For the next few days, aside from going home to get some clean clothes and feeding Lily, Chu Fang stayed with Zhong Tingyue almost 24/7, attending to her examinations, treatments, doctor visits, and administering her medication...

Under his meticulous care, Zhong Tingyue recovered quite quickly. She was originally scheduled to stay in the hospital for a week, but after deliberation by the medical team, it was decided that she would be discharged a day early.

Wuhu~~~

"take off!"

In the ward, Zhong Tingyue was especially happy, finally free from the hospital and back to her free world.

"Can you be a little more careful?" Chu Fang said helplessly.

"no."

“... ..."

Chu Fang was too lazy to pay attention to his girlfriend, who was already acting like a lunatic: "I'm going downstairs to pay the bill. You can rest for a while."

Upon seeing Zhong Tingyue give him an OK sign, he immediately left the ward. The nurse led him to the hospital's VIP payment counter, where he handed his bank card to the cashier and swiped it lightly.

In Sichuan dialect, it would be like this: Oh wow, nearly six million is gone.

He spent nearly six million on a minor appendicitis case, but he didn't feel he had lost out. In fact, it was one of the most significant large-scale expenditures he had ever made in his life.

Compared to Zhong Tingyue's life, what are a few million?

After swiping her card, Chu Fangxuan was about to go upstairs when she subconsciously glanced at the next corner and suddenly stopped in her tracks.

In the corner sat a middle-aged man in a sharp suit, his shoulders trembling slightly as if bearing unspeakable pain. Tears silently streamed down his face, which had been hardened by the years.

The middle-aged man was crying.

Chu asked the nurse for a pack of tissues, then walked up to her and handed her the tissues.

"Thank... thank you." The middle-aged man spoke haltingly, trying hard to suppress the sadness in his heart, but tears still streamed down his face.

Chu Fang didn't speak, but instead tore off one tissue after another and handed them to the other person.

Perhaps he was tired from crying, or perhaps he had vented his pain, the middle-aged man stopped crying, but his emotions remained extremely sad.

"Thank you," the middle-aged man said, trying his best to calm himself down.

"It's nothing," Chu Fang said. "Is there anything you can tell me?"

"Feel sorry."

"It's always better to say it than to keep it to yourself."

The middle-aged man took a deep breath, then slowly exhaled, and said only two words: "So difficult."

Chu Fang remained silent. After a long pause, the middle-aged man spoke again: "I have exhausted all my strength, yet why am I still so powerless? Why is life so difficult? Why can't I see any hope? My only father, who gave me life and raised me with such hardship, has caused him so much worry, and now in his old age, I cannot repay him, I cannot even save him..."

"What's the point of my life as a son? The idea is to raise a son to provide for me in my old age, but he raised me and I can't protect him from growing old. It's ridiculous!"

As he spoke, the middle-aged man seemed to break down again, tears streaming down his face, accompanied by sobs.

While tearing off a tissue, Chu Fang spoke softly: "Raising children to provide for old age is essentially a transaction. If he heard that you defined your relationship with your father as a transaction, he would be very sad. He raised you not to provide for his old age, but to let you see the beauty of the world and hope that you could also see the beauty of the world."

"Everyone will eventually die, no matter how wealthy or powerful they are. Death is an inescapable fate, and all you need to do is try your best..."

The middle-aged man looked up and said, "Thank you."

The middle-aged man strode away, and Chu Fang, watching his retreating figure, whispered, "You're welcome."

Chu Fang also went upstairs, and soon came downstairs with Zhong Tingyue. When they arrived at the sanatorium, they immediately saw the elderly couple.

During their hospital stay, Chu Fang and Zhong Tingyue's biggest gain was getting to know the elderly couple. The two couples, from different generations, actually found they could chat and shared similar values.

This is extremely rare.

They were preparing to be discharged from the hospital and also wanted to say goodbye to their parents.

The elderly couple were overjoyed to see them, their faces beaming with smiles, as if they had never seen any other expression on their faces since they met. They waved and said, "Xiao Chu, Xiao Zhong, you've come."

“Okay.” Zhong Tingyue walked up to them. “Grandma Liu, Grandpa Chen, we’re getting ready to be discharged.”

"Okay, okay." Mrs. Liu nodded happily. "It's not good to stay in the hospital all the time; it smells like medicine everywhere."

Grandpa Chen nodded: "I'm really happy to have met you all these days. It's worth it to have made friends with you before I go to my grave."

"Hey, let's not talk about that. Didn't you say you wanted to live to be a hundred?" Chu Fang said. "By the way, let's exchange contact information."

The two old men looked at each other, and Grandpa Chen sighed and shook his head: "Forget it, why bother with past acquaintances when we meet again."

Zhong Tingyue was about to speak when Chu Fang stopped her and said, "Okay, I'll listen to you."

"Oh, wait for me a moment." The old lady slapped her forehead, as if she had remembered something. She left the old man behind and hurried into the hospital, leaving the three bewildered people behind. A moment later, the old lady approached with a black plastic bag, handed it to Chu Fang, and said:

“That night, you said the candy was very sweet. It was homemade candy from my hometown, which you can’t buy in Shanghai, so I asked someone to buy some for you.”

"Grandma Chen, we..."

Chu Fang interrupted Zhong Tingyue, took the black bag, and said with a smile, "Grandma Chen, then I'll accept it."

Grandma Chen smiled and said, "Okay, I like Xiao Chu's personality."

Chu Fang and Zhong Tingyue chatted with the two elders for a while, and before they knew it, the sun was setting. The two elders urged them to leave reluctantly: "You should pack your things and get ready to leave, it's getting late."

The two elderly people stared at the direction where the two figures disappeared for a long, long time, as if they were in a daze. Only the old man's deep voice could be heard: "They have been discharged from the hospital, and it's time for me to be discharged too."

Grandma Chen remained silent for about ten seconds, and finally, pain appeared on her radiant face, as if she were struggling with something. But in the end, she replied in a voice barely audible: "Okay."

The old lady seemed to have aged a lot as she slowly pushed the old man towards the ward.

Back in the ward, seeing their son, daughter-in-law, and grandson in the room, the two cheered up.

"Mom and Dad."

"Grandpa and Grandma."

"Yangyang is such a good boy." The three greeted the two of them. The old man pinched his grandson's cheek, his eyes a little red, and said slowly, "I've made up my mind. I'm going to be discharged from the hospital."

"Dad!" The son's voice was especially loud.

The daughter-in-law then said, "Dad, we have money; we can treat your illness."

"I've made up my mind." The old man's words were soft, but carried an undeniable tone. It was as if he sensed the somber atmosphere in the ward, his heart aching as if cut by a knife, yet with immense willpower he calmed his turbulent emotions and said:

"Where will the money come from? Mortgage the house? Sell the car? Borrow more money? And we might not even be able to raise enough for treatment, all for my old life? Don't you care about your family? What will happen to Yangyang's education if we're burdened with debt for the next few decades? I, a mere individual, have dragged down two generations of your family?"

"You've lost all sense of shame?!"

The old man's tone softened: "Even if I recover, I'm already this old, with a whole host of illnesses. How many more days can I live? I want to go home and spend a few peaceful days with your mother."

"Mom!" Tears streamed down the son's face as he sought his mother's help, hoping she could persuade his father.

The old lady wiped her eyes with a handkerchief: "Listen to your father."

At home, she had been the head of the household her whole life, but today she handed over the decision to her husband.