Volume One, Chapter Two: Beyond Rescue

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Gu Muyan’s pupils suddenly contracted. “I’m coming right away!”

“Chacha, hold your porridge yourself and be careful. Stay in this room and don’t go out.”

He hurriedly instructed Chacha before rushing upstairs.

Chacha watched her big brother’s retreating figure in confusion. She overheard someone saying that her brother’s grandfather seemed to be dying.

Meanwhile,

Gu Muyan’s subordinates worked efficiently, posting Chacha’s missing person notices all over the surrounding kilometers as soon as the order was given.

Liu Cuihua and her group dared not speak much with others and had to hide like rats in the gutters, not knowing how they had suddenly ended up here.

“What kind of cursed place is this! It’s all that damned girl’s fault,” Liu Cuihua said resentfully.

Wang Dazhu, hearing Liu Cuihua’s continuous curses and feeling cold and hungry, became very annoyed.

“Smack!” He raised his hand and slapped her.

“If you hadn’t beaten her until she couldn’t get up, would we have had to go searching for her in the woodshed? Instead, we lost her and ended up in this cursed place. Maybe by now, she’s already out there enjoying the money from Master Li.”

“Wang Dazhu! How dare you hit me!” Liu Cuihua covered her face, put down Jinbao, and was ready to fight Wang Dazhu.

Jinbao’s deeply wrinkled face had long gone numb. Seeing a white piece of paper on the ground, he picked it up and looked at it.

Suddenly, he exclaimed, “Father, mother! Look, isn’t this the ‘money-losing item’?”

Liu Cuihua hurriedly snatched it, delighted: “It really is! No wonder we didn’t find her in the woodshed; she’s here after all.”

The three of them couldn’t understand the words on the paper, so they nervously asked a passerby to explain.

Seeing their anxious expressions and the missing person notice, the passerby assumed they had lost a child and, without hesitation, drove them straight to the hospital.

Inside the hospital,

Chacha sat on the bed, dazed. Would her brother’s grandfather die just like her grandmother?

Would her brother be bullied by uncles and aunts and starve afterward?

Looking at the porridge in front of her, she pursed her lips and barefooted stepped out the door.

She gazed blankly at everything around her—the bustling crowd, the incessantly beeping machines—and stood hesitantly at the doorway.

But thinking of how her brother would be bullied after his grandfather’s death, little Chacha clenched her tiny fists and cautiously took her first step.

Her brother had saved her and fed her delicious porridge; she must protect him.

“Little one, where are you going?”

Startled by the sudden voice behind her, Chacha spun around like a frightened rabbit.

Pei Xingyun, seeing he had scared the little one, apologized and gently patted Chacha’s head.

He had heard that Old Master Gu was gravely ill and had gone to the fourth floor to visit, only to see a little girl wrapped in bandages sneaking out of the Gu family’s deluxe ward.

Worried she might get lost, he approached to ask, but hadn’t expected to startle her.

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Chacha regained her composure and carefully began climbing the stairs ahead. “I’m going to the fourth floor to find my brother.”

Pei Xingyun paused, then lifted the little one into his arms. “I’ll take you there.”

...

Outside the emergency room on the fourth floor,

Gu Muyan pushed through the crowd and looked through the glass window at the person being resuscitated inside.

Any doctor in that ward was a world-renowned expert; many people spent their entire lives unable to get an appointment with them. Yet now, they were all gathered for one person.

Gu Yan stepped forward and silently patted his eldest son’s shoulder. “Nan Xu and Xia Xun are already on their way. The incident happened suddenly; all we can do is hope they make it back.”

Gu Muyan asked quietly, “He was fine before I left. Why did Grandpa suddenly get taken to the emergency room?”

Gu Yan’s eyes locked on the elderly man being treated, his fists clenched tightly, a trace of unintentional pain flashing in his gaze.

In a hoarse voice, he said, “Your little aunt came home unexpectedly and had a big fight with your grandfather. Dad was so upset that his illness flared up and he collapsed immediately.”

Gu Muyan fell silent upon hearing anything related to his little aunt.

A heavy, dreadful silence hung outside the ward. The entire Gu family stared anxiously at the door, afraid of any bad news.

—

Two minutes later,

The group of doctors removed their masks and slowly emerged from the ward, shaking their heads to the crowd.

“Old Master Gu’s organs have almost completely failed. He cannot be saved. He’s still conscious now; you should go in and see him.”

Gu Yan suddenly looked up, strode past the doctors blocking the door, and entered the emergency room.

Gu Chiyi’s eyes were half-closed. Seeing his son enter, his frail hand trembled as he removed the respirator.

He motioned for Gu Yan to come closer, his breath faint as a thread. “Don’t blame your sister. It’s us who have wronged her too much.”

After saying this, he seemed exhausted, his chest rising and falling weakly.

Gu Yan stood quietly by the bedside, the pain inside him like a venomous snake sinking into every inch of his skin.

Looking at his son’s stern, mature, and steady face,

Gu Chiyi took a deep breath and smiled with relief. “I’ve transferred the Gu family’s estate into your name. From now on, you are the true head of the Gu family.”

“I know you blame me, but your father can no longer make it right.”

Gu Yan’s mouth twitched slightly. “It’s fine. I stopped caring long ago.”

Gu Chiyi sighed. “Your sister…”

Gu Yan lowered his head and answered slowly, “I will provide her with a fortune.”

A smile appeared on Gu Chiyi’s aged face. He looked up and beckoned Gu Muyan forward. “Muyan, you are the most filial child. Take good care of your younger brothers.”

Gu Muyan nodded, eyes red.

After saying these words, the old master leaned back, his face a mixture of guilt and pain.

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He had so many regrets in his life, sorry for his children, but he could no longer make amends.

“Beep———”

The heart monitor gradually flattened into a straight line.

Outside the door,

Pei Xingyun held Chacha in his arms, noticing the sorrowful faces emerging from the ward.

“Is my brother’s grandpa going to die?”

Pei Xingyun put Chacha down, surprised that someone so young understood what death meant.

He glanced at the dying Old Master Gu and sighed.

Just as he was about to tell Chacha to stay put, he realized she had quietly slipped inside.

Chacha silently stood by the bedside. Amid the grief-stricken crowd, no one noticed her presence.

She did not know that Gu Chiyi had already passed away, but she saw her brother sitting in the corner, weeping alongside a man who looked very much like him.

Chacha reached out her small, tender hand and grasped Gu Chiyi’s wrinkled palm.

This grandfather’s hand was so cold.

For some reason, Chacha felt like crying too.

When her grandmother died, she had laid on her, feeling her grow as cold as winter snow.

Her uncles and aunts told her her grandmother was dead.

That was the first time Chacha understood that when a person’s body grows colder, it means they are dying.

Tears welled up in Chacha’s eyes. Was this grandfather going to die too?

Would her brother be bullied and scolded like her, with no one to protect him?

“Grandpa, please don’t die.”

Tears the size of beans slipped down Chacha’s cheeks and dripped onto Gu Chiyi’s hand, seeming to emit a faint white light that sank into his body.

Gu Yan had noticed Chacha when she held the old master’s hand. Though he didn’t understand why she kept crying for him, he felt her tears were also his own.

His lowered lashes trembled slightly as he prepared to have someone take this mysterious little girl away.

“Beep—Beep—Beep”

Suddenly, the heart monitor sounded again. Gu Yan shot up, staring at the pulsing screen.

He looked down in disbelief at the crying little girl.

Unable to maintain his forced composure any longer, he shouted, “Doctor!”