Sweet Rebirth: The Little Healer

She had to be satisfied; she couldn’t be so ungrateful as to resent Hua Yusen.

"Silly girl, you’re safe now. Don’t be afraid. Once you and your brother have recovered, Station Chief Liu will arrange for your return to Nianqiao Village. Don’t stay in this troubled place," Hua Yusen said. "I can’t stay with you any longer."

"Mm," Zhao Nuanyue nodded, deeply worried about Hua Yusen.

With a heavy heart, Hua Yusen gave Zhao Nuanyue a lingering kiss on the forehead, then left the hospital room.

Hua Yusen couldn’t begin to imagine the punishment he would face for this breach of discipline.

However, he didn’t regret it. He hoped Nuanyue would return to Nianqiao Village soon and wait for him there.

After Hua Yusen left, Xia Yingyu, who had been sitting outside, finally snapped out of her shock. She came in and sat at Zhao Nuanyue’s bedside. "Nuanyue," she said, "I am so sorry... so sorry to you and Nuanyang..."

Hearing those three words, "I am sorry," made Zhao Nuanyue’s heart ache even more. She hated hearing them, and she hated saying them to anyone.

Because those three words meant that either someone had wronged her, or she had wronged someone else.

Zhao Nuanyue looked at the beautiful, tear-streaked woman before her, and the tears she had just managed to suppress streamed from her eyes again. "Mom," she asked, "don’t apologize to us anymore. You’ve already said it too many times. This time, after Zhao Jinghai and Wang Lianhua did something so inhuman to us, are you still going to stay with Zhao Jinghai?"

"I..." Xia Yingyu choked, at a loss for words. Her mind couldn’t process the situation. "I... I don’t know!"

Seeing her mother’s haggard expression and her large, pregnant belly, Zhao Nuanyue felt a pang of heartache.

In a way, her mother, Xia Yingyu, was a pitiful figure.

’She was widowed young, only to remarry into a family like that. She’s almost forty and pregnant with Zhao Jinghai’s child. Even if she’s seen the true colors of Zhao Jinghai and Wang Lianhua, what can she do? Where can she go?’

"Mom, if you don’t know, then don’t dwell on it," Zhao Nuanyue said softly. "It’s not safe for Nuanyang and me to stay here. Once we’ve recovered, I’m taking him and leaving. You have to take care of yourself. As for Zhao Jinghai’s family, they are my enemies. Don’t try to mediate and convince me and Nuanyang to forgive or accept them. It’s not going to happen. It’s absolutely impossible. I will not compromise on this."

Tears streamed down Xia Yingyu’s face. She shook her head, then nodded, saying, "No forgiveness. You’re right, no forgiveness. Since they did this to you, you can’t forgive them. I won’t forgive them either."

Hearing this, Zhao Nuanyue felt a little better. She looked at the pitiful woman and said, "Mom, take good care of yourself. Leave Nuanyang to me. If Zhao Jinghai, Zhao Huilan, or Wang Lianhua bully you, go to the organization for help. Don’t keep thinking you have to hide family problems and just swallow your pride. Your tolerance won’t make them treat you any better."

"Mm, I know. I understand now." Xia Yingyu wiped away her tears and tried to compose herself. "Nuanyue, you just rest here in the hospital. I’ll go home, cook a meal for you both, and bring it over."

Zhao Nuanyue was touched, but she didn’t want her mother trudging through the snow on such a cold day to get to the hospital. It was too dangerous.

"Mom, don’t," Zhao Nuanyue stopped her. "It’s snowing outside, so it won’t be easy for you to travel. You could slip and get hurt. Mom, that house is a mess right now. Don’t go back yet. Stay here with me, and with Nuanyang."

Facing another separation so soon, Zhao Nuanyue asked Xia Yingyu to stay, not only because she wanted to see her mother a little longer, but also for Nuanyang’s sake. Her brother’s longing for their mother was even more intense than her own.

Xia Yingyu hesitated, but she stayed.

The people Hua Yusen sent brought food for Zhao Nuanyue and Zhao Nuanyang. But since Zhao Nuanyang was still unconscious, Xia Yingyu ate his portion.

That night, Zhao Nuanyue had her mother get into bed with her. The two of them squeezed onto the narrow hospital bed, cherishing a brief moment of warmth and intimacy.

Meanwhile, Wang Lianhua waited and waited at home, but Xia Yingyu never came back. She grew anxious, worried that something had happened to her daughter-in-law. To be precise, she was worried about the baby in Xia Yingyu’s womb. With her own son in trouble, the child in Xia Yingyu’s belly was the Zhao Family’s last hope.

Just as Wang Lianhua was about to go out and search, the door opened with the sound of a key in the lock. It had to be her granddaughter.

"Grandma, where’s Dad?" Zhao Huilan demanded the moment she burst through the door. "I was just outside, and everyone is talking. They’re saying Dad was taken away! Some say he was forced to give Zhao Nuanyue to Li Jianfeng as a daughter-in-law, that he had no choice. Others claim he did it to curry favor with the higher-ups. What in the world happened? How does everybody know our family’s most secret affairs?"

Wang Lianhua was just as baffled. She sighed and said, "I have no idea what happened. All I saw was Mrs. Li’s house getting surrounded. They took Mrs. Li and her idiot son away, and I heard Li Jianfeng got arrested too. I went to warn your father, but by the time I reached his work unit, I saw him being taken away as well."

Zhao Huilan’s face went pale. ’Could it be?’ she thought. ’Was Dad’s deal with Mrs. Li exposed?’

"Then... what about Zhao Nuanyue and Zhao Nuanyang?" Zhao Huilan asked. "Did they report this? Or do they have someone powerful on their side?"

"I don’t know!" Wang Lianhua said, starting to panic. "What are we going to do?"

Zhao Huilan was so anxious she could practically feel smoke coming out of her ears. She glanced around the room. "Where is Xia Yingyu? How can she be gone when something so terrible has happened to Dad? Is she just sleeping in her room?"

The thought of her own and her grandmother’s frantic worrying, compared to Xia Yingyu’s apparent calm, made her furious.

"Your stepmother went out to ask about the situation, but she hasn’t returned," Wang Lianhua said. "We should go look for her. What if..."

"Who has time to worry about her right now?" Zhao Huilan cut in impatiently. "We need to go to someone we know and find out if Dad can even be released. We can’t just sit here. Let’s go!"

Seeing her granddaughter’s urgency, Wang Lianhua quickly relayed, "This afternoon, as they were taking your father away, he told me that our family was forced into this by Li Jianfeng’s family. So, we must insist that we weren’t the ones who started it. We have to push all the blame onto Li Jianfeng and Mrs. Li. That might be our only chance."

Zhao Huilan’s eyes lit up. "That’s right!" she exclaimed, a sudden scheme forming in her mind. "How could a simple, honest family like ours ever do something so depraved? Let’s go! We’ll go outside and put on a show, cry our eyes out, and prove that *we’re* the real victims here!"