In the ward

Liu Yufen still couldn't believe what she was seeing. Her face was almost deathly pale, her eyes were fixed on the ground, and she was shaking her head.

"No! This is impossible! No!!"

Xu Zhilian was so heartbroken that tears were about to fall. He bent one knee to get up and put his arm around Liu Yufen's waist to help her up.

Liu Yufen suddenly broke free from him as if she had gone mad, and knelt down on the spot with a "plop," kowtowing three times in a row.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I was cowardly back then, it's all my fault! If you want revenge, take it out on me, don't hurt my husband and son!"

Caught off guard, Xu Tangmian and her husband were so startled by her kneeling that one of them jumped up from the bed, while the other rolled off the bed to the other side.

Xu Tangmian gently patted her chest and gasped for breath. She watched as her grandmother kowtowed to Yu Chunsheng and apologized to him. She couldn't quite describe how she felt.

She thought she shouldn't get involved in the affairs of their generation. The only thing she could do was to step back.

Making your grandmother kneel and kowtow to you will shorten her lifespan!

Yu Chunsheng quickly tried to help Liu Yufen up, and said angrily with disappointment, "What are you doing! Get up!"

"No! No! I beg you, I beg you! It was all my fault back then. I was scared when I saw so many people surrounding you. When I heard them call you a hooligan and saw my clothes in your hand, I panicked."

“I know you wouldn’t do such a thing, but if this gets out, I’ll be unable to face anyone, and you won’t marry me because of it, so I acquiesced! If you feel wronged, please take your revenge on me. Zhilian did so many wrong things because of me.”

"I won't retaliate, get up!" Yu Chunsheng was frantic.

"No! I won't get up!" Liu Yufen knelt on the ground again and walked towards Xu Zhilian, hugging his shoulders and frantically pleading, "I beg you to let Zhilian go, it's all my fault!"

“Yu Fen…” Xu Zhilian hesitated, his brows furrowed, no longer the arrogant man he once was.

"Let it go! Let it go! I'll let it all go! Can you all get up first?"

I'm puzzled, why do both of them like to kneel?

With Xu Zhilian's help, Liu Yufen shakily straightened up. Because she had been kneeling for so long, her legs buckled and she stumbled when she suddenly stood up.

Xu Tangmian quickly ran over and supported her other arm, and saw her nod gratefully and say, "Thank you!"

Grandma is so different from Grandpa.

Xu Tangmian had no memory of her grandmother. She died a year before she was born. Her father said that she later liked to lock herself in her room and copy her Buddhist scriptures.

Looking back now, perhaps she never got over it until her death.

Liu Yufen was unaware of the behavior of the young woman beside her. Since entering the ward, her attention had been completely drawn to "Kong Lin".

There was silence in the ward for a moment. After calming down, Liu Yufen realized that when she knelt down and begged "Kong Lin" for forgiveness, her hand had touched his and was warm.

Do ghosts have body temperature?

She raised her head again to examine the young man before her. His thick black hair and handsome features clearly indicated that it was him. Perhaps because his face was swollen, he wasn't as handsome as she remembered, but she could still recognize him. There would never be another Kong Lin in this world.

Xu Zhilian was the one who found the person. She turned to her husband, her eyes gesturing to him, "What happened?"

With their tacit understanding over the years, Xu Zhilian understood her meaning with just a glance, and immediately explained in a cold voice: "It was Liu Xingyao and his group. I don't know where they did it, but he is indeed Kong Lin."

"Liu Xingyao?" Liu Yufen remembered that this person had appeared in her husband's photo. Xu Zhilian said that Liu Xingyao and Kong Lin were his good friends at Peking University.

She knew that Liu Xingyao and his wife had been secretly working to exonerate Kong Lin.

Former friends have now become enemies. Xu Zhilian has fallen out with his good brother because of her, and Liu Yufen feels indescribable guilt.

But... the ritual? It's too mystical. Liu Yufen murmured with her head down, "I thought it was all feudal superstition."

She looked up again, grasped Yu Chunsheng's hand tightly, and said earnestly, "I think not everyone has the chance to come back to life. You must have a lot of resentment to be able to successfully revive."

Xu Zhilian frowned as he stared at their clasped hands. He made a slight movement with his right hand, as if to separate them, but ultimately did not.

He turned his head and winked at Xu Tangmian behind him, signaling her to do something about the current situation.

There was an unquestionable command in his eyes, a hint of disdain, and a touch of resentment, but not a trace of familial affection.

Xu Tangmian walked confidently to the door, not intending to get involved in their affairs.

But when the door opened... why were there two people outside? No, there were three!

Xu Tangmian was both delighted and surprised. She took the child and couldn't help but complain, "There are so many germs in the hospital, why did you bring the child here?"

Li Yutao offered a few more guilty explanations, and Xiao Qiushi suddenly laughed. This laugh delighted Xu Tangmian, and with others speaking inside, she finally shut her mouth obediently.

"I'll get to the point." Yu Chunsheng broke free from Liu Yufen's tight grip, coughed twice, and glanced uncomfortably outside the ward.

"That's all in the past. Let bygones be bygones. I won't pursue it any further."

Thinking of his wife and daughter, Yu Chunsheng smiled slightly and said, "You have your lives, and I have mine. We won't bother each other."

“Brother Zhilian, if you have any humanity left, you should know how to handle bridge construction.”

“I will persuade him!” Liu Yufen nodded hurriedly, as if to express her determination to Yu Chunsheng. “I heard what you said. Whether it’s for the sake of that innocent child or for your sake, I will persuade him to approve the project.”

"Why should I!"

Upon seeing his wife's subservient demeanor, Xu Zhilian was reminded of his time working in the countryside, and his anger flared up immediately.

"If it were for the sake of that child or simply for the sake of all the citizens of Yilin City, I could approve the project from a fair and impartial standpoint. But with him interfering, that's unacceptable!"

"Zhilian!" Liu Yufen glared at him and then looked at Yu Chunsheng in a panic, feeling like her dog had run away without a leash and happened to bite someone she knew.

Yu Chunsheng was speechless. After a two-second pause, he asked, "Can I move away? Can I move to another city instead of Yilin City?"

"If you're still not satisfied, I'll go anywhere, even outside the province or abroad."

"No way! I'll make sure you don't get what you want!"

"Xu Zhilian!" Liu Yufen snapped, "What's wrong with you?"

"Yu Fen!" Xu Zhilian, his face contorted in pain, slowly slid off the hospital bed and sat down on the floor, resting his head on her lap.

"I love you so much, you can't abandon me for him, I'm the one who loves you the most."

Xu Zhilian spoke earnestly, his eyes filled with tears, which even moved Yu Chunsheng. However, Liu Yufen could not feel happy.

She looked at Yu Chunsheng across from her with an embarrassed expression, then gently pushed the head on her lap, "Get up! What will people think of us!"

"Let him see if he wants to. He knows all my shameful secrets, why would I be afraid of him seeing them!"

Xu Zhilian raised his head and glared angrily at Yu Chunsheng, "I don't need Yufen to apologize for me, and I don't need your forgiveness."

"I plead not guilty! I plead not guilty!"

"Xu Zhilian!" Liu Yufen's face flushed red. "Do you want me to die? Do you want to see me feel guilty for the rest of my life?"

"No!" Xu Zhilian hurriedly stood up. "How could I let you die? I love you so much, how could I bear to?"

"Alright, listen up!" Liu Yufen said, enunciating each word clearly, "I want you to go back and immediately approve that project you mentioned. After it's finished, come back to Beiping with me, and never come back here again in this lifetime!"

"But…"

"But what?" Liu Yufen said coldly, "You know perfectly well that this is the last place I want to come to, you know perfectly well that I have been unable to let go of that matter all these years, so why do you insist on coming to provoke him?"

"It wasn't me who provoked him! He's the one who provoked us!" Xu Zhilian couldn't help but shout out.

Seeing his wife's blank stare, Xu Zhilian knew he was getting emotional, so he quickly lowered his voice and said softly, "It was him, that ignorant girl who came to Beiping to find us first."

Xu Zhilian slowly knelt down in front of Liu Yufen and said softly, "Do you know? His wife, the one who just went out, is our granddaughter."

"What!" Liu Yufen's voice suddenly rose as the image of the girl she had been waiting with outside the ward flashed into her mind—the little girl she liked very much!

"Our granddaughter?"

“Yes.” Xu Zhilian’s face showed no sign of happiness. “She is our granddaughter, but she married him and had a child. She betrayed us by siding with him.”

Liu Yufen was dazed, her eyelashes blinking rapidly, but she frowned and couldn't say a word.

"They were the ones who arrived in Beiping, they were the ones who came looking for us first! Before that, I had no idea that Kong Lin was still alive, and I never thought of doing anything more!"

"Did you just hear what she said? She said, 'Why wasn't it you who died back then?' This is my dear granddaughter! She's cursing me to die!"

Liu Yufen was completely bewildered and stammered, "Perhaps there's some misunderstanding..."

"Misunderstanding? She even tried to hit me before!" Xu Zhilian seized the opportunity to complain, pointing at Yu Chunsheng across from him with a wronged expression, "She and he teamed up to beat me up!"

After watching the commotion for a while, Yu Chunsheng couldn't help but defend himself and his wife: "It was you who wanted to kill my daughter, so Tangtang and I had no choice but to take action."

"Are you even human? You knew she was your granddaughter, yet you still tried to kill our daughter. I'm only being lenient by beating you."

Xu Zhilian suddenly jumped up, "I'm not human? And you are? Back in Peking University, I followed you around doing all sorts of work for you, didn't I? You knew she was my granddaughter, and you still had a child with her? Aren't you disgusting? Which one of us isn't human?"

"If I were the same age as you, and if she were still alive in her time, I would definitely be a humorous and witty old man in her world."

"But how did she get here? And how come I'm eighteen years younger than you? Xu Zhilian, now that it's in front of your wife, aren't you prepared to explain what happened back then?"

Liu Yufen was completely confused. Looking at her husband, whose forehead was covered in sweat, she had a vague sense of unease.

"Zhilian, what happened back then? Is there something you haven't told me?"