Chapter 33 Thirteenth Year
It was the most difficult day of the year for Song Li. March 28th was the anniversary of the death of He Qian's mother and fiancée.
The endless plum rain in March, accompanied by biting cold wind and dark clouds, makes people feel anxious and breathless.
It's been thirteen years now, thirteen years since the fire at Fuhua Laboratory. He Qian stubbornly believes Qin Xiang's last message before her death, and ignores any evidence proving Song Li's innocence. He uses every possible means to imprison Song Li, torturing him endlessly for thirteen years...
Ever since Tao Fuhua and Qin Xiang, who was three months pregnant, were burned to death in a fire, He Qian, in order to force Song Li to confess, forcibly took her father to the ninth floor rooftop...
"If you don't admit to arson and murder, I'll throw your father down! Your mother will be next!"
Song Li hadn't done it, and she wouldn't admit it no matter what! She knelt on the ground in front of the building where her family lived, begging He Qian to let her father go, and kept explaining to him what she had done on the day of the fire, but He Qian wouldn't listen at all!
On the ninth floor rooftop, a group of people were holding down Song Li's father, Song Qian, and pretending to push him down! Huang Nai and Song Li's mother were stopped behind them, constantly trying to persuade and cry out, but those people only listened to He Qian!
Later... Song Qian couldn't bear to see his daughter kneeling at He Qian's feet without dignity, so he resolutely jumped down from the ninth floor...
Song Li knelt on the ground, and He Qian stood in front of her. No one was mentally prepared. Song Qian's body fell to the ground in front of them with a "bang"! His eyes were open, he twitched a few times, blood spread, and he no longer responded...
Song Li will never forget the scene of her father's "suicide". Her father's death hit her hard and made her even more afraid of He Qian's cruel methods. If Song Li did not obey, her family would suffer, because in He Qian's world, Song Li owed him three lives.
Tao Fuhua and Qin Xiang were buried on the hillside of Qingtong Cemetery in Yuancheng. Every year on their memorial day, He Qian and his father and second uncle would come early to pay their respects.
Zhao Gengnian and Shu Mingjin would arrive on time in previous years, but this year Shu Mingjin was about to give birth, so only Zhao Gengnian showed up.
He Qian gave Song Li a rule that could not be changed until her death: on this day every year, she must kneel before their tombstones, kowtow, confess her sins, and sincerely repent!
After he and his family finished their worship, she had to kneel there until dark! There was no room for negotiation. Even if she died, they would dig her out!
It rained on this day every year, and Song Li would kneel naked in front of Tao Fuhua's tombstone. Year after year of the rainy season, her knees had been damaged beyond repair...
When she was in her early twenties and was rebellious, she had resisted. She didn't come to kneel for a year and hid on purpose. Unexpectedly, He Qian took her mother to Qingtong Cemetery and made two people force her to kneel for a whole day!
From then on, Song Li never dared to "disobey" He Qian again.
This year's suffering arrived as expected. Song Li watched from afar as the black umbrellas came down from above. After they got into the car and left, she appeared and slowly walked towards the direction where they were buried.
Every step I take is excruciatingly painful!
Song Li could clearly feel that if she knelt twice more, her knees would probably be broken...
She knelt in front of Tao Fuhua's tombstone without hesitation in the rain. Qin Xiang's body was buried nearby, but Song Li would not kneel to her side.
She looked at the high-spirited black and white portrait of Tao Fuhua. The raindrops hit her smiling face in the photo, and they fell one after another. "Auntie Hua, I'm here again..."
"If I had known that was the last time I would see you, I wouldn't have quarreled with you..."
At that time, Tao Fuhua and Huang Nai were devoting all their efforts to the research of the "hemoglobin regeneration" project. Tao Fuhua made an exception and allowed Song Li to participate. When it came to recruiting volunteers, Song Li was type O blood and all the indicators met the conditions for clinical trials, but Tao Fuhua refused. She cherished Song Li's talent more than anyone else. She would not allow Song Li's body to participate in the experiment. Her value would definitely far exceed that of anyone in the laboratory, or even the current pharmaceutical research community. She would not allow Song Li to take risks!
So that day, Tao Fuhua had an argument with Song Li. Song Li couldn't win the argument and left in a huff.
The past was vivid in Song Li's mind, and his memories were released along with the torrential rain...
Her hair and clothes were soaked, and the bone-chilling rain seemed to penetrate every pore of her body, entering her blood, bit by bit eroding her body temperature and willpower...
He Qian accompanied his father and second uncle back to the He family's house. He looked absent-minded, not because of the day, but because his expression was unusually solemn...
The sound of rain outside was getting louder and louder, and the cold air of Yuancheng never left. He knew that at this moment Song Li was "obediently" kneeling in Qingtong Cemetery.
Last year, her knees were red and swollen, and she had a recurring high fever for ten days! The year before that, her knees were so bad that she had difficulty walking for several days. She also had a severe cold, a low-grade fever, and was in a coma for half a month!
This year...can she still hold on?
He Qian was restless, his heart tangled in knots. A voice told him that Song Li had killed his mother, Qin Xiang, and the child in Qin Xiang's belly. But a picture kept lingering in his mind: Song Li's pale face lying on the hospital bed, even in a deep coma, he didn't forget to cry out in pain!
He didn't want to fall into Song Li's abyss, so he quickly had lunch with his father, found an excuse to leave, and went to Fenghua Manor alone.
This house is filled with his and Qin Xiang's past, including photos and items. He did this on purpose. Every time he was attracted to Song Li, he had to force himself to recall every little detail with Qin Xiang!
Whenever he was most obsessed with Song Li, he would repeatedly play the recorded message Qin Xiang left for him before her death! This time, too, he drove to Fenghua Manor and pressed play as soon as he entered, turning up the volume. Qin Xiang's voice echoed throughout the house...
"He Qian, please come quickly, please come and save us. Aunt Hua is bleeding a lot. There's a huge fire here. He Qian, I don't want anything to happen to our child. Please come quickly... It's Song Li. Song Li came to find Aunt Hua. They were arguing, and then the lab caught fire. When I found Aunt Hua, she was lying on the ground bleeding a lot..."
Only in this way would he not dare to admit that he fell in love with Song Li!
He can't forget the deep hatred!
But in the end, he still failed... After playing it for the twentieth time, he simply unplugged the power cord!
He sat dejectedly in front of the French window, looking out with longing eyes. He hated this rain! He wished it would get dark soon so that Song Li's torture would end!
Suddenly, the phone in his pocket vibrated. It was the ringtone of a message. For some reason, he was particularly concerned and quickly opened the phone...
Sure enough! He saw Song Li at first sight!
Shu Mingjin had sent him a video. Song Li was lying in bed in her pajamas, her left hand receiving an IV. It wasn't hard to tell she was in a coma. Her hair was slightly damp, her face was translucently pale, her trouser legs were rolled up, and her knees were wrapped in white gauze, as if covered in medicine. Then Zhao Gengnian covered her with a thick blanket...
Judging from the environment, they were at Shu Mingjin's house. Zhao Gengnian must have brought her back...
For some reason, when He Qian saw this video, the suffocating tension instantly disappeared, and the anger in his heart was also relieved in that second!
The second video was a close-up shot of Song Li's face. If you didn't know, you would think all her blood had been drained out. Her lips were frighteningly white! She was seen frowning and mumbling, "Kill me, kill me..."
He Qian understood what she meant. She was in so much pain that she was willing to end her life... She was tortured to the point that she had lost all her courage and will.
Then the third message was a line of text: The doctor said that if it was half an hour later, she would have died of hypothermia.
Zhao Gengnian and Shu Mingjin looked at Song Li lying on the big bed. She looked so fragile that she seemed to be about to disappear. Fortunately, they brought her back, otherwise she would not have survived. The thought of it made them terrified!
What stunned them was that He Qian didn't even call and yell at them right away. They had already thought about how to scold him back, and even if he dared to come over, they would definitely not let him take Song Li away! But He Qian only replied with a few words...
"Thank you. Please let me know when she wakes up."
The "thank you" comes first, which means thank them for taking Song Li back and hiring a doctor to take care of her, and it does not mean thanking them in advance for remembering to tell him after Song Li wakes up.
The word "thank you" is too common, so common that He Qian didn't even notice it. He would only say thank you to others for his own affairs. But his character kept saying that he hated Song Li, but in his subconscious, he had become one with her.
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