"If things were going well, we wouldn't have called you here."
Qiao Yuchu felt as if she had fallen into an ice cave and plopped down in a chair.
"Then...if it's a person..." She swallowed those two words after a long while, and changed to a more tactful way of saying it.
"This won't do, will I be sentenced to prison?"
"That's hard to say. Your father's car was fully responsible for the rear-end collision, and your mother is suspected of endangering driving safety, which is the direct cause of this traffic accident. It depends on the settlement between you and the victim, and whether they will pursue your responsibility."
The policeman gestured with his lip, glanced in that direction, and a sarcastic smile played on his lips.
"However, I think your parents probably won't listen to anything anyone says right now. I haven't seen anything this difficult in many years."
Their conversation reached Qiao's mother's ears. She grabbed Qiao Zishan by the collar and pulled him over. Her hysterical demeanor was completely different from her usual self, as if she had become a different person.
"Officer, officer, arrest him! Arrest him! He was driving! He rear-ended another car! He's fully responsible! And him... he's bigamous! He lived with another woman and had a child with her! Put him in jail! In jail!!!"
"You're talking nonsense! I was driving perfectly fine! Did you grab the steering wheel?! Officer, brother, listen to me, I have a dashcam, the surveillance cameras recorded it all! If it weren't for her, would I have hit someone?! I'll go to jail if you want, but you're not getting away either!"
Qiao Zishan was tearing at her with one hand, his face covered in bloody scratches from her fingernails.
A car accident completely ripped away the last fig leaf of this seemingly respectful family. Her parents got into a physical fight at the police station, accusing and verbally abusing each other, and demanding that the other go to jail.
As Qiao Yuchu watched the farce unfolding before her, memories flashed through her mind like a revolving lantern.
Her mother disliked her from a young age and left her to be cared for by her grandmother. She later heard from a relative on her mother's side that her mother wanted to have a second child, but her father refused to sleep with her again.
Later, after her grandmother passed away, the family of three moved here. Her father would stay by her side to help her with her homework, get up before dawn in the dead of winter to make her breakfast, play ball with her in his spare time, and take her out to play.
My mother has a sharp tongue but a soft heart. Although she nags, she still cares about her and is afraid that she will get cold or hot. Every day she dresses her up beautifully, like a little princess, to go to school.
Once, she had a fever, and her father was away on a business trip. Her mother held her in the hospital's emergency room while she received an IV drip, and they sat there all night.
She slept soundly in her mother's arms, but the next day her mother couldn't even straighten her back.
And her happiest moments are when she attends school events with her parents.
They played games together at kindergarten sports meets, and in junior and senior high school, she stood on the podium to receive awards because of her academic performance or competition results.
You can see them clapping from below the stage as soon as you turn your head.
They have never been absent from any important moment in her life so far.
So everything, for the past twenty-odd years, they dutifully played the role of parents, never arguing or quarreling in front of her, pretending to be a loving and devoted couple, just to avoid disappointing her. In reality, they had long since grown to hate each other. This is the bloody truth about family that Qiao Yuchu, now twenty-six, has suddenly realized.
She stood there, her hands and feet icy cold, a throbbing pain in her temples, tears streaming down her face as she questioned him.
"Dad, is what Mom said true? You've wanted a divorce for a long time, haven't you?"
Qiao Zishan was speechless. He turned away to wipe his face before turning back and saying, "Yu Chu, let Daddy explain..."
Qiao Yuchu closed her eyes, tears streaming down her face. Her hand holding the table slipped, her mind went blank, her body swayed, and she fell unconscious.
Mrs. Qiao was shocked and rushed over to hug her, bursting into tears.
"My daughter! My daughter..."
"Yu Chu! Yu Chu!" Qiao Zishan knelt beside her and slapped himself several times.
"I'm not human! I'm not even human! Yu Chu, you absolutely can't get hurt!"
"Call 120 immediately!"
***
On his second day at the cancer hospital, Yan Xinyuan underwent a lung biopsy. The nurse wheeled him into the ward, while Coach Liang quietly went out and followed the director.
"Doctor, what exactly is the situation?"
The chief physician stopped in his tracks.
"It's hard to say; we'll have to wait for the results of the pathological tissue examination."
"So, how long will it take to get the results?"
"It will take three days if it goes fast, and about five days if it goes slow."
"It'll take this long?"
"This isn't like taking a chest X-ray, where you can get the results in the afternoon. The pathologists still need to examine it, and if the situation is uncertain, they'll have to do an immunohistochemistry test."
He glanced into the ward and lowered his voice.
"Since you were referred by an acquaintance, let me give you some advice first. The lesion is very deep. I took a look at it on the CT scan during the puncture, and I don't think it looks good. You should be prepared for the worst."
Coach Liang was puzzled.
"What do you mean by 'two-pronged approach'?"
"Financial preparation, and... mental preparation."
The doctor spoke meaningfully and then left, leaving Coach Liang standing there alone, glancing at Yan Xinyuan lying on the hospital bed inside.
Even though spring had arrived, he felt a chill run through him from the wind in the corridor.
Chapter 70 Qualifying
When Qiao Yu first woke up, she was in the hospital. The clock on the wall was ticking. She stared at the white ceiling for a while before she vaguely remembered what had happened before she fainted.
With an IV line still attached to the back of her hand, Qiao Yuchu struggled to sit up, pulled out the needle, and stumbled out while pressing on the tape.
The nurse pushed open the door and quickly put down the tray.
"Oh, ma'am, you're so tired you're having a hypoglycemic episode. You need to rest in bed for a while and can't move around for the time being."
The policewoman who brought her also came in.
"You're awake?"
Qiao Yuchu ignored everything and grabbed her.
"How is the elderly man who was hit now?"
The policewoman paused, as if she wanted to say something but hesitated.
"He just passed away in the ICU."
Qiao Yuchu's vision went black again, and she leaned back. Fortunately, two people caught her. She sat up on the bed, her eyes red and her breathing slightly labored.
"What about my parents? Where are they now?"
***
When she saw her father in the detention center, someone had already gone to visit him before her.
The woman, with her child in tow, gazed at him through the window, tears streaming down her face.
"I'm sorry, it's all my fault..."
Qiao Zishan's eyes also reddened, but he still smiled and comforted her.
"Hey, it's not a big deal. At worst, you'll get a few years in prison. You and Xixi, don't come here again. It'll damage your reputation if word gets out."
The little boy, about four or five years old, was holding the woman's hand. He kept standing on tiptoe, tapping on the glass, and calling for his father.
The woman then picked him up.
Qiao Zishan kissed him several times through the glass.
"Hey, my good son, have you missed your dad? Dad will come back to see you in a few days, and then I'll take you to the amusement park, okay?"
The two played around for a while before the woman put the child down.
"No matter how much compensation they want, I can give them the money, as long as you don't go to jail."
As the woman spoke, she began to sob again.
Qiao Zishan tried to persuade him gently and coaxed him softly.
"Don't worry about this. There's insurance. Keep your money for yourself. If I really end up in jail, you and Xixi can't be without hope."
This was the first time Qiao Yuchu had ever seen such a tender and loving expression on her father's face; he had never shown that to her mother before.
At that moment, she knew that the family was completely broken up.
She had so many questions and accusations she wanted to say to him, but she couldn't utter a single one. They were all stuck in her throat, making her nose tingle.
The moment she turned and left, tears welled up in her eyes.
Mr. Qiao didn't even see her; he was talking to himself behind her.
"There's one more thing. Find me a lawyer to draft a divorce agreement. All the property, the house, and the car will go to her. I can leave with nothing. My only requirement is that we get a divorce."
***
Qiao Yuchu walked into the women's detention cell. Through the glass, Qiao's mother saw her and immediately stood up.
"How did it go? Did you see your dad? What did he say? Is he going to change his mind? What's so great about that bitch? I knew he could never forget her, but I never expected that after all these years, they'd still be entangled, and now they even have a child together..."
Mrs. Qiao's hair was disheveled, her makeup was ruined, and within just a few days, she had even developed gray hairs at her temples.
She kept babbling on and on, talking to herself. Qiao Yuchu looked at her and felt a little sad and sorry for her.
"Mom, you should get a divorce."
She said those words calmly.
Mrs. Qiao's incessant chatter came to an abrupt halt.
Time seemed to stand still.
Like a rusty machine, Mrs. Qiao slowly turned her stiff head, widened her cloudy eyes, and spoke with an incredulous expression and a voice sharp enough to pierce eardrums.
"What did you say?! Say it again!"
Qiao Yuchu moved her lips, but before she could speak, she spat on the glass. She stood still, and her mother pounced on her, frantically pounding on the glass. If it weren't for the glass, her mother would probably have been showered with fists and slaps.
She screamed and cried at the top of her lungs before being dragged away by the police who arrived at the scene.
"You're just like your father, a complete ingrate!!! I wasted my life raising you all these years!!! And you actually side with outsiders, Qiao Yuchu, are you really going to be someone else's daughter, their slave?! You all want to get rid of me, let me tell you, no way! Pah! Pah pah pah!!!"
Snap—
The iron gate closed.