Chapter 103 Everyone Has Their Own Fate

Jiang Chuan was in a meeting at his office when he received Lin Min's call. He got up, opened the meeting room door, and returned to his office to answer the phone.

"Aunt!"

Lin Min's gentle voice came from the other end of the phone. "Are you busy, Xiao Jiang?"

"No rush, Auntie, please speak!"

"What is Banban busy with? I've been calling her but no one is answering!" Lin Min hesitated for a moment and then stopped.

Jiang Chuan should have directly stated that the two had broken up, but the words stuck in his throat. "She's been busy with patents and professional titles lately, so she probably hasn't been checking her phone."

For some reason, he didn't immediately clarify their current relationship, perhaps because he still clung to the last bit of contact with her.

"Auntie, if there's anything you need, just tell me, it's the same thing."

"Auntie knows you and Banban are both very busy with work, and I didn't really want to trouble you..."

Although she knew Jiang Chuan was her daughter's boyfriend, the two had only known each other for a short time, and Lin Min didn't want to add any extra burden to her daughter, so her voice was filled with cautious probing.

“Auntie, your business is my business. You don’t need to worry, just speak freely.”

Jiang Chuan stared at a point in the void outside the window. Sunlight streamed through the blinds, casting stripes of light and shadow on his face. He leaned his head back in his chair, quietly waiting for what would follow.

After hanging up the phone, Jiang Chuan glanced at his watch, informed Secretary Bai to reschedule all afternoon appointments, grabbed his coat, and headed straight for the airport.

On the way, he contacted a client who worked as a pharmaceutical sales representative and asked the client to reserve an appointment with a specialist at the city's best cancer hospital for him early the next morning.

After picking them up, he temporarily settled Lin Feng and her family in his home. He informed Lin Min via WeChat, telling her not to worry and to take care of herself.

The next morning, after informing his colleagues, he canceled his work and accompanied Lin Feng to the hospital for a check-up. While she was having a CT scan and biopsy, he pulled Zou Lang, who was waiting in the corridor, aside and slipped him a red envelope.

"Brother-in-law, I really can't accept this!" Zou Lang hurriedly refused.

Since yesterday, this brother-in-law, whom they've never met before, has been running around helping them, resolving all their current problems. Without him, their family would probably have faced numerous obstacles from the moment they left the airport; they absolutely cannot accept this red envelope now.

"We have enough money."

"Keep it, it's a small token of our appreciation from your sister and me." Jiang Chuan was quite pleased with this address and insisted on stuffing the red envelope into Zou Lang's pocket.

“You came in a hurry this time, and you have to pay for the expenses yourself. There will be many other places where you need money later.”

"The reimbursement procedures for medical treatment in other places are very troublesome. You should keep all the receipts safe and ask me anytime if you have any questions." After saying that, Jiang Chuan took out his phone and exchanged WeChat contacts with Zou Lang in the corridor.

"Thank you, brother-in-law." Zou Lang had no choice but to accept the red envelope. While scanning the QR code, he couldn't help but ask, "Brother-in-law, when can my sister come?" He had been busy since last night and hadn't had time to contact his sister yet.

“Your sister has been busy with work lately, and I don’t want to distract her, so I haven’t told her about the situation here yet.”

Jiang Chuan looked up at Zou Lang, his gaze earnest. "Don't tell your sister about me helping you contact the hospital. You know she's stubborn and hates owing anyone anything."

He then slipped another meal card into Zou Lang's hand. "This is a meal card for the hospital cafeteria. You can eat here if you don't have time to go out."

Zou Lang held the card in his palm and nodded emphatically. In less than two days, he had already regarded Jiang Chuan as a close relative.

A few days later, the test results came back, and the situation was not optimistic. Lin Feng was diagnosed with late-stage breast cancer. Fortunately, there was no bone metastasis yet.

Jiang Chuan, in cooperation with the attending physician, finally finalized the treatment plan of surgical resection combined with radiotherapy and chemotherapy.

The day before the surgery, he handed a bunch of keys to Zou Lang. “I have a friend who has a vacant two-bedroom apartment near the hospital. I’ll take you there to get familiar with the area, so it’ll be convenient for you to rest when I’m with you.”

While his father was taking care of Lin Feng at the hospital, Jiang Chuan drove Zou Lang home to pack his things for the next day's surgery. At that moment, as he took the keys from Jiang Chuan, Zou Lang's eyes suddenly welled up with tears, and his voice choked with emotion: "Brother-in-law!"

The cry was so sincere that Jiang Chuan's hand on the steering wheel paused slightly upon hearing it. "What's wrong?"

Zou Lang hastily wiped away the tears that welled up in his eyes with his sleeve. "No matter who my sister marries in the future, I will only recognize you as my brother-in-law for the rest of my life."

"Your sister..." Jiang Chuan stared at the changing traffic lights ahead, a faint smile playing on his lips. "Besides me, who else could she marry?"

As the light turned green, he gently patted Zou Lang's shoulder. "Hold back your tears, don't let Mom see. With me here, the sky won't fall."

Fortunately, the surgery was very successful. Now all that's needed is rest and recovery while awaiting chemotherapy. Jiang Chuan, worried they might be overwhelmed, specially hired an experienced caregiver from T Hospital.

Lin Feng's complexion improved day by day, and she finally made up her mind to call Lin Yu. After all, her chemotherapy period, which would last for several months, was about to begin, and there was no point in hiding it any longer.

......

Zou Lang always felt something was strange. Every time his brother-in-law mentioned Lin Yu, although his tone was normal, his expression was somewhat ambiguous, as if he wanted to say something but couldn't, which made him wonder if the two of them were having a fight.

He could never keep a secret from his sister, so he asked, "Sis, how have you and your husband been lately?"

Lin Yu was clearly taken aback by his sudden question and paused for a moment. "Don't ask questions like that, kid."

“I’m twenty years old, how can I be considered a child?” Zou Lang straightened his back and protested. “If this were my parents’ generation, I would have been a father by now.”

"Oh my, it seems I underestimated you." She reached out and ruffled her brother's hair, her tone deliberately lighthearted.

"We're doing fine, so don't worry about it."

Lin Feng had just undergone surgery, and she really didn't want to distract her family from her affairs. Moreover, she still hadn't figured out how to bring up her relationship with Jiang Chuan.

Zou Lang couldn't help but advise, "Sister, you should really control your temper. If you really drive away a good man like your brother-in-law, you'll be hard-pressed to find another one like him."

Lin Yu was naturally unaware that, without her noticing, Jiang Chuan had already quietly planted his own spies around her.

"You talk like you know him so well." Lin Yu raised an eyebrow, lightly flicking her younger brother's forehead with her fingertip. "You've never even met him, yet you're already taking his side?"

Zou Lang, his thoughts exposed, quickly lowered his head, pretending to tidy up the caregiver's supplies. "Was I siding with him? I was just concerned about you!"

"Well, as long as you know which way to bend your elbow, that's good!" Lin Yu laughed.

He squatted on the ground packing his toiletries bag, and after a while, he looked up at her again, still unwilling to give up, and tentatively asked, "Sis, how about when you have some free time... we invite your husband to have a meal together?"

Jiang Chuan had already informed Zou Lang via WeChat that he would be going on a business trip out of town in the next few days, which happened to coincide with the time when Lin Yu was visiting the hospital. Zou Lang felt that things were not so simple.

Will he come to the hospital in the next few days?

"I'm not coming." Lin Yu stuffed the folded towel into his bag and said in a flat tone, "He's not your brother-in-law yet, don't bother him all the time."

She didn't want to talk about Jiang Chuan anymore, and instead asked, "What about your work?"

"Anyway, it's a daily wage, so I can just let my master know." Zou Lang scratched his head, glancing at his sister's less-than-pleasant expression, and ultimately didn't dare to continue the topic.

Lin Yu nodded, looked down at her phone, and transferred some money. "I need money a lot lately, so take this. It's not much, just a small token of my appreciation."

Zou Lang quickly pressed down on her wrist. "Really, you don't need to! Sis..." The words "brother-in-law" almost slipped out, but he swallowed them back down. "I sometimes take on some game boosting jobs, and the income is not bad."

The two hadn't even discussed the money beforehand, so the problem seemed more serious than he'd imagined. In less than a second, he'd silently chosen sides in his mind, deciding to help his future brother-in-law salvage the current unfavorable situation.

The next morning, Lin Yu took half a day off to accompany Zou Lang to the hospital to visit his aunt. Despite the warm heating, stepping into the oncology ward sent a chill down his spine for no apparent reason.

The smell of disinfectant was so strong it was pungent. The corridor was crowded with patients on makeshift beds, all of them emaciated, their cloudy, empty eyes slowly turning with each step.

Amidst the rising and falling groans, Lin Yu unconsciously tensed his back and quickened his pace to cross the suffocating corridor.

My aunt was assigned a bed by the window in a three-person room. The other two beds in the room were temporarily empty, and new patients would be moving in that afternoon. The headboard of the bed was adjusted to a comfortable angle, and she was taking small bites of apple slices that her uncle had peeled into thin slices.

Chemotherapy had left her face unnaturally pale, her cheeks swollen, and her lips chapped and peeling, but her eyes remained bright and alert. Seeing the two men enter, she struggled to sit up, but Lin Yu, who had quickly stepped forward, gently pressed her back onto the pillow.

"Don't get up..." Lin Yu took the fruit knife from her uncle and sat on the edge of the bed. "I disturbed you, Auntie."

Uncle was a man of few words when he saw Lin Yu. He smiled faintly, grinned, and revealed a hint of unintentional flattery. Then he took two steps back, picked up the kettle, and made an excuse to go to the water room to get water. He pulled Zou Lang out the door, leaving the two of them alone.

"I'm so happy to see you. You don't know me, I love being around people."

Lin Yu nodded and placed the apple on the tray beside him. He then picked up the medical record on the bedside table and carefully read it from beginning to end. "How are you feeling? Is your wound very painful?"

"It's nothing compared to giving birth," my aunt said nonchalantly, seemingly unconcerned about losing one breast at such a young age. "As long as you're alive, everything else is meaningless."

Lin Yu's gaze remained fixed on his aunt's face, deliberately avoiding the empty collar beneath her hospital gown. He picked up the apple again and brought the last slice to her lips.

"I told you a long time ago that you should have regular check-ups, you really..." She put down the knife, grasped her aunt's rough hand, but the words stuck in her throat, and she couldn't continue.

Lin Yu thought that if he had paid more attention to her symptoms during last year's Spring Festival and reminded her to get a medical check-up, would the situation be less serious now?

"Everyone has their own destiny, it's all the same." Auntie squeezed Lin Yu's hand tightly, pulling her back from her self-blame.

"When you look back on anything, you can always do it better, but there's no way around it, you can only look forward in this life."

She paused, then pulled a bank card from under her pillow. "This contains the money I've saved from farming over the past few years, not much. If anything happens to me, remember to give it to your younger brother; the password is his birthday."

Lin Yu suddenly sat up, tears streaming down her face before she even realized what was happening. She threw the card back onto the hospital bed and said angrily, "Just focus on your treatment. Don't overthink it. If you really want to give it to me... you can give it to me yourself later!"

"Sigh!" Seeing Lin Yu crying, her aunt hurriedly sat up. "I was worried about those two, so I entrusted this to you. You know your uncle likes to drink and gamble, and he's clueless when he's out there. If this money falls into his hands..."

She struggled to reach the card and forcefully shoved it back into Lin Yu's hand. "Keep it safe, don't let your uncle see it."

"You must promise your aunt, otherwise I won't go to the hospital anymore and will go home tomorrow."

Lin Yu wiped away her tears, sat back down next to Lin Feng, took a deep breath, and carefully put the bank card into her bag. "I understand, I promise you. But you also have to promise me that you'll cooperate fully with the treatment."

The aunt held Lin Yu's hand and nodded hurriedly. Only after seeing that she had agreed did she feel relieved and lie back down on the hospital bed.

Lin Yu covered her aunt with the blanket, left the ward, and gently closed the door behind her. She ran into Zou Lang, who was returning with a kettle of hot water.

Where's your dad?

"He went home to catch up on sleep." Zou Lang glanced into the ward. "His health isn't good either. He stayed up all night again last night. You can't get a good night's sleep at the hospital."

Lin Yu nodded and glanced at the time. "My sister has to go back to work this afternoon, so I'll leave things here to you and Uncle. I'll cover for you this weekend."

She reached out and smoothed Zou Lang's collar. "Call me immediately if anything happens, no matter how busy I am."

"Sister, don't worry..." Zou Lang placed the kettle against the wall. "We've hired another caregiver, and the three of us can manage."

Lin Yu's eyes flickered slightly after hearing this, but he didn't say anything more. Before leaving, he went to see Lin Feng's attending physician, carefully inquired about his aunt's post-operative treatment plan, and then returned to the company to continue working.