Chapter 16 – Baby is Hospitalized Too

◎ His eyes were vacant and dull, unconsciously biting his fingernails. ◎

In order to maintain her face and figure, Xue Huiyu had always been particular about what she ate. She personally planned and cooked all her meals, mostly consisting of leafy green vegetables.

During her pregnancy, she was cared for by Zheng Huiwen, and her diet remained largely vegetarian. After giving birth, in an effort to lose weight, she often skipped dinner during the postpartum month—or even avoided staple foods altogether for an entire day.

If she had been hospitalized in the past and served hospital boxed meals, Xue Huiyu would’ve been so picky that she’d rather go hungry than eat even a bite. But after drifting as a ghost for several days, now that she could finally eat warm food again, she was so hungry she nearly cried.

She even began quietly reflecting… Could Baby’s developmental and nutritional deficiencies be because she only ate vegetarian while pregnant and never breastfed him after birth?

Now that she had a chance to return to her son’s side, she was determined to make him lovingly prepared bento boxes—with balanced nutrition, main dishes, sides, and fruits—so he could eat well and grow up healthy!

But the thought of Zheng Huiwen, that spy planted by Xia Lanzhi, still being around her baby made Xue Huiyu—already weak and hypoglycemic—so angry she finished an entire bowl of rice in one go!

Zhou Qihua, who had just returned with her medical report, stared in stunned silence as she wolfed down her food. Then he finally let out a sigh of relief.

He walked in and handed the report to her, introducing himself:
“Miss Shen, hello. I’m Zhou Qihua, President Pei’s secretary. This is your medical report.”

“Your fever has subsided, and there’s no infection in your lungs. However, there is still a mild inflammation in your body, likely due to the wound on your hand, so you’ll need to take antibiotics for a week. In addition, your physical condition is very weak. You need plenty of rest, maintain a good mood, and avoid exposure to wind or cold…”

From the doctor’s words, Zhou Qihua learned that this Miss Shen might still be in her postpartum recovery period… and he was truly shocked.

The postpartum period meant she was still in confinement after childbirth — a time when new mothers shouldn’t overexert themselves, shouldn’t lift heavy objects, must avoid catching cold, and generally weren’t advised to go outside. And yet, in such a weak physical state — with even lower immunity than usual — she had voluntarily jumped into a river to save President Pei…! It was practically a life-for-life sacrifice!

What’s more, having been soaked in the river water for so long, she could very well suffer from long-term health issues because of this.

So when he found this woman — who had saved someone’s life — passed out in the bathroom, Zhou Qihua had truly been terrified. Fortunately, the cause was only hypoglycemia… no lasting damage.

Now, he also understood why Miss Shen was wearing a high-necked sweater in the middle of summer — she was protecting her body during the postpartum period.

Letting out a soft sigh, he asked gently, “Would you like to call your family to let them know you’re safe? They must be very worried about you.”

The words “Miss Shen” made Xue Huiyu pause slightly. As she blankly accepted the medical report, she remembered her current alias — Shen Xue.

She shook her head. “I don’t have any family.”

She had a child, yet no family?

Had she gotten divorced? Or… had they all already passed away?

Xue Huiyu’s vague response made Zhou Qihua’s heart jolt, and he didn’t dare ask further. Instead, he quickly pulled a card and a piece of paper from his pocket and handed them to her, steering the topic toward the reason he had come.

“Miss Shen, thank you very much for risking your own safety to rescue President Pei. Your actions bought us precious time to save him. Although he hasn’t regained consciousness yet, he’s out of critical danger. This is a small token of appreciation on behalf of President Pei. Please accept it. My number is on it — if you need anything, don’t hesitate to contact me. And if possible, please leave your contact information. I’m sure President Pei will want to thank you personally when he wakes up.”

Though Zhou Qihua called it a “small gift,” Xue Huiyu knew the card must hold a significant amount.

She was completely penniless after being reborn — but more importantly, she had no ID and no phone…

After a moment’s hesitation, she pushed the card back to Zhou Qihua and said, “Mr. Zhou, my phone fell into the river, and my ID was lost along with it… Reissuing it will take twenty working days. Could you help me buy a phone? Or maybe lend me an old one for now?”

Buying a phone didn’t require ID, but under the “real-name registration” policy, purchasing a SIM card did — otherwise, it couldn’t be activated.

Zhou Qihua immediately said, “Please accept the card, Miss Shen. I’ll get a phone for you this afternoon. I’ll register it under my name first, and once you get your ID reissued, we’ll transfer it to your name.”

Xue Huiyu gratefully accepted the card and then took the initiative to say, “I was at the scene of President Pei’s accident.”

“Miss Shen, are you saying you witnessed the crash before the car went into the river?” Zhou Qihua asked, visibly stirred.

Pei Wenyu’s car accident had already made the headlines the night before. As a well-known third-generation heir, the event had sparked a storm of conspiracy theories, prompting the police to launch an immediate investigation.

The guardrail at the scene had clear signs of being struck — two sections were broken. However, there were no surveillance cameras at the exact site. Both the driver and Pei Wenyu were critically injured and unconscious. The salvaged car had a shattered windshield and a severely deformed front end, making it difficult to reconstruct what had happened. The only clue was a surveillance recording 100 meters before the crash site, where the car appeared unsteady — possibly due to a tire blowout.

The investigation team had also reviewed security footage from the Pei Corporation’s underground garage.

No one had approached the car before the driver picked it up, so for now, tampering had been ruled out.

But despite the severity of the crash, there were no brake marks at the scene — a suspicious detail that led Zhou Qihua to believe this might not have been an ordinary accident.

Unfortunately, the crash site was right in a blind spot.

Now both Pei Wenyu and the driver were in the ICU, completely unable to explain what had really happened. But if someone had witnessed the incident, that could give the police a vital lead!

Xue Huiyu nodded and carefully recounted everything she saw that night.

“Mr. Pei’s accident may not have been a normal traffic incident. I think the brakes on his car failed. I suspect someone tampered with it.”

In the flood of novel plotlines that had just surged into her mind, it was mentioned that their deaths were linked to Pei Yongyu. But the novel didn’t give detailed descriptions.

Pei Yongyu was now being held in a detention center, cut off from outside contact — which meant there had to be other accomplices.

Xue Huiyu’s words made Zhou Qihua’s heart skip a beat.

He had assumed the driver had been thrown from the car before it fell into the river due to the distance from the guardrail.

But Xue Huiyu had just revealed a crucial detail: the driver jumped from the car beforehand!

On a highway bridge with no other vehicles passing by, after a tire blowout, it would’ve been possible to slowly brake, flash hazard lights, and pull over. But the driver had immediately chosen to jump — abandoning his immobile boss — which could only mean the brakes had failed, and he’d jumped to save his own life.

That could only mean one thing — this was likely a premeditated murder attempt.

But now, there was a new inconsistency…

He had assumed Shen Xue had seen the car fall into the river and jumped in to save someone. But her account clearly placed her vantage point on the bridge — not below it.

In the dead of night, what was a woman, supposed to be on postpartum confinement, doing alone on a bridge? And surveillance footage showed no one walking on that bridge at the time…

So — how exactly did Shen Xue appear at the crash site?

Zhou Qihua voiced the doubt in his heart. Xue Huiyu, who had long prepared her explanation, immediately said, “It was by taxi…”

She gave a bitter smile. “You said I saved Mr. Pei, but actually… Mr. Pei also saved me. That night, because of some things, I wanted to take my own life, so I was on the bridge getting some air and happened to witness the accident scene.”

Xue Huiyu knew that Zhou Qihua was very soft-hearted, so she deliberately made herself sound pitiful. Sure enough, upon hearing the words “take my own life,” and remembering that this Miss Shen had just said she “had no family,” Zhou Qihua immediately imagined a whole scenario of how pitiful she was and stopped asking questions. He felt like a beast for actually sprinkling salt on the wounds of President Pei’s savior!

After buying a new mobile phone for Xue Huiyu, Zhou Qihua hurriedly rushed to the Pei Group.

If there was really a problem with the brakes, the only place someone could have tampered with them was the underground garage, and surveillance footage could be faked and tampered with.

Seeing isn’t necessarily believing. It was necessary to ask professional appraisers to compare and analyze the scene in the underground garage to determine whether the surveillance video had been faked and tampered with!

Learning from Zhou Qihua that Pei Wenyu wouldn’t wake up in a short time, Xue Huiyu, who was racing against time, decided to be discharged from the hospital.

When Pei Wenyu was at home, Zheng Huiwen bullied Pei Yuqi openly and unscrupulously. Now that Pei Wenyu was seriously injured and hospitalized, she didn’t know how the little one would be treated! Under such circumstances, how could Xue Huiyu continue to stay in the hospital room!

Moreover, just thinking about the possibility of actually seeing Pei Yuqi, and wondering if the little one would recognize her, Xue Huiyu was both worried and expectant. Just as she was heading to the inpatient department to get her discharge papers, she actually saw Zheng Huiwen, who shouldn’t have been there, stealthily pulling a young woman in a nurse’s uniform into a corner to talk.

Xue Huiyu subconsciously followed. She saw Zheng Huiwen with a bitter look on her face saying, “I didn’t know it would be like this… That idiot started hitting his head against the wall again, so I could only give him a sedative…”

The word “idiot” tightened Xue Huiyu’s chest. Realizing she was talking about Pei Yuqi, she immediately turned on her phone’s video recording function.

“But I didn’t tell you to give it to him every day! Giving him so much will definitely cause problems!” The young woman who had been facing away from Xue Huiyu turned her face slightly, and Xue Huiyu realized that this intimate female nurse with Zheng Huiwen was actually Zheng Huiwen’s daughter, Dong Limei!

Before her death, Dong Limei was a third-year undergraduate nursing student at a prestigious university, claiming to be her fan. Unexpectedly, three and a half years later, she was actually working as a nurse in this hospital… No wonder Zheng Huiwen had both sleeping pills and sedatives; it turned out she had used this backdoor!

“I really didn’t expect it to be like this…” Zheng Huiwen was actually scared to death. When the ambulance arrived, Pei Yuqi was completely unconscious. She was afraid that the idiot would really die like this, and also afraid that if he was sent to the hospital, it would be discovered that she had drugged him.

The only thing she could think of was to send him to the hospital where her daughter worked.

She asked worriedly, “They shouldn’t be able to find out, right…”

Dong Limei was angry at Zheng Huiwen’s presumptuous actions, frowning as she said, “If they don’t immediately test his blood concentration, they usually won’t be able to detect it. That child can’t speak anyway, and he’s inherently foolish. Even if they do find out, you just say the child was greatly traumatized after learning about President Pei’s car accident, and had to be given a sedative because of severe head-banging… Attribute all the reasons, including convulsions and coma, to acute stress reaction, not adverse reactions to sedative drugs.”

Xue Huiyu gritted her teeth in hatred.

Because she was the nanny’s daughter, Xue Huiyu had signed an autograph for her the first time they met after learning that the other was her loyal fan. Later, learning that she had been working part-time outside of school to ease her parents’ burden but might have to transfer schools because she didn’t get a scholarship, she had even funded her to continue her university studies…

She had even sent her front-row tickets to every ballet performance until she became pregnant and stopped performing.

She had originally thought this hardworking, sweet-talking little sister was a good and promising child, but unexpectedly, behind her back, she was just as vicious as her mother!

Knowing that her mother had harmed an innocent child, and it was the child of the idol she herself praised, she didn’t dissuade her but instead covered up for her! She had poisoned her innocent child to the point of hospitalization! Even causing convulsions and coma!

A surge of anger welled up in Xue Huiyu’s heart.

“What’s President Pei’s condition now…?” Zheng Huiwen had always known her daughter’s little thoughts. She glanced at Dong Limei’s expression and asked cautiously, “Is he out of danger now?”

“He’s out of danger, but the brain damage caused by the car accident is quite severe. This situation requires observing the brain’s recovery, which usually takes a long time… Plus, President Pei has old injuries himself, so it might take several months, or even years…”

“Isn’t that a vegetable?” Zheng Huiwen exclaimed, interrupting her, and received a dissatisfied glare from Dong Limei.

She immediately said awkwardly, “President Pei will definitely wake up soon. Don’t worry too much.”

“Hopefully,” Dong Limei bit her lip. “I’ve already applied to the leader to be assigned to President Pei’s VIP ward. Whether President Pei can wake up or not, I will take good care of him.”

Zheng Huiwen really wanted to ask, “What if he doesn’t wake up?” It was impossible for her daughter, at such a young and beautiful age, to not marry and stay by a vegetable’s side. But she was afraid of her daughter scolding her, so she swallowed the words back down.

She also hadn’t told her daughter about informing Xia Lanzhi all these years. Her daughter was wholeheartedly devoted to Pei Wenyu and would definitely be angry. She then heard her daughter add before leaving, “Mom, you should also be careful. The hospital is different from home. While Pei Yuqi is hospitalized, so many eyes are watching. Even if you’re just putting on an act, you have to be nicer to him.”

Feeling guilty, Zheng Huiwen quickly nodded.

Xue Huiyu, who was secretly recording, saw Dong Limei leave and immediately hid behind the door.

She couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong with what she had just heard… Could this Dong Limei have feelings for Pei Wenyu? Or was she overthinking it?

Putting aside these doubts, Xue Huiyu secretly followed Zheng Huiwen again.

It wasn’t until she arrived at Pei Yuqi’s hospital room that Xue Huiyu was surprised to discover he was on the same floor as her—she was in Room 504, and Pei Yuqi was in Room 518.

Following Zheng Huiwen as she opened the door, Xue Huiyu saw Pei Yuqi curled up on the hospital bed, hugging his knees.

“Time to eat.”

Zheng Huiwen spoke to him, but he completely ignored her.

Just like when she first saw him, his gaze was empty and blank, mindlessly biting his fingernails, showing none of the energy a three-year-old should have.

No matter how enthusiastically Zheng Huiwen brought over the steaming food tray and chattered at him, he kept his little head down, motionless.

With a clatter, the food tray was placed on the small table. Zheng Huiwen patiently tried to feed him porridge.

She scooped up a spoonful and brought it to Pei Yuqi’s lips. When he stubbornly refused to open his mouth, she tried to force it in—only for Pei Yuqi to suddenly start screaming wildly. He raised his hands and shoved the tray off the small table, sending it crashing to the floor