86 Anything for a second chance

"I am truly sorry. I didn't mean to worry you," Jia Li repeated.

"Let's not waste time on this issue anymore. Tell me, how did the interview go? Were they happy with the place and the progress?" Wei asked.

She started excitedly, "it went very well. In fact, Ethan managed to extract beautiful anecdotes from the new employees. I think those would make happy reads. But I just wanted to ask you…why didn't you inform me about this visit? I would have been better prepared had I known in advance."

"I couldn't tell you because I didn't know about it myself till the last minute. Chu called me while she was enroute Moganshan. Apparently her father had given her the go-ahead without even bothering to check with me," he grumbled.

"That's strange. Fortunately the politics in your office don't concern me," she said with a smile.

"But you should know that Tang spent a few hours going through the ledger accounts. Since he is the big boss, I couldn't have…" she was interrupted by Wei's shout.

"What did you say? You mean Tang was there as well?" he asked in a raised voice.

Surprise and confusion was evident in her voice, "you mean you didn't know that he was going to be here?"

Taking a deep breath, he said, "take me through the events of today chronologically."

Before she could do so, she got a call-waiting on her phone. It was an unfamiliar local number.

Putting Wei on hold, she received the call.

"What? Oh my god…" the phone clattered from her nerveless fingers.

She ran out of the door, mindless of anything else. By the time she reached the local hospital, she was completely out of breath. She asked the information desk about the three people who had been brought in just now.

She reached the assigned room, just in time to see the doctor examine Ethan. He was sitting on the bed and was protesting that there was nothing wrong with him.

"What happened? Are you alright? Where are Chu and Tang?" she asked, worried out of her mind.

Jia Li's face had lost all its colour. She looked as shaken up as she felt.

"Chu is in the other examination room. She is alright, else I wouldn't have been sitting here. I guess we should have paid heed to your advice. It was dark and slippery. Tang lost control of the car temporarily and we banged hard into a tree. He lost consciousness and…" Jia Li ran out of them room as soon as she heard this.

"I am looking for the person who has been brought in a state of unconsciousness few minutes back. His name is Xie Tang," she hurriedly told a nurse whom she met outside the room.

It was a small hospital with just enough beds and basic facilities. The nurse pointed towards a doctor's cabin at the end of the corridor. Jia Li ran towards that room and just stopped short of colliding into the doctor who was coming out.

"How is he, doctor?" she asked, trying to peep into the room from behind the doctor.

The doctor shut the door firmly behind him and gestured her to walk out with him.

"Are you his guardian?" he enquired when they reached his cabin.

She shook her head in affirmation impatiently, without hesitation. Her mind was going crazy and the doctor didn't seem to be in a hurry to answer her anytime soon. He took off his spectacles and polished them with the sleeve of his coat. It seemed as if he was weighing his words carefully before saying anything.

"The patient has suffered minor external injuries. But he has received a solid blow to his head which knocked him unconscious. He has a hairline fracture on one of the arms as well. For now, we need to wait for him to regain consciousness in order to determine if there is any damage to his brain," he said softly.

Jia Li's lungs didn't seem to be functioning well. She found herself short of breath. This was a nightmare! There was no way that any of this was real. He had bid farewell to her only an hour ago. The warmth of his smile still lingered in a corner of her heart.

"Can I go see him?" she asked the doctor.

"As long as you don't disturb him, you can do so," he replied kindly.

Jia Li walked out of his cabin in a daze and bumped into Chu.

"How are you? I was just coming to see you," she worriedly surveyed Chu up and down looking for signs of injury.

"Don't worry about me. What did the doctor say about big brother?" she asked in a tremulous voice.

"He says that Tang has suffered only external injuries including a minor fracture. He is just waiting for him to regain consciousness. But what exactly happened?" asked Jia Li, in a small voice.