Chapter 92#
Chapter 92#
Lost in thought, Zhao Rong found himself staring at Qiao Nanqi for several seconds.
He was spacing out, but he was still looking directly at Qiao Nanqi. Usually, such a gaze would have easily made Qiao Nanqi’s heart flutter, but at this moment, Qiao Nanqi was so focused on the wound that he completely missed it.
Looking at the injury, Qiao Nanqi was nearly overwhelmed by guilt.
When Zhao Rong was by his side, he had looked down on him and ignored him, not even knowing that the other man had developed a chronic stomach condition. Now that Zhao Rong had broken up with him, he had told himself that he only needed to stay by his side and make him happy, yet he couldn’t even manage that much.
If Zhao Rong got hurt again next time…
No, there wouldn’t be a next time.
He couldn’t let Zhao Rong get hurt again.
“Zhao Rong…”
Thinking of this, Qiao Nanqi subconsciously blurted out, “I’m sorry.”
Zhao Rong was startled.
He felt Qiao Nanqi’s gaze on him and looked down, seeing the gauze pulled aside to reveal the unhealed wound, the inner side of the bandage stained red.
Only then did he realize what Qiao Nanqi was apologizing for.
This time, he didn’t deftly brush the topic aside like he usually did.
In the past, he had always been instinctively tactful when speaking to others. But perhaps it was because of his casual lifestyle lately, or perhaps because everything had finally settled, the constraints on him had finally unraveled.
He said bluntly, “I don’t like people who keep apologies on the tip of their tongue every day.”
Qiao Nanqi opened his mouth, but remained silent.
The silence was only broken when the nurse arrived to change Zhao Rong’s dressing.
She said to Zhao Rong, “If you can’t bear the pain, we can continue using analgesics today.”
“No need,” Zhao Rong smiled, saying in a joking tone, “It feels alright. It’s not unbearable. Besides, this way I can feel the progress of the healing, which is quite good.”
The nurse was taken aback. “That’s the first time I’ve heard someone put it that way.”
Although Zhao Rong’s lips were still pale and his complexion was white, his slight smile neutralized some of that frailty.
The nurse knew Zhao Rong’s status was unusual, so her movements were originally stiff and cautious. However, because of Zhao Rong’s smile, she relaxed considerably, and her actions became much swifter. After administering the anti-inflammatory injection, she said to him in a good mood, “If you need anything or if there’s a problem with the wound, just press the bell and I’ll be back.”
“Thank you.”
Watching this, Qiao Nanqi felt a pang of bitterness.
As the sourness lingered and the ward fell back into silence, his expression suddenly froze.
Zhao Rong had already picked up a newly bought phone to set it up. Qiao Nanqi suddenly took a step forward and sat by the bed, his voice trembling slightly with disbelief: “…What did you just say?”
“Hm?” Zhao Rong didn’t even look up, just fiddling with the new phone. “What?”
“You just said…” Qiao Nanqi’s words faltered.
— “I don’t like people who keep apologies on the tip of their tongue every day.”
Those words seemed to hold another layer of meaning.
This speculation was so incredible that Qiao Nanqi immediately suppressed it.
He didn’t even dare to ask; he only wanted to keep this tiny delusion, cherishing the happiness that might have just been brought about by his own overthinking.
He changed his tune: “I won’t let something like this happen again.”
Zhao Rong didn’t mind. “Where else would I run into a second piece of trash like Chen Jingnian? This time, I only took the risk because I didn’t want him to escape. It’s fine as long as the hospital is okay.”
He logged into his social media accounts, using his left hand—the only one he could currently use—to slowly process the messages that had accumulated over the past two days.
Once he was finished, he noticed that the girl from the pet shop hadn’t sent him any new photos in the last two days—usually, she was very regular.
Maybe she’s just busy all of a sudden.
After Xiao Wu and the others left to handle matters, Qiao Nanqi took advantage of Zhao Rong’s afternoon nap to go to the doctor himself to have his own wounds treated and dressed.
In the afternoon, Xiao Wu brought the call records to Zhao Rong.
At this time, Qiao Nanqi was brewing tea for Zhao Rong. Xiao Wu handed the records to Zhao Rong and glanced back at his boss’s furrowed brows and slightly sluggish movements—he was clearly enduring pain.
He hurried forward. “Sir, let me do it.”
It wasn’t a big deal, so Qiao Nanqi didn’t try to be brave and insist. He handed the task to Xiao Wu and sat back down by the hospital bed.
Zhao Rong was already looking down, using his phone for cross-referencing as he began to slowly review the long list of logs.
When Xiao Wu brought the tea over, he saw one man sitting by the bed, haggard yet looking affectionately at the person in the bed, while the other was looking down with a focused, serious expression.
Outside, people were still scrambling to clean up the aftermath of the mess, but within this small space, a profound sense of tranquility flowed.
After a long time.
Zhao Rong said nothing, only uttering a single name.
“It’s her!?” Xiao Wu was shocked. “Is Miss Zhou that bold?”
Qiao Nanqi only said with a hint of suppressed anger, “It really is her.” He clearly had suspected her earlier.
“She might not have that kind of courage,” Zhao Rong sneered. “Even if Chen Jingnian has become a beaten dog, he likely wouldn’t think much of a prominent family in a small place like Zhuxi. Nor would the Zhou family be interested in a wanted criminal everyone wants to lynch. It’s unlikely they collaborated.”
“Didn’t they say it was security negligence? It certainly looks logical on the surface. Chen Jingnian wanted revenge on me, and the security guards neglected their duty, leading to this accident. Even if someone died, the primary blame would lie with Chen Jingnian, the one who physically did it. The security would just be guilty of professional negligence, which isn’t a capital offense—it wouldn’t trace back to her. At most, she instigated the guards to ’neglect their duty.'”
“It was my oversight. At the time, I only thought about dealing with the people she left behind in the hospital, and I forgot about a position as inconspicuous yet important as security.”
“No, it was mine,” Qiao Nanqi said. “After you took over, I personally checked the protocols of the security system, but I didn’t re-verify the individual guards.”
“Mr. Qiao,” Zhao Rong didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “I don’t understand you. Do you insist on taking all the blame yourself?”
Mr. Qiao immediately shut his mouth, lowered his gaze, and composed himself. He didn’t apologize verbally, but he struck a pose of having an excellent attitude toward admitting fault.
Xiao Wu: “…”
He really felt the atmosphere was different from before.
“How does Mr. Zhao want to handle this?” Xiao Wu asked.
Zhao Rong pondered for a moment and said, “She essentially took advantage of an opportunity, but if you look at what she actually did, she did nothing. Since that guard hasn’t spoken up yet, he must have received a massive benefit from her and won’t talk. Even if he did, she might not necessarily go down for it. Forget it, this matter…”
“We cannot be soft-hearted about this,” Qiao Nanqi said, using a rare firm tone in front of Zhao Rong. “With an opponent like the Zhou family, the only way to resolve the threat permanently is to pull them up by the roots.”
Zhao Rong blinked slowly and didn’t speak.
Qiao Nanqi thought Zhao Rong was unhappy. He gritted his teeth but still said, “I’ll handle the Zhou family; just act like you don’t know. I can’t let them go, even if you—”
“When did I say I was soft-hearted?” Zhao Rong interrupted him.
Qiao Nanqi was stunned. “…You said to forget it.”
Zhao Rong laughed.
During this period, Qiao Nanqi had always been cautious in front of him, constantly making him feel as though he saw a shadow of his former self in the man. This didn’t make him happy; instead, it had previously made him want to lash out with cold sarcasm to force out the man’s real temper.
But just now, when Young Master Qiao finally couldn’t help but show his “wolf’s tail,” he didn’t feel any anger at all. In fact, he found it somewhat amusing.
He wanted to say to Qiao Nanqi—This is the real you, why were you pretending before?
But he also quite liked seeing the way Qiao Nanqi had just tried so hard to retract that “wolf’s tail.” After thinking about it, he didn’t bring it up.
“I said to forget it because even if we demand a thorough investigation, that guard—whether he’s taken a bribe or is afraid of the Zhou family’s threats—won’t talk. The investigation won’t reach her.”
“But since she was capable of this, it proves the Zhou family isn’t clean. I don’t believe that a person with clean hands would, upon encountering such a situation, have their first instinct be to profit by concealment.”
He spoke deliberately, his voice still carrying a hint of weakness, yet wrapped in absolute confidence.
The old cautiousness was gone, as was the uncertainty he felt when he first left Qiao Nanqi and called his own thoughts “simple,” and the world-weary indifference he had when he first arrived in Zhuxi.
Perhaps Chen Jingnian’s capture allowed him to completely sever his ties to the past, or perhaps… Qiao Nanqi had taught him what it meant to have an edge.
His dark eyes sparkled like stars in the night. Even the hospital gown couldn’t hide his jade-like cold yet gentle aura, or his bamboo-like resilience.
“As long as the Zhou family’s hands are dirty, then the Chen family is just their predecessor. What Zhou Yueqing has done is bound to be more serious than what happened to us.”
“Xiao Wu, I might have to trouble you to make a trip. Or if you’re busy, please tell Brother Xu to do it for me—go see Zhou Yueqing in person.”
“Tell her that if she’s willing to surrender over this matter, then for everything else in the business world, we’ll let our capabilities speak for themselves, and I won’t interfere in other things. But if she’s unwilling, that’s fine too. We’ll fight to the end. Whether it’s in the market or her past shady dealings, I won’t overlook a single thing. She can see for herself what the consequences will be.”
“Hmm… I’m borrowing authority this once. If she isn’t intimidated by the great Young Master Qiao’s reputation and chooses the latter path, I’ll handle it myself. However, I just need to trouble…”
He paused and smiled slightly, his features softening with a touch of gentleness as the sharpness of his words retracted in an instant. “I’ll trouble Young Master Qiao to teach me how to deal with her.”
Xiao Wu had been by Qiao Nanqi’s side for a long time and had seen many methods, yet he was still stunned by Zhao Rong’s decisive, no-nonsense resolution.
In his memory, this was the kind of approach only Qiao Nanqi would choose.
Yet Zhao Rong, who usually preferred to leave people a way out, had said these things so calmly. And at the end, he didn’t put on an act of stubborn independence but instead humbly asked for help.
— So this is the kind of person Mr. Zhao really is?
He realized his previous impression of Zhao Rong had been far too one-dimensional.
Qiao Nanqi was also slightly surprised.
As he listened to Zhao Rong, thousands of thoughts swirled in his mind, finally settling into a slow smile.
He was smiling, yet his gaze was filled with melancholy.
Once Xiao Wu left to carry out the task, only the two of them remained in the room. Qiao Nanqi stared for a while at the distant sun slowly emerging from behind the clouds.
In the afternoon, the dark clouds began to disperse. At this moment of shifting light and shadow, beams of ethereal light descended from the distant sky, seemingly on the verge of driving away the gloom.
He withdrew his gaze, looked at Zhao Rong, and suddenly said, “Zhao Rong.”
“Why are you calling my name again?”
“I…” He paused, realizing that words of cruelty or pleading were actually easy to say, but a neutral, honest statement was instead difficult to start.
Feeling Zhao Rong’s searching gaze, his slightly hoarse voice finally spoke again after a long while: “I know you don’t want to hear apologies, but this apology isn’t for the recent accident.”
His voice actually trembled slightly, laced with hoarseness.
But if one looked at his face, beyond the exhaustion, one could only see an expression of deep guilt. His gaze remained firm and profound.
“I’m sorry.”
He said.
“No matter the reason—those are all just excuses—I must admit that I once held prejudice. A single apology cannot erase my prejudice, and I will do everything in my power to make up for it in the future.”
“But I must apologize. I owe you this.”
Zhao Rong’s expression faltered.
He seemed to realize what Qiao Nanqi was about to say. His hands on the quilt tightened, bunching up the fabric. A pang of pain shot through his injured right hand from the sudden exertion, and realizing this, he abruptly let go.
Qiao Nanqi saw the movement while looking down and instinctively reached out to grab Zhao Rong’s hand.
But as soon as he reached out, the burn hidden under his sleeve was agitated. He frowned slightly and withdrew the movement inconspicuously.
He took a deep breath and, with great solemnity, uttered the words he had owed Zhao Rong for many, many years.
“You have always been excellent.”
It was he who had been trapped in his own past, marching toward his destination while forgetting there was someone right in front of him.
It was he who had taken Zhao Rong’s past affection for granted, so self-righteous and arrogant that he was unwilling to stop his pace, not even to slightly understand the person by his side.
It was he who could not distinguish deep affection, who never responded, who showed no respect, failing to make himself worthy or deserving of Zhao Rong’s love.
He was the one who was truly a gilded exterior hiding a rotten core.