Only after Wen Ling repeated several times that she wasn’t feeling unwell did Qiao Hongyun return next door, reminding her that if she felt uncomfortable in any way, she absolutely had to say something.
Right now, Wen Ling only felt utterly exhausted. She gave a perfunctory reply and went back to her room.
The next day, Wen Ling felt as if she were being pinned down by a ghost. Her forehead was burning hot, and the uncontrollable coughing, along with the aching weakness throughout her body, was reminding her—
She had actually caught a cold.
In a daze, she fumbled for her phone, intending to call Qiao Hongyun, but her mind short-circuited, and she ended up dialing the person whose number had sat in her phone for three years without once being contacted.
Zhou Yinhe loved sleeping in. Not even the sky falling could wake him. Wen Ling hadn’t held out any hope in the first place, nor had she thought about what she would say to him. Yet she heard the sound of the call being answered from the phone.
Her head was still muddled from the high fever, and she froze on the spot. A hoarse voice came from the other end.
“Who is this?”
Zhou Yinhe hadn’t slept all night. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Wen Ling falling into the water yesterday, and later, the expression she had worn when she looked pitiful yet forced herself to be strong as she explained things to him.
When his phone rang, he had been looking at the text messages he and Wen Ling had exchanged three years ago. Over these three years, he didn’t know how many calls he had made and how many messages he had sent when drunk or when his emotions collapsed late at night, but they had all gone to an empty number. Later, when the call finally went through, it was actually a man who answered. Like a madman, he investigated the address linked to that number, and in the end, he bought the number from that man and put it in a phone he rarely used.
“Speak.” After a whole night without sleep, he was especially irritable.
Wen Ling murmured, “Zhou Yinhe, cough, cough… I have a fever. I feel awful.”
Her voice was slow and weak, mixed with coughing. Anyone could hear that she was sick right now. Zhou Yinhe pressed his lips together, thinking of the three years during which he had made a fool of himself, and forced himself to say coldly, “If you have a fever, go find a doctor. Do I know how to treat illness?”
Hearing this, the tears Wen Ling had been holding back ever since Zhou Yinhe answered the call slid from the corner of one eye into the other, stinging so much that she shut her eyes. In a hoarse voice, she said, “You weren’t like this before. When I was sick, you were always the one who took care of me.”
“You said it yourself—that was before. Do I look stupid to you? Stupid enough to let you think you can fool me again three years later?” Zhou Yinhe said through gritted teeth.
Wen Ling bit her lip to keep her sobs from spilling out. With a slight movement of her finger, she hung up the call.
She buried herself under the quilt and cried for a long time before forcing herself to sit up and call Qiao Hongyun.
Qiao Hongyun hurried over, followed by the nanny auntie who had taken care of Wen Ling since she was little.
Qiao Hongyun rambled worriedly, “Oh, my poor Ah Ling. It’s my fault for not insisting on checking you over last night.”
Wen Ling buried her face in the pillow and rubbed against it. Only when a patch of the pillow had grown damp did she turn her head and say, “Auntie, it’s not your fault.”
Qiao Hongyun sighed. “There’s a bit of a lung infection. I’ll have someone prepare medicine and put you on an IV.” She turned to look at Auntie Zhou, the nanny whose face was full of worry. “Sister Zhou, have the chef make some pear soup. Drinking some can moisten the lungs.”
Auntie Zhou nodded, then hurriedly turned and left the room.
Qiao Hongyun touched Wen Ling’s forehead. Seeing her moist eyes, she sighed again and advised, “Back then, when you said you wanted to come to Hua Country, Madam didn’t agree. She was afraid you’d get hurt after coming back. Look at your eyes from crying. If Madam and Sir found out, their hearts would ache terribly.”
“They haven’t seen me in so long. They run from country to country every day. They wouldn’t feel sorry for me,” Wen Ling said aggrievedly, pursing her lips.
“Don’t talk nonsense. How could Madam and Sir not feel sorry for you?”
Wen Ling didn’t want to speak anymore. Her grievance welled up in waves, and her heart felt as sour and bitter as if it had been soaked in vinegar.
What did I do wrong? I was controlled by the plot into breaking up with him. Why blame me? If you want to blame someone, blame the author. I’m just a supporting female character living in a novel—what can I do?
A rebellious feeling lingered in her heart. Wen Ling pursed her lips in grievance and reached out to roughly wipe away her tears.
“Oh, my Ah Ling, how can you be so crude? Can’t you learn from that Consort Hua and wipe your tears a little more prettily?” Qiao Hongyun saw that she was unhappy and deliberately teased her to cheer her up.
Sure enough, Wen Ling was amused into laughter. Qiao Hongyun let out a breath of relief. When she received a call, she got up and went outside to answer it.
Wen Ling coaxed herself, thinking about how she would torment Zhou Yinhe after she won him back in the future, and she became happy.
Qiao Hongyun returned with the medicine, while Auntie Zhou pushed the stand behind her and placed it beside the bed. Qiao Hongyun then put Wen Ling on the IV.
Through the quilt, Auntie Zhou gently patted Wen Ling and coaxed softly, “Sleep a little longer. Auntie Zhou will stay here and watch over you.”
When Wen Ling was happy, her little mouth turned sweet. She said softly, “Thank you, Auntie Zhou.”
Wen Ling fell peacefully asleep, but Zhou Yinhe was restless and irritable, pacing back and forth in his bedroom, picking up his phone and putting it down again, over and over.
His fluctuating emotions forced his eyes bloodshot. Gritting his teeth, he suddenly raised his head and hurled the phone hard at the wall. A dent was smashed into the wall, and the phone screen shattered into pieces.
Butler Xu, who had been entrusted by Madam Zhou to come specially and take care of Zhou Yinhe, heard the noise and ran over. He knocked on the door and asked anxiously, “Little Ancestor? What happened?”
Zhou Yinhe heard him but didn’t reply. His gaze remained fixed viciously on the phone, as if he wanted to stare a hole through it.
Butler Xu had no choice but to take out the spare key and open the door. Seeing the miserable state of the phone on the floor, then looking up at the wall, he found that such a deep dent had actually been smashed into it. It was obvious just how much force had been used.
“Little Ancestor, what on earth happened?”
Madam Zhou had always called her youngest son, the most rebellious and hardest to manage of the family, “Little Ancestor.” As a result, apart from the solemn Mr. Zhou, everyone in the Zhou family called Zhou Yinhe “Little Ancestor.”
“Give me your phone.” Zhou Yinhe sat on the floor and held out his hand.
Butler Xu hesitated for a moment, but still handed the phone to him. The moment Zhou Yinhe took it, he dialed a number.
“Jiang Jibai.”
When Jiang Jibai saw that the caller ID was Zhou Yinhe’s butler, as noted in his contacts, he answered the call. He hadn’t expected it to be Zhou Yinhe.
Jiang Jibai asked in puzzlement, “Why are you calling me with your butler’s phone? Where’s your own phone?”
“Smashed it.” Zhou Yinhe was blunt and direct. “Help me look into where Wen Ling is staying. While you’re at it, find out whether she’s called a doctor to come over.”
Jiang Jibai was surprised for a moment, but quickly reacted and laughed lazily. “Why don’t you check yourself? The people around you are all much more capable than mine. Besides, doesn’t Wen Ling have her own dedicated private doctor, nanny, and butler?”
In the past, when Wen Ling came to stay at her maternal grandfather’s house, she had brought a whole crowd of people back from Country M—private doctor, butler, nanny, and all that. Supporting so many people wasn’t some huge expense; it was just that everyone felt it was far too exaggerated.
“Just tell me whether you’ll help me check or not!” Zhou Yinhe said coldly.
As soon as Jiang Jibai heard that, he knew Zhou Yinhe was running out of patience, so he could only say, “Fine, I’ll check for you. I’ll call you back in a bit.”
“Hurry up.”
After saying that, Zhou Yinhe hung up the call and looked at Butler Xu beside him. “I’ll return your phone in a bit. Have someone buy me a new phone, and transfer everything from my old phone into the new one without missing a single word.”
Butler Xu picked up the phone that had fallen to the floor. Only when he reached the doorway did he turn back and say, “Little Ancestor, don’t smash mine too.”
“If I smash it, I’ll compensate you! Ten of them!”