Chapter 52
Chapter 52
The next time they met, Liu Ruyan had come in to prepare for surgery.
She looked thinner than before, and her left cheek was slightly red and swollen.
Zhu Yin was surprised. The female lead had already agreed to donate a kidney to his idealized love. The male lead should have been treating her like a treasure by now.
Who else in this world would hit her, other than the male lead?
Noticing Zhu Yin’s gaze, Liu Ruyan gave a bitter smile. “My mother hit me.”
Oh, right. Zhu Yin remembered now. Both of Liu Ruyan’s parents were still alive.
At the mention of the Liu family, Barbara immediately connected to the plot, transmitting the relevant information into Zhu Yin’s mind.
Liu Ruyan had been born into a working-class family that was neither wealthy nor poor. She had a younger sister, and the family had always been very close.
That harmony ended when Liu Ruyan insisted on being with the male lead.
At first, her parents thought their daughter and the male lead had fallen in love freely. The enormous difference in their families’ social standing made them uneasy, but they still offered their blessing to the female lead’s love.
Then they visited the Li family and witnessed firsthand the coldness and contempt everyone there showed the female lead.
After returning home, Liu Ruyan’s parents strongly opposed the relationship and told her to break up with him.
“What would be the point of marrying into a family that looks down on you, only to be scorned every day?”
Liu Ruyan refused to break up with him, and she was unwilling to tell her family the truth.
At first, her parents thought money had blinded their daughter. Bitterly disappointed, they said that if the Li family looked down on them, then they would not acknowledge the Lis as relatives either. They would not go begging to be despised.
The Liu family kept their word. In all the years Liu Ruyan had been married to Li Nanfeng, they had never visited the Li residence or used the Li family’s influence to gain the slightest benefit.
Many of their relatives knew only that the Liu family’s eldest daughter had married. They did not even know who her husband was.
At that point, they had merely been displeased with Liu Ruyan.
Then, some time ago, his idealized love returned to the country.
As Haicheng’s foremost wealthy family, the Lis drew every gossip rag and online news outlet at the faintest stir. They descended at the first whiff of a story.
And so came all the stories about Mr. Li and his first love; the inexplicable resemblance between Mr. Li’s wife and that first love; and the recent return of his idealized love. Paparazzi had photographed Li Nanfeng going out with her more than once. The two of them had a child in tow, and Mr. Li’s face was full of tenderness. They looked exactly like a sweet, happy family of three.
When the Liu family saw the news, their heads rang. Mother Liu immediately called to demand an explanation.
Liu Ruyan hemmed and hawed under her family’s interrogation and told them only part of the story, but no one knew a daughter better than her parents. How could they fail to understand?
They had thought that their daughter being blinded by money was disappointing enough. They had never imagined anything worse.
Their daughter had actually lost all self-respect and every last boundary over a man!
For one fleeting moment, Liu Ruyan’s parents decided that being a gold digger might not be so bad. At least gold diggers had ambitions and goals. They knew how to secure benefits for themselves, so their child would not suffer too much.
“Break up! Get a divorce!” That was Mother Liu’s demand.
Naturally, Liu Ruyan refused. She repeated her whole “they’re only friends” theory to her mother.
Mother Liu was so furious she ended up in the hospital. When she woke, she said only that if Liu Ruyan refused to get a divorce, she was not allowed to visit again.
How could they have known this was only the beginning?
Their daughter was actually saying that she wanted to donate a kidney to her husband’s mistress?
Mother Liu had only just left the hospital, and nearly landed herself there again in fury.
“I carried you for ten months.” Mother Liu’s pointing hand trembled, and so did her lips as she spoke. “Your father and I raised you from when you were this little. When you came down with a high fever in the middle of the night at four years old, we couldn’t find a car. Your father and I carried you more than five kilometers to the hospital…”
“In your first year of middle school, you fell during the sports meet and cut your face. Your father was so worried he couldn’t sleep for nights. He was afraid a scar on a young girl’s face would get you mocked later.”
“From childhood to adulthood, we couldn’t bear to see you suffer the least hardship or endure the slightest grievance. And now you’re telling me that, for some piece-of-trash man, you want to have one of your kidneys taken out!”
She was truly heartbroken. She looked at her daughter in bitter disappointment. “Have you ever considered how your father and I feel?”
Liu Ruyan’s eyes filled with tears. Over and over, she said, “I’m sorry, Mom. I’m sorry!”
“You have wronged your father and me, and you’ve wronged yourself even more.” Mother Liu felt as though every ounce of strength had drained from her body. She was exhausted. “But I don’t want to hear those words.”
Her voice sharpened. “You will not sign anything, and you will not have that operation. Do you hear me, Liu Ruyan?”
Liu Ruyan shook her head. “Mom, Nanfeng owes that woman his life. I promise, this will be the last time. Afterward, Nanfeng and I will live happily together. We’ll take care of you both–”
Smack!
Liu Ruyan clutched her face and stared blankly at her mother.
The slap took all of Mother Liu’s strength. She staggered back two steps and braced herself against the wall.
“Liu Ruyan.” She stared hard at her daughter. “Listen to me. If you dare go through with this, you are no daughter of mine. Your father and I will consider you dead.”
…
Perhaps to demonstrate the female lead’s moth-to-a-flame, reckless love for the male lead, the plot had covered the Liu family in considerable detail.
Zhu Yin silently finished watching that fairly long passage. With the strength of her soul, it took her only an instant to scan it all.
She looked at Liu Ruyan before her.
“But you still chose to come.”
Liu Ruyan lowered her eyes, unable to meet Zhu Yin’s gaze.
She said softly, “Mom will calm down. Once she isn’t so angry anymore, I’ll apologize and beg her to forgive me.”
Apparently, one slap had not been enough to knock sense into her.
Zhu Yin said, “Of all the bizarre people I’ve met, you rank near the top.”
In her previous job, she had encountered no shortage of perverts, people born rotten, and even saints who had fallen and become demons.
But people like Liu Ruyan, who made fists itch the moment she opened her mouth and inspired the urge to beat some sense into her, were still rare.
“Host, why are you unhappy?”
Zhu Yin denied it. “I’m not. You imagined it.”
Barbara leaped into her arms and offered its fluffy tail to its host of its own accord. “Barbara can feel it. You’re upset.”
Zhu Yin vigorously stroked its tail, then buried her face in the cat and took a deep, forceful breath. “I just think some people are unbelievably stupid. They treat garbage like treasure, yet fail to cherish the love they truly possess–love more dazzling and captivating than diamonds.”
Barbara understood at once. “You mean the female lead!”
Zhu Yin hummed in agreement, then changed the subject. “Enough about her. Let’s keep watching our movie!”
His idealized love also came to see Zhu Yin once. She was clearly far more intelligent than the female lead. After realizing that Zhu Yin disliked the way she used to speak, she was always perfectly courteous around her.
This time was no exception. She had prepared a gift for Zhu Yin: a simple but lovely necklace from a famous luxury brand, worth a great deal of money. Her words were polite and pleasant too, thanking Zhu Yin for the care she had given her and her child during this time.
Zhu Yin refused it. Wanwan said nothing more and left quietly.
That afternoon, however, the pale, frail little boy came over holding a gift box. He said it contained a Christmas present for the doctor.
Zhu Yin was speechless. She told the sickly child, “Tell your mother that I’m a doctor. I won’t bring any personal feelings into the operating room.”
The boy obediently left.
The operation succeeded, just as it had in the plot.
Zhu Yin emerged from the operating room and changed into a white coat. Barbara told her that someone had arrived.
Anyone Barbara went out of its way to mention could not be irrelevant.
Zhu Yin headed outside and saw three figures lingering near the hospital entrance.
There was an older couple and a young woman whose features bore some resemblance to Liu Ruyan’s.