CH 76.1

It felt like he had slept for a long time, but when he woke up, only three hours had passed.

It was still dark outside. Dark clouds shrouded the entire city of Suker, making the sky at four o’clock in the afternoon resemble a dark night.

After listening to the rain by the window for a while, Xu Xinghe then turned and left the room, walking towards the ward.

From the distance, he saw a small pink dumpling in front of the ward.

Xu Xinghe was taken aback and stopped.

At the door of the ward, stood a little girl in a pink dress.

The girl was holding a rag doll in her left hand and a book in her right hand, standing alone at the door of the room, looking up at the door.

Thin and small, she looked about four or five years old. Hearing the sound of footsteps, the girl jolted, spread her short legs and ran behind the wall, then stuck out half of her head and carefully looked at Xu Xinghe.

Xu Xinghe’s heart trembled.

The girl had a pair of black, translucent, lovable deer eyes.

A bit like her mother, and a bit like himself.

Perhaps due to the lack of sunlight in Suker City, her skin is very white, offsetting her darker hair. Her face still had some traces of baby fat, making her seem cuter.

Xu Xinghe stepped forward and squatted down in front of the girl.

“Are you Lily?”

He remembered the first name the woman on the hospital bed called when she opened her eyes, guessing that it should be her daughter’s name.

The little girl nodded and asked curiously, “Big brother, who are you?”

“I…” Xu Xinghe fell speechless for a while. “I am your mother’s… relative, and am also your relative.” 

The girl hid halfway behind the wall and tilted her head to look at him.

The pair of deer-like eyes blinked with a bit of curiosity. But she didn’t continue to ask, and nodded ignorantly.

Xu Xinghe asked in a warm voice, “Why are you standing at the door and not going in?”

Lily replied in a soft voice, “The doctor is examining my mother. They asked me to go out first.”

Xu Xinghe nodded: “You, how old are you?”

Lily stretched out her small arm and used her right hand to make the number “five”. “I’m five years old, and I can go to school next year.”

She looked so cute. Xu Xinghe couldn’t hold back and reached out to rub rubbed the little girl’s head.

Lily shrank her neck, but did not hide.

Xu Xinghe smiled and asked her again, “Then… what about your brother?”

“My brother should be at school. He used to live at school all the time. After mother got sick, brother didn’t go to school much, but mother kept asking him to go to school. They quarreled about it yesterday…” After Lily finished speaking, she suddenly remembered that her mother told her not to chat casually with strangers.

She quickly covered her mouth as if to make amends, and then put it down again.

The big brother in front of her made her feel very comfortable and close. She didn’t feel he was a bad person, and ended up saying a lot without knowing it.

While the two were talking, the door of the ward was opened and the doctor came out.

Xu Xinghe got up and took the little girl’s hand. “Come on, I’ll go in with you to see our mother.”

The woman on the hospital bed still looked very bad, but her originally dull eyes brightened when she caught sight of the two of them.

Lily pounced upon seeing her mother, and Xu Xinghe followed behind her and once again held the woman’s outstretched hand.

Her physical condition is very poor, and about half of each day is spent sleeping.

She no longer has the strength to play with her little daughter. The five-year-old little girl didn’t cry or make a noise, she just sat quietly on the carpet in front of the hospital bed, holding the doll and reading a book by herself. Seeing her so obedient hurt a little.

Xu Xinghe sat on the chair in front of the bed. When the woman was awake, he would tell her some stories that had happened to him over the years. When she fell asleep again, he walked over to Lily and sat next to her on the carpet, turned on his optical brain, picked an e-book she hadn’t read before, and read it together under the light.

After staying until dinner time, Lily warmly invited Xu Xinghe to stay and have dinner together.

Xu Xinghe reached out and touched his little sister’s head, and said apologetically, “I’m sorry, brother has an appointment tonight, so I can’t make it today. You have dinner with your mother first, and I’ll come back and eat with you tomorrow.”

In his mind, some things still have to be made clear to Ling Changfeng.

Lily was a little disappointed, but she nodded obediently, hugging her doll. “En, see you tomorrow!”

Xu Xinghe left the ward and suddenly realized that he didn’t know where to go.

Before Ling Changfeng left, he said that he would come to pick him up at night, but it’s past six o’clock in the evening now. He has yet to receive a message from the other party, nor has he seen Ling Changfeng himself.

Just as he was about to make a phone call to ask, the mailbox suddenly rang—

Ling Changfeng said in the message that something had just popped up, and he wouldn’t be able to make dinner, so he asked him to eat first.

Xu Xinghe was stunned for two seconds, then closed the screen calmly, turned and walked back to the ward.

He recalled the conversation between the two before they parted, and realized with hindsight that they seemed to have quarreled.

In fact, for a moment, he was sure that Ling Changfeng was angry. Even though he seemed to know why the other party was angry, he still couldn’t do anything about it.

It’s probably not anyone’s fault – it’s just that the two sides have different ways of thinking and different perspectives, so conflict is inevitable.

Xu Xinghe returned to the ward, and in Lily’s surprised eyes, he told her with a smile that he came back to have dinner with her and her mother.

The girl’s cheers and expectations gave Xu Xinghe a reason to keep smiling. She began to tell him about the children’s books she read, and even made an exception and let him hug her doll.

Therefore, Xu Xinghe was able to quickly pack up his mood and start eating and chatting with his sister like a real big brother.

His first night in Suker City passed like this.

That night, Xu Xinghe was lying on the bed alone, wanting to say something to Ling Changfeng.

After editing the message back and forth several times, in the end, it was not sent.

He wanted to say sorry to Ling Changfeng, but vaguely realized that doing so would not only be useless, but might even make things even more rigid.

He also wants to say thank you, but these two words feel a little too perfunctory.

In the end, he fell asleep in silence.

It rained heavily all night.

The next day, Xu Xinghe woke up very early, raised his hand to check the time. It was only six o’clock.

He dazedly clicked on the flashing notification, only to realize that Ling Changfeng had actually sent him another message just after one o’clock in the morning yesterday.

Marshal Ling said in the email that he had encountered something and would not come back for the past few days.

Xu Xinghe sat up and leaned on the head of the bed, feeling a little dazed.

Ling Changfeng… Was he deliberately avoiding him?

He carefully recalled the last conversation before the two parted, and always felt that it did not seem like the beginning of a cold war.

Things shouldn’t be this serious. Even if it were, Ling Changfeng is not a person who will use a ‘cold war’ to deal with such problems.

Is there anything else they haven’t talked about?

Xu Xinghe stared at the email for a while, then raised his hand and dialed Qin Yuan.

Soon, Adjutant Qin appeared on the screen with a pair of dark circles under his eyes.

“Sorry, did I disturb your rest?” Xu Xinghe was a little surprised. “Isn’t it noon now in Nebula City?”

Qin Yuan smiled and waved his hand: “It’s okay, do you need anything from me?”

“I… I think we might have quarreled.” Xu Xinghe got straight to the point, briefly described the unpleasant conversation that took place yesterday afternoon to Qin Yuan, and then added a little quietly: “He said I won’t want to believe his promise… But in fact, I just felt really sorry.”

While listening to him, Qin Yuan made himself a cup of black coffee and asked, “Why do you feel sorry?”

Xu Xinghe took a deep breath and replied, “My mother’s business… is my personal business. I shouldn’t have bothered him so much about it. I’m very grateful for what he has done, but I have nothing to give back, so… You know, I always feel like I owe him something, and am sorry.”

Qin Yuan sighed calmly, took a sip of coffee and said, “This so-called quarrel, well, there’s no need to worry. An alpha’s possessiveness in the short term is really not a big problem. But Xinghe, think about it in a different light. When you are willing to help others, do you prefer to hear the other person say ‘Thank you, this is very helpful to me’, or ‘Sorry for troubling you’?”

Xu Xinghe was taken aback.

Qin Yuan continued: “It’s not a shameful thing to accept help from others. If you feel grateful to him, go and say thank you generously. But you don’t need to feel sorry for this. He’s definitely not doing this to receive something from you. You are the one who is loved, Xinghe. Human beings are instinctively willing to do things for their lovers. You don’t need to think too much about his behavior, otherwise it will cause unnecessary damage to each other. Besides, this matter is no trouble for him. If anything, I’m the one that’s troubled…”

Taking another gulp of coffee, Qin Yuan added, “Remember to invite me to dinner when you have time and are back.”

Xu Xinghe: “…”

He fell silent for a while.

Lol. Qin Yuan the relationship counselor, and then ruins everything by implying ‘you made me work hard’.

Want faster releases for SMM? Get faster updates by buying a ko-fi~ Progress towards add’l releases, and to see other ongoing projects, are tracked on my ko-fi page.