Chapter 95
Chapter 95
That day, He Qian was in the shower when He Yuchuan suddenly called.
He Qian turned off the showerhead, hastily wiped her hands on a towel, and answered.
He Yuchuan said, “Sis, I’m following Huang Yuanrui. Guess what I just saw!”
He Qian was dripping wet, and a gust of wind blew in through the window, making her feel a little chilly.
She wrapped both arms around her shoulders and replied, “I’m not guessing. Don’t ask, just tell me. I’m in the shower.”
He Yuchuan said, “I saw her secretly slip into the stairwell of Zhang Qiong’s building, and she hasn’t come out since.”
He Qian asked, “She went to Zhang Qiong’s place?”
He Yuchuan lowered his voice. “It looks like Zhang Qiong’s family of four is going on a trip. They’ve been packing things up and loading the car. Huang Yuanrui went in while none of them were there.”
He Qian squeezed the water from her hair and asked in confusion, “How did she get into someone else’s home? It’s not like she has a key.”
He Yuchuan said, “I don’t know. I’ll keep watching for a bit.”
He Qian asked, “Where are you? In the car?”
He Yuchuan said, “I’m behind their building. There’s a place here for charging electric bikes. I’m hiding here.”
He Qian said, “Be careful. Don’t let anyone spot you… All right, I’m going to finish my shower. I’m getting cold.”
After hanging up, He Qian turned the shower back on and continued bathing.
An hour later, He Yuchuan called again.
“Sis, Huang Yuanrui still hasn’t come out! And Zhang Qiong’s whole family of four didn’t leave together-her husband and kids left, but she didn’t!”
He Qian shuddered. “Huang Yuanrui… hid inside Zhang Qiong’s home?”
He Yuchuan said, “That’s right. From the looks of it, yes.”
He Qian asked, “What is she trying to do?”
He Yuchuan said, “No idea. I have to keep staking the place out… Hey, why don’t you bring me a stool? I’m exhausted.”
He Qian suddenly felt an itch deep in her nose. She sneezed, then said in a stuffy voice, “Cut it out.”
He Yuchuan said, “Keep Qin Song occupied. Don’t let him come over tonight. I want to see what Huang Yuanrui is up to.”
After hanging up, He Qian told Qin Song she had a fever and asked him to cancel all his evening social engagements after work and come home to take care of her.
Some unlucky words really shouldn’t be thrown around. Say them, and they have a habit of coming true.
By that night, He Qian really did have a fever.
Of course, it had nothing to do with anything mystical. She had simply caught a chill after taking a phone call halfway through her shower.
He Qian had always had a weak constitution, and her temperature shot straight up past 38 degrees Celsius. Qin Song cooked her a light bowl of egg noodles and helped her take fever medicine. Wrapped in a thin summer blanket, she slept groggily for more than two hours.
When she woke up, it was already past nine at night. He Qian had sweated all over.
She lifted the blanket and stuck her legs out to cool off, then picked up her phone.
There were two missed calls from He Yuchuan, plus one new WeChat message.
Lying on her side, she squinted one eye and read the message.
He Yuchuan: “Sis, she still hasn’t come out. I’m about to be eaten alive by mosquitoes.”
He Qian replied to him: “Go home. Don’t keep suffering there.”
He Yuchuan responded instantly: “Why did it take you so long to answer me!”
He Qian wrote: “I had a fever and fell asleep.”
He Yuchuan replied: “Huh? Are you okay?”
He Qian wrote: “I’m fine. Hurry up and go home.”
After putting down her phone, He Qian found a towel and wiped the sweat from her back.
Qin Song came in carrying a small plate of sliced fruit. “Honey, have some fruit. Get some vitamins in you.”
He Qian sat up and waved her hand. “I want water.”
Qin Song brought her a cup of warm water, and He Qian gulped it down.
Qin Song took her temperature. Her fever had already gone down.
After lying back under the blanket, He Qian grew drowsy again and was about to go back to sleep.
She felt very tired.
Lately, her life had felt like children playing house-tailing people, eavesdropping… She wasn’t even sure whether any of this was useful, so she often doubted herself and often lacked motivation.
She wasn’t even that obsessively attached to the idea of “taking away all the eggs and leaving him only the golden hen.”
He Yuchuan seemed even more serious about it than she was, as if he were the one who had been cuckolded twice over.
But since she had already made this decision, and since she had already taken so many steps down this road, stopping halfway would be even more meaningless.
So He Qian thought, Then I’ll just keep going for now.
He Qian fell asleep again.
In the middle of the night, she woke up coughing in her sleep. Afraid of waking the rest of the family, she instinctively grabbed the blanket and pressed it against her chest. But the more she tried to hold it in, the worse the coughing became. In the end, she coughed so hard she started dry heaving.
Qin Song climbed out of bed with his eyes half-closed to get her some warm water. Then he took her temperature again-her fever had come back, and it was 38.9°C.
Qin Song said anxiously, “Let’s go to the hospital and get you an IV drip!”
He Qian frowned. “I don’t want to go to the hospital. Medicine is enough. No injections.”
Ever since the induced labor, He Qian had never set foot in a hospital again. When she got sick, she took pills if pills would do, and went to a small clinic if she absolutely had to.
Early the next morning, He Qian’s fever finally broke. Qin Song cooked her millet porridge and egg whites, then fed them to her.
After clearing away the bowls and chopsticks, he picked up his phone and glanced at WeChat. Then he looked up and said to He Qian, “Take another dose in ten minutes. Remember, okay? I’m going to the office first.”
With that, he hurried out the door.
He Qian reached out from under the covers and called He Yuchuan. The line rang for a long time before he finally picked up.
“Xiaoyu, I just woke up. Did you go home on time last night?”
He Yuchuan forced the words out through his teeth. “I’m dead tired… You woke me up…”
He Qian said, “Huh? What time did you go to sleep?”
He Yuchuan said, “Four in the morning… or five… I forget…”
He Qian asked, “Why did you get back so late?”
He Yuchuan finally sounded a little more awake. “I staked the place out until dawn. That woman didn’t come out of the stairwell until after three! I followed her by car. She went back to Tianfeng Hotel, and I went home.”
He Qian said quietly, “She stayed at Zhang Qiong’s place until three in the morning… She couldn’t have killed Zhang Qiong, could she…?”
He Yuchuan said, speechless, “Sis… If she wanted to kill her, she would’ve done it already. Why wait that long? She’s just a young girl who steals other people’s men and makes a fuss over petty jealousies. Don’t take it somewhere that fantastical.”
He Qian said, “Steals men and makes a fuss… Why are you slurring so much today?”
He Yuchuan said, “I’m getting old. Can’t pull all-nighters anymore. After staying up all night yesterday, I got two huge ulcers on my tongue. It hurts whenever I talk.”
He Qian asked with some concern, “Are you okay?”
He Yuchuan said, “Aside from the ulcers making my whole mouth hurt and the ancestors of every mosquito for eighteen generations kissing me all over until I’m itching everywhere, I’m perfectly fine.”
He Qian laughed. “I’m hanging up. Go back to sleep. We’ll look into it after you wake up.”
He Yuchuan did not ask whether her fever had gone down or how she was feeling.
He Qian’s head was a bowl of mush, and she had no energy to care about those details.
She forced her aching body out of bed, took her medicine, then collapsed back onto the mattress.
He Yuchuan slept in his apartment until noon. Only when the sun had heated his face until it was burning did he finally wake up.
He got out of bed and washed up. While brushing his teeth, the two ulcers on his tongue hurt so much his eyes filled with tears.
After eating a few bites of fruit, he grabbed his car keys and went out to buy medicine.
As he was walking down the street, someone suddenly patted him on the shoulder from behind.
He Yuchuan turned around-it was Zhang Qiong.
He Yuchuan froze.
Zhang Qiong said, “You walk really fast. I saw you just now and had to chase after you. I’m exhausted.”
He Yuchuan felt as if he suddenly understood something, but not quite enough of it.
He tested the waters. “I…”
Zhang Qiong said, “Aren’t you in Sanya? Did you just get back today? You didn’t even tell me in advance!”
He Yuchuan thought for a moment, then pretended to look confused as he raised a hand and scratched his head. “Miss, have you got the wrong person?”
As expected, Zhang Qiong did not believe him.
He Yuchuan insisted she had mistaken him for someone else.
In the end, Zhang Qiong tilted her head in confusion and asked, “Aren’t you Liang He?”
Something clicked inside He Yuchuan’s mind.
He had heard that name before, and more than once.
He Qian had said Qin Song had once asked her, all twitchy and weird, whether “Liang He” sounded more like a man’s name or a woman’s name.
He Qian had also said that through the listening device, she had heard Qin Song ask Huang Yuanrui the same question.
And now, Zhang Qiong had brought up that name too.
He Yuchuan could already make a rough guess.
He smiled, cleared his throat, and said clearly and distinctly, “You’ve got the wrong person, miss. My last name isn’t Liang. It’s Li. My name is Li Shihao.”
Zhang Qiong stood there, stunned. He Yuchuan calmly continued on his way. He went to the pharmacy and bought two boxes of Watermelon Frost lozenges and a pack of Niuhuang Jiedu tablets.
In truth, he badly wanted to laugh, because the name he had blurted out was the name of one of his buddies.
That buddy’s name was Li Sihao, but because He Yuchuan was slurring today, to Zhang Qiong it had come out as “Li Shihao.”
That little detail did not matter.
What mattered was that He Yuchuan could feel it-Zhang Qiong was not far from being knocked out of the game.