Ding-a-ling…
The phone alarm rang, and Yu Xiaxing abruptly opened her eyes.
The memories she had just been awakened to were still vivid in her mind.
So the “massacre” in her memories was actually her taking down her entire family with a toad’s 1v6 poison attack?
No, more accurately, it was 1v5. That little brat Yu Guan had been too clever.
She had been poisoned by the toad and experienced all sorts of hallucinations.
But her sight and hearing had still recorded what had truly happened in a plain, unembellished way.
She had been unconscious for three days. After she woke up, all the adults told them were things like, “That was close,” “When we got home, everyone was lying on the floor,” and “They really ought to be punished! It makes me furious!”
Those key phrases had been altered by her brain into a group brawl.
Now, under the stimulation of the electrical current, her true memories had been restored.
Yu Xiaxing leaned back in her chair and quietly stared at the ceiling.
Looking back at everyone’s childhood from an adult’s perspective, it seemed that their relationships hadn’t actually been all that bad.
She also recalled several fights that had left a deep impression on her. In truth, they had all been childish squabbles. A few days later, everyone would forget about them and go back to playing together.
But as they gradually grew older, their relationships really had begun to grow distant.
What had caused that…?
It seemed that some of the conflicts and disagreements between the children themselves had become impossible to resolve over time.
And many others had probably been caused by the adults’ competing interests.
Before her parents went to become Doctors Without Borders, they had also been involved in the succession struggle. Her parents had been in charge of the medical division, whose core businesses included pharmaceutical development.
Perhaps because she had been so young at the time, the adults hadn’t bothered to avoid speaking in front of her. She still remembered hearing things like, “shareholdings,” “choosing sides,” “Why does Big Sister-in-law’s family keep causing trouble?” and “Second Sister, help me get this drug approved for launch. I’ll give you my votes at the next board meeting.”
Although the adults’ affairs hadn’t directly involved the children, the children had heard their parents, uncles, and aunts arguing every day. Subconsciously, they had come to see the other adults as enemies of their own family, and that feeling had extended to their children as well.
Later, the older they grew, the more clearly they remembered the ways other people had wronged them… while completely forgetting all the ways they themselves had set traps for others.
Like that whole toad-licking incident.
Yu Xiaxing felt a little guilty when she thought about it.
But later, when she had argued with them, none of them had ever used that incident against her.
She guessed that everyone had been too young at the time. After being poisoned, their minds had been even more muddled, so none of them remembered how it had all started.
As for Yu Guan, who had arrived last and hadn’t been poisoned, he had no idea what had happened either.
…She absolutely couldn’t let them find out!
This had to stay buried forever!
Yu Xiaxing looked at the screen again.
This Life Corridor was so much fun!
There was still plenty of time. She might as well go through it one more time and take a better look at her parents when they were young.
She completed another set of questions.
This set asked whether she had ever experienced any accidents in her life, how serious they had been, and who had taken care of her afterward…
The purpose was probably to help people recall warm memories too.
Yu Xiaxing thought carefully. As far as she could remember, she had once been in a car accident with her mother when she was little.
Because she had been sitting in a child safety seat in the back, she hadn’t been seriously injured. But her mother seemed to have been hurt badly.
After filling in the details according to what she knew, she put on the headset again.
—
There were people in white coats rushing back and forth all around her. Someone pushed a stretcher past her…
This was a hospital.
Yu Xiaxing was sitting on a hospital bed, a strip of adhesive tape stuck to the back of her hand and a bandage wrapped around her forehead.
She climbed off the bed and stumbled into the room next door.
Her mother was lying on the hospital bed, unconscious, her clothes covered in blood.
Her throat was already raw from crying. Clinging to the edge of the bed, she called over and over, “Mommy… Mommy, wake up…”
Her father pulled her away. “Xingxing, don’t be afraid. Mommy’s life isn’t in danger. The doctors are getting the blood over right now. Once it arrives, they’ll give her a transfusion.”
The doctors soon came rushing in.
“We don’t have any type A blood left in this hospital. We’ve already requested an emergency transfer from the hospital next door, but it’ll take some time! Is there anyone at the scene with type A blood who can donate?”
Her father said nothing, his face filled with worry.
“I’ll… I’ll give mine to Mommy!” Yu Xiaxing immediately said.
She stuck out her chubby little arm.
The doctor crouched down and patted her head. “Little one, we tested your blood when you were brought in for emergency treatment just now. You’re type AB, which isn’t compatible with your mother’s type. And even if it were, immediate family members can’t donate blood directly to one another.”
Her father suddenly sprang to his feet and asked anxiously, “What did you say my daughter’s blood type is?”
The doctor looked at him, then at the report in his hand. “Type AB.”
Her father took the report. The color gradually drained from his face.
Yu Xiaxing didn’t understand any of it. Still sobbing, she said to the doctor, “Then take the type A out of my blood and give it to Mommy! Half my blood is type A!”
That day, her gentle and loving father wore a dark, grim expression and remained silent.
Her throat had gone hoarse from crying, but her father never once lowered his head to look at her.
…
The scene shifted.
Her mother had recovered and been discharged from the hospital.
But for some reason, from that point onward, Yu Xiaxing vaguely sensed that the atmosphere at home had changed.
Before then, all her memories of her family had been bathed in a warm yellow light.
From that moment on, however, they gradually turned cold and gray.
That night, she couldn’t sleep. She wanted to find her mother and have her tell a story.
When she reached her parents’ room, she heard them talking.
Her father said, “Stop holding on to false hope. We’ve investigated it countless times already… Every doctor and nurse from back then resigned and disappeared without a trace…”
Her mother covered her face, her voice hoarse but certain. “Thank goodness Xingxing is my daughter.”
Her father took her hand, his eyes red as well. “We’ll get to the bottom of this… If someone really used medical aid as a cover…”
Her mother raised her eyes. “How are we supposed to investigate?”
Her father said, “As ordinary people, we can’t get in. But if we become Doctors Without Borders, we’ll be able to pass through the World Government’s checkpoints and get close to those records.”
Her mother asked in a low voice, “What will happen to Xingxing and Zhengzheng if we both leave?”
Her father said, “My big brother and second sister aren’t irredeemably evil. The only reason they’ve been fighting so fiercely is that my interests conflict with theirs.”
“If I completely give up competing for the Yu family’s assets, they’ll definitely treat the two children well.”
“Big Brother and Second Sister will also be able to reach a balance. Their relationship will surely improve.”
“Right now, we’re facing a common enemy. We can’t keep wasting our energy on internal strife!”
Her mother closed her eyes for a moment, then nodded. “All right. I’ll go with you.”
Her father said, “We absolutely cannot let a third person know about any of this…”
…
Ding-a-ling…
Another alarm rang.
Yu Xiaxing was pulled out of her memories, her mind still slow to process what she had seen.
The final scene was still of her standing outside the door, listening to her parents talk.
She had been too young to understand much of what they said, but she had heard that her parents were going to leave.
She had cried outside the door. Then her parents had discovered her and spent a long time comforting her.
After that, she couldn’t remember anything else.
What were those files they had mentioned?
Had they known all along that she wasn’t their biological daughter?
But that couldn’t be right. Her father had type B blood, her mother had type A, and she had type AB.
Judging solely from their blood types, it was entirely possible for her to be their biological child. Then what had her father’s reaction meant?
And what had her mother meant when she said, “Thank goodness Xingxing is my daughter”?
It turned out that they hadn’t become Doctors Without Borders because they had lost out to her older brother and sister in the fight over the family fortune.
They had voluntarily given it all up to investigate something.
She suddenly sat upright in her chair, reached for her phone, and desperately wanted to contact her parents.
