Chapter 70: Finale (3)
At six in the evening, the moment the plane landed, Ji Ran turned on his phone and received a call from An Yixin.
“Ranran, come to the hospital quickly—something happened at home!”
Ji Ran hung up the phone and didn’t even bother going home, taking Yan Duo straight from the airport to the hospital.
When the two arrived at the emergency room, An Yixin and Ji Changhai were both sitting on the bench outside.
“Mom, what happened?” Yan Duo sat beside An Yixin and asked her.
An Yixin looked at Yan Duo, then at Ji Ran, and said, “We’re not entirely sure about the details, but when your father and I got home, we found Chu Tian had fainted.”
“Is there no one at home?” Yan Duo’s heart sank upon hearing this. A pregnant woman fainting at home with no one noticing sounded quite terrifying.
An Yixin shook her head: “I just called Sister Wang. She said Lang Lang told her to go home early, and Lang Lang isn’t answering any of our calls.”
Yan Duo and Ji Ran exchanged glances, realizing something must have gone wrong between them. Otherwise, how could Ji Lang, who cherished his child more than life itself, leave Chu Tian alone at home?
After sitting in silence for ten minutes, the operating room doors suddenly opened, and Chu Tian—still unconscious—was wheeled out by a nurse.
Yan Duo helped An Yixin stand up and walked over to meet them.
An Yixin glanced at Chu Tian and asked the doctor, “Doctor, is my daughter-in-law alright?”
The doctor removed his mask and said, “It’s a threatened miscarriage. Fortunately, you arrived in time—otherwise, both the mother and the baby would have been in danger. You family members must be more careful! From now on, someone must always stay with the pregnant woman, and any unusual signs should be reported to the hospital immediately!”
Hearing that both the mother and the baby were fine, An Yixin let out a huge sigh of relief and repeatedly thanked the doctor. After the doctor left, she entered the ward with Yan Duo.
Although Chu Tian was temporarily out of danger, she needed to remain in the hospital for observation. An Yixin intended to return home to pack some clean clothes for her.
“Mom, let me take you home?” Ji Ran offered proactively.
An Yixin shook her head, “You stay here with Duoduo. Let your father see me off.”
Chu Tian is pregnant, so having a female relative nearby would be more convenient. If An Yixin leaves, Yan Duo must stay, and Ji Ran staying can also help take care of Yan Duo.
After An Yixin and Ji Changhai left, Ji Ran glanced at Chu Tian and softly said to Yan Duo, “I’m going downstairs to get some food. What would you like to eat?”
The two had originally planned to eat at home, so they both refused the unpalatable airplane meals. Now, it wasn’t convenient to go out for a meal either, so they could only grab something from outside.
Yan Duo thought for a moment, “I’ll eat anything, and by the way, bring some plain congee for Chu Tian.”
Chu Tian would definitely be hungry when she woke up later. Yan Duo didn’t know what she could eat, but something light certainly wouldn’t be wrong.
Ji Ran nodded in response, telling Yan Duo to call him if anything came up, then left the hospital room.
Yan Duo pulled up a chair by Chu Tian’s bedside and took out the script for the upcoming post-holiday shoot from her bag, keeping watch over her while reading.
Not long after, Chu Tian woke up calling Ji Lang’s name and, upon seeing Yan Duo in front of her, felt somewhat disappointed. She asked, “Where is Ji Lang? Where is he?”
Yan Duo shrugged, “I don’t know.”
Chu Tian sat up, glaring at Yan Duo with displeasure. “What are you doing sitting here? Go find Ji Lang and bring him back—I need to explain things to him!”
Yan Duo looked at her with amusement, noticing her vigorous tone—clearly, she was truly fine now.
“I’m not your servant, why should I listen to you?”
She sat here watching over her, not because she had any deep affection for Chu Tian, but simply to ease An Yixin’s burden. However, that didn’t mean she would indulge Chu Tian’s habit of ordering her around.
Chu Tian’s pale face flushed red with anger at Yan Duo’s words, “You…”
The moment the word was spoken, there was a knock at the door. Yan Duo got up to answer it, and soon Ji Ran walked in carrying takeout boxes.
“Wow, I smell shredded pork with garlic sauce—it’s so fragrant!” Yan Duo followed Ji Ran closely, watching him set out the meal as her mouth watered with anticipation.
Ji Ran didn’t ask about what had just happened and instead said to Yan Duo, “There’s also the sweet and sour spare ribs you’ve been wanting to eat. Have more later.”
Chu Tian sniffed the aroma of the food in the air and only then realized she was hungry too. Covering her stomach, she said to Yan Duo, “The baby and I are hungry too. Give me some to eat.”
She didn’t dare make demands to Ji Ran, who had always been cold toward her, and because Ji Ran was present, she also She didn’t dare to boss Yan Duo around like before and spoke much more politely.
After setting up the small dining table for her, Yan Duo placed a bowl of plain porridge on it and said with a smile, “Now you remember the baby? But don’t you want to know if he’s okay?”
Yan Duo had never interacted with pregnant women before, but the roles she had played and the TV shows she had watched told her that a woman who loved her baby would ask about the child’s condition as soon as she woke up from a coma. Yet Chu Tian, from the moment she regained consciousness until now, had only thought of the baby when she wanted to eat.
Chu Tian’s hand on her stomach stiffened slightly as she asked Yan Duo uncertainly, “He should be fine, right?”
Yan Duo: “The doctor said he was very lucky and there’s nothing seriously wrong.”
After speaking, she didn’t say anything more to her and turned back to the coffee table to start eating.
Chu Tian lifted the lid of the takeout box and saw plain white congee that looked completely unappetizing. She wanted to curse out loud instinctively, but then remembered that neither Ji Ran nor Yan Duo would tolerate her tantrums. So she had no choice but to suppress her displeasure and force spoonful after spoonful of the bland congee down her throat.
After Yan Duo and Ji Ran finished their meal, the hospital room door was pushed open as An Yixin and Ji Changhai arrived. Noticing An Yixin’s unusual expression, Yan Duo cautiously asked, “Mom, what’s wrong?”
An Yixin shook her head without saying anything, and Yan Duo didn’t press further, taking the bag from her hand and stuffing it into Chu Tian’s locker.
Meanwhile, Ji Changhai gave Ji Ran a meaningful look and stepped out first, with Ji Ran following behind.
Ji Changhai pulled out a stack of photos from his pocket and handed them to Ji Ran, saying, “Go find your brother, sigh!”
When they had returned earlier, all their attention had been on the unconscious Chu Tian, completely overlooking other matters. Just now, upon returning again, his wife had accidentally spotted the photos on the coffee table and nearly fainted… Such a disgraceful affair was truly a misfortune for the family.
Ji Ran took the photo, glanced at it briefly, and then put it away, saying to Ji Changhai, “I’ll go find him.”
Ji Changhai nodded without saying a word.
When Yan Duo was called out by Ji Ran, she was still completely bewildered. Handed a photo by Ji Ran, she had no idea how to react. In the picture, a man was pressing down on a woman—only the man’s back and the woman’s face were visible. That woman was none other than Chu Tian.
“What’s going on here?”
Ji Ran took back the indecent photo, along with others that were even more incriminating, but he didn’t want to show them to her.
“Don’t worry about it. Just stay here with Mom for a while and wait for me to pick you up.”
Ji Ran planned to go look for Ji Lang. Whether he found him or not, he would come back to pick up Yan Duo before 10 p.m. As for Chu Tian, he had already spoken to the doctors here, asking them to help find a professional maternity nurse. The doctor told him the nurse would arrive by evening.
Yan Duo was slightly stunned, “Where are you going?”
Ji Ran gently touched her hair and said, “I’ll go look for Ji Lang.”
Although he didn’t think an adult could just go missing, he agreed to search just to reassure her parents.
Yan Duo thought about the photos she had just seen and realized that Ji Ran was planning to go over to comfort Ji Lang.
“Hurry back!”
“I know.”
After Ji Ran left, Yan Duo returned to the ward again and looked at Chu Tian, who was still trying to call Ji Lang, with mixed feelings.
If those photos had surfaced before the marriage, Ji Lang wouldn’t have reacted now. But since they emerged after the wedding, regardless of whose child she was carrying, she couldn’t escape the accusation of marital infidelity.
After a while, the doctor brought in a woman in her forties who was introduced as Chu Tian’s caregiver. The woman skillfully helped Chu Tian organize her belongings, then went to the bathroom to fetch water, saying she would help her take a sponge bath.
Yan Duo turned to An Yixin and Ji Changhai, noticing they didn’t look well, and said, “Mom, Dad, why don’t you go back and rest first? I can handle things here!”
Ji Changhai wasn’t particularly comfortable staying either, and more importantly, An Yixin had something weighing on her mind and didn’t want to linger. So after Yan Duo finished speaking, they didn’t stand on ceremony and left directly. 199txt.com
After the nurse finished bathing Chu Tian and left, Yan Duo showed no intention of speaking to her either, sitting on the sofa opposite the bed and reading a script.
Chu Tian seemed genuinely at a loss about what to do at this point. She tossed her phone aside, glanced at Yan Duo, and asked, “Yan Duo, do you think I should keep this child?”
Yan Duo lifted her eyelids to glance at her, slightly surprised that she would directly discuss such a private matter with her.
“This is your business. I can’t give you advice.”
Chu Tian had always been spoiled since childhood, and now, feeling helpless, she lowered her pride to ask for advice, only to receive a lukewarm response. Her mood soured instantly. “Can’t you just speak properly? No wonder nobody likes you!”
She occasionally called Huang Rui, and no matter what the initial topic was, the conversation always ended with various complaints about Yan Duo. Moreover, the two spared no effort in spreading tales of Yan Duo’s “misdeeds” within their social circle, and by now, many had joined their ranks.
Yan Duo didn’t care who the “everyone” she mentioned referred to and still replied indifferently, “Then don’t ask me. I can’t give you an answer either.”
Chu Tian was so infuriated by Yan Duo that she glared at her fiercely and ignored her for a long time.
After a while, Chu Tian couldn’t help but speak up again, “I just calculated it. According to the safe period, this child should be Ji Lang’s.”
Yan Duo offered no opinion.
“But I’m not entirely sure, what do you think I should do?”
Yan Duo flipped a page of the script in her hand, pretending not to hear.
“I don’t want to divorce Langlang. Maybe I should just abort this child. I promise I’ll settle down and have his children properly in the future, and never go out to have fun again!”
When those photos were thrown in front of her, Chu Tian knew her secret couldn’t be hidden anymore. Whether this child was Ji Lang’s or not, her marital infidelity would always be a thorn between them. Ji Lang even mentioned divorcing her, but she loves him! She doesn’t want a divorce at all!
If choosing to marry Ji Lang was initially due to a transaction, later, in her interactions with him, Chu Tian genuinely fell in love with him. Now, Chu Tian has long forgotten about the transaction and only wishes to grow old with Ji Lang.
Yan Duo glanced at Chu Tian with some surprise. Her face showed clear regret and fear. She sighed and said, “I heard that a paternity test can be done after eight weeks of pregnancy.”
No matter what, the child is always innocent. Yan Duo couldn’t ask Chu Tian to keep the child regardless of who the father was, but she still wanted to fight for a chance for this poor child—at least a 50% possibility.
Yan Duo’s sudden remark left Chu Tian momentarily confused. After a moment’s thought, she hesitantly asked, “What if it really isn’t Ji Lang’s?”
Yan Duo: “Didn’t you already decide to have an abortion?”
Chu Tian’s eyes lit up. If it wasn’t Ji Lang’s, she wouldn’t want it. She would treat Ji Lang twice as well in the future and bear his children later. But if it was Ji Lang’s, he definitely wouldn’t divorce her!
“Yes, I’ll go get a paternity test tomorrow!”
Over at Ji Ran’s side, after learning from Ji Lang’s personal assistant about the few places he frequently visited, Ji Ran searched three locations before finally finding Ji Lang sitting alone in a quiet bar, drinking in solitude.
Ji Ran walked over and sat down next to Ji Lang, ordering a cola and sipping it slowly.
Ji Lang glanced at his silent younger brother and smiled self-deprecatingly, “Do you think I’m a failure?”
Ji Ran shook his head and replied calmly, “No.”
Ji Lang glanced at his seemingly unflappable younger brother and said, “You know what? I’ve hated you ever since I was old enough to understand. You’re taller and more handsome than me—you inherited all our parents’ best traits, while I got stuck with their flaws. You’re smarter too. Mom and Dad are so proud of you, but they’ve never looked at me with that same admiration. Back when you were still in high school, they’d already decided you’d inherit the Ji family business. I thought I’d finally outdo you by marrying into a wealthy family and having an heir, but turns out my so-called ‘high-society wife’ had already crowned me with a shiny green hat. Hah.”
Ji Ran said nothing, and Ji Lang didn’t seem to care what he had to say either, continuing, “I admit I used some underhanded tactics on our parents back then. I thought by driving you into the entertainment industry while securing a key position in the company, I’d surely do well in the future. But just now, it finally dawned on me—sometimes hard work alone isn’t enough. Without talent, no matter how hard I try, I’ll never catch up to you, who shines brilliantly in the entertainment world while effortlessly raking in fortunes in the business world.”
Over the years, he had always wanted to prove to his parents that he, Ji Lang, was also a son worthy of their pride. Yet reality had repeatedly slapped him in the face. Until today, sitting here quietly, he had pondered deeply and finally realized—forcing himself to do what he wasn’t good at only brought him suffering Thinking this, Ji Lang turned and looked at Ji Ran seriously. “Dad’s already exhausted, and I can’t revive Ji Corporation at all. You should come back—return to the Ji Corporation that originally belonged to you.”
At five minutes to ten, Ji Ran opened the hospital room door again, and by then Yan Duo had been staring out in longing for a long time.
“Did you find someone?” Yan Duo asked him softly.
Ji Ran didn’t answer. He picked up Yan Duo’s things, took her hand, and headed out. “Let’s go home.”
Yan Duo glanced back at Chu Tian, then followed Ji Ran out of the ward.
Outside the door, Ji Lang was standing with his back to the entrance.
Yan Duo didn’t greet him either. She followed Ji Ran toward the elevator, and when they were nearly at the corner she turned curiously to look at Ji Lang, only to find he was still standing in the same spot and hadn’t gone in.
Once in the car, Yan Duo wanted to ask Ji Ran what had happened, but he seemed lost in thought, so she didn’t disturb him.
At night, after they had passionately made love, Ji Ran lay on Yan Duo and suddenly said, “After the New Year I’ll go back to Ji Corporation.”
Yan Duo, who had been happily toying with the muscles of Ji Ran’s chest, froze. “Huh?”
Ji Ran pinched her cheek. “Huh, what?”
Yan Duo guessed that his sudden decision to return to Ji Corporation must have come from something Ji Lang told him. Anyway, the Ji family’s parents had long insisted he go back—so go back he would—only…
“So will you still act in the future?”
After waiting a long time and getting only that question, Ji Ran, who had prepared a whole list of things to explain, could only laugh through his tears. “Probably not.”
In Ji Ran’s plan, he had long intended to slowly withdraw from the entertainment industry; it’s just that the sudden decision to take over the Ji family business accelerated that plan.
Yan Duo’s face went sour. “So that means we won’t have any chances to work together anymore, does it?”
God only knows how much she loved filming with him, flying together to promote in various places — she never expected that Waiting for You Year After Year would be their last collaboration.
Ji Ran propped his head and looked at her, “Although we can’t work together anymore professionally, collaborations in other areas won’t be affected at all. For example, like just now…”
What had been a fairly serious topic was derailed in an instant by Ji Ran. Yan Duo shot him a sideways glance, “Can you be serious?”
Ji Ran immediately wiped the smile from his face and shook his head solemnly, “Given the circumstances, I find it very hard to be serious.”
While speaking, Ji Ran deliberately traced circles on Yan Duo with one hand, using concrete action to tell her that with the two of them being so open and honest, he found it hard to stay serious.
Yan Duo clearly saw what Ji Ran meant in his eyes and suddenly grew anxious. She forcefully moved his sinful hand away and reminded him, “Don’t forget—you said once every other day. You’ve already used up today’s quota!”
Ji Ran’s hand gripped “Snow Mountain” like a rock; no matter how hard Yan Duo pulled, it didn’t budge an inch.
“It’s already after the hour. I want to apply to use tomorrow’s allotment early—this request isn’t unreasonable, is it?”
Yan Duo: “No…” Fine!
Before she could finish saying she refused, Ji Ran suddenly leaned over and bit down on the other tip that wasn’t under his control, casually grinding his teeth as he did.
“Uh…”
Yan Duo wanted to push him away, but she couldn’t help feeling something stir; in the end, before she completely lost consciousness, she could only warn Ji Ran, “We agreed it would be early—tomorrow you must stop!”
Ji Ran responded with a casual “hm,” whether he actually heard it or not was unclear. The next second, he slid down, burrowed into the quilt, and then sank into the warmth of sleep…
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