Seeing the piled up files on Luo Xiaoxi’s desk, Su Jianan assumed that she would be very busy the whole day. She sent Zhou Wenhao to the handover and then went home.

On the way home, she tried to contact Su Yicheng, but only discovered that his phone had been turned off.

Afterward, she called in the CEO office of Cheng An. Su Yicheng’s secretary answered the phone. “Boss Su left for B city in the morning. He should be on the plane to the UK right now.”

Confused, Su Jianan asked, “I had checked with Xiao Chen a few days ago and my brother did not have traveling to the UK on his agenda during this period.”

“Boss Su went alone.” The secretary said, “he didn’t tell us to prepare for anything, so it could be a personal matter. This is all I know.”

A personal matter?

Su Jianan knew Su Yicheng very well. If not for a special situation, Su Yicheng would not be traveling to the UK for personal matter during a time like this.

After Lu Boyan got back from work, Su Jianan went after him and insinuated questions to find out the truth. Seeing straight through her intentions, Lu Boyan skillfully evaded the important questions for the trivial. All she found out was that Su Yicheng had gone to the UK for a very important matter.

In order to attend to this matter, he had completely handed over Su Enterprise’s acquisition to Lu Boyan.

“Why is my brother suddenly going to the UK?!” Tired of beating around the bush, Su Jianan sat on Lu Boyan’s legs and stared at him. “Is it for Xiaoxi?”

Lu Boyan lifted his eyebrows and declined to comment.

Su Jianan sensed a possibility and made a “small” hand gesture. “Just tell me this much!”

“…” Lu Boyan remained indifferent, unmoved by her actions.

Su Jianan decided to go all out and wrapped her hands around Lu Boyan’s neck. “Hubby~” She called him with her honey-glazed voice.

Ever since she got used to calling Lu Boyan this way, it had become her usual tactic.

Lu Boyan always reacted as if it were the first time hearing Su Jianan calling him like this. His chest was softened by this word and he unconsciously sighed, “you are right, but your brother does not want Xiaoxi to find out.”

“Understand!”

Su Jianan’s slightly curled up lips reminded Lu Boyan of the sunlight sifting through the branches in the morning.

Without a sign, Su Jianan smooched Lu Boyan on the lips then hopped off and sat down.

Then she let out a deep sigh.

Lu Boyan closed up the magazine. “What’s wrong?”

“I thought Xiaoxi and my brother had finally come through, and that they would have the happy ending of prince and princess in fairy tales. Even if Uncle Luo does not approve right now, my brother will certainly have a solution.”

“But now, with Xiaoxi’s temper, unless Uncle and Auntie Luo wake up, anything my brother does for her would be futile.”

Lu Boyan pulled Su Jianan over closer because she looked rather worried right now. “Trust in your brother once.”

After a moment of silence, Su Jianan looked up at Lu Boyan. “Would we become like them one day?”

Almost subconsciously, the determined look of Kang Ruicheng swept across Lu Boyan’s mind.

“No.”

He replied decisively, concealing a wisp of subtle suspicion under his eyes.

Su Jianan had always trusted Lu Boyan and leaned on him carefreely. She believed that she and Lu Boyan would be together forever if he promised so.

Luo Xiaoxi, on the other hand, had no time to care for romance.

She had unveiled and raged against Director Han’s activities during the company meeting, making the employees scruple against the young and inexperienced junior Director Luo. They even greeted her with a cautious voice.

Qin Wei came to Luo Xiaoxi’s office at 3 pm as usual, and teased, “good for you for setting up your prestige so quickly.”

Luo Xiaoxi sighed, pressing her fingers against her temples. A familiar face swept across her mind, then she rapidly retracted her hands. “I don’t think it’s worth to be happy about. With fear comes expectation. If I can’t seal the contract with the British company, then I would just be a paper tiger to them. This so-called ‘prestige’ would sink lower and lower until they completely distrust me…”

Qin Wei was glad that Luo Xiaoxi had such awareness, but there was nothing he could help with the contract with the British company.

“Forget it, I’ll just take it slowly.” Luo Xiaoxi moved a stack of documents on the table. “There are a few terms I don’t quite understand. Help me take a look at it.”

With Qin Wei’s help, Luo Xiaoxi handled these documents until she looked up and saw the sky had already turned dark. The outside world was full of lights, and the city put on a different kind of crazy from the daytime.

“Call it a day.” Qin Wei said, “First, go grab a bite with me. I will take you to the hospital afterward. I want to visit Uncle Luo and Auntie as well.”

Qin Wei drove a dazzling sports car and pulled up in front of a Thai restaurant. Luo Xiaoxi’s eyes dimmed. “Let’s go to another restaurant, I don’t like Thai food.”

Once, she and Su Yicheng had often come to this restaurant. They always sat at the table with the best view and talked about trivial things. Now that she thought about it, those times were genuinely dull but sweet at the same time.

In her memory, this was the tastiest Thai restaurant in the city.

From now on, she no longer wished to set foot here again.

Qin Wei silently turned around the car and drove Luo Xiaoxi to a seafood restaurant near the hospital.

Halfway through the meal, Luo Xiaoxi’s phone suddenly rang. It was a special ringtone she had set for the hospital.

She hastily picked up the phone, and as she listened to the anxious voice of a nurse, she gradually became cold, until her whole body seemed to fall into an ice cell—

“Miss Luo, your mother is in critical condition and is in emergency treatment. Can you come to the hospital right away?”

Luo Xiaoxi got up and rushed out of the restaurant without even carrying her purse. When she remembered the two kilometers distance from the hospital, she called out in panic, “Qin Wei! Qin Wei!”

Qin Wei ran out with her purse and unlocked the car. “Get on!”

The emergency treatment was still in process when they arrived at the hospital. Luo Xiaoxi looked at the closed operating room door and suddenly felt like collapsing.

If her parents just passed away like this, she would not want to live anymore.

She did not want to live so painfully…

“Xiaoxi,” Qin Wei grabbed on Luo Xiaoxi’s shoulder. “The best doctor is here, auntie will be alright.”

Luo Xiaoxi closed her eyes, and at this moment, she heard the operating room door open.

She nearly rushed to the doctor. “Doctor, how is my mother?”

“The patient is temporarily saved, but…” The doctor looked at Luo Xiaoxi with sympathy and said with great difficulty, “I am afraid it will be difficult for the patient to make it past tonight…”

This was the longest night in Luo Xiaoxi’s life.

She told Qin Wei to go back, then, she put on a sterilized isolation suit and stayed in the intensive care unit. Looking at her mother’s skinny cheeks, she let her tears splatter on the back of her mother hand.

The phone in her purse vibrated, and the name “Su Yicheng” showing on the screen was especially glaring. She glanced at it and chose to ignore it. She just held on her mother’s hand, as if the harder she held on, the more she could keep her mother here.

“Mom, please don’t leave…” She pleaded, “otherwise, I will become an orphan. I don’t know how to live on.”

“I will always listen to you guys. Don’t leave me behind, please?”

…

At this moment, Luo Xiaoxi suddenly believed in God.

She silently prayed, willing to exchange the rest of her life for her mother’s survival.

Either God had heard Luo Xiaoxi’s prayer, or her mother had heard Luo Xiaoxi’s pleading. Her mother’s condition gradually stabilized as the sky in the east drew the first light.

The doctor came for inspection and happily informed Luo Xiaoxi, “this is a miracle. Your mother’s condition is getting better.”

This was the most beautiful sentence Luo Xiaoxi had ever heard.

As she smiled, tears poured out at the same time.

“Thank you, Doctor.” It was the first time she genuinely said these words to another person; it was also the first time she deeply bowed to a person.

The attending doctor rapidly held on Luo Xiaoxi. “Please don’t, we did what we should. You haven’t rested for a night, right? Go get some sleep, you can’t risk having health issues at this moment.”

Luo Xiaoxi wiped away the tears on her cheeks with the back of her hands and smiled. “I am in good shape.”

Luo Xiaoxi briefly washed up in Lao Luo’s ward and went to the company early. After a sandwich and a large cup of coffee, she started working.

With Qin Wei’s teaching in the past few days and her having originally learned the relevant knowledge, Luo Xiaoxi soon familiarized herself with the business. When the secretary and assistant came and saw the processed documents, they were secretly stunned.

At lunchtime, Luo Xiaoxi left the office and asked the secretary to take her lunch to the pantry room.

Lao Luo had always valued breaks greatly. He attentively designed the pantry room with green plants and elements which helped people to relax as soon as they walked in.

While waiting for lunch to be delivered, Luo Xiaoxi unlocked her phone and suddenly froze upon seeing Su Yicheng’s name on the missed call list.

Like Su Jianan, she once believed that she and Su Yicheng had finally come through. Su Yicheng would surely convince her father and they would live happily ever after.

But now, it all became a joke.

She decisively moved Su Yicheng to the blacklist and removed Su Yicheng from her world little by little.

“You can put his number on the blacklist, but can you do the same to your memory and mind?”

Within the whole company, Zhou Wenhao was the only one who dared to speak to Luo Xiaoxi in such a tone.

Luo Xiaoxi flipped her phone upside down on the table. “Why are you up here? It’s lunchtime, shouldn’t you be surrounded by the single girls in the company?”

“I got scared of being surrounded, so I decided to eat with you today.” Zhou Wenhao placed Luo Xiaoxi’s lunch in front of her, and naturally took the seat opposite of her.

Luo Xiaoxi had no appetite, and she was about to throw the lunch box into the trash can after a few bites. Zhou Wenhao took the lead and held on her lunch box. “How could you last until 7:00 pm with only a few bites? You have to eat more, especially during times like this. You need to have enough physical strength to cope with complicated issues.”

Knowing what he said made sense, she pulled back the lunch box and finished all the food.

Zhou Wenhao sighed in relief. When he returned to the office, he took out his phone and logged on a social app to find Su Yicheng. He sent a message: Task completed.

Su Yicheng replied two words: Thank you.

Zhou Wenhao continued to type: I have a master’s degree from a world-famous University. You actually sent me to persuade a little girl to eat. What’s that saying again? What a god damn – chihuahua.

Su Yicheng: Did Chihuahua offend you?

“…”

Zhou Wenhao’s hit point just hit zero.