Shen Huaixue hadn’t made a move in the past two days, and Lin Jianqing was happy for the peace and quiet.
The next afternoon, Lin Jianqing went to the hospital to see his mother.
The ward was still quiet.
Caregiver Zhou was wiping Lin Anping’s hands. When she saw him arrive, she smiled and stepped aside.
“Mr. Lin, you’re here.”
“Mm, how is she today?”
“She’s fairly stable. She woke up for a while this morning, and her mood is better than before.”
Hearing this, the weight that had been pressing on Lin Jianqing’s heart lifted slightly.
He walked over to the bed and sat down, looking at his mother’s pale but peaceful face. He gently took her hand.
Lin Anping hadn’t woken up, but her breathing was much steadier than in the previous few days.
That was enough for Lin Jianqing to feel grateful. Without Shen Huaixue, this probably wouldn’t have gotten better so quickly.
When this thought came to him, Lin Jianqing felt conflicted.
He didn’t want to thank Shen Huaixue, at least not so easily.
After all, this help wasn’t free, but he couldn’t deny that his mother was now receiving better treatment because of Shen Huaixue.
People are so contradictory. They hate someone while having to accept what that person offers.
Lin Jianqing looked down at his mother’s hand and was silent for a long time.
Sunlight fell by the window outside the ward, as quiet as if nothing had happened.
On the other side, Shen Huaixue hadn’t slept well for two straight days.
In the top-floor office of Qingtian Building, the lights stayed on all night.
The desk was covered in materials: printed documents, electronic files, old project numbers, research institute lists, accident reports, and internal transfer records from the Shen Family.
Shen Huaixue sat behind her desk, with a faint layer of fatigue in her eyes.
But her expression remained calm. In the past two days, she had used most of the means available to her.
School archives, hospital records, old research institute materials, peripheral channels of the Shen Family.
And even some less-than-clean information networks.
She had checked everything she could.
The results were not insignificant.
Lin Yuanzhou and Lin Anping were indeed not ordinary researchers.
They had participated in a large amount of early research related to rift factors. Most of these projects were later sealed.
Some due to technical failure, some due to high ethical risks.
And some didn’t even leave a reason for being sealed.
And some parts seemed to have been completely erased from the world.
Not ordinary deletion, but systematic erasure.
Of course, this alarmed the Shen Family.
The main family, fearing that Shen Huaixue was causing trouble, personally interrupted her investigation.
Until now, all related numbers were cut off before a certain point in time.
Lists of participants were missing, sample records were missing, original reports were missing, and even the lab locations only had a few contradictory and incomplete records.
If not for Shen Huaixue’s earlier meddling, the world might have completely forgotten the Lin couple.
However, for Shen Huaixue, not being able to find out in a short time didn’t matter.
She only knew that the accident involving Lin Jianqing’s parents had something to do with her… Or rather, a direct relationship?
Even if she didn’t know who Lin Yuanzhou and Lin Anping were at the time, the people who issued the order were the Shen Family, and the people who carried out the follow-up were also the Shen Family.
The matter started because of her; there was no avoiding her.
To complete that plan, Shen Huaixue had mobilized a batch of sealed old research materials.
And Lin Yuanzhou and Lin Anping were precisely the ones who were dragged back in after that.
The subsequent accident happened too coincidentally, so coincidentally that Shen Huaixue simply couldn’t continue to regard it as an ordinary accident.
Lin Yuanzhou died, Lin Anping went mad.
Lin Jianqing went from a student with a fairly happy family to someone who had to work desperately to keep his mother alive.
And she, a few years later, as if she knew nothing, took a liking to Lin Jianqing’s face, investigated him, used his plight, and slowly forced him to her side.
Thinking of this, Shen Huaixue’s fingers slowly tightened, and she left a faint crease on the paper.
She suddenly felt a tightness in her chest, a feeling that made her very uncomfortable.
Unfamiliar, irritable.
Like something belated stuck in her throat, unable to go up or down.
Guilt?
She never thought of herself as someone who easily felt guilt.
She had done many willful things and hurt many people.
As long as she wanted something, she usually didn’t care what price others had to pay.
This was spoiled into her by the Shen Family, and it was also something in her bones.
But this time was different, because the person dragged in was Lin Jianqing.
Lin Jianqing, who was clearly forced to bow his head by her, would still carefully fold expensive clothes, afraid that if he damaged them he wouldn’t be able to afford to pay for them, and whose ears would turn red when she teased him, yet he would still stubbornly argue back.
Shen Huaixue closed her eyes. She irritably closed the materials.
This kind of emotion shouldn’t appear, at least not on her.
At the very beginning, she just wanted a substitute.
A substitute who looked like her white moonlight, who could be dressed up by her, who could stay by her side, who could briefly satisfy that bit of resentment.
But things seemed to be deviating from her original idea, deviating more and more obviously.
Lin Jianqing was even a bit slow, slow enough to make people want to laugh.
Shen Huaixue wanted to comfort herself, but she couldn’t bring herself to say the comforting words.
But as it happened, in the past two days, whenever Shen Huaixue stopped, she would remember how that day, when she held his chin, his ears were red but he tried hard to act calm.
She remembered him saying in a low voice, “You’re really annoying.”
Shen Huaixue opened her eyes, and her expression slowly cooled.
She hated losing control, and even more, she hated losing control because of a man.
But that bit of guilt didn’t give her any idea of letting Lin Jianqing go.
On the contrary, she even wanted to hold on tighter.
If the accident involving Lin Jianqing’s parents really had something to do with the Shen Family, then even more so, she couldn’t let him leave.
At least until she found out the truth, she couldn’t.
Before Lin Jianqing knew the truth, she also couldn’t.
Even if he found out in the future…
Shen Huaixue lightly tapped her fingertips on the desk. She didn’t continue that line of thought.
Because she was very clear that she probably wouldn’t make the choice that a good person would.
Such was her nature. She would feel guilt, she would hesitate.
At some moment, she would feel that she had wronged Lin Jianqing.
But if it meant letting go and returning Lin Jianqing to a so-called normal life, that was impossible.
Since things had already happened, even more so, she couldn’t let Lin Jianqing find out.
Shen Huaixue looked down at the accident report on the desk and suddenly let out a light laugh.
The smile was faint and a little cold.
“I’m sorry, Lin Jianqing.”
She said softly.
“I still can’t let you go.”
After these words fell, the office fell silent again.
Shen Huaixue gathered all the materials into a folder and locked it in the bottom drawer of her desk.
After doing this, she picked up her phone. The screen lit up.
In the chat window, Lin Jianqing’s profile picture sat quietly there.
She hadn’t contacted him in the past two days. First, because she was busy. Second, because she didn’t know what expression to use to face him.
Shen Huaixue stared at the chat window for a few seconds, then typed.
“Come over tonight.”
After typing, she paused.
Then deleted it. She typed another sentence.
“Do you have time today?”
This sentence seemed too polite, not like her at all.
Shen Huaixue stared at it for a few seconds, finally frowned, and deleted it again.
In the end, she still sent the simplest one.
“Come to my place.”
Almost at the same time the message was sent, Lin Jianqing had just come out of the hospital.
He stood at the hospital entrance, carrying some daily necessities he had bought for his mother.
When his phone vibrated, he looked down and saw it.
Seeing Shen Huaixue’s name, he just frowned slightly.
No movement for two days, and it still came.
Sure enough, Shen Huaixue couldn’t really stay quiet for long.
Lin Jianqing looked at those four words, and wasn’t too surprised in his heart.
He even had a calm feeling of “what must come will come.”
In the past two days, Shen Huaixue hadn’t tormented him. He was indeed a bit puzzled, but didn’t think much of it.
After all, it was a good thing for him that she wasn’t bothering him.
Now that she actively reached out, Lin Jianqing felt that this was more like Shen Huaixue.
He stood at the hospital entrance and replied while looking down.
“Now?”
Shen Huaixue replied quickly.
“Mm.”
Lin Jianqing glanced at the time. There was still some time before 9:30 PM.
He originally wanted to say he hadn’t eaten yet, but before he could type the words, Shen Huaixue’s second message arrived.
“Dinner is ready.”
‘Is this person surveilling his phone?’
He stared at the screen for a few seconds, and finally sighed.
‘Forget it, I’ll go. Besides, dinner is ready. Might as well mooch a meal—it’s not like I’d be losing anything.’
Lin Jianqing put his phone in his pocket and walked down the hospital steps.
The evening wind blew from the end of the street, carrying a cold smell of disinfectant that wouldn’t dissipate.
He didn’t notice that this time when he went to see Shen Huaixue, he no longer felt the strong resistance he had at the beginning.
Meanwhile, on the top floor of Qingtian Building, Shen Huaixue stood by the floor-to-ceiling window. The city lights outside were gradually lighting up.
She lowered her eyes to look at Lin Jianqing’s reply, her fingertips gently pressing on the screen.
That belated guilt was still there.
But the deeper possessiveness hadn’t disappeared either.
In fact, because of the guilt’s presence, this possessiveness became more hidden and harder to control.
She wanted to compensate him, and also to trap him.
She wanted to be a little nicer to him, and also to make him never be able to leave her.
Shen Huaixue looked out the window, the emotions in her eyes dark and indistinct.
After a long time, she laughed softly.
“So troublesome. It feels like I’m coaxing him to come over.”
She didn’t know if she was talking about Lin Jianqing or herself.