Chapter 47#

Chapter 47 Side Story — Twenty-Two

When the doctor was stitching Pei Hao up, he kept grinning, causing the doctor to look at Mo Xi blankly. That look was definitely asking—is your friend mentally normal?

Mo Xi had no mind to respond to the doctor, but stared unblinkingly at the long and deep cut on Pei Hao’s arm, extremely worried. Every time the doctor’s needle and thread passed through Pei Hao’s skin and flesh, his brows would furrow slightly, as if he was the one suffering instead of Pei Hao. A typical case of the emperor not being anxious but the eunuch being anxious.

Seeing Pei Hao’s grin almost reaching the back of his head, the doctor couldn’t help asking: “What are you laughing at?”

“Nothing,” Pei Hao shook his head, looking at Mo Xi with a smile and said, “Just feeling that he actually cares about me quite a bit.”

The doctor who was stitching obviously shook his hand, looked up at the two with a meaningful look, and then buried his head to continue working.

“Don’t talk.” Mo Xi glanced at Pei Hao, paused for a few seconds, and asked worriedly, “Doctor, will this leave a scar?”

“After removing the stitches, I will prescribe some medicine for scar removal. Of course, you can also choose to transfer to the plastic surgery department later.” The doctor’s answer was concise and comprehensive. Simply put, there is no guarantee that there will be no scar.

Hearing this, Mo Xi frowned even tighter. Looking at the hideous wound that had been stitched up, he felt very uncomfortable. If it weren’t for their family’s affairs, Pei Hao wouldn’t have suffered like this. He didn’t want to reject Pei Hao while enjoying his kindness, but now that things had developed like this, he couldn’t just ignore it.

Pei Hao knew he was overthinking again just by looking at his eyes. He propped his chin with one hand and said nonchalantly: “I’m a grown man, does it matter if I have a scar?”

“It matters.” Mo Xi lowered his head, wanting to explain a few sentences, but the words stuck in his throat. He couldn’t explain clearly why he thought it mattered, so he swallowed them back.

“Alright,” Pei Hao raised his other hand and rubbed his hair, coaxing him softly like coaxing a child, “At worst, I’ll go to that plastic surgery department later.”

“Ahem, it’s stitched up. Just go get a tetanus shot later.” The doctor finished his work, packed up the needle and thread tools, and hurried out. He was afraid that if he stayed any longer, he would be melted into the ambiguous and thick atmosphere of the two just now. Just a few steps out of the door, he stopped again: Wait, shouldn’t he ask those two to leave? Why did he leave himself?

Chunming Mountain is in the north of City X, a famous wealthy area. Several chic white small western-style houses are located on both sides of the river. When autumn comes, the willow leaves turn yellow. When a gust of wind blows, the leaves fall, and the river surface glows with golden light.

Pei Yixin didn’t go to the company this afternoon. He thought he could go out to play golf, but as soon as he got home and sat on the sofa, he felt a little tired. Seeing Song Wanqin chasing a Republic of China drama enthusiastically recently, he rarely sat down and watched with her for a while.

The TV showed a love story of young people making a fuss. Song Wanqin watched with teary eyes, but Pei Yixin lacked interest. He didn’t know how long he watched before leaning on the sofa and falling asleep.

“Ding, ding…” The phone rang suddenly.

Pei Yixin rubbed his face, took out his phone and looked. It was Zhang Yunsheng, the deputy director of the police station. He was still a little confused, wondering why Old Zhang called him at this time, and picked it up: “Hello, Old Zhang.”

“Hello, Old Pei,” Zhang Yunsheng went straight to the point as soon as he came up, “Do you know your Pei Hao is in the police station?”

“Humph!” Pei Yixin got angry as soon as he heard this name. His face instantly darkened, and his tone was furious: “His affairs have nothing to do with me.”

“Hey, I say, how much hatred do you have with your own son?” Zhang Yunsheng advised him kindly, “He fought with a few punks in the hospital today and got cut three times.”

Pei Yixin’s gaze stagnated briefly. After hesitating for a while, he decided to stay out of it: “Anyway, I don’t care, and you don’t care either.”

Zhang Yunsheng advised a few more words, but Pei Yixin was firm. Old Zhang had no choice but to hang up the phone.

Actually, Pei Hao was fine here. The testimony of eyewitnesses and the content recorded by the hospital cameras were very favorable to him. It was just that Zhang Yunsheng went to Old Pei’s house as a guest some time ago and heard Song Wanqin say with a melancholy face that the father and son had fallen out, so he thought of taking this opportunity to bring them together. He and Old Pei met in the army and had a life-and-death friendship. He watched Pei Hao grow up. After all, he was also Pei Hao’s half-uncle. He couldn’t bear to see him unable to return home. But Old Pei was too stubborn. He couldn’t persuade him before, and he couldn’t persuade him now.

Zhang Yunsheng sat at the desk and shook his head. No way, let him be.

Pei Yixin just hung up the phone here, and Song Wanqin leaned over, squinting and asking: “What happened to our son?”

“Don’t know.” Pei Yixin turned his face away, looking as if it had nothing to do with him.

“Fine,” Song Wanqin’s eyes, which were clear just now, instantly filled with tears. She took out her phone and said with some self-pity: “I’ll call and ask. Anyway, he is flesh falling from my body, I feel heartache.”

“No…” Pei Yixin always yielded to soft tactics but not hard ones. He couldn’t stand Song Wanqin’s aggrieved look, and his heart softened as soon as he saw it. He clasped his knuckles hard, the corners of his mouth twitching: “He fought with others and entered the station.”

“Then is he injured?” Hearing this, Song Wanqin’s heart went up and down.

Pei Yixin rubbed his eyebrows: “Just got cut a few times.”

Song Wanqin couldn’t help shivering after hearing this. She immediately stood up from the sofa and called the lawyer, then went back to the bedroom to change clothes. Within a few minutes, she got into the car to the police station.

When the car drove out of the yard, Pei Yixin saw it clearly standing on the balcony on the second floor. Song Wanqin didn’t ask him to go together, and he couldn’t lower his head to follow. Feeling a little irritable, he lit a cigarette and took a few puffs, spitting it out before it reached his lungs. After thinking for a while, he still called Zhang Yunsheng.

The South District has not been peaceful recently. There was a murder case last week, suspected to be the same murderer as a case a few years ago. The whole police station exploded. Yesterday, a primary school in the jurisdiction broke out a scandal of staff sexually assaulting students. After the media reported it, it caused a lot of noise… Officer Wu just finished a police dispatch in the morning and came back for a few minutes. Before the bench was warm, he was called to the office by the team leader, saying there was a hospital brawl case, and asked him to follow up.

The cause and process of the whole thing were simple. The person who made trouble in the obstetrics and gynecology department and pushed Mo Zi last time was the bald guy’s brother. Neither of them had much education and claimed to be following a certain big brother. To put it bluntly, they were two street punks without serious jobs. Last time, the bald guy’s brother was detained by the police station with several accomplices for making trouble in the hospital. The person hasn’t been released yet. The bald guy heard somewhere that medical disputes could be settled privately, so he asked someone to find the female doctor’s hospitalization address and brought a few younger brothers to settle. The man in black was a lobbyist who knew a little law they found.

The bald guy’s calculation, to put it nicely, is settlement; to put it badly, it is coercion and inducement. He planned from the beginning, either the other party accepts money for settlement, or they make trouble until the other party agrees to settle.

Who knew that this family was stubborn, preferring to fight to the death rather than agree to settle, and in the end, everyone entered the station together.

Damn it, the whole family is crazy!

The bald guy had a few teeth knocked out, and Pockmark’s hand was fractured. As soon as he saw Pei Hao, he gritted his teeth and said he would sue him.

“For someone like you who takes a knife to the hospital to chop people, you are lucky if they don’t sue you.” Officer Wu clarified the ins and outs of the matter, tapped his fingers on the table making a clacking sound, and glanced at the bald guy extremely impatiently, “Still suing people, what kind of daydream are you having…”

The bald guy turned his head resentfully and glanced at the man in black. Only after getting his confirming look did he hold back the sullen anger in his chest.

Mo Xi was the first person to finish the statement. He paced anxiously back and forth in the corridor of the police station, feeling uneasy. He knew nothing about the law and didn’t know if Pei Hao would bear legal responsibility for fighting, which would affect his future life and work.

Just as he was wondering whether to find a lawyer, the sound of clicking high heels rang in the corridor, and two figures were getting closer and closer to him. Mo Xi looked up and was shocked. He would definitely not mistake the face in front that was sixty to seventy percent similar to Pei Hao—it was Pei Hao’s mother!

Song Wanqin changed into dignified and atmospheric clothes, stepping on high heels, walking briskly. Behind her followed a man in his early forties in a suit and leather shoes, holding a document bag in his hand. Judging by this dress, was it the lawyer she brought?

Song Wanqin recognized the person in front of her as the one her son was worried about after just a few steps. She looked at Mo Xi thoughtfully, feeling that this person was different from what she expected: She originally thought Pei Hao had spent a lot of money on him. Seeing him today, this little boy was dressed simply and plainly, and his behavior was completely devoid of the effeminacy she imagined. Before, she thought it was because the photos couldn’t capture it. Now the person was standing alive in front of her. Looking horizontally and vertically, he was a normal college student.

“Sister Song?” The person behind called Song Wanqin, not understanding why she stopped suddenly.

“Oh.” Song Wanqin came out of her thoughts. Just as she stepped out, she suddenly turned her head and looked at Mo Xi coldly and asked: “Where is Pei Hao?”

“Over there… the room at the end.” Mo Xi pointed tremblingly to the front, but his heart beat thump-thump, and his hand was still shaking a little after putting it down.

Pei Hao’s mother actually knew him?! Impossible!

Mo Xi rubbed his forehead in a trance and surprise, feeling unbelievable. He had never greeted Pei Hao’s parents face to face before. No matter what the occasion, he just looked from a distance. Pei Hao should have never mentioned him to his family. Why would his mother know of his existence?

The more he thought about it, the more confused he became.

Simply don’t think about it.

Anyway, he and Pei Hao have nothing to do with each other now. Why should he care about what Pei Hao’s mother thinks of him?

Mo Xi muttered in his heart: Everything is worrying about nothing, worrying about nothing.

The bald guy and Pockmark were both detained. Xiao Jun and several doctors went back to the hospital first after finishing their statements. After Song Wanqin took the lawyer in, she quickly returned to her car. She didn’t even look at Mo Xi when passing by him.

The sky gradually darkened, and the busy city lit up with lights one after another. Mo Xi sat on the chair in the corridor of the police station, feeling a little restless. The total time for him to make a statement was less than an hour, while Pei Hao had been inside for almost three hours and hadn’t come out yet.

Mo Xi was still holding the painkillers prescribed by the doctor, saying to give them to him when Pei Hao’s anesthesia wore off. Now the time was up. He was wondering if Pei Hao didn’t come out, could he go in first to feed him medicine.

Fortunately, not long after thinking this, Pei Hao walked out with the lawyer. Several dark red blood stains looked particularly dazzling on his white clothes. Mo Xi stood up from the chair listlessly, but Pei Hao at the end of the corridor waved to him with a grin. Mo Xi suddenly felt angry and funny. He worried outside for a long time, but Pei Hao was fine, not looking depressed at all.

“It’s okay,” Pei Hao walked quickly towards Mo Xi, put one hand on his shoulder, leaned on him and walked out cheerfully, “Let’s go home.”

“Does the wound hurt?” Mo Xi turned his head to look at him.

“I forgot if you didn’t mention it…” Pei Hao clicked his tongue, and touched his stomach with the other hand, “Compared to pain, I’m hungrier now.”

“Order takeout later?” Mo Xi glanced at his clothes with several cuts and felt it was unlikely to go to a restaurant.

“Whatever.”

…

Rows of dim street lights had lit up on both sides of the road, with people coming and going. Song Wanqin looked out through the car window, frowning at the bright blood stains on Pei Hao’s body. Thinking that every time Pei Hao got involved with this person named Mo Xi, something would happen, either getting sick or fighting with people, she felt unhappy. Even if this Mo Xi was a woman, she wouldn’t like it.

But at this moment, Pei Hao was hanging on him, saying something with a smile in his eyes. Even from such a distance, she could feel the joy in Pei Hao’s heart. She couldn’t remember when was the last time she saw him smiling like this.

It was already the peak time for getting off work. There were more and more cars on the road. Pei Hao soon got into a taxi with that boy and disappeared.

She originally wanted to wait for Pei Hao to come out and take him for a good meal, but this brat just texted her saying another day.

Song Wanqin’s driver yawned in the car. He didn’t know how long Song Wanqin would stay here, and it wasn’t appropriate to ask. He could only pray secretly in his heart to go home early. Unexpectedly, Song Wanqin suddenly popped out a sentence: “Xiao Li, what do you think is the most important thing in life?”

“Ah?” The driver didn’t understand why she asked this, but after thinking for a moment, he answered from his heart, “Responsibility? Family? All are quite important. But for an individual, it’s happiness, right? Happiness is the most important.”

“Mm,” Song Wanqin sighed, rolled up the car window, and said expressionlessly: “Let’s go, go home.”