Chapter 119

Chapter 119

Xie Qiyan had searched for Yao Qin for many years. It wasn’t that he had never considered the worst possibility.

But he didn’t believe it.

Nor was he willing to.

He had kept his eyes fixed on Hou Mengqiu all this time for one reason: to pry the truth of what happened back then out of her mouth. Even if she didn’t know where Yao Qin was, it didn’t matter. He only needed her to tell him everything related to Yao Qin, and he could slowly follow those clues to find her.

He firmly believed that nothing had happened to Yao Qin.

That was why he had enough patience to wait.

Yao Qin could abandon him.

But she absolutely could not be dead.

Xie Qiyan ran at breakneck speed. The distance from the director’s lounge to the third-floor wards was not far, but the path was slick in the heavy snow. Xie Qiyan stumbled once, and Huo Yang, watching from behind, felt his heart clench tight.

They rushed up to the third floor as fast as they could. Xie Qiyan’s entire body seemed to radiate cold. His lips were pressed into a pale, straight line, and blue veins bulged across his tightly clenched fist as he slammed it viciously against the locked bathroom door.

His hands and feet were almost trembling.

Huo Yang finally caught up. His sharp gaze locked on the door as he gathered all his strength into his right leg and kicked it hard.

Hou Mengqiu panicked so badly she lost her voice. Together with An Bihua, she braced herself against the door. Her tear-filled eyes were full of shock, fear, and utter despair.

“Hou Mengqiu, you can either come out on your own, or I can tear this door off its hinges. Your choice.” Huo Yang and Yu Fei were assistants Xie Qiyan had brought back from the UK. They only took orders from Xie Qiyan. They had no need to be polite to anyone else in the Xie Family, and they never had been.

“It’s Xie Qiyan’s trap. This is a trap Xie Qiyan set…” Hou Mengqiu clutched An Bihua’s collar tightly. “It’s all your fault! Why did you have to come back and find me? Do you have any idea that you’re going to destroy me and my Xiao An?”

Xie Qiyan was right outside the door. Hou Mengqiu knew she no longer had any way out.

Xie Qiyan had never believed she was insane. But whether he believed it or not, as long as she kept pretending, he couldn’t do anything to her.

But now An Bihua had returned.

Both she and An Bihua had fallen into Xie Qiyan’s trap.

An Bihua leaned against the door. The instant he heard that Yao Qin had died because of her, his mind went completely blank.

He had never imagined she was actually carrying a life on her hands.

An Bihua’s shoulders sagged. His bloodshot eyes slowly closed, and then he suddenly let out a cold laugh. “For Xie Tianqi, you were willing to take someone’s life? Xiao Qiu, tell me-if Xie Tianqi hadn’t been infertile, would you ever have given me a single glance?”

Xie An was clearly his son, yet she had made his son call someone else Dad.

She had never looked up to him.

She had refused to divorce.

And the person she loved had never been him.

The door was not soundproof. Every word spoken inside was heard clearly by Xie Qiyan and Huo Yang.

Xie Qiyan had completely run out of patience. A thick, icy haze seemed to shroud him from head to toe. Before Huo Yang could make a move, he took two steps back and kicked the already loosened wooden door open with brutal force.

With a thunderous bang, Hou Mengqiu looked up in terror and met Xie Qiyan’s chilling eyes.

An Bihua gave up resisting. After recognizing the truth, he looked as if his soul had been ripped out of him, watching coldly as Hou Mengqiu dropped to her knees before Xie Qiyan with a thud.

“Xie Qiyan, Xie An is innocent. If you have questions, come at me…” At this point, she knew she had no way out.

She couldn’t beat Xie Qiyan.

She had been afraid from the moment Xie Qiyan returned to the country.

Afraid that Xie Qiyan would uncover what happened back then. Afraid of revenge. Afraid of being separated from Xie An. Afraid that Xie An would hate her as his mother. And afraid that Xie Qiyan would not spare Xie An.

“My mother. Where is she?” Xie Qiyan could not hear anything else. Snow had settled in his hair and on his shoulders, and his gaze was so sharp and vicious it seemed capable of grinding the woman before him to dust.
Tears streamed down Hou Mengqiu’s face as she babbled incoherently, “It wasn’t me… I didn’t do it on purpose. She was the one who broke free of my hand and fell. I never wanted her dead…”

Back then, she and Xie Tianqi had already been engaged, and she had liked him. But for Yao Qin’s sake, Xie Tianqi had not hesitated to cut ties with his family and break off the engagement. The Hou Family favored sons over daughters, and what Xie Tianqi did had made life even harder for her at home.

She had originally given up on Xie Tianqi, but fate had brought them together again at a business club in Nancheng.

Men, in the end, were all the same. She had thought Xie Tianqi was so deeply devoted to Yao Qin, but to her surprise, all it took was a crook of her finger for Xie Tianqi to climb into her bed.

She knew Xie Tianqi’s novelty toward Yao Qin had worn off.

She also knew that Xie Tianqi, who had grown up spoiled and privileged, was even less willing to remain in that small town of Nancheng with Yao Qin.

Without the Xie Family, he was just an ordinary man, running himself ragged to support a household.

He had long wanted to abandon Yao Qin and return to the Xie Family. Hou Mengqiu’s appearance had merely been an opportunity. To him, she was nothing more than an object he used to relieve his stress.

Xie Tianqi agreed to register their marriage. Perhaps, in that moment, she could convince herself that Xie Tianqi loved her.

But how trustworthy could the feelings of a man who abandoned his wife and child really be? Hou Mengqiu did not have the confidence to guarantee that Xie Tianqi would treat her well for the rest of her life.

Later, Yao Qin came to their door, standing before him with a child in her arms, weeping pitifully.

Hou Mengqiu knew Xie Tianqi had softened.

Xie Tianqi was fickle and heartless. If he could marry her, then he could divorce her. As long as Yao Qin remained in contact with him, Hou Mengqiu’s status as Madam Xie would never be secure.

Especially if the Xie Family found out Yao Qin had given birth to Xie Tianqi’s child. That child was the Xie Family’s eldest grandson. Hou Mengqiu was afraid the Old Master would accept Yao Qin because of the child.

After all, the Hou Family’s business had run into trouble at the time, and the Old Master was not particularly satisfied with her.

During that period, the Old Master often met with Yao Qin.

So when she learned that Xie Tianqi had arranged for Yao Qin to stay on Yangliu Lane, she tried every possible way to find Yang Datong. She wanted Yao Qin’s reputation destroyed, wanted Xie Tianqi to give up on her completely.

At the time, Hou Mengqiu had hated Yao Qin. She was jealous that Yao Qin had stolen Xie Tianqi from her five years ago, jealous that Yao Qin could come back with a child and make Xie Tianqi soften without doing anything at all, and even more jealous of Yao Qin’s breathtakingly beautiful face.

But she had never wanted Yao Qin to die.

Back then, Yang Datong had failed, yet Yao Qin had disappeared. Hou Mengqiu spent every day terrified, wanting only to hurry up and give Xie Tianqi a child as well.

But after three years of marriage, she still had not gotten pregnant.

Xie Tianqi was busy with his career and touched her less and less. Each time, he only went through the motions.

In order to conceive, she secretly went to a traditional Chinese medicine doctor to regulate her body.

That year, she was consumed with anxiety-and it just so happened that Yao Qin came back that same year.

Yao Qin had returned and wanted to meet her.

Hou Mengqiu poured everything out, both hands clutching tightly at Xie Qiyan’s pant leg. “She chose the meeting place herself. She was the one who chose the riverside. I didn’t want her dead. She jumped in herself…”

Hou Mengqiu was telling the truth.

Yao Qin had been very strange that day. Yao Qin knew that Hou Mengqiu had arranged what happened with Yang Datong, and she also knew that Hou Mengqiu had treated Xie Qiyan very badly in the Xie Family. She threatened Hou Mengqiu, saying that if she did not treat Xie Qiyan well, she would not let her off.

If Yao Qin had been able to escape from Yang Datong, then someone must have saved her. Hou Mengqiu did not know who was behind her, but the Yao Qin she saw that day was different from every version of Yao Qin she had ever seen before.

Her face was haggard, but there was a fierce ruthlessness in her eyes.