Chapter 247 Jingyue Awakens
A week has passed in the blink of an eye.
The atmosphere on the top floor of St. Mary's Private Hospital was so oppressive it was hard to breathe.
The storm in the Huo family has long since subsided, but the dark clouds hanging over the hearts of the Lu family are growing ever heavier.
In the hospital room, Meng Wan was visibly losing weight, her once well-maintained face now showing signs of exhaustion. She stayed by her daughter's bedside day and night, holding her cold hand and calling her name over and over again, her voice already hoarse.
Lu Zhenguo, this iron-willed general, stood silently by the window most of the time, his straight back revealing an indescribable weariness.
He temporarily handed over military affairs in Beijing and flew to Hong Kong Island, but when faced with his lifeless daughter on the sickbed, all his ruthless methods became useless.
Lu Jingyan barely left the bedside. All his murderous aura and coldness had vanished, leaving only endless worry and self-blame for his sister.
In the entire ward, the only one who remained calm and orderly was Su Wantang.
Every day, she meticulously timed it, personally wiping Lu Jingyue's body with spiritual spring water, and then feeding him the extremely diluted spiritual spring water little by little through a feeding tube.
She knew in her heart that Lu Jingyue's body had been hollowed out after ten years of imprisonment, and her spirit had been ravaged by drugs. The spiritual spring water could sustain her life and repair her body, but whether it could awaken her was uncertain.
That morning, Su Wantang had just finished wiping Lu Jingyue's cheeks and was about to put the towel away.
Just then, the person on the bed had long, curled eyelashes that trembled slightly.
The movement was so subtle that it was almost an illusion if one did not look closely.
But Lu Jingyan's eyes instantly turned red. He grabbed Su Wantang's wrist violently, his voice trembling uncontrollably:
"She...she moved! Wan Tang, did you see it? She moved!"
Meng Wan and Lu Zhenguo immediately gathered around, their four eyes fixed on the girl on the hospital bed.
Under the breathless gaze of everyone, those eyes, which had been closed for ten years, finally, slowly, opened a crack.
Turbid, confused, and unfocused.
Like a newborn baby, filled with unfamiliarity and fear of this bizarre and wonderful world.
"Yueyue! My Yueyue! You're awake! You're finally awake!" Meng Wan could no longer hold back her tears of joy and reached out to hug her daughter.
But before her hand could even touch Lu Jingyue, her newly opened eyes were instantly filled with terror.
"ah--!"
With a sharp, short scream, Lu Jingyue, like a frightened little animal, shrank back to the corner of the bed, wrapping herself tightly in the blanket, leaving only her eyes, filled with fear, staring warily at everyone in front of her.
Meng Wan's outstretched hand froze in mid-air. The ecstasy on her face gradually faded, replaced by disbelief, astonishment, and heartache.
“Yueyue…I’m your mother…Don’t you recognize your mother?” she asked in a trembling voice.
Her response was Lu Jingyue's even stronger shrinking and vigilance.
Lu Jingyan felt a pang of heartache that made it hard for him to breathe. He tentatively took a step forward and spoke in the gentlest voice he could muster: "Yueyue, don't be afraid, I'm your brother."
Lu Jingyue's gaze fell on him, her eyes as unfamiliar as if she were looking at a villain who had broken into her home.
The family's joy at regaining what they had lost was shattered by reality at that moment.
Dean Benjamin and several neurosurgeons who arrived later conducted a comprehensive examination on Lu Jingyue.
The conclusion is cold and cruel.
"The patient suffered severe damage to his hippocampus due to long-term injections of unknown drugs and inhumane mental control, resulting in serious memory impairment and cognitive impairment," a white-haired German expert said to the Lu family with a regretful expression.
"Simply put, she has forgotten everything. Moreover, her mental development has regressed to that of a child due to traumatic stress. She is now... like a five or six-year-old child who needs you to re-teach her everything."
The ward was deathly silent.
Meng Wan swayed and almost fell over, but Lu Zhenming caught her.
My heart is breaking.
But when she saw her daughter hiding under the covers, protecting her like a little hedgehog, Meng Wan's eyes lit up again.
She took a deep breath, wiped away her tears, and said to her husband and son, "As long as she's alive, that's enough. Forget about it, let's just consider it as raising her all over again. We brought her into this world once, and we can bring her back again!"
This resilient mother accepted this cruel reality in the shortest amount of time.
In the days that followed, the Lu family began a long and patient “nurturing plan”.
They re-taught Lu Jingyue everything, just like they would a real child.
"Yueyue, look here, this is Mommy." Meng Wan held up a photo of herself when she was young, showing it to her again and again, without getting tired of it.
"Yueyue, open your mouth, ah—" Lu Jingyan held a bowl of rice porridge that Su Wantang had specially cooked with ingredients from her space, and clumsily tried to feed the child.
General Lu Zhenguo, a man of few words, also had a large collection of fairy tale books brought from Beijing. Every night, he would sit by his bedside and, in his loud and authoritative voice, stammeringly tell his daughter the stories of "Little Red Riding Hood" and "The Three Little Pigs."
The warmth of family, little by little, tried to melt the heart that had been frozen for ten years.
Lu Jingyue was still timid and shy, but she no longer screamed or resisted. She would stare at them blankly, her eyes filled with childlike curiosity.
A strange phenomenon is that although Lu Jingyue is very wary of his own family members, he has a natural sense of closeness to Su Wantang.
She would subconsciously follow Su Wantang, her gaze following wherever Su Wantang went. She would only eat what Su Wantang offered and only let Su Wantang comb her hair.
Once, Su Wantang was sitting on the sofa reading a book when Lu Jingyue quietly moved over, sat on the carpet at her feet, and gently rested her head on her knees.
Lu Jingyan watched this scene with mixed emotions in his eyes. This dependence made him both jealous and grateful.
That afternoon, the sun shone brightly on Hong Kong Island, casting dappled light and shadows through the blinds into the hospital room.
Su Wantang sat on the edge of the bed and peeled a bright red apple for Lu Jingyue.
Lu Jingyue sat beside her, holding a plush rabbit doll, watching her quietly. Her fingers were skillful; the knife spun, and the long apple peel flowed smoothly.
The ward was quiet, with only the soft rustling sound of someone peeling an apple.
As Su Wantang was peeling, she seemed to remember something and unconsciously began to hum a very soft and gentle Jiangnan folk song.
The melody was melodious yet carried a subtle sadness, a soft, gentle tone typical of the Wu dialect. It was a song her mother, Bai Xiuzhu, often sang to her in a rocking chair when she was very young.
After transmigrating into the book, she had almost forgotten everything.
But today, under this warm sunshine, that long-forgotten melody flowed out naturally from the depths of my memory.
She hummed softly, lost in her own thoughts.
"Clatter".
A soft sound.
It was the plush rabbit that Lu Jingyue was holding that fell to the ground.
Su Wantang snapped out of her daze and looked up to meet Lu Jingyue's unfocused eyes.
The girl's face turned deathly pale instantly. She clutched her head with both hands, her body began to tremble violently, and she let out painful, suppressed groans.
"Yueyue? What's wrong?" Su Wantang was shocked and immediately dropped the fruit knife to support her.
Lu Jingyan also rushed over in one stride.
"Headache……"
Lu Jingyue's breathing became rapid. She gripped her hair tightly, and fine beads of cold sweat appeared on her forehead, as if she were caught in some kind of great pain and struggle.
Her lips trembled, and she managed to squeeze out a few broken, incoherent words through her teeth.
"Begonia...singing..."
"...Don't be afraid..."
"The moon...the moon is watching..."
Su Wantang, who was holding her hand, suddenly froze.
Lu Jingyan's pupils contracted sharply the moment he heard those words.
Crabapple!
It's Su Wantang's mother's code name!
moon!
That's my younger sister Jingyue's name!
Su Wantang and Lu Jingyan exchanged a lightning-fast glance, both seeing utter shock in each other's eyes!
This is not nonsense!
These are fragments of Lu Jingyue's remaining memories!
An astonishing, almost unimaginable possibility exploded in their minds.
Back then, in that eerie and terrifying "Eagle's Nest" base, before her mother Bai Xiuzhu defected, she saw the young Lu Jingyue!
Even during those dark and hopeless times when she was used as an experimental subject, her mother, the chief scientist codenamed "Begonia," used this folk song from Jiangnan to comfort the little girl named "Jingyue" who was surrounded by fear!
Two clues soaked in blood and tears, one about the truth of the mother's death and the other about the mystery of the sister's disappearance, miraculously converge at this moment because of a tune that was hummed unintentionally!
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