; in fact, he was already a man completely transformed.

The hospital grounds remained the same—willows, ponds—but since summer had passed, everything looked a bit withered.

Huo Niansheng walked around the water, thinking about some things in his head, or perhaps his mind was just a blank.

When he returned to the ward, Chen Wengang was still asleep.

Huo Niansheng pulled the armchair to the bedside, the back of the chair against the wall, positioning himself in the same direction. He sat down, stretching his legs out and crossing them. When Amanda walked in with the medical chart, she paused for a moment. Huo Niansheng had plucked a few small flowers from somewhere. With his elbow propped on the headboard and his body leaning over, he playfully tucked the little white-petaled, yellow-centered flowers into Chen Wengang’s hair.

Thinking back to the boss who had flown into a rage in the office two hours ago upon hearing the news, she didn’t know what to make of this.

What could she say? Split personality?

Early the next morning, Chen Wengang opened his eyes. As he moved his fingers, he found a flower inexplicably still in his palm, already a bit wilted.

Just as he was raising it to his eyes in confusion, Huo Niansheng walked in, yawning: “How are you still waking up so early when you’re the one who’s injured?”

Chen Wengang smiled, pursing his lips, his eyes shining brightly as he looked at him: “I’ve been sleeping since yesterday afternoon.”

Huo Niansheng leaned over the bed and kissed his dry lips: “What do you want to eat this morning?”

Only then did the feeling of having survived a disaster truly set in. Chen Wengang hugged his neck and kissed him lightly.

Suddenly, the door sounded, interrupting the two. He immediately let go. A nurse knocked twice and pushed a cart in to perform a checkup.

She asked how the patient felt. Chen Wengang said he was much better, only still feeling dizzy. He felt a bit guilty; the little nurse didn’t notice, saying dizziness was normal. When she changed his dressing, she even jokingly comforted him, saying his hair would grow back soon. This patient was a VIP instructed by the dean, handsome and polite, very likable, so the nurses coming for rounds all treated him with kindness.

But Chen Wengang couldn’t play with his phone or watch TV for the time being. Aside from Huo Niansheng keeping him company with chatter, he could only sit up and read for a while.

Fortunately, he could endure the loneliness and didn’t feel bored; he even had a sense of familiarity. Looking back, he realized that some years in his past life had been spent exactly like this. He read silently in the hospital room, asking for nothing, while Huo Niansheng sat to the side, finding topics to talk to him about. Later, the place where he read changed to the mountainside villa. Chen Wengang lived in seclusion, and Huo Niansheng couldn’t come every day. When Huo Niansheng came, he hoped he would disappear or leave; when Huo Niansheng didn’t come, he felt that having someone nearby to talk to was nice too.

Only when looking back at the past did he realize that everything had remained there, not faded, but he had never dared to look back.

Chen Wengang finished two detective novels in the hospital ward and told Huo Niansheng his guesses about the killer.

At the same time, he missed the liveliest news outside.

The attacker who had attempted self-immolation at the Zheng-He engagement had been arrested and brought to justice.

The man’s family background, motive, and whether he had been instigated by others still required further investigation, but that the Zheng Group had been targeted for revenge was an indisputable fact—and it was sensational enough to grab attention. Journalists had been writing about it extensively from the day of the incident.

However, the first to publish the story was a traditional media outlet known for social reporting and in-depth coverage. Most online media outlets that followed merely reprinted their copy, so the news style remained relatively serious. This included a series of follow-up reports that consistently revolved around the investigation results of the shipwreck accident and the management problems of the Zheng Group. In the leaked footage from the scene, the parts showing the child and Chen Wengang were all pixelated.

Although many people asked which courageous guest had stepped forward, Chen Wengang’s identity was never exposed.

If his past history with Zheng Yucheng had been deliberately dug up and fed to gossiping paparazzi, it might have been framed differently as a romantic love triangle with He Wanxin.

What no one expected was that another matter would quickly overshadow the news.

Two days after the attack, a local tabloid famous for alarmism released a message on its media account. Capitalizing on the heat of the Zheng family prince’s engagement accident, it claimed that his fiancée was no simple character—if anyone deserved to be targeted for revenge, it should have been her.

Curious onlookers began to ask questions below.

Immediately, He Wanxin’s past was exposed on a massive scale—with so many mouths, some said her background was illegitimate, an unofficial daughter; others said she was arrogant and domineering, fond of flaunting her wealth. Other things could only be considered controversial, but her true dark history lay in her bullying of classmates during her school days.

The heat that the Zheng Group’s PR department hadn’t yet managed to suppress surged up once more, like a stone causing a thousand waves.

A keen-nosed reporter found the victims of those years in a very short time, confirming that the incidents had indeed occurred.

Even the perpetrator who had led the bullying came forward, also pointing out that He Wanxin could not escape the charge of incitement. Years later, those who had been egged on always came to their senses. The perpetrator cried on video, claiming that she and her family had already paid the price they deserved, but the true mastermind had never received any substantial punishment and was still living freely to this day. They asked whether this was consistent with legal and moral principles.

This in turn triggered a condemnation of the issue of campus bullying in society, with many experts and social groups calling for it to be taken seriously.

The child who had been taken hostage on the day of the engagement banquet had been terrified and only recovered after some time. Her parents brought her to the hospital to visit Chen Wengang once. She sat in Chen Wengang’s lap eating an apple, listening to the adults talk about things she couldn’t understand.

Only after the family left did Chen Wengang learn about all this chaotic mess outside.

He asked Huo Niansheng: “Did you instigate this?”

Huo Niansheng peeled another apple for him: “If you don’t want people to know, you shouldn’t have done it in the first place. No one wronged her, did they?”

The sharp fruit knife was played like a weapon in his hand. The long peel hung down bit by bit, then suddenly broke and fell to the ground.

Huo Niansheng stared at the apple in his hand, studying it, then turned to look at Chen Wengang: “Aren’t you curious whether the two families will still go through with the marriage?”

Chen Wengang took it with both hands and smiled: “Of course, I hope it doesn’t happen. Young Master Huo, you’re just afraid the world won’t be chaotic enough—you’re afraid there’s no spectacle to watch. I, however, have to worry about Zheng Baoqiu; with such a restless sister-in-law, won’t I have to worry about it every day?”

Huo Niansheng laughed and picked the apple peel up from the floor.

Chen Wengang asked for the knife from his hand, split the apple in half, and gave Huo Niansheng half.

He didn’t want to stay in the hospital any longer, but he was pinned down by Huo Niansheng and ended up staying for ten days to half a month before he was discharged and returned home.

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Author’s Note:

Chapter 36, Tagore’s poem—

Someone has quietly placed a flower of love in my hand.

Someone has stolen my heart and cast it to the ends of the earth.

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