Chapter 72
Xiang Wan frowned and walked towards the outside of the courtyard. When she reached the fence, she realized that she was right—Li Taohua was peeking out and eavesdropping.
Moreover, the look in her eyes made it seem like she was plotting something wicked again.
However, at this moment she was only a soul, and Li Taohua could not see her, so she openly looked her over, wanting to see what she wanted to do.
To her surprise, Li Taohua did nothing in the end; she simply eavesdropped for a while and then left.
Xiang Wan felt somewhat confused, but the next second another white light appeared, and she was teleported to the next location again...
After opening her eyes, she looked at the bustling lobby and guessed from the doctors and nurses coming and going that this was probably the county hospital that Chen Yan was going to.
She was still looking for Chen Yan when she heard the voice coming from the loudspeaker:
"Patient number 76, Grandma Chen Yan, please come to consultation room number 1 when your number is called."
Xiang Wan remembered that Granny Chen Yan didn't have a name; the Granny Chen Yan on the radio must be calling her. When she finally found Clinic Number One, she saw a desperate-looking Chen Yan and a sullen-faced Li Shengde coming out of the clinic.
The two seemed to have a disagreement, and they kept pulling and tugging at each other after leaving the consultation room.
"Uncle, please—"
"Are you out of your mind? The doctor said the surgery will cost five thousand yuan. Let's not even talk about where you're going to get such a large sum of money?"
"Besides, the doctor said that even if your mother-in-law has surgery, she won't last long. Are you stupid enough to waste money like this?"
Upon hearing this, Chen Yan's eyes were filled with despair, but he refused to give up. He stubbornly knelt down and begged him, "Uncle Li, I, Chen Yan, keep my word. No matter what I do for the rest of my life, I will definitely pay you back this money."
"Please, for the sake of my mother-in-law who once pulled you out of the river, save her life."
After saying that, Chen Yan knelt on the ground, ignoring the stares of those around him, and grabbed Li Shengde's trouser leg, kowtowing repeatedly.
He had already scraped his forehead, and the bleeding had finally stopped on the way to the hospital. But when he kowtowed on the marble floor, the wound that had just stopped bleeding reopened, and even the hospital floor was covered in blood.
Those around him looked at him with pity as he kept kowtowing, but Li Shengde, who was being kowtowed to, only felt ashamed.
When he was little, he wasn't a good swimmer and he did almost drown once. It was Chen Yan's mother-in-law who pulled him out of the river.
But all of this is old news. That little bastard Chen Yan actually embarrassed him in front of so many people, which made Li Shengde quite furious.
He had already done more than enough by driving a donkey cart to take the grandfather and grandson to the hospital at four in the morning, yet the man still tried to force him to pay for the medical expenses based on some old grievances. He was furious just thinking about it.
Chen Yan continued kowtowing, but Li Shengde left without looking back.
Before leaving, he pointed at Chen Yan's nose and spat, "What a stubborn brat!"
When Li Shengde cursed him, his saliva splattered on Chen Yan's face, but he seemed completely unaware, just sitting blankly on the ground, watching Li Shengde's departing figure.
Even after Li Shengde had walked away, he looked at his mother-in-law lying on the stool not far away, his eyes vacant and filled with despair.
What should we do?
He didn't know what to do either...
His mother-in-law's condition was serious and she needed to be hospitalized, but he couldn't even afford the surgery. His mother-in-law's life savings were barely enough to cover the registration fee.
The village chief didn't want to deal with them and left, leaving Chen Yan and her mother-in-law sitting on the hospital benches.
In the dead of winter, he sat on the marble floor of the hospital and felt that it was even colder than the mountains. Even though he was wearing clothes, he felt the cold seeping into his body.
Chen Yan sat on a chair outside the clinic in the corridor. People came and went around him, but they only looked at him and his mother-in-law with indifference or pity. No one dared to ask him what had happened, but no one chased them away either.
At the other end of the chair, Xiang Wan sat next to Chen Yan, looking at his forehead covered in bloodstains and his empty, desperate eyes, her brows furrowed from beginning to end.
She had no idea that people could live such a miserable life. Or perhaps it was the saying that a rope always breaks at its weakest point. In his past life, Chen Yan might have been that rope, and his life was full of hardships from birth.
She wanted to pay for his mother-in-law's medical treatment, but now she was just a soul, and what was happening now was a predetermined fact that had happened in her previous life, so she could only watch from the sidelines.
She wondered what the purpose of fate was in making her observe these events.
Should we let her see the suffering Chen Yan has gone through?
When Xiang Wan first saw her 12-year-old self, she thought that fate was guiding her to see these things from her past life, and that it was related to her. But now, upon closer reflection, it seems that everything she saw as a soul was something that happened with Chen Yan as the timeline.
She didn't know who wanted her to see these things, but it didn't seem malicious.
Xiang Wan stayed with Chen Yan at the hospital for a day. Although her mother-in-law's breathing was stable, she still did not wake up. The hospital would not admit her until the family paid the fees.
Chen Yan did nothing, just sat quietly outside the ward in a daze. Some nurses couldn't bear to see him like that and offered to bandage the wound on his forehead, but he shook his head and refused.
In the afternoon, Chen Yan went out to buy food. Although he hadn't eaten all day, he wasn't hungry at all. However, he was worried that his mother-in-law would be hungry after she woke up, so he still went out to buy food.
He had no money, so he bought large bags of rice for 50 cents each, but he still thought they were too expensive.
After buying the rice, Chen Yan was afraid it would get cold, so he put the rice in his pocket. However, when he returned to the hospital gate, he saw an uninvited guest - Li Taohua.
She kept looking around in front of the hospital, as if waiting for someone. Chen Yan was also a little surprised to see her, but he did not take the initiative to go to her. Instead, he planned to take a detour to avoid her.
Li Taohua saw him first and called out to Chen Yan, who was turning around to take a detour: "Little Yan, it's me, your Aunt Taohua."
Chen Yan turned to look at her, as if he had just noticed her too: "Aunt Peach Blossom."
Xiang Wan, who was standing next to her, frowned a little when she saw Li Taohua. She didn't think Li Taohua was a kind person who would help someone in need. She didn't know Li Taohua's purpose, so she crossed her arms and looked her over.
Li Taohua took out two sesame cakes from her bosom and handed them to Chen Yan: "Little Yan, I've heard about your mother-in-law's situation. My family doesn't have much money, but I'll cover the meals for your mother-in-law when she goes to the doctor."
As she spoke, she stuffed the sesame seed cake into Chen Yan's hand and patted his shoulder, signaling him not to be sad.
Although Chen Yan knew in his heart that Li Taohua wasn't as kind as she appeared, and that it might just be a pretense of sincerity, his eyes still reddened.
Even if it was a lie, he desperately wanted it at that moment. Since his mother-in-law collapsed, everyone had either passed the buck like Li Shengde or avoided her like the rest of the villagers.
This was the first word of comfort he had heard from Li Taohua. He looked at her with gratitude in his eyes and said, "Thank you, Aunt Taohua."
At least this thank you was absolutely sincere.
Chen Yan was in the darkest moment of his life, so his eyes were blinded, but Xiang Wan, who was beside him, could see it all clearly. She was all too familiar with the scheming and hypocrisy in Li Taohua's eyes, and with that look in her eyes.
Xiang Wan was curious about how long she could keep up the act, wondering if it would be a day or a week. However, the next second, Li Taohua couldn't wait to reveal her true colors.
"Just tell Aunt Peach Blossom what happened between you and that rich girl from the city." Li Taohua's eyes were practically gleaming with barely concealed cunning, though she herself was oblivious to it.
In Shengde's courtyard, when Li Xia took out a pair of cotton shoes, Li Taohua recognized them immediately. She had bought those shoes for Xinyi at the county market, but threw them away after Xinyi wore them out.
Later, Chen Yan picked it up and wore it for three years, and she knew about it.
When Li Xia took out the shoes, she knew that Chen Yan had gotten incredibly lucky, but she still felt a little resentful.
"Miss?" Chen Yan realized that Li Taohua's intentions were not pure, but he was reluctant to return the sesame seed cake in his hand to her. He and his mother-in-law could eat that sesame seed cake for several days.
"It's that city girl who drove her four-wheeled car into the village." After Li Taohua finished speaking, Chen Yan guessed who she was talking about.
That's the outsider who was scared to tears by the green-haired guy and then mistook him for a girl.
He had guessed from the moment he saw her attire that she was someone important, but he never expected her to be some rich young lady.
He figured he must be a very wealthy person.
It wasn't something that couldn't be said, so Chen Yan chose to tell the truth: "She stepped into the pond and her shoes got wet, so I gave her my cotton shoes."
However, he still carefully concealed the fact that he had green hair.
Upon hearing that Chen Yan had only given her cotton shoes and the young lady was going to sponsor him, Li Taohua was so jealous that her eyes almost popped out of their sockets.
Her mind raced, and she finally came up with a flawless plan. She coaxed Chen Yan, saying, "That young lady said she wanted to give you a pair of cotton shoes, but you're not in the village. I'll give you 50 yuan, and let Xinyi take your place."
Hearing Li Taohua's fabrication, Xiang Wan understood her plan. She had heard Li Xia say that she wanted to sponsor the owner of the cotton shoes, so she planned to switch the roles and have her adopted daughter Zhou Xinyi take the place.
Such a despicable tactic, yet in her previous life she never investigated it thoroughly.
Seeing that Chen Yan still wouldn't give a definite answer, Li Taohua gritted her teeth and said, "Or when you come back, Auntie will buy you another pair of cotton shoes."
Just for a pair of cotton shoes, Li Tao went to great lengths to run from the village to the county hospital. Even though Chen Yan was feeling extremely down, he wasn't stupid and naturally knew that things weren't that simple.
Li Taohua was willing to give him 50, which proved that it was definitely more than that. Chen Yan didn't want to think about how much it was, but it was definitely not as much as the 5,000 for surgery, and it wouldn't solve his immediate problem.
But he didn't want Li Taohua to get her way. If she had brought this up at any other time, he wouldn't want things to get too ugly with her, so he might have agreed.
Ironically, after her mother-in-law collapsed, she didn't even ask if her mother-in-law had woken up or how much longer the surgery fees were needed, not even asking as she usually would.
She traveled a long way to see him for her own selfish interests, but never mentioned her mother-in-law.
Chen Yan knew that if he didn't agree, she would definitely pester him relentlessly, so he simply made an outrageous demand...
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