Zhang Xiyue’s memories after being rescued were somewhat muddled.
All she knew was that a lot of people had shown up and forcibly separated her from Cheng Mingjiao.
When they laid her onto a stretcher, Cheng Mingjiao was still clutching the corner of her clothes and frowning as he said something to her.
The roar of the helicopter was too loud for her to hear him clearly. All she knew was that the stretcher was surprisingly comfortable.
Yes, she fell asleep.
When she woke up, she was already in a hospital bed, in a spacious, brightly lit room. An IV drip was steadily feeding nutrients into her bloodstream, and the phone on her bedside table showed a full battery.
Oh, and there was an excellent caregiver looking after her, as well as Zhou Ce, whom she hadn’t seen in a long time.
The moment the caregiver saw her wake up, he immediately went to call the doctor. Zhou Ce supported his back as he came to the bedside.
“How are you feeling now?”
“You can get out of bed?” Zhang Xiyue asked at the same time, her voice hoarse.
Still holding his back, Zhou Ce got her some water.
Zhang Xiyue didn’t stand on ceremony. She took several sips through the straw. “Thanks.”
“I’ve been able to get out of bed for a while. I just still need to rest. I heard that you and Mr. Cheng had an accident, so I came to check on you.” Zhou Ce answered her question, then repeated his own. “Does anything hurt?”
Zhang Xiyue carefully checked how she felt and answered sincerely, “Fully recharged.”
Zhou Ce nodded. “That’s good.”
The room suddenly fell silent.
Cheng Mingjiao had eight assistants and secretaries in total. Of the few who were usually in the office, Zhang Xiyue and Zhou Ce were the least familiar with each other. They could chat easily enough when there were a lot of people around, but when it was just the two of them, things were admittedly a little awkward.
Zhou Ce cleared his throat and broke the silence first. “Should I contact your family?”
Zhang Xiyue looked at him.
“I should have done it earlier, but your personal file didn’t list an emergency contact, so we had to wait until you woke up.” Zhou Ce explained.
For a brief moment, Zhang Xiyue was dazed, but she quickly composed herself. “No need. My family isn’t in this area.”
Zhou Ce nodded. “All right.”
Silence descended again.
Fortunately, the doctors arrived in time, and Zhou Ce took the opportunity to step aside.
Ding-dong.
Zhou Ce and Zhang Xiyue’s phones rang at the same time.
Zhang Xiyue was surrounded by doctors and couldn’t spare any attention for her phone. Zhou Ce, however, opened his message and suddenly snorted with laughter.
Zhang Xiyue’s curiosity immediately peaked.
The doctors didn’t leave until ten minutes later. She had just reached for her phone when Zhou Ce walked over and showed her the photo Fangfang had posted in the group chat.
Zhang Xiyue glanced at it and laughed too.
The picture had clearly been taken secretly. It showed a hospital room identical to hers.
Cheng Mingjiao was sitting on the bed with his arms folded and a grim expression on his face. Guo Fengnian was standing beside him, nodding and bowing. The Liang family was standing at attention as punishment, while Li Dong and the others wore deeply troubled expressions.
“The Emperor is extremely displeased that they were late in coming to his rescue. At the moment, he’s isolating himself from the entire world,” Zhou Ce explained. “This is already their eighth apology.”
Zhang Xiyue looked at the picture again and still found it hilarious. “So, who was the first person in the photo to realize that the Emperor was in trouble?”
“No one.”
Zhang Xiyue looked up. “Huh?”
“It was the camp manager. On Wednesday morning, he called Dr. Liang to ask whether the car in the parking lot needed sun protection. That was when Dr. Liang realized something had happened to the Emperor.” Zhou Ce explained.
And that was how the helicopter rescue came about. They found them within an hour.
Zhang Xiyue stared at him. “…The Emperor and I hadn’t come to the office on Monday or Tuesday. Didn’t Fang and the others find that strange?”
“They thought the Emperor had taken you on some kind of secret mission,” Zhou Ce said, pushing up his glasses. “You know how he is. He’s always getting sudden ideas.”
Zhang Xiyue was speechless for a moment before picking up her phone and unlocking it.
It was already Friday.
She had slept through most of Wednesday and all of Thursday. No wonder she felt so groggy.
Zhang Xiyue rubbed her temples and saw that Fang, Li Dong, Sun Nian, and the others had all sent her messages. They had only asked why she hadn’t come to the office, but after a couple of questions, they had started sending all kinds of knowing reaction images.
Zhang Xiyue: “…”
She remembered how certain Cheng Mingjiao had been that even if Liang Xiao and the others didn’t come looking for him, the company employees definitely would.
All she could say was that the Emperor had been far too confident.
“He woke up yesterday,” Zhou Ce continued. “The first thing he did was look for you. When he heard you’d been placed in a standard private room, he immediately had Dr. Liang move you to a VIP room. He also came to see you in the afternoon, but you were still asleep at the time. He looked at you for a while and then left… This is the first time I’ve seen him show so much humanity. I guess being trapped for several days really helped him grow up.”
He had quite a lot to say, but Zhang Xiyue instantly focused on the key point. “Can the VIP room be reimbursed?”
Zhou Ce: “…”
“Can it?” Zhang Xiyue asked.
“What’s the reimbursement rate?”
Although she didn’t particularly care about money in this world, it was still the hard-earned allowance she had worked so desperately for. If the reimbursement rate wasn’t high, she would definitely have to discuss it with Cheng Mingjiao.
After all, he had made the decision to move her rooms unilaterally while she was unconscious. He was fully responsible.
Zhou Ce: “…”
“Is it very low?” Zhang Xiyue asked when she saw his expression, her heart sinking.
She worked as an assistant in the real world too, so she knew perfectly well how extravagantly rich people lived. A room like this would cost at least twenty or thirty thousand a day, not counting medical expenses. The currency in a novel’s world could only be more inflated.
At the thought of that, she felt genuinely troubled. “If it’s too low, then I’ll…”
“It’s fully covered,” Zhou Ce said helplessly. “It’ll be reimbursed from the Emperor’s personal account.”
Zhang Xiyue relaxed and settled back into bed. “Then I’m going to stay a few more days and take good care of myself.”
Zhou Ce: “…”
After saying she would stay a few more days, Zhang Xiyue began to feel sleepy again. But before she could fall asleep, her colleagues—who had just narrowly escaped death at the Emperor’s hands—arrived.
After thanking everyone for their concern, the Liang family and Guo Fengnian, who had also narrowly escaped death, showed up as well.
She chatted with one person, then another, and in the end, she fell asleep again before Liang Xiao and the others had even left.
When Cheng Mingjiao came to the hospital room, she was sleeping soundly.
Afraid of disturbing Zhang Xiyue’s rest, everyone else had already left. Only the caregiver remained by her side.
The moment he saw Cheng Mingjiao enter, the caregiver hurriedly stood up, but Cheng Mingjiao stopped him before he could say anything.
The caregiver understood and quietly left.
Cheng Mingjiao stood beside the hospital bed and stared at Zhang Xiyue for a long time. She showed no sign of waking.
This displeased him greatly.
Hadn’t she already slept for two days? Why was she still so sleepy? Was sleep really that important?
The Emperor, who went to bed early and rose early for nine hours of sleep every day, experienced a profound hatred of sleep for the first time.
Still, he wasn’t deranged enough to force her awake. After staying in Zhang Xiyue’s room for a while, he left.
Zhang Xiyue had woken up, after all. She would definitely come see him first thing.
That was what he told himself as he began to wait.
That evening, Zhang Xiyue woke up again, ate a little nutritious food, and got out of bed to walk around.
She didn’t come to see him.
The next day, Zhang Xiyue ate more of her nutritious meals and went downstairs for a walk on the lawn. The rest of the time, she either slept or stared blankly into space.
She still didn’t come to see him.
On the third day, Zhang Xiyue ate even more nutritional meals, played games with Guo Fengnian for three hours, and chatted with Wei Chengfang for quite a while.
But she still didn’t come to see him.
The gloom in Cheng Mingjiao’s hospital room grew heavier by the day.
Guo Fengnian only had to sneak a glance inside from the doorway to feel his heart tremble.
“How long is he planning to hold this grudge against us?” he asked, clutching his chest and not daring to go in. “He isn’t going to remember this for the rest of our lives, is he?”
Liang Xiao pondered for a moment. “Has Xiyue still not come to see him?”
“...Huh?” Guo Fengnian didn’t understand why she had suddenly come up.
Liang Xiao said nothing more. At noon, however, he went to see Zhang Xiyue.
“...Go see Mr. Cheng?” Zhang Xiyue asked, looking surprised. “Me?”
Cheng Mingjiao’s room was right above hers. Although she had never been there, she knew it was crowded with family and friends every day, all of them fussing over him and taking care of him. Surely he wouldn’t care whether she went or not.
Besides, she hadn’t exactly been respectful during the time they were trapped. What if he saw her and was reminded of all the times she had been insolent, then used it as an excuse to fire her?
And she still hadn’t fully recovered. She didn’t really have the energy to visit another patient...
All right, those were just excuses.
The truth was, she simply didn’t want to go.
Liang Xiao could tell that she was reluctant. He smiled and said, “I was only joking. He’s surrounded by people all day, and it’s already making him irritable. You’d better not go.”
Zhang Xiyue immediately sighed in relief.
Cheng Mingjiao waited another day. Zhang Xiyue still didn’t come, but his grandmother—whom he hadn’t seen in quite some time—did.
The moment Qian Xiulan entered the room, she began scolding him. “Well, aren’t you something? You went through something so serious and still tried to hide it from me. If your mother hadn’t accidentally let it slip on the phone, I wouldn’t have known to this day that my own grandson had nearly died!”
Cheng Mingjiao said, “It wasn’t that serious...”
“How was it not? You nearly starved to death in the mountains!”
“Please don’t make pointless assumptions.”
Qian Xiulan picked up her phone and tapped him with it.
Cheng Mingjiao protested, “That’s assault!”
She hit him again.
“...I’m calling the police.”
Another smack.
“I’m calling security.”
Qian Xiulan grabbed him by the cheek.
Cheng Mingjiao was almost thirty and still having his face pinched. He protested vehemently, and when his protests fell on deaf ears, he began shouting for security.
Security never came. Qian Xiulan got a good deal of her anger out before finally remembering to fuss over her precious grandson.
“The hospital food isn’t nutritious enough. Starting tomorrow, I’ll have the cook at home prepare your meals and send them over. I won’t be going back to Yunxi Temple for the time being either. I’ll return once you’ve fully recovered.”
As she spoke, her eyes reddened.
Cheng Mingjiao sat there with a stiff expression, still sulking.
Qian Xiulan found him both infuriating and amusing. Ignoring his objections, she held his face in both hands and rubbed it several times before changing the subject.
Cheng Mingjiao answered her distractedly while staring at the tree outside the window, wondering whether Zhang Xiyue would finally come to see him once the last leaf fell.
Unfortunately, the tree outside was a pine—evergreen all year round.
“I’m going to have this tree replaced,” Cheng Mingjiao suddenly said.
Qian Xiulan, who had been interrupted, looked confused. “What?”
“Replace it with a tree that has no leaves.” Cheng Mingjiao was a man of action. As soon as he finished speaking, he took out his phone and sent a voice message to Liang Xiao. “Have the tree outside my hospital room moved. Then find a tree that doesn’t grow leaves and plant it there.”
Qian Xiulan stared at him. “...What nonsense are you up to now?”
“This hospital belongs to him now. I can only ask him to handle the tree.”
“And where is he supposed to find a tree that doesn’t grow leaves?”
“That’s for him to worry about,” Cheng Mingjiao replied, perfectly matter-of-fact.
Qian Xiulan frowned. “Cheng Mingjiao, don’t bully your friend.”
Cheng Mingjiao glanced at her and started a video call with Liang Xiao.
Liang Xiao answered and immediately began complaining. “Good grief, what did that tree do to offend you this time—”
Before he could finish, Cheng Mingjiao held the phone up in front of Qian Xiulan.
Liang Xiao straightened up at once. “Hello, Grandma.”
Qian Xiulan took a step back to make her face look smaller. “Xiao Xiao, it’s been a long time.”
“Grandma, you’re here? I’ll come over right now—”
“Liang Xiao,” Cheng Mingjiao interrupted the pleasantries, “have I bullied you?”
Liang Xiao answered immediately, “No.”
Cheng Mingjiao ended the call and looked at Qian Xiulan triumphantly.
Qian Xiulan: “...”
After a moment of silence, she picked up her bag and headed for the door. “Fine, fine. Do whatever you want. I’m going to see Xiyue. If I’d known you were going to drag her off to some remote mountain wilderness to play, I should have persuaded her to go to Xiaoxue’s company when she insisted on coming to yours...”
“What did you say?” Cheng Mingjiao suddenly asked.
Qian Xiulan paused, caught off guard. “What did I say?”
“What do you mean, she insisted on coming to my company? Wasn’t she planning to go to Lu Xue’s from the beginning?” Cheng Mingjiao asked suddenly.
Qian Xiulan realized she had let the secret slip and looked guilty.
Cheng Mingjiao’s expression turned more serious than ever. “You all lied to me. Her original destination was Yu Huang from the very beginning, wasn’t it?”
“...That’s not true.”
Qian Xiulan avoided his gaze and hurried away.
The enormous hospital room was left with only Cheng Mingjiao inside. He stared at the pine tree outside the window as the various things Zhang Xiyue had done over the past few days flashed through his mind.
Suddenly, he realized something.
His expression became more solemn than ever.
