Chapter 53

The afterglow of the setting sun shone on the quaint red brick walls of Capital University. Mu Qingxuan clutched the employment letter for a lecturer of traditional Chinese medicine that she had just received, her fingertips trembling slightly.

Huo Changfeng opened the passenger door for her, his eyes full of tenderness: "Are you exhausted? Shall I take you to that newly opened Cantonese restaurant?"

"good."

Mu Qingxuan took a deep breath, joyfully placed the employment letter on her knees, and gently stroked it with her fingers.

After dinner, the two drove back to the military compound.

But before she got close, Mu Qingxuan's attention was suddenly attracted by the commotion at the gate of the compound.

The security guard's poplar-like figure stood at the door, and she heard a familiar, intermittent sobbing sound.

"Let me in... please..."

The hoarse child's voice was soaked with blood-like despair.

Mu Qingxuan subconsciously opened the car door.

Through the twilight, she saw a figure huddled in the corner.

A little girl's faded floral dress was covered in mud, and there were dark red stains on the hem, like dried blood.

The little girl's hair was tangled into a mess, with a few strands sticking to her sweaty forehead, covering most of her face.

The half of the eye that was exposed was bloodshot and swollen like a walnut. The lower eyelid was an abnormal bluish purple, and there were still undried tears hanging on the eyelashes.

Her lips were cracked and oozing with blood, her nails were filled with black mud, and the two purple pinch marks on her wrists were particularly eye-catching.

His thin body was shivering in the autumn wind. The wound on his knee was still oozing blood, which mixed with dust and solidified into a horrible hard lump.

Mu Qingxuan frowned deeply.

When I saw this little girl at noon, she was clearly not like this.

How come you suddenly look so miserable after not seeing you for an afternoon?

It was as if someone had beaten him severely.

Mu Qingxuan was filled with inexplicable anger. She opened the door, got out of the car, and walked to the side of the little girl.

"What's going on?"

She squatted down and her voice softened unconsciously.

The little girl's eyes were full of fear, and she kept shrinking back like a frightened deer, and her back hit the iron gate heavily, making a dull sound.

"It's me."

Mu Qingxuan spoke again.

The little girl then mustered up the courage to look up, and the moment she saw Mu Qingxuan's fair and gentle face, tears immediately fell from her eyes.

"Sister, sister..."

The security guard scratched his head and said, "Mrs. Huo, please understand. The injuries on this girl have nothing to do with me. She was like this when she came."

"She had been making a fuss at the door for nearly an hour, saying she wanted to see the Huo family for medical treatment, but when I asked her who she was looking for, she couldn't tell me. I thought she was suspicious, so I didn't let her in."

Huo Changfeng walked up to the girl at some point, took off his coat and put it on the little girl.

The warm cloth wrapped around her shivering body, but the little girl suddenly started coughing violently, with blood foam seeping out from between her fingers.

Mu Qingxuan's heart trembled, and she reached out to feel her pulse.

When I felt her pulse at noon, it was obviously slippery, weak and feeble, a typical case of qi and blood deficiency during pregnancy.

What's even more terrifying is that I can feel a faint stagnation under my fingers.

Mu Qingxuan had a feeling that something was not right, so she asked her to come to the Huo family to find her.

But I didn't expect that

Mu Qingxuan's face darkened. She glanced at the bloodstains on her skirt and thought of something.

"Come home with me first."

Mu Qingxuan took off her silk scarf and wrapped it around the little girl's bleeding knees. She said softly, "My name is Mu Qingxuan. You can continue to call me sister. I will help you."

The little girl's dull pupils trembled slightly, and a broken sob came from her throat: "Really...really?"

She grasped the corner of Mu Qingxuan's clothes, and the temperature of her palms was surprisingly low.

The chandelier in the Huo family's living room cast a warm light, but it couldn't warm the little girl curled up in the corner of the sofa.

The ginger tea that Aunt Wang brought was steaming, but the little girl just stared at the rim of the cup, her fingers unconsciously picking at the scabby wound.

Cui Lirong came down from upstairs with hand cream on. Seeing the strange girl, she raised her eyebrows slightly: "Qingxuan, who is this?"

Mu Qingxuan paused while feeling Chang Yingying's pulse. When she looked up, her eyes were red. "Her name is Chang Yingying."

Then, she told Cui Lirong truthfully about Chang Yingying's physical condition.

Cui Lirong was dumbfounded, anger burning in her heart: "Who on earth is this beast who actually did such a thing to a little girl!"

Mu Qingxuan shook her head and said in a deep voice: "Changfeng has already gone to investigate. I can only take her home now and take good care of her health."

"If left unchecked, it might..."

—Perhaps she would become too weak to die.

Cui Lirong said without hesitation: "This is what I should do. I will ask Aunt Wang to clean up a guest room now."

Mu Qingxuan worked until late at night and finally stabilized Chang Yingying's physical condition, soothed her emotions, and coaxed her to sleep.

Only then did she return to her room with peace of mind.

Huo Changfeng felt very distressed and massaged her shoulders: "Xuanxuan, you have to take care of your body too. Don't forget that you are also a double body now."

Mu Qingxuan smiled, with a bright and warm arc in the corners of her eyes. She looked very much like the kitten raised by Old Mrs. Huo, cute and unconsciously charming.

"With you here, do I need to worry about taking care of myself?"

She tilted her head and pressed her cheek against Huo Changfeng's palm.

Since the man knew she was pregnant, his face was no longer cold and his heart was no longer hard.

Even when eating, I wanted to hold her in my arms and feed her mouthful by mouthful.

Huo Changfeng's eyes darkened slightly and his earlobes turned red unconsciously.

"I had a younger sister who died on the abortion table..." Mu Qingxuan frowned tightly, as if she was thinking of something unhappy.

Of course, Mu Qingxuan was not talking about Mu Qianqian.

But her best friend in her previous life.

Her friend is two years younger than her, but she met the wrong person and married a domestic violence man.

After marriage, the relationship between the couple was not harmonious. Whenever the man was not satisfied with something outside, he would come back and beat up his friends.

In the end, my friend wanted to have an abortion, but because her body was so weak from years of deficiency, she died on the hospital bed.

Mu Qingxuan still remembers that in the late autumn of that year, she heard the bad news about her friend and rushed over from another place in a hurry.

But when she rushed into the operating room like crazy, she only saw half of a pale finger exposed under the white cloth.

The pigtails that my friend always wore were now scattered messily on her shoulders, and the skin exposed outside the white cloth was covered with bruises, both new and old.

The warm yellow light in the living room broke into tiny spots of light on Chang Yingying's trembling shoulders. Mu Qingxuan's nails dug deeply into her palms, and the memories of her past life surged in like a tide.

She still remembers the grief she felt at that time and hated herself for not being able to rescue her friend from that hell in time.

Regret was like a cancer that gnawed at her heart in the middle of countless nights.

At this moment, Chang Yingying's curled up figure overlapped with the appearance of her friend in her memory.

Mu Qingxuan took a deep breath, pinched her palms with her fingernails to leave crescent-shaped blood marks, and swore secretly.

In this life, she will never let tragedy happen again.