Chapter 9

Chapter 9

After I was discharged from the hospital, I talked to my boss about quitting. He said I needed to finish my last design project first—including any revisions. We estimated it would take at most a month. When I told Alex, he insisted on picking me up from work and dropping me off every day.

One evening, I saw Alex waiting for me downstairs after work. As I walked over, I heard him on the phone. "I'm worried she'll do something extreme again and hurt the people I care about. Find her husband's contact information—I don't feel safe with her still in the city." When he saw me, his expression was serious—his usual "business mode" face.

"Alright, that's all for now," he said, hanging up. There was still a hint of coldness in his eyes that he hadn't had time to hide.

"What's wrong?" I asked, reaching up to smooth his furrowed brows. I hated seeing him look worried.

"It's about Jenny Yuan," he said, hesitating. "After we called the police last time, Jenny provided a report saying she has a mental illness. Our lawyer said it might make the case harder to handle." I hadn't asked about what happened after that incident—I didn't want to think about that day ever again. And I'd trusted Alex to handle it. I just never expected it to get this complicated.

"What can we do now?" I asked.

"She's still married to her husband," Alex said. "The only thing we can do is contact him and ask him to take her back."

"What about her parents?" I wondered.

"Her parents died in an accident when she was little," Alex explained. "That's probably why her personality is the way it is."

"But even if she's mentally ill, that doesn't mean we have to suffer the consequences," I said firmly. I wasn't that kind— I wasn't going to feel sorry for her just because she had no parents.

"Don't worry—I'll take care of it. You just focus on the baby," Alex said, squeezing my hand. I'd always trusted Alex to handle things like this.

After that, I didn't hear anything more about Jenny Yuan. Alex only told me he'd taken care of it and that she wouldn't bother us again. Later, I found out the real reason she'd left Alex back then: she'd found out he didn't have the right to inherit his family's company. At the same time, she'd met a wealthy foreign man who'd taken an interest in her. So she'd broken up with Alex and married the foreigner. At first, they'd been happy. But eventually, the man had gotten tired of her—saying she was just a pretty face who only knew how to spend money. He'd cheated on her, and when Jenny had tried to get a divorce, he'd refused. Then she'd heard from Alex's mom that Alex had amnesia—and that he'd asked about her after waking up. That's when she'd gotten the idea to try to win him back. She'd run away from her husband and come back to R City—which led to everything that had happened.

I only heard about Jenny again when I saw her name in a news article: a patient at a mental hospital in K City had jumped out of a window and become a vegetable. That patient was Jenny Yuan. I asked Alex about it. He said he'd asked his lawyer to handle it—since Jenny had a mental illness, they'd sent her to a mental hospital. She could stay there until she recovered. But Jenny had kept screaming that she wasn't mentally ill. The doctors had given her sedatives repeatedly, and the environment had only made her mental state worse. The jump had been a stunt to scare the hospital staff—but it had backfired. Now she really would have to stay there forever.

I was almost done with my design project, and my baby bump was getting more and more noticeable. Alex insisted on driving me to the office and picking me up every day, no matter how busy he was. I'd suggested he let his driver take me instead, but he'd refused. "As long as you're still working, I'm going to drive you myself. It's the only way I can focus on work," he'd said firmly.

During the 618 shopping festival, the company got a lot of orders—everyone was swamped. My design was in the final stages, and I needed to go to the client's company to sign the contract. The colleague who was supposed to go had gotten stuck with other work, so I took over. After signing the contract, I decided to grab lunch at a restaurant downstairs. While I was eating, the table next to me started arguing—two guys got into a fight. I 下意识 put my hands over my belly and tried to leave. But before I could stand up, one of the guys stumbled and fell toward me. I quickly moved out of the way, but I still lost my balance and sat down hard on the floor. My heart skipped a beat. I was so scared something had happened to the baby. I pulled out my phone and called Alex. The guy who'd fallen stopped fighting and came over to help me up.

"Alex Qin—I was at a restaurant, and someone knocked me down. I don't know if I'm okay. I'm scared," I sobbed. I was truly terrified. If anything had happened to the baby because of me, I'd never forgive myself.

"Send me your location—I'll be right there. Don't move," Alex said, his voice urgent. "Check if you're bleeding. Does your belly hurt? Keep the phone on."

Hearing his voice made me feel a little calmer. I checked myself over. "My belly hurts a little—from the fall, I think. But I'm not bleeding," I said, sitting down on a chair the guy had pulled over for me. Alex kept talking to me the whole time he was driving over. An ambulance arrived at the same time he did. Alex helped me into the ambulance.

"President Xie, I'm so sorry—we had no idea this was your wife," the restaurant manager said, hurrying over and bowing repeatedly. "We'll take full responsibility."

"If anything happens to my wife," Alex said coldly, sitting next to me in the ambulance, "our cooperation ends here. And I won't let those guys who knocked her down get away with it."

At the hospital, the doctor said the baby was fine—I'd just gotten a little shocked from the fall. I needed to rest at home for a few days. After that, Alex refused to let me go back to work, no matter what. Since my design project was almost done anyway, I talked to my boss and quit. Even during the few days I needed to go back to the company to hand over my work, Alex went with me every time. He joked that it was "following my wife wherever she goes."