Chapter 271: Despair Smoldering In Nothingness
Liang Chaosu stared at her, motionless.
Lian Cheng gripped his fingers, forcing them apart. Two loosened, then three tightened again.
His strength also became uncontrollable, his fingertips as hard as iron and stone, almost embedding themselves into her flesh and blood.
“The hospital isn’t open at noon.”
Liang Chaosu gritted out, “Emergency.”
Lian Cheng’s head buzzed, spinning beyond its limit. “If it were really liver failure, emergency would still involve blood draws and lab tests. The lab isn’t open, so we’d just be waiting.”
Liang Chaosu pressed his lips together. His expression was as cold and hard as a rock, without the slightest softening.
Lian Cheng suddenly understood. Liang Chaosu didn’t have deep roots in Hong Kong, but that didn’t mean he lacked connections or influence. Sanatorium & Hospital already served wealthy families, and the identity of the renowned Liang Family Chairman would surely open doors.
Never mind lunch breaks; even renowned doctors vacationing abroad would have to rush back immediately.
The commotion would be too great and wouldn’t escape Mo Shifu, which was why his attitude remained unchanged, though he responded with silence.
At this moment, his phone vibrated again, the fourth time in a row.
It echoed in the spacious, stagnant air, sharp and urgent, like sword light from all directions, sharp and chaotic, cutting through their confrontational atmosphere.
Lian Cheng withdrew her hand and reached into his pocket. Liang Chaosu had strict rules for his subordinates; urgent calls were prohibited unless it was a major or critical matter. If an urgent call persisted, it must signify a crisis, an impending change.
The caller ID was Gu Xingyuan.
Lian Cheng answered and held the phone to his ear.
Very close, she heard Gu Xingyuan’s voice, as anxious as fire. “Your father found He Jinian.”
Liang Chaosu’s eyes froze, a layer of gloomy chill solidifying within them.
Lian Cheng didn’t have time to think further. She heard Gu Xingyuan speak again, “You haven’t made a move yet, but Lin Lanfeng was quick. Not only did he help your father, but he also leaked the information about He Jinian. Now…”
She paused, her hand shaking slightly.
Liang Chaosu glanced at her, then took the phone, his hand covering hers. “I know.”
“Then when are you coming back?” Gu Xingyuan was agitated. “Your father just went to see my Third Uncle. They’re about to collude. We’re still separated by distance, and the Liang Family board recognizes you, not me. If you don’t come back, I’m surnamed Gu, and I can’t handle it.”
Liang Chaosu’s voice was icy. “We’ll discuss it when I get back.”
The call ended.
Lian Cheng pulled her hand from his grasp a second early, picked up the medicine bottle, and went to pour water.
When she returned, Liang Chaosu was leaning back on the sofa, looking gloomy. His elbow rested listlessly on the armrest, his posture one of weary distraction.
He rarely assumed such a pose. And for the sake of He Jinian, to the point where Xiao Da could grant Bai Ying anything, it proved…
…that He Jinian, the executive who had been heartlessly dismissed, was undoubtedly a crucial piece in Liang Chaosu’s elaborate plan.
“Take your medicine.” Lian Cheng unscrewed the cap of the medicine bottle, counted out six pills, and held them in her palm, extending them to him.
Liang Chaosu looked up and gazed at her. The sofa was near the floor-to-ceiling window. Perhaps the gloomy, overcast weather outside made the glass reflect his pupils, which were deep and dark, like a pool of stagnant, melancholic water.
Lian Cheng keenly sensed a tension beneath this stagnant water, akin to a drawn bowstring, ready to snap.
Trouble piled on trouble, crisis triggered crisis. She had wanted to divert the conflict through a phone call, but instead, it had made the situation more perilous.
“Xiao Da said you’re under a lot of pressure.” She braced herself, facing the challenge head-on. “What kind of pressure?”
Liang Chaosu picked up the pills one by one. Their reddish-brown color, in her hand, resembled a cinnabar mole; in his fingers, they were like granules of blood from his heart that had solidified.
Liang Chaosu didn’t know if there were other fake siblings in this world similar to them.
His sister was like a gentle breeze penetrating his soul, a cloud full of life, warmth, tenderness, and meaning.
He thought he was enveloped by it, but in reality, he had long since fallen into a deep well filled with dark blood. That cloud would never bestow grace upon him again.
The more he looked up, the greedier he became; the more despair he felt, the more he craved. He was consumed by a dejected gloom burning in the void.
“This lifetime is very long, decades more. Is there even a shred of a possibility for us?”
Lian Cheng couldn’t help but take a step back. Water splashed from the cup in her hand, wetting her hand and dripping onto Liang Chaosu’s lap.
She remained silent, for the answer at this very moment would undoubtedly be the final straw that broke the camel’s back.
Liang Chaosu looked at her. “Is there?”
Liang Chaosu had a deep and taciturn personality. He possessed the most sharp and fierce ruthlessness, yet his soul was born cold and indifferent, having been raised with a culture of subtle concealment.
Such a question wouldn’t come from his lips. Like Iceland, those emotions, love and hate, twisting pain, and a weak utterance wouldn’t be spoken by him.
“You can ask me the question I promised.”
He wasn’t fixated on the answer. Lian Cheng cautiously observed him.
Given how the situation had developed, there was a question she didn’t need an answer to. If she absolutely had to ask, one was about He Jinian. Another was what action Liang Chaosu would take after rescuing Lin Xianzi and she reached Europe.
Lian Cheng weighed the importance. To ask about He Jinian now would be like fanning the flames of an already raging inferno.
“If,” Lian Cheng emphasized, “if my mother’s trip to Europe goes smoothly, will you help Mo Shicheng?”
The man was turned partly away from her, his head tilted. He gazed for a long time. Lian Cheng felt the atmosphere was too silent, an emptiness that sprouted dense desolation.
His eyes seemed to have focused on her many times, yet he sat there motionless, maintaining this subtle dynamic where any step forward from her would be met with resistance, and any step back would lead to his withdrawal.
“I never intended to harm her myself.”
Lian Cheng’s pupils constricted.
After leaving the hotel that day, on her way to the Yun Jin Research Institute, she had considered many of Liang Chaosu’s subsequent moves.
When Lin Xianzi was confirmed kidnapped, she was undoubtedly the most flustered, fearing most that Liang Chaosu would act carelessly, that the kidnapping would become real, and she would be killed imminently.
Later, Lin Lanfeng inferred that between the worst-case scenario and a similarly bad one, the latter became more acceptable.
After arriving in Hong Kong, her eagerness to warn him with the recording, her current passive attitude after receiving the news, was an attempt to keep his ruthlessness in check, to create a buffer zone between softness and hardness until Lin Xianzi reached Europe.
If Liang Chaosu never intended to make a move…
He certainly wasn’t now.
But.
“Tell your father to return to the country.”
Liang Chaosu’s chest barely moved.
In a short span of time, during the interval of one phone call, the storm outside raged from fierce wind and rain to brief shafts of sunlight. He transformed from wild, explosive burning into a frozen statue.
Clad in ashes.
At this moment, Lian Cheng and he, their bodies shared an indescribable resonance of defeat, for how they had progressed from blood relations to this point.
Liang Chaosu fully answered her question. “Because I despise Lin Xianzi and wanted to see what capital a fool who has been deceived for ten years possesses to be restless around you.”
Lian Cheng quietly refuted, “My mother isn’t a fool.”
Liang Chaosu didn’t conceal his malice. “Facts have proven that not only is she stupider than I thought, but also more inferior than I imagined.”
“If, during the first paternity test, she had insisted on you, I would have thought more of her decision. But with seven parts resemblance, the blood connection couldn’t overcome a report of remains. Her sudden affection for you now, her willingness to suffer agonizing grief and try her utmost for you, makes me feel dirty, disgusting.”
Lian Cheng clenched her fists.
Liang Chaosu watched her. The tiny fluff on her nose quivered with anger, her eyes dark and bright, reflecting the direct light, like roses, like flames, interrogating and refuting his malice.
“Does she love you? Or does she love the daughter she lost and owes for years, a symbol? What’s the difference between you and Lian Yingying in her eyes, other than this blood?”
