Chapter 35

The hospital’s timely intervention saved the child.

Gu Haochen lay on the hospital bed, his face ashen, eyes staring at the ceiling. The white blanket covered his stomach and legs, and his exposed wrist was thin, blue veins visible on the back of his hand.

I sat by his bedside, peeling an apple for him. The apple peel hung down in a long, unbroken strip under the fruit knife.

“Still here after all…” Gu Haochen suddenly spoke.

I froze. “What?”

“The child,” he said, and after a moment of silence, added, “Without the child, you won’t get the inheritance. We wouldn’t get divorced either.”

The fruit knife slipped, slicing my thumb.

I stared at the bead of blood welling up on my fingertip, starting to feel agitated.

“Do you love me?” I asked him.

Gu Haochen’s eyes reddened, and he stammered, “You… you’re asking me this now…”

“How strange,” I interrupted him. “You can love because of hormones, because of a unique encounter, because of a resemblance, because of a life-saving favor. You fall in love so easily, yet always make such a spectacle of it. Even movies can’t portray your kind of deep, boundless love. But your love is never without calculation; you get tired, you chase after novelty, you shift your affections. You’re clearly cold and unfeeling, yet you always pretend to be someone who loves with life and death on the line.”

Gu Haochen was stunned, tears clinging to his lashes, not falling.

“If you had just told Tangtang from the start that you only wanted to play around,” I stabbed the knife into the peeled apple and held it to Gu Haochen’s lips, “he wouldn’t have died.”

A bolt of lightning flashed through Gu Haochen’s mind, and my features became incomparably clear before his eyes.

He asked, “Who is Du Chutang to you?”

I met his gaze and answered, “Older brother.”

All expression vanished from his face.