Chapter 295 Daughter, you're finally back
Ji Ying noticed that Liang Yizhi wasn't driving her Hongqi.
They didn't even leave through the main entrance of the office building.
The two drove a regular SUV in the underground parking garage and then drove through a long underground passage before reaching the surface.
After that, the car drove to the suburbs and eventually stopped at a private sanatorium.
"Let me go and walk by yourself!" Ji Ying said.
However, Liang Yizhi held onto her wrist tightly, not letting go, and his pace did not slow down either.
"Back then, to protect his daughter, Professor Shen placed the crucial design data of the 'spiritual chip' on her. After his daughter disappeared, he became heartbroken and never touched research again. In recent years, he has been bedridden and is now frequently critically ill."
At this point, Liang Yizhi's voice became much sterner.
"I want you to see with your own eyes whether all parents in the world can abandon their children as easily as you think."
The information he gave was somewhat sudden, and Ji Ying was shocked and couldn't process it for a while, so she remained silent.
After passing through layers of security doors, they stopped outside a quiet hospital room.
At this moment, the door opened from the inside, and a man came out. Upon seeing Liang Yi, he quickly nodded in greeting.
Liang Yizhi turned to Ji Ying, his gaze deep, "Do you dare to go in?"
Ji Ying exchanged a glance with him and stepped inside.
Liang Yizhi did not follow, but instead closed the door for them.
The room was softly lit, and a bunch of fragrant lilies on the windowsill masked the smell of medicine.
Lying on the hospital bed was a middle-aged man with a pale face, who, despite his illness, still retained the refined and elegant demeanor of his youth.
He was much thinner than I remembered, and his aged appearance was alarming.
A wave of inexplicable bitterness washed over Ji Ying, and she unconsciously slowed her pace.
When she reached the bedside, she wanted to call out "Teacher Shen," but the three words stuck in her throat and she couldn't say them.
Almost at the same moment she froze in place, Shen Jingxiu, who had been resting with his eyes closed on the hospital bed, suddenly opened his eyes.
Time seemed to freeze for five or six seconds.
His eyes, which had previously held little life, lit up instantly upon seeing the person standing beside his hospital bed, and his gaze was filled with undisguised excitement.
Even more incredibly, this person, who was about to receive another critical condition notice, sat up on his own without any assistance.
"You...you should lie down quickly."
Ji Ying was afraid that his body couldn't take it, so she hurriedly bent down to help him lie back down, but Shen Jingxiu grabbed her hand.
“Daughter…” His voice trembled slightly, “You’re finally back… Have you suffered all these years away?”
Ji Ying was completely stunned by his words.
She had imagined that Shen Xiujinjing's reaction would be similar to that of Madam Shen: he would say uncertainly that she looked like his daughter, then ask a few simple questions, investigate, and finally let it go if there were no results.
She never imagined that he would so readily accept her identity.
Without DNA testing or questioning about past details, he confirmed that she was his daughter based solely on his deep paternal love.
A complex mix of emotions welled up inside Ji Ying, and her vision blurred instantly.
The grievances endured alone for many years, the exhaustion of fighting alone, and the disappointment with the whole world seemed to burst forth at this moment.
Ji Ying wanted to speak, but tears streamed down her face first.
"Don't cry, don't cry. Sit down and tell Dad slowly what hardships you've endured and what grievances you've suffered."
Ji Ying struggled to suppress the urge to cry and shook her head. "I didn't... I didn't..."
When she denied her identity, Shen Jingxiu smiled, a very kind smile.
He held her hand and wiped away the tears on her cheeks.
"Tell Daddy, what's your name now?"
"Ji Ying," she said softly.
"how come?"
Ji Ying held back the rest of her tears.
“When I was sent to Lanhe Children’s Home, the aunt who received me was surnamed Ji, so I took her surname. The character Ying was just randomly selected from the dictionary.”
“Lanhe Children’s Home?” Shen Jingxiu frowned immediately. “A few months after you disappeared, Yizhi searched all the orphanages near where you went missing, but couldn’t find you.”
Ji Ying sniffed. "I was in a coma in the hospital for seven or eight months because of a head injury. I was only sent here after I woke up."
I see.
At that time, she was unconscious, and the hospital's record system was incomplete, which led to a critical gap when Liang Yi later investigated the information of patients who were rescued and sent to the hospital on the day of the accident.
She disappeared at the age of twelve, so it's reasonable to assume that even if she survived, she would have been sent to an orphanage or adopted at the age of twelve. Who could have predicted that she would be in a coma for seven or eight months due to severe injuries, and wouldn't be sent to an orphanage until she was thirteen?
This series of unfortunate coincidences seemed like a script already written by fate, forcibly separating them for so many years.
Looking at his daughter, whom he had lost but had regained, Shen Jingxiu's lips curled into a bitter smile.
"It's all my fault... I was so engrossed in research and development, and too confident, thinking I could control everything."
Lost in memories, he felt even more pain.
“When I discovered there was a mole in the R&D center, I backed up the core data of the ‘spiritual chip’ to a USB drive and permanently destroyed the original. The situation was critical at the time; some wanted me dead, while others were willing to do anything to keep me alive. No one cared about my daughter, so I handed the USB drive to you…”
“As long as you are here, the USB drive will remain. If you are gone, no one will be able to get it… At the time, the situation was urgent, and we had no way of knowing whether the other party would continue to chase my car or had already located me and was coming here. So when Liang Yizhi suggested that you ride in my car temporarily and that my daughter and I separate and evacuate, I… did not strongly object.”
At this point, the middle-aged man, emaciated and with a full head of white hair, whose body was ravaged by illness, began to tremble slightly.
“It’s my fault… I pushed you into danger with my own hands. Even if you come back now, I will never forgive myself… Daughter, since you’re alive, why don’t you come back and ask me for my forgiveness? Dad is willing to let you scold me…”
Ji Ying listened quietly.
It was only at this moment that she realized her father had never given up on her.
The decision back then was a gamble, not a cold-blooded sacrifice.
The resentment she had harbored for so many years about being used as a shield began to crumble as her father uttered tearful confessions.
"It's only in the last month or two that I've slowly started to remember things from the past. Back then, your adopted daughter was constantly making things difficult for me because of the Shen family's engagement with Liang Yizhi. They've already taken my place, and I don't have the courage to disturb your happy life now. Besides... I don't even remember where I put that USB drive?"
Having struggled alone in the abyss of conspiracy and betrayal for years, Ji Ying was already covered in wounds and dared not trust anyone again. So she deliberately steered the conversation toward the USB drive.
Upon hearing this, Shen Jingxiu carefully examined her face.
"I can't remember... Is it because the injury on my head hasn't fully healed yet?"
“It’s not about the injury,” Ji Ying lowered her eyes, “it’s that many things only come to mind when I see them in specific situations. I was attacked by Shen Aizhu a few days ago, and my left eye vision is still affected… Aren’t you concerned about the whereabouts of the USB drive?”
Shen Jingxiu held her hand, a look of relief on his face.
"So what if it's lost? I've already 'forgot' about it. The most important thing is that you can come back to your father safely."
This unwavering answer began to melt the ice wall that had been built up in Ji Ying's heart.
"I've kept Liang Yizhi in the dark about my regained memories because he has problems, and I don't trust him."
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