Chapter 20: Rescue

With a crisp snap, it felt as though the bones in his neck were on the verge of shattering. Lin Tian’s eyes rolled back, and his entire body seemed to lose all sensation.

In a haze, he heard only Lin Ruyu’s anxious, piercing cries as she rushed toward him, the image of Bai Yun collapsed on the ground with eyes full of tears, and the blinding glare of headlights approaching from afar.

Silence—terribly, deathly silence...

"Am I... am I really dying?"

Lin Tian felt his consciousness gradually fading. In that unseen void, he screamed in desperate, resentful protest!

Even his screams grew increasingly faint...

He did not know how much time had passed before he was awakened by a rustling sound, yet he remained trapped in a colorless, scentless void where nothing could be perceived. The only difference was that the surroundings had suddenly turned as cold as an icy tomb, forcing him to curl into a ball.

"Cold... so cold."

He was chilled to the bone, his teeth chattering uncontrollably, unable to even lift his head. Suddenly, a golden ray of warm sunlight pierced through, melting the freezing cold that had nearly entombed him, and vitality began to return to his body.

"What is this..."

Lin Tian looked up in astonishment at the red sun that had risen from nowhere, his eyes fixed upon it, as if bewitched and unable to look away. The burning sensation the sun inflicted upon his eyes was too intense; before long, he could bear it no longer and reached out to cover them.

"Ah! My eyes..."

Lin Tian found himself powerless, forced to watch as his eyes were seared and destroyed by the red sun. The intense stimulation was agonizing, and he could only wail in pain until his voice grew hoarse and his strength failed, and his consciousness blurred once more.

I know not when it was, but after what felt like a long slumber, he finally began to hear the sound of voices outside. He tried to open his eyes, but they remained heavy and clouded.

"It is all because of you people that Xiao Tian has ended up like this! You should never have thought of finding him in the first place! And since you did find him, why didn't you treat him well? Why did you let him suffer so much harm? You are nothing but cold-blooded animals; you don't even deserve to be his family!"

Outside the emergency room, Lin Ruyu was venting her fury, lashing out at Xiao Ruoli.

Beyond anything else, even the small portion of Lin Tian’s tragic history that she knew was enough to evoke deep sympathy. Now, because of the actions of the Xiao family, he was left hovering between life and death!

Xiao Ruoli knew she was in the wrong. Although she was not the one who had committed the act, she kept her head bowed in silent, remorseful shame as she glanced through the door at the young man on the hospital bed, surrounded by the hum of life-support machines.

She had only learned of the plot against Lin Tian that night after accidentally overhearing a phone call between Xiao Caiyue and Li Qiang. Worried, she had rushed out, jumped into her car, and sped over. However, since the orphanage had been burned down and not yet rebuilt, she had wasted time searching the area in the dark before finally arriving.

But by the time she arrived, Li Qiang’s patience had run thin. Ignoring Xiao Caiyue’s instructions, he had channeled his inner energy and delivered a lethal blow. Even though Xiao Ruoli had shouted to stop him, the damage to Lin Tian’s cervical vertebrae was severe, and after three days of emergency treatment, there was still no sign of recovery.

"Do you think that by putting on this hypocritical show of visiting him at the hospital for the past three days, people will see you as a kind and gentle person?"

Lin Ruyu shoved Xiao Ruoli aside, her phoenix eyes glaring coldly. "It only makes you more repulsive! If you really wanted to do something, why don't you go and deal with the killer? You even threatened the children at the orphanage to keep their mouths shut and not go to the police. Ha! What a display of authority!"

In truth, those actions were not Xiao Ruoli’s doing. They were the work of Xiao Caiyue. Xiao Caiyue had learned of the incident from Xiao Ruoli the morning after Lin Tian was rushed to the city hospital. Initially, due to the inescapable bond of blood, she was angry at Li Qiang, but she had been too busy and exhausted to intervene. Adopting a mindset of minimizing the issue, she had merely given Li Qiang a perfunctory reprimand over the phone and then personally drove to the orphanage to threaten Director Zhou with a mix of soft and hard tactics.

Just like that, the matter had indeed been suppressed for the time being. Although Lin Ruyu was furious, she had to swallow her anger for the sake of the children's safety. But whenever she thought of how Lin Tian had lain on the ground that night, deathly still as if his soul had left his body, or how Bai Yun had fainted on the spot and had since woken up only to weep until she fainted again—her tears dried up from the trauma—she could no longer contain herself.

And now, having to stand in the hallway with the Xiao family, for whom her favorability was already in the negatives, was simply unbearable! That was why she had erupted in such a rage.

"Can you have some decorum?" Xiao Ruoli snapped, as if poked in a sore spot, glaring back in desperation. "Both sides are my family! What do you expect me to do?"

Xiao Caiyue was her older sister, and Lin Tian was her younger brother. Li Qiang had too much influence to be touched. She was caught in the middle.

"Family?" Lin Ruyu curled her lips into a sneer of disgust and disdain. "Is your family Li Qiang or his henchmen? Or that other group of people who wanted Xiao Tian dead?"

At this, Xiao Ruoli froze, muttering, "Another group of people wanted to kill Xiao Tian?"

She truly did not know, but to Lin Ruyu, this was just another act of feigned ignorance.

"Stop the charade! Those people later admitted themselves that they were acting under the orders of your Xiao family!"

That night, when Li Qiang saw that his sister-in-law had arrived, he had relented and spared Lin Tian, even ordering his men to deal with the first group of thugs who had arrived to kill him. Later, those thugs, fearing for their lives, had confessed that they had been hired by the Xiao family. Xiao Ruoli, however, had been busy calling ambulances and driving to the hospital, so she had missed it. Li Qiang, harboring his own ulterior motives, had not told anyone in the Xiao family, keeping the information to himself.

Thus, Lin Ruyu’s words left Xiao Ruoli completely bewildered.

"If you continue to spout nonsense, don't blame me for being impolite!"

Xiao Ruoli’s tone turned cold, an uncontrollable rage rising in her eyes. She told herself that while she hadn't been particularly good to Lin Tian, she had never intended to harm him! She had never had a single thought of hurting any of her family.

Despite this, out of respect for the fact that the woman before her was Lin Tian’s adopted sister, she held her tongue, turned around, and walked toward the payment counter.

Lin Ruyu, too, found it a waste of breath to continue arguing. She walked softly into the ward, gazing at the unconscious youth on the bed. A tide of sorrow washed over her, and she sat on a bench, keeping a silent vigil by his side.