Chapter 90#
Chapter 90#
The ambulance took Zhao Rong to the nearest hospital.
His injuries were all external, the most serious being a knife wound to the abdomen. It looked horrific, but fortunately, Zhao Rong had blocked it in time, so it hadn’t reached his internal organs.
Compared to the hardships he had endured in the past, these external injuries were hardly worth mentioning. Despite the intense pain, he didn’t let out a single groan.
As the doctor was cleaning the wound, seeing his pale face and clenched teeth, they asked, “Doesn’t it hurt?”
Zhao Rong actually smiled. His voice was very weak, but his tone was exceptionally calm: “It hurts.”
Once the wounds were treated, two young nurses walked out carrying their equipment, whispering that it was their first time seeing a patient with such severe external injuries remain so quiet, as if they were a gentle person who hadn’t been injured at all.
The doctor assigned Zhao Rong a ward for temporary rest.
With the pain medication and the recent turmoil, Zhao Rong was exhausted.
However, being alone in the hospital, a sense of unease surrounded him, fighting against his physical condition and making it nearly impossible to fall asleep.
He simply cooperated with the police officers who had come to investigate and finished his statement.
After the police left, the hospital staff asked if there were any relatives they needed to contact. He instinctively reached for his pocket but only touched the hospital gown he had just changed into—to win Chen Jingnian’s trust and keep him in place, he had thrown his phone away.
The nurse asked if he needed to use someone else’s phone to log into his social media accounts to find friends. Zhao Rong, pale-faced, thought for a moment and refused.
In a state of drowsiness, he recited a phone number that he could remember instinctively without needing to check a phone.
After giving the number, he actually felt at ease, and in his dazed state, he was overwhelmed by sleep.
This sleep was particularly deep.
He didn’t even know how long he had slept. He thought that seeing Chen Jingnian today would surely make him sleep lightly and worry a lot, but the opposite was true.
When he woke up, he felt as if he had experienced a dreamless night.
It seemed to be late at night.
Before Zhao Rong even opened his eyes, he could feel that the surrounding light was very dim, like a warm nightlight—weak and not at all piercing.
The effect of the pain medication seemed to be wearing off. That long-lasting, tearing pain was slowly surging up. He frowned, closing his eyes to clear his head from the sleepiness for a moment before slowly opening them.
It was indeed late at night.
Only a small nightlight was lit by the bed. It looked like the one he kept in the bookstore; he didn’t know if Liang Youjun had brought it over.
The ward before him was clearly not the same one the previous hospital had temporarily arranged for him. Even in the dim light, he could feel a sense of familiarity in the layout—this was the hospital he had taken over from Zhou Yueqing.
After he fell asleep, someone had helped transfer him back here?
Since he was already in his own hospital’s ward with the nightlight from the bookstore plugged in beside him, it seemed the people at the other hospital had called the number he left, and everyone else now knew what had happened.
As he was thinking, Zhao Rong turned his eyes and heard a familiar voice beside his ear: “…Awake?”
The person speaking seemed to have a very dry throat; they coughed a few times after speaking.
Zhao Rong was stunned.
The voice was very, very low and carried a hint of softness. He couldn’t tell if the speaker was doing it intentionally, but for a moment, it actually made one feel they were somewhat weak.
He turned his eyes and, under the soft glow of the nightlight, saw Qiao Nanqi sitting by the bed watching him. This man was unexpectedly wearing a black shirt.
The light was too dim to see Qiao Nanqi’s expression; he could only vaguely see the outline of the man’s profile.
There was no one else around. The ward door was tightly closed, leaving only the two of them inside.
Zhao Rong spoke: “How did I—”
He felt the raspiness in his voice and the dryness of his lips, stopping mid-sentence.
Qiao Nanqi had already leaned forward, picking up a small cup from the side and taking a fresh, clean cotton swab from the bag on the table.
The man leaned down, dipped the swab in the water in the cup, and gently dabbed Zhao Rong’s lips one by one.
The water was actually warm.
The gentle warmth slowly touched his lips, dispelling the sensation of parched cracking. He looked up, lying there and watching the slightly leaning Qiao Nanqi. Now that he was close, he could finally see the man’s face clearly.
Even though the light wasn’t strong, he could see the exhaustion.
For a moment, Zhao Rong felt the two wounds aching dully, but his heart felt a slight itch.
When he left the phone number, he hadn’t actually thought much about it.
It was just that his phone was gone, he couldn’t remember anyone else’s, and he… he instinctively felt that Qiao Nanqi was definitely trustworthy, so he gave Qiao Nanqi’s number.
He hadn’t expected that waking up in the middle of the night, the first person he saw would be this man.
In a daze, there was actually a strange sense of fate.
When they first met, he had called from a hospital and this person came. After everything they had been through, he was alone in a hospital and left this person’s number. Upon waking up in a familiar environment, the first person he saw was still Qiao Nanqi.
After a moment, he pushed aside his tangled thoughts and simply asked, “What time is it?”
Qiao Nanqi seemed to instinctively want to raise his hand to check his watch, but as soon as he looked down, he realized he wasn’t wearing one.
He quickly lowered his hand and said, “It should be around four or five; it’s almost dawn.”
At this time…
Zhao Rong wanted to say thank you, but before the words left his mouth, he realized he had been saying “thank you” quite a lot lately. Saying it too much always carried a strange subtleness, so he swallowed it.
“You brought me back?” he said. “Didn’t you sleep?”
“Yeah.” Even the way Qiao Nanqi nodded carried a hint of fatigue. “The doctor said you’d wake up around dawn, so I thought I’d wait. How do you feel now? Is anything uncomfortable? Do you need a doctor? Do you want to sleep a bit longer?”
As he spoke more, Zhao Rong could hear how hoarse the man’s voice was, as if every word was a string pulled off-key, dragging out a muted sound.
His tone was even a bit strange.
After speaking, Qiao Nanqi even cleared his throat.
He always felt the atmosphere was a bit off.
He saw Qiao Nanqi open his mouth several times, appearing to hesitate.
“I feel okay for now. What’s wrong?” he asked directly.
Qiao Nanqi glanced at him, then unexpectedly looked away, lowered his head, and said to him word by word in a raspy voice, “I’m sorry.”
“The grudge between me and Chen Jingnian,” Zhao Rong frowned, “has nothing to do with you.”
Qiao Nanqi seemed very self-reproachful: “I… I let my guard down. I’m sorry, Zhao Rong, I didn’t handle this matter in advance…”
Zhao Rong didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, wondering when this man had started taking all the blame upon himself.
Just as he was about to argue, he heard Qiao Nanqi add, “There’s one more thing. The top floor of the hospital caught fire yesterday.”
“A fire?” Zhao Rong was startled. “I remember the top floor is for administration. Why would…? How is it now? Maybe I should go handle it—”
Zhao Rong braced himself to get up, and Qiao Nanqi hurriedly stepped forward to hold him down.
In the movement, the man pressed on his shoulder, but as soon as he did, Qiao Nanqi’s movement stiffened, and he seemed to frown with a pale face.
In the next instant, he immediately withdrew his expression. Unlike his previous urgent and swift movements, he sat back slowly and with very little motion, telling him in a low voice, “It’s fine, it’s already been handled. Listen to me first, don’t worry, nothing happened. Someone intentionally set the fire, burning the top floor first to draw everyone’s attention, then secretly setting fire to your mother’s ward.”
Even though Qiao Nanqi had just told him not to worry, Zhao Rong’s heart still instinctively tightened upon hearing those words.
“My mother’s ward caught fire!? She wasn’t very lucid yesterday, how is she? I’m going to—”
“She’s fine, Zhao Rong, she’s fine. It was discovered early, she only inhaled a bit of smoke, nothing happened at all.” Qiao Nanqi clearly wasn’t the type to repeat himself like this, but at this moment, it seemed that to reassure Zhao Rong, he kept repeating it.
Zhao Rong let out a sigh of relief.
He instinctively still wanted to get out of bed to see Zhao Ming, but then he thought that since Zhao Ming was fine and he was the one injured, seeing her would only make her worry.
Qiao Nanqi wouldn’t lie to him; at least she was safe.
He breathed a sigh of relief. The sudden tension from a moment ago had made his already weak body a bit unbearable. He closed his eyes and said, “…Chen Jingnian.”
“It was him. The arsonist was caught; he was a desperate man hired by Chen Jingnian.” Qiao Nanqi patiently explained, “The hospital has temporarily stopped accepting new registrations and consultations, except for existing inpatients. The police will definitely investigate how this person set the fire, and I will investigate as well—there’s security in the hospital, there’s no reason for someone to successfully start a fire in broad daylight without being noticed until later. During the day, Xiao Wu will organize all the relevant information for you to see. Why don’t you sleep a bit longer?”
Zhao Rong had already closed his eyes.
His body was indeed very weak now, and the sudden shocks had drained his spirit. At this moment, his brain wasn’t really working.
He thought about his own negligence, realizing that the “it’s not a loss” Chen Jingnian had said back then meant this, and he thought about how lucky it was that Zhao Ming was safe…
Before long, Zhao Rong gradually drifted off to sleep again.
Qiao Nanqi sat by the side for a while, watching Zhao Rong’s sleeping eyes. After confirming that Zhao Rong was truly asleep, he slowly rose and quietly walked out of the ward.
Xia Yuantu and Xiao Wu, who had rushed to Zhuxi overnight after hearing the news, were waiting outside for him.
As soon as Qiao Nanqi closed the ward door, Xiao Wu whispered to him, “Sir, is Mr. Zhao awake?”
“He was, but he’s asleep again. In a few more hours, contact Sister Li and ask if she can come over as soon as possible. I won’t be able to cook during this time. Buy a breakfast for today first, send me a message once it’s bought, and don’t knock—it’ll disturb Zhao Rong if he hasn’t woken up.”
These words clearly meant he intended to continue staying inside with him.
“Sir, let me watch over him. I can take shifts with Liang Youjun.”
“Yeah, Old Qiao,” Xia Yuantu was much more direct than Xiao Wu, “you’re injured too. Your back was hit by equipment when you went to save Zhao Rong’s mother, and your hand—didn’t the doctor say a large area was burned? It’s not like we’re short of people to take care of him. You insisted on waiting for Zhao Rong to wake up just to tell him about the fire, but now that you’ve seen him, you should rest too.”
Qiao Nanqi just shook his head.
His injuries, unlike Zhao Rong’s, weren’t internal. As long as he endured the pain, it wasn’t impossible to move. Slight movements for taking care of someone were no problem.
He also understood the logic Xia Yuantu was speaking, but he simply didn’t want to hand the task over to anyone else.
This way, at least he wouldn’t feel so guilty.
Yesterday, after he carried Zhao Ming down, he thought he had protected her for Zhao Rong, but it wasn’t until the other hospital called that he found out Zhao Rong had also met with an accident.
At that time, he couldn’t even bother with his own wounds. After a rough treatment, he hurried to bring Zhao Rong back.
He had truly been blinded by the peace of these past days and let his guard down.
He had felt a hidden gaze once before and had dealt with Chen Jingnian’s driver, yet he hadn’t discovered Chen Jingnian’s existence.
If he had been a bit more vigilant, a bit more careful, a bit more attentive to the surroundings, would Zhao Rong not have been injured?
Under his very nose, Zhao Rong had actually been injured to this extent.
Even with him in Zhuxi, Zhao Rong was now lying in a hospital bed.
Qiao Nanqi, you’re truly useless.
He said to himself.
Xia Yuantu seemed to know he couldn’t be persuaded, so he stopped trying and only said, “Xingping will also come over after he finishes with his company matters. When he sees you, he’ll definitely say the same thing we did.”
“Why such a big fuss?”
“For something this big, only Xingping and I coming is considered low-key, not a big fuss.”
“…” Qiao Nanqi took a deep breath, suppressing his physical discomfort, and said, “Then don’t let Zhao Rong see you. If he does, he’ll definitely suspect the severity of the situation.”
Xia Yuantu was stunned: “You didn’t tell Zhao Rong you were injured too?”
“No.”
He hadn’t told Zhao Rong; he didn’t want Zhao Rong to feel that he was using his kindness as a way to demand something in return, nor did he want to use these things at this critical juncture to confuse Zhao Rong’s feelings.
Zhao Rong was kind-hearted. Knowing these things would only make him feel burdened.
He dreamed of Zhao Rong being willing to be with him again.
But he hoped even more that Zhao Rong would be happy.
If it was because of these things, he would rather not have it.
Qiao Nanqi didn’t explain further; he only instructed Xiao Wu and Xia Yuantu not to let anything slip and then asked Xiao Wu to show him what breakfast was available to buy.
He had prepared breakfast for Zhao Rong for so long, and now looking at the menu Xiao Wu showed him, he wasn’t satisfied with anything. But he clearly couldn’t force himself to prepare it now, and Sister Li couldn’t possibly appear in Zhuxi in the next instant, so he could only reluctantly pick a few items.
While picking, he checked the ingredients and components of every dish to ensure they wouldn’t affect Zhao Rong’s current wounds or the stomach ailment he had always had.
After picking, he silently opened the door and returned to the ward.
As the ward door slowly closed, Xia Yuantu looked at the few dishes Xiao Wu had noted down, which the young master Qiao had painstakingly selected, and shook his head: “I’ve seen us negotiate projects, and Old Qiao has never been this serious.”
In those situations, when was it not everyone else feeling like they were facing a formidable foe while Qiao Nanqi remained calm and composed?
Yet it was this Young Master Qiao, who struck fear into others, who could now exhaust his mind over a stack of menus…
He patted Xiao Wu’s shoulder and sighed softly, “I used to think Zhao Rong was the easiest person to bully, while Old Qiao had become increasingly devoid of human touch these past few years…”
In the end, the gentle one’s heart had hardened so that even water could pierce stone but not that heart, while the one who seemed cold-blooded had taken off the armor forged over the years, revealing an interior as delicate and gentle as when he was in his teens.