Chapter 141
The chemical plant explosion in Qingyu County has had a significant impact. During the investigation, it was discovered that the factory, in an effort to cut costs, employed many minors under the age of 18. Some of these children didn't even have ID cards, received wages lower than adults, and performed extremely difficult and exhausting work in such appalling conditions.
After the incident was reported, it immediately attracted the attention of relevant departments, who ordered a full investigation into the matter.
Ding Sifei is a new recruit who has just joined the police force. He is also involved in this case, but his task is to come to the hospital to take statements from the injured.
Because there were so many injured people at the time, the local hospitals in Qingyu County were not able to treat them all, so many of the injured were sent to the emergency departments of large hospitals in the surrounding areas.
Ding Sifei was assigned to the First People's Hospital of Dongjiang. He was taking notes diligently, but when he saw the teenagers who were six or seven years younger than him talking about their lives in the chemical plant, this emotional newcomer couldn't help but feel sad and cursed these unscrupulous bosses in his heart.
He calmed himself down in the bathroom and gave himself a pep talk before continuing his work. But he froze as soon as he entered the next ward.
This ward was unusually popular. In addition to doctors and nurses, there were also many family members peeking inside from the doorway, and most of them were women.
Ding Sifei managed to squeeze in thanks to his police uniform. He was holding his notebook and had just caught his breath, ready to start working, when he was stunned by the scene before him.
A young man sat on the hospital bed by the window. The oversized hospital gown covered his excessively thin body. His skin was so pale that it was almost transparent. His black hair was a bit long, with some falling on his cheeks. His eyebrows and eyes were gentle, and his long, thick eyelashes, like raven feathers, covered his slightly drooping eyes.
He sat quietly on the hospital bed, as beautiful as a painting, making one reluctant to disturb him.
A group of women of different ages surrounded his hospital bed, each with a tender expression that could melt hearts.
"Xiao Pei, are you hungry? This is a bento box I made myself, I put it here for you."
"Xiao Pei, would you like some fruit? This is the freshest fruit I just bought."
"Xiao Pei, your bed is near the radiator, so it might be a bit dry. I've prepared an extra humidifier for you."
"Xiao Pei..."
Ding Sifei snapped out of his daze, utterly dumbfounded. He asked the nurse next to him who was changing a patient's dressing, "This...this is also one of the victims of this bombing?"
The nurse glanced at the boy by the window, a blush rising to her cheeks, and her voice softened: "Yes, Xiao Pei was rescued along with all the other injured people in the ambulance."
Ding Sifei: "..."
He coughed and said, "He doesn't seem to have any injuries."
"Who says that! Emotional trauma isn't a wound!" the nurse exclaimed indignantly. "Officer, you don't know, when we examined Xiao Pei, we found that he was severely malnourished and had been starving for a long time. You be the judge, who would let a child that age go hungry these days!"
Ding Sifei: "..."
However, what does malnutrition have to do with this bombing?!
"Tch, it's all because she's good-looking..." the patient who was getting his dressing changed muttered, revealing the truth.
The nurse glared at him, her eyes wide, and said, "Stop talking nonsense and take your pants off, you're about to get a shot!"
As the patient pulled down his pants, he muttered to himself, "She's so gentle with other people, but she's as fierce as a tigress when she's with me..."
Before he could finish speaking, the nurse ruthlessly jabbed a needle into his buttocks, and the patient let out a scream.
The nurse slowly pushed the medicine into the syringe, and sneered, "Nonsense, you're not even good-looking!"
Looking at the fierce-looking nurse, Ding Sifei swallowed hard.
-
Comrade Xiao Ding, a rookie police officer, hadn't even fully grasped how to connect with the masses before he was surrounded by them.
Holding his notebook, he cautiously sat down amidst the group of older women. The young man said softly, "Thank you for your hard work."
His voice was slightly hoarse, with a somewhat indistinct ending, yet it melted one's heart.
However, when Ding Sifei heard his words, her first thought was that his accent didn't sound like that of people from Dongjiang; rather, it sounded more like that of people from the south...
Lost in thought, he casually opened his notebook, about to start taking notes, when he looked up and saw the boy giving him a slight smile.
Ding Sifei's face immediately turned bright red, and the notebook slipped from his hand. He frantically picked it up while stammering, "N-no, you're welcome."
He picked up the notebook, his heart still pounding. He pinched himself hard, cursing under his breath, "What are you doing?! You're a straight man, why are you blushing and your heart racing in front of another guy?!"
However, this boy is really good-looking, not at all inferior to those movie stars on TV these days, and he is completely different from those boys working in chemical plants.
Ding Sifei thought to herself, and couldn't help but look up again.
Looking at him up close now, one can see that the boy is surprisingly handsome. He looks somewhat thin, with a face that seems to be only the size of a palm. He has a pair of peach blossom eyes that seem to be full of affection. Because his skin is too fair, the corners of his eyes are tinged with a faint pink. His nose is straight, and his lips are slightly pursed. The center of his lip is particularly prominent, but because it is bloodless, it makes him look even more pitiful.
Ding Sifei blushed again and dared not look up at the boy's face. He composed himself and then began to take notes.
"N?"
The young man spoke softly: "Pei Ran."
Ding Sifei was stunned for a moment, feeling that the name sounded familiar. The middle-aged woman next to her quickly said, "So, Xiao Pei, your name is Pei Ran! You have the same name as a big star! No wonder you're so good-looking!"
The boy smiled but didn't say anything.
Ding Sifei neatly wrote the two characters "Pei Ran" on the notebook, and then asked, "What is your ID number?"
The boy seemed a little lost and whispered, "I don't have an ID card..."
Ding Sifei was taken aback and was about to continue asking when a woman next to her couldn't stand it anymore and pulled Ding Sifei aside: "Xiao Pei was born in violation of the one-child policy. He was always taken by his parents to work in the south and was always an unregistered resident. Now that his parents have passed away, he has come back to find his brother. His brother works at this chemical plant. I never expected..."
An older woman sighed deeply: "Xiao Pei is such a well-behaved child, her life is so hard. Officer, please don't bring up her sad story. Just ask us if you have any questions..."
Ding Sifei: "No... I'm giving a statement!"
Pei Ran reached out and tugged at Ding Sifei's sleeve: "It's alright, please ask."
The older women felt even more sorry for him when they saw his forced composure.
"He's just a child! He's not a criminal! Why are you being so harsh on him?"
"Just ask us, would we really team up to lie to you?"
"That's right, come on, come outside and ask, don't disturb Xiao Pei's rest!"
Before Ding Sifei could even speak, she was forcefully dragged out of the ward by the older women.
Pei Ran's gaze followed them out of the ward, then fell back to his own palm. His palm was warm, the temperature of a human being. He clenched his fist tightly, his expression somewhat dazed.
He never expected to survive.
Pei Ran's family has a long history and is famous for its martial arts. The family has a collection of many strange and unusual books. When he was a child, Pei Ran liked to go to the library to look through the books. The records about the Yin-Yang Eyes were the ones he saw in the library.
However, Pei Ran at the time only regarded it as a supernatural tale and did not take it seriously. It was not until after his death, when he found his soul floating in the air, that he realized that the records were true and began to recall those contents.
He remembered that one of the methods was about the resurrection of ghosts. If a person had enough faith while alive, their soul would not perish after death, but it could only linger in the place where it was most attached to in life. To survive, it could only possess the body of someone with the ability to see ghosts.
However, there are very few people in this world who possess the ability to see ghosts. Most infants are killed by those chaotic ghosts right after birth, and the few who survive to adulthood have their ghost eyes sealed. Just imagine how difficult it is for someone to happen to step into the place where the ghost is wandering and at the same time unseal their ghost eyes.
Pei Ran waited for so many years without getting this opportunity, so he gradually gave up on the idea.
However, he did not expect that someone would actually encounter this opportunity, but they forcibly suppressed their desire for resurrection. In order to suppress this desire, they even gave their soul imprint to the other party, temporarily covering the other party's yin-yang eyes.
He never imagined that Shen Huai would become the conduit for their revival.
The moment he saw the two of them at the Hong Kong Coliseum, he could hardly describe his shock. But he also understood that he was different from Ye Cang and the others. He could not be resurrected in someone else through Shen Huai. The only vessel that could become his resurrection was Shen Huai.
So he kept it a secret from Tang Wanjun, silently following them, waiting for Shen Huai's Yin-Yang Eyes to be unsealed again, so that he could possess another body and be reborn.
But he didn't expect that Shen Huai, who was clearly a rich second-generation heir with a huge fortune, was not like Guo Wenyuan, who bullied men and women and did all sorts of bad things. He was diligent, upright, worldly-wise but not cynical. He did many things for Lu Yang and the others in private, but never said anything, just silently cared for them.
The longer Pei Ran followed behind him, the more he understood Shen Huai, and the less he could bring himself to make a move.
He struggled with the decision for a long time before finally deciding to give up. He had planned to wait for Shen Huai to return from Dongjiang before explaining everything and saying goodbye to Tang Wanjun properly. But unexpectedly, something unexpected happened.
Originally, Pei Ran was prepared to die. He used his own soul to close Yin Jingyi's Yin-Yang eyes, and finally, his soul exploded, destroying all the shadows.
However, he never expected that he would wake up again, rebuild his physical body, and be reborn as a human.
After his initial shock, he was overjoyed. Only after dying once can one truly appreciate how wonderful it is to be alive.
At the time, the hospital was in chaos due to the chemical plant explosion, and he was mistaken for an injured person from the explosion and sent to the ward.
After Pei Ran woke up, he calmly inquired about the situation from the other injured people around him, and with his excessively handsome face, he attracted the pity of all the women.
He didn't even need to say much. He just needed to say a few vague words and then lower his head with a sad expression, and these mothers and sisters overflowing with maternal love would automatically fill in the gaps in his background.
Pei Ran stayed in the hospital for two days. His bedside was piled with flowers, fruits and all sorts of little things. There was also a kind nurse who told him about the hospital. When he said he wanted to go out for a walk, she was afraid he would get lost, so she even drew him a map of the hospital.
Pei Ran thought for a moment, then got out of bed, put on her slippers, and walked out of the ward.
With his unfailingly charming face, he quickly found out where Yin Jingyi's hospital room was. Through the room, he could see a chubby girl sitting on the bed, her mother feeding her. Her father hung up the phone and was scolded by the mother and daughter, finally surrendering.
The family was all happy and harmonious, and the gloom on Yin Jingyi's face disappeared. Pei Ran had completely shut down her yin-yang eyes, and her memories of ghosts had also disappeared. From now on, she would grow up happily like any ordinary girl.
Pei Ran smiled with relief. After hesitating for a moment, he took another step and walked up to a nurse, flashing his signature smile.
"Hello, could you please help me find out which ward Shen Huai is staying in?"
Author's Note: This chapter was really hard to write, and it's getting late... I'm going to take a shower and see if I can still write another chapter, but please don't wait up, I'm not sure if I can finish it~
Chapter 142
Shen Huai was unconscious until evening when he woke up. By then, he had been moved to a private room. The room was very quiet, with only the occasional beeping sound from the medical equipment.
Ye Cang was lying beside his hospital bed, already asleep. Because it was indoors, he had shed his disguise. A few rays of moonlight shone in from the window, revealing his messy hair and tightly furrowed brows.
Shen Huai's memory only stopped at the moment he stepped out of the elevator, after which he completely passed out. He pressed his brow, and the deep pain still made him feel lingering fear.
Ye Cang was worried about Shen Huai, and since he was a light sleeper, he was startled awake by the noise. When he found that Shen Huai was awake, he was overjoyed and suddenly stood up, but his knee hit the edge of the bed with a "thud," and the pain made his face contort.
Shen Huai felt both sorry for him and amused, and asked him to sit down: "Does it hurt?"
Ye Cang rubbed his knee, clearly wincing in pain, but gritted his teeth and refused to admit it: "It doesn't hurt."
Shen Huai didn't expose him, but moved aside a little and patted the other half of the bed: "Come up and sleep."
The hospital bed wasn't very big, and it was quite difficult for two grown men to squeeze together, but for them, it was a sense of relief after surviving a disaster.
The two turned to the side and embraced each other.
For a moment, no one spoke.
After a long while, Shen Huai finally remembered to ask what had happened after he fainted.