Chapter 180

Chapter 180

In the middle of the night, Yao Qin woke with a start from a dream, muttering over and over that someone was looking for her.

Liu Shubai accompanied her outside. He asked who was looking for her, asked where she wanted to go, but Yao Qin only stared blankly, stammering without being able to answer.

This was the first episode Yao Qin had had since the surgery.

Fortunately, she regained clarity half an hour later.

Compared to before, this was already very good news.

“It’s so cold. Why am I outside?” Yao Qin shivered a few times, then turned and headed back into the house.

Liu Shubai: “…”

After exchanging a glance with Xie Qiyan, Liu Shubai took the initiative to shoulder the blame. “Well, you know… I wanted to wake you up and have you look at the moon with me.”

The night was dark, the wind was sharp, and there were barely even a few stars in sight.

Yao Qin lifted her head and looked around. As if she had guessed why she had walked out in the middle of the night, she instinctively looked toward Xie Qiyan, whose clothes were not even properly put on, and smiled weakly. “It’s cold. Let’s go inside.”

“It’s fine.” Xie Qiyan held her icy hand, the worry from a moment ago turning into encouragement. “You came back to yourself in only half an hour. That’s progress.”

The moment Xia Wanzhi came downstairs, she heard Xie Qiyan praising someone like that.

In the middle of the night, she had turned over and realized Xie Qiyan was gone. Then, hearing the commotion downstairs, Xia Wanzhi had jolted fully awake in fright. Guessing that Yao Qin might be having an episode, she had hurried down.

Once she understood that this was a good thing, Yao Qin’s taut nerves relaxed slightly. After hesitating for a while, she said, “I think I heard someone calling me.”

She used to have auditory hallucinations often, but afterward she never remembered them.

This time was different.

She did not remember how she had gone outside, but she remembered the voice and what it had said.

Liu Shubai reacted sharply. “Who?”

Yao Qin lowered her lashes. Her hand hanging at her side clenched tightly, and her pupils gradually began to lose focus.

She stayed silent, and so Liu Shubai knew who it was.

“He really won’t leave you alone, not even as a ghost.” As if throwing a fit, Liu Shubai flung his sleeve and walked away.

But before long, he came back carrying a cup of warm water and handed it to Yao Qin.

Seeing this, Xia Wanzhi hooked her pinky around Xie Qiyan’s hand. With Liu Shubai here, they could be completely at ease. Besides, given the situation, it felt as though the two of them were unnecessary.

“You still want to see him?” Liu Shubai’s words pulled Xie Qiyan, who had been about to leave, right back.

Yao Qin came back to herself. The thumb of her curled left hand kept digging hard into her index finger. As if she had finally made up her mind, she lifted her head slightly, her gaze firm. “He owes me an explanation.”

A real explanation.

She had waited many years for that explanation.

Liu Shubai hated Xie Tianqi to the extreme. Hated that he refused to leave her alone. Hated that he entered Yao Qin’s dreams every night to torment her. Hated that he had any right to make Yao Qin unable to forget him.

“What if that explanation is a bad one?” Liu Shubai’s voice was a little hoarse.

What if, just as many people had seen it, Xie Tianqi had simply fallen out of love, had changed his heart, and had done something as heartless as abandoning his wife and child?

Yao Qin kept her eyes lowered. “Even then, there has to be a reason.”

Liu Shubai held back a nameless rage.

It was precisely because she thought this way that Yao Qin had trapped herself in chaos, depression, and schizophrenia, locking herself away in darkness.

Even after being hurt so thoroughly, she still believed that the man must have had a reason for doing what he had done.

She even believed she was the one who had done something wrong.

But why did Xie Tianqi deserve that?

He refused to see her, refused to give her even a proper explanation. He did not even have the courage to admit his mistakes.

What right did he have to receive all of her love?

“Then we’ll meet him.” Xie Qiyan’s eyes were dark and deep, the words he spoke as cold as the bottom of an abyss. But the instant his gaze met Yao Qin’s, he slowed his tone again, as if to comfort her. “It just so happens that I want to know too.”

He wanted to know why the man’s attitude toward him had changed so drastically.

He wanted to know whether a man who could remain completely unmoved after learning that Xie An was not his biological son truly had a heart at all.

Agreeing to let Yao Qin see Xie Tianqi was not an impulsive decision. Ever since the day Xie Tianqi had coincidentally seen Yao Qin at the hospital and then told him he wanted to meet her, Xie Qiyan had already been considering it.

Xie Qiyan knew that Yao Qin wanted an explanation.

No matter what kind of explanation it was.

Even if her heart died from it, she had to know exactly why.