Chapter 1 Rebirth in the Port City
"Wow--!! My baby..."
A piercing, desperate wail abruptly pulled Fang Lanxin from the chaotic darkness back to reality.
My head is throbbing, as if I've been struck by a blunt object.
She struggled to open her heavy eyelids, and what came into view was a familiar sight: an intricately carved teak ceiling and a dazzling Austrian crystal chandelier hanging in the center.
This is... Repulse Bay, Hong Kong Island, the Fok family mansion, her bedroom?
Wasn't she already dead? She was poisoned by her own son, Huo Qibang, who killed his mother for the family fortune, and her daughter, Huo Siya, who was always cowardly but betrayed her at the last moment. She breathed her last in endless regret and coldness...
"My Tianle...please, nothing's wrong...I beg you...I beg you..."
Intermittent cries came again, this time from the direction of the side hall.
That voice... is it Meiling? Her daughter-in-law, Lin Meiling.
Tianle... Huo Tianle! Her only grandson!
Fang Lanxin sat up abruptly and looked around. The old-fashioned calendar hanging on the wall clearly showed the date as July 12, 1986.
1986! She actually... traveled back ten years?! Back to the day her one-month-old grandson, Huo Tianle, died!
"No...no..." Fang Lanxin's face was as pale as paper.
In the previous life, on this very day, the grandson Tianle suddenly developed a high fever, which triggered convulsions. Meanwhile, Old Huang, the family doctor whom the Huo family had known for generations, had just taken leave the day before to visit his seriously ill mother in the countryside.
What did she do at that time?
In order to ensure that her son, Kenneth Fok, could fight for the inheritance of the Fok Group without any worries, to prevent him from being burdened by his "frail and sickly" son, and to dampen the arrogance of the second wife's side... she deliberately delayed the time, and even when Mei-ling pleaded bitterly, she coldly said something like, "It's normal for a child to have a fever, don't make a fuss, you don't act like a daughter-in-law of a big family."
Only at the very end did she leisurely instruct the housekeeper to fetch another doctor, but by then, it was all too late.
Tianle breathed her last amidst her indifferent gaze and Meiling's desperate cries.
From that day on, her son's gaze towards her changed, from dependence to deep resentment and estrangement; her daughter-in-law, Meiling, regarded her as a venomous enemy; and her daughter, Siya, also felt that she was cold-blooded and ruthless, and distanced herself from her more and more.
She thought that sacrificing a frail grandson would bring her son great success and absolute obedience to her.
But she was wrong, terribly wrong!
Once the bonds of family are broken, no amount of power or money can mend them. In the end, she was abandoned by everyone and died at the hands of the very son she had placed in power.
What a huge irony!
"No! I absolutely cannot repeat the same mistakes in this life!"
Fang Lanxin suddenly threw off the silk quilt and stepped barefoot onto the Persian carpet.
"Meiling!!" she shouted with all her might toward the side hall.
The crying in the side room stopped abruptly.
Soon, Lin Meiling rushed in with disheveled hair and grabbed Fang Lanxin's arm:
"Mom! You're finally awake! Tianle... Tianle is dying! Dr. Huang isn't here! Please think of something!"
Fang Lanxin glared at her, "I, Fang Lanxin, took over the Huo family at nineteen! What haven't I encountered?! What's the use of crying here?!"
"Ah Ping! Go and bring the young master here! Now! Immediately!"
"Yes, Madam." The maid, Ah Ping, dared not delay and quickly went to the nursery.
Fang Lanxin then quickly took out her personal seal and a gold-embossed business card and handed them to the butler, Huo Fu.
"Uncle Fu! Take my token and go to Hong Kong Adventist Hospital as fast as you can—no! Go directly to the Guan family's residence on the Peak! Find Guan Yu's family doctor, Zhang Shijie! Tell him that I, Fang Lanxin, beg him to come and save my life immediately! No matter what, you must get him here! Hurry!"
Huo Fu was stunned for a moment. The Guan family?
Madam has been fighting with the Guan family for twenty years, yet she actually went to ask the Guan family for help?
But he dared not ask further, and replied in a deep voice, "Yes, Madam! I'll go right away!"
When Lin Meiling heard that a doctor needed to be called, especially the word "help," a faint glimmer of hope rekindled in her previously lifeless eyes.
However, Fang Lanxin knew very well in her heart that the Guan family mansion was not close to Repulse Bay. Even if Uncle Fu rushed there as fast as possible, by the time Dr. Zhang arrived, according to the timeline of the previous life, Tianle would probably... be dead by now.
A distant source of water cannot quench a nearby fire!
She turned around and her gaze fell on her dying grandson in A Ping's arms.
It seems that we have no other choice but to use that method.
"Ping, go to the bathroom and run hot water. The water should be a little hot, but not scalding the child."
"Yes!" Ah Ping hurriedly went to the bathroom.
Fang Lanxin carried the child into the bathroom. Even through the thin blanket, she could feel the scorching body temperature and the faint breath of life.
"Tianle, my dear grandson..." She lowered her head, her voice choked with sobs, and hot tears finally dripped onto the child's face. "I'm sorry, I was wrong in the last life. In this life, I will save you even if it costs me my life."
With trembling hands, she took out the life-saving elixir passed down through generations of the Huo family—the Life-Saving Pill!
In her previous life, she had considered using it, but selfishness got the better of her, and she ultimately watched Tianle die.
This time... she can't afford to make another mistake!
Lin Meiling watched as her mother-in-law took out the dark pill, and remembering that she had asked Aping to put hot water in it, she was terrified.
The mother-in-law had never liked her frail grandson, Tianle.
If my mother-in-law hadn't insisted last night that she was making a mountain out of a molehill and wouldn't have allowed me to take Tianle to the hospital, he wouldn't be so sick.
"Mom! What are you doing?!" Lin Meiling's eyes widened in terror as she screamed and lunged to snatch the child away. "Tianle is in danger! You can't keep doing this!"
"Stop her!" Fang Lanxin's eyes flashed with a sharp light, revealing the unmistakable authority of the Huo family's matriarch. "I'm his grandmother, would I possibly harm him?!"
Two maids who were waiting nearby immediately stepped forward and supported the agitated Lin Meiling from both sides.
Lin Meiling trembled as she was scolded, and her tears flowed even more fiercely.
In this family, Fang Lanxin is everything.
Her father-in-law passed away early, and her husband, Kenneth Fok, was always busy with the family business and obeyed his mother. What room for resistance could she, a daughter-in-law who had married into the family, possibly have?
"Let me go! Let me go! Mother! Please! Don't hurt Tianle! He's still a child!" Lin Meiling struggled frantically, her cries heart-wrenching.
Fang Lanxin, however, seemed not to hear.
She carefully picked off a tiny, rice-grain-sized pill, crushed it with her fingernail, mixed it with a little warm water, pried open the child's pale, cracked mouth, and fed it to him little by little.
After doing all this, she picked up Tianle and quickly walked into the steamy bathroom.
Half an hour later, there was a sound of hurried footsteps and a car engine shutting off outside.
"Meiling! How is Tianle?!" Huo Qibang's anxious voice rang out.
He was inspecting a factory in Kowloon when he received a call saying his son was critically ill, so he immediately drove his BMW back home.
"Qibang!" Hearing her husband's voice, Lin Meiling felt as if she had found her pillar of support. She broke free from the maid's grasp and rushed over, crying, "Qibang! Look! Mother has fed Tianle some kind of horrible stuff! And she's soaking him in hot water! Our son... our son is probably..."
Huo Qibang felt a "buzz" in his head, and his blood rushed to the top of his head!
He knew that his mother had never liked the frail Tianle, and he also knew that his mother would stop at nothing to make him inherit the family business!
Could it be... could it be that his mother really harmed her own grandson to get rid of this future "burden"?!
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