Chapter 91: An Absurd Thought

On the fourth day after Jiang Leyi’s surgery, she was finally able to go through the discharge procedures.

Being discharged should have been a joyful occasion, but Jiang Lai’s mood was somewhat gloomy.

Because once her daughter was discharged and went home, she wouldn’t be able to openly stay by her side like she was now.

During this time, Jiang Lai had poured her entire heart into her daughter, almost ignoring everyone else.

But after her daughter went home, what reason would she have to continue staying by her side?

In recent days, Jiang Lai had been using her younger sister-in-law as a shield to avoid suspicion.

After all, Chi Yingyu didn’t have a fixed daily job like Jiang Lai did, and with the end of the year approaching, it was the busiest time for her work, with many tasks needing to be wrapped up.

But even though her work was extremely hectic, Chi Yingyu still managed to find time every night after work to come to the hospital and accompany her niece.

Sometimes Jiang Lai felt sorry for her younger sister-in-law.

She was already exhausted from work, yet she couldn’t rest well at the hospital.

With Jiang Lai watching over her niece, she felt it was safe, but she had more than once hoped that Chi Yingyu would go home and get some proper rest.

Jiang Lai’s concern wasn’t because she didn’t want to see her sister-in-law, but purely out of worry for her health.

Yet how could Jiang Lai know that Chi Yingyu came to the hospital every day not only to see her niece but also to see Jiang Lai herself?

If anyone was truly the most exhausted these past few days, it was Jiang Lai.

For four days, she had hardly left Jiang Leyi’s side, and even when she had to substitute for Chi Yingyu to take care of her niece, she did so wholeheartedly.

During this time, several times Jiang Leyi asked her why she was being so kind to her.

If she was just a friend of her aunt, there was no need to go to such lengths—not only staying with her during the day but also watching over her every moment at night.

But each time Jiang Leyi asked, it was like throwing a stone into the sea—no response came.

Because Jiang Lai simply didn’t know how to answer.

Unable to get any answer, Jiang Leyi could only bury her curiosity deep in her heart.

And this was not the only thing that puzzled her.

Even Shen Ruoxue, who had left Jiang Lai’s family over ten years ago, had sensed something was off during this period.

If Shen Ruoxue could detect something strange, how could Jiang Leyi not notice any oddities?

Everything the Beautiful Aunt did in these few days gave her a strong sense of déjà vu.

From their interactions, a terrifying thought kept growing in her mind—that this beautiful aunt might actually be her father.

But how could that be possible?

How could her father possibly be a woman?

When Jiang Leyi first had this thought, she truly felt it was absurd—an idea more ridiculous than the suspicion that her best friend might have feelings for her father.

If it weren’t for the confusion in family hierarchy, Jiang Leyi might have stopped calling the Beautiful Aunt that and started calling her Pretty Big Sister instead.

Her age, appearance, and gender were completely different from her father’s, yet the facts laid out before her kept confirming her bizarre thought.

Looking at those gentle, familiar eyebrows, the way she pressed acupoints on her hand tenderly when she was in pain, knowing all her dietary restrictions, her favorite foods, and even when she wanted to eat something more flavorful—when the Beautiful Aunt got angry, her tone was exactly like her father’s.

Even her best friend and aunt didn’t know these things so intimately.

The only one in the world who did was her father.

No matter how absurd she thought it was, no matter how impossible it seemed, the facts forced Jiang Leyi to ask her younger sister-in-law some questions.

If that young woman really was her father, then everything made sense.

Why her father knew about her surgery even though everyone who knew was told not to tell him.

And yet during the four days of her hospital stay, her father, who knew everything, hadn’t once called or video-called her—only sent messages of comfort on her phone.

Jiang Leyi clearly understood just how soft-hearted her father was beneath that seemingly cold exterior.

Though her university was in the same city, it still took nearly two hours to drive home.

Taking the subway took even longer, and going home on weekends was somewhat troublesome.

Yet even so, she remembered one time when she got sick at school.

She only told her father she felt dizzy, planning to just sleep it off for the morning.

At noon, just as she was about to get up and find something to eat, the Dormitory Manager stopped her and handed her a big bag of supplies and a lunchbox.

Even though her father hadn’t told her, seeing that familiar lunchbox from home, Jiang Leyi knew her father had gone to great lengths to care for her.

What was just a small matter to her was a huge concern for her father.

Now that she was hospitalized, normally her father would have rushed over immediately upon hearing the news.

And she would have been frantically persuading him over the phone to focus on work instead.

That would have been the normal situation.

Even without this event, the Beautiful Aunt’s abnormal behavior these past few days was enough to support her suspicion.

The Beautiful Aunt was brought in by her younger sister-in-law.

To find out the truth behind all this, she had to ask her younger sister-in-law.

On the way home after discharge, since she had completed the procedures early in the morning, Jiang Leyi hadn’t asked her best friend Shen Ruoxue to come over right away, telling her it was fine to wait until she got home.

And it seemed the Beautiful Aunt wasn’t coming today either, as she had some other matters to attend to and wouldn’t be helping her pack.

This gave Jiang Leyi a perfect opportunity to be alone with her younger sister-in-law and verify her suspicion.

“Aunt, how long has it been since we last had a chat alone like this…”

“There have probably been a few times in the past. Leyi, why are you asking?”

Jiang Leyi really wanted to scoff at those times.

Were those really times her younger sister-in-law wanted to see her?

It was obvious she was trying to see her father but hadn’t met him, so she was stuck with her instead.

Since her younger sister-in-law moved out two years ago, their contact had mostly been through their phones, and most of their conversations were about her father.

The two women spent most of their time talking about one man.

But in this strange situation, neither of them felt anything was wrong because it had always been like this.

“I just want to ask—Aunt, do you miss my father?”