Pei Xinyuan set up a small hospital bed to accompany Han Jiaojiao in her ward.
Given the severity of Han Jiaojiao’s injuries, there wasn’t much she could do here. Some things required professional nursing.
All she could offer was comfort, encouragement, and companionship.
In the middle of the night, she was awoken by a noise.
Initially, she thought something had happened to Han Jiaojiao again, scaring herself into a cold sweat.
But then a police officer came in and told her and a similarly awoken Han Jiaojiao, "Han Dashan is suffering from alcohol poisoning, and he was just taken into the emergency room for resuscitation."
Pei Xinyuan almost thought she heard wrong and couldn’t help but blurt out, "He’s still in the mood to drink?"
The night shift nurse who came along commented, "Cough, maybe, drowning his sorrows in alcohol."
Pei Xinyuan looked back at Han Jiaojiao and met her unperturbed eyes.
As if she wasn’t surprised by this at all.
"Did he drink a lot?"
"Our colleague supervising the father and son said that Han Dashan explained he was feeling distraught seeing his sister in her current state, so he secretly left earlier to buy alcohol. They usually liked a drink at home when tired. It was a way to ease their minds this time. This reason seemed reasonable, so we didn’t have any justified reason to confiscate their alcohol. We let them drink behind closed doors. Who knew it would lead to trouble? It was only two bottles, and when we went in, more than half a bottle was left."
Despite saying that, the police notifying them also had some doubts.
The alcohol their colleague checked was fifty-five degrees, not low but not excessively high either. The two didn’t drink more than a jin each.
And Han Dashan was a seasoned drinker who usually drank a fair amount. How could something happen this time?
Could it really be an accident?
For now, they could only wait till he was out of the emergency room to ask the doctor.
With Han Dashan not around, Pei Xinyuan no longer pretended and directly asked, "Where’s Han Dashan?"
"He’s fine, followed to the hospital but couldn’t hold on, and fell asleep outside the emergency room. When I just came, he was talking in his sleep."
Pei Xinyuan walked to Han Jiaojiao’s bedside and smoothed her hair, "I’ll go take a look."
Han Jiaojiao blinked at her.
In her heart, she really wanted to say: Let them go to hell!
Pei Xinyuan walked to the emergency room door and saw Han Dashan slumped on a chair, reeking of alcohol and deeply asleep, his sleep-talking audible as she approached.
She carefully discerned the murmured phrases, only to realize he kept repeating the same sentence.
"I didn’t say anything, I didn’t say anything..."
After this incident, she couldn’t sleep either.
So she found a more distant seat to wait.
In the meantime, she took out her phone to scroll through.
Just as she was getting ready for a lunchtime meal, she called a delivery guy to send out the ten gifts she had prepared, and others in the group had done the same.
Using express delivery, in half a day, the winners from the Imperial City and surrounding areas should have received them.
She opened the trending topics list, and there, prominently, was one #LiveStreamGiftReveals#.
Opening the tag, the top post displayed a large image, an ink painting already unfurled.
A fawn drinking by the stream, seemingly heard something, turning its head to look.
With just a few strokes, it captured a tranquil corner of the mountain forest and the lively deer, almost as if it would leap off the paper.
Pei Xinyuan recognized it at a glance; this was drawn by Sister Xixi.
The comments were filled with words of envy.
[What kind of prize draw was this, is there still a chance for another?]
[Friendly answer, this was from the draw during the ’Empress Yuan Zhao’ main creators’ live stream. It was a one-time opportunity, probably won’t happen again.]
[I heard the gifts were prepared by the main creators who participated in the live stream, but judging by the quality of the painting, the skill in framing, even the box it’s in is exquisite, now I just can’t believe it!]
[I also suspect it’s bought, can celebrities snatch the jobs of painters these days?]
[In fact, there is indeed someone who could potentially outdo painters. If you’re confused by what I mean, look for that show ’Inheritance of Calligraphy and Painting’ that aired on National TV recently. Jiang Lingxi’s painting skills, I dare say, are no less than those of professional painters. Even old master Zhang Nachuan praised her highly on the program.]
[I’m going to search for it now.]
[Can’t find it, the prompt says to wait patiently for re-editing.]
[Probably affected by the incident with Xu Qingmei and Jing Huai, they’ll edit those two out, right?]
[At least that’s not too bad; quite a few shows and programs featuring Xu Qingmei and Jing Huai were taken down these past days, couldn’t download caches on time.]
[Looks like Xu Qingmei is really finished. She switched to a private hospital, and no paparazzi followed, not even trending anymore.]
[Thank heavens, thank National TV. The only show Mr. Shen participated in that I searched everywhere for is this one, thank goodness it’s not taken down, otherwise I’d cry to death.]
[Handshake with the commenter above, I became a fan of Mr. Shen because of this show. I sincerely hope Mr. Shen sees this comment and participates in more shows if he has time.]
Pei Xinyuan closed the comment section that unknowingly veered off-topic, finding it laughable and pathetic. She then opened a commonly used video app to search as well.
Sure enough, the prompt indicated a temporary takedown process.
As long as it’s not permanent, it’s fine.
Just as she was about to check if anyone else had posted the gifts she sent out, the emergency room door across from her suddenly opened. She turned off the phone and stood up to look over.
One look almost made her lose grip on her phone, and she directly fell back onto her seat.
The police waiting alongside her also had a change of expression.
"Sorry, the patient suffered acute cerebral hemorrhage from the alcohol poisoning, along with multiple organ dysfunctions. We did our best."
Even until Han Dashan’s body was sent to the morgue, he wasn’t woken up.
Pei Xinyuan even grit her teeth and slapped him twice, but he still didn’t wake up, not even interrupting his sleep-talking.
Even the police felt helpless, "Let him sleep then. The person’s gone anyway. Drinking killed his own father, this might be the only peaceful sleep he gets."
From now on, wouldn’t he have to live in regret and guilt every day?
After settling Han Dashan, Pei Xinyuan returned to the ward and saw Han Jiaojiao hadn’t slept. After hesitating, she decided to tell her about Han’s father dying while being resuscitated from alcohol poisoning.
Han Jiaojiao was clearly stunned.
Although she’d privately cursed many times that her father might as well be dead, she didn’t expect him to actually be gone just like that.
And while she was severely injured from being pushed off a building.
While she lay in bed struggling to even eat, her biological father drank himself to death.
She blinked at Pei Xinyuan.
"You mean Han Dashan?" Pei Xinyuan looked at Han Jiaojiao as she blinked again, hesitated briefly, but replied, "Still asleep, can’t be woken no matter what."
Isn’t he faking it to avoid the guilt of killing his own father?