Chapter 142: Mrs. Ye's Critical Illness and Ye Fuli's Choice
Ye Zhen stared at the ragged little avatar for a moment.
"Big shot, please carry me! I can be cute and won't steal gear?"
Yeah, right. Absolutely right!
But I won't carry you.
Ye Zhen decisively rejected the player's party request.
Are you kidding me? I'm not some unlucky soul stuck with bad karma. What's the point of carrying a noob?
Does the game even pay for that?
At that moment, staring at the message "Your party request has been declined" on the screen, Ye Fuli fell deep in thought.
"Could it be that my words weren't sweet enough?"
After a brief silence.
Ye Fuli opened Baidu's search bar and typed in keywords like "the art of language," "heartfelt words," "phrases that make men fall silent and women weep," and "high EQ pick-up lines."
After a bit of study, she felt she had grasped the concept.
So she returned to the game and began messaging Ye Zhen's character again.
"I think your outfit looks great."
My outfits look great? Oh, thanks. Ye Zhen chose to ignore it.
"I think your gameplay is amazing. I'd love to learn from you."
What exaggerated flattery! Don't I know whether my gameplay is good or not? Ye Zhen ignored it again.
"I'll give you 666, and I can help you pick up gear too."
This made Ye Zhen a little tempted, but not much.
"I'll pay you."
Seeing that…
Ye Zhen promptly added the person to her party.
[Eww, host, are you broke? Seriously?]
Ye Zhen chuckled and said, "You just don't get it, do you? Paying to play games and playing games to make money—those are two completely different experiences."
[This is too deep, this cute one doesn't quite get it. _(:з」∠)_]
After an hour of gaming, Ye Zhen logged off feeling great with a million… in-game currency.
But when she calculated the exchange rate between game currency and real money, Ye Zhen was stunned.
"Today's rate is 1:50. So I only made two bucks—barely enough for a packet of instant noodles."
"An hourly wage of two bucks…"
"My labor is way too cheap!"
…
…
Downstairs in the lobby.
Ye Fuli, who had just closed her game, couldn't help but let the corners of her mouth turn up slightly.
Who knew two bucks could get you so much—and so many words.
Online games were truly the greatest invention of the century.
The pleasant feeling didn't last long, however, as she received a call from an internal number within the Ye Group.
"Miss Ye, if you're available, please return home immediately."
"Madam's condition suddenly worsened. She was rushed to the emergency room early yesterday morning and barely pulled through."
"But she refuses treatment and keeps murmuring your name…"
This call instantly dragged Ye Fuli back into that world of despair.
The problem she had deliberately ignored had never truly been resolved.
"At the brink of death, the person she wants to see is me?"
Ye Fuli refused to believe such a thing.
"She never loved me! Why would she want to see me?"
But…
In her previous life, only she had experienced death. Neither of the Ye family's parents had endured such suffering.
In the past life, Lady Ye remained aloof and arrogant throughout, manipulating everyone's fate with disdain.
In this life, she had already lost everything she cherished most.
Perhaps only by losing everything could she return to her true self?
Deep down, she must yearn for family harmony, for everyone to be safe and joyful.
"Didn't I already stop caring about these things?"
Aware of the shift in her emotions, Ye Fuli felt an inexplicable flicker of panic.
"I can't go see her."
"I've already found her the best doctors, the best hospital, the best medical facilities…"
"I don't need to do anything more for her."
Yes, there was nothing more she needed to do for her.
Ye Fuli had long since resolved to stay out of their affairs. Yet the words from that phone call kept replaying in her mind.
"She keeps murmuring your name…"
"She keeps murmuring your name…"
"Muttering yours…"
Late at night, three days later.
Ye Fuli walked out of the gates of Mondstadt Academy with a solemn expression, carrying her sparse belongings.
People always cling too tightly to what they cannot have.
In her previous life, striving to satisfy everyone had ultimately driven her to despair, yet she never received genuine affection from anyone.
This lifetime, perhaps Ye Zhen had given her too much guidance, causing her to once again yearn for something that might not even exist.
She had to see for herself.
The late autumn wind carried a bone-chilling cold.
As she drew nearer to the Ye residence, Ye Fuli's heart grew increasingly uneasy.
She even recalled the feeling of her first visit to the Ye residence in her previous life.
That villa was spacious, bright, and immaculate.
Her biological parents were refined, upper-class individuals. They didn't speak in the unreasonable, loud, and boisterous manner of her adoptive parents. They didn't walk around holding their bowls during meals, nor did they point at people with their chopsticks…
In that moment, she felt as if she had found
redemption
.
She silently vowed to live well, to blossom into a flower worthy of this bright world, not the filthy mud at the bottom of a pond.
But in the end, they pushed her into hell with their own hands.
Now, everything felt different.
"Ye Zhen, if that home could become what I imagine it to be, you would like it more, wouldn't you?"
Ye Fuli thought this, and the hatred she felt toward her family seemed to diminish by half. She deeply loved this girl, who was as warm as a sunflower, and naturally wanted to give her a sunlit field of flowers.
She even recalled the rare moments of kindness shown by Ye's parents.
As these thoughts swirled, her eyes stung once more.
"If there's even a shred of warmth left there…"
"Then let all of this… pass."
"Let this grand revenge come to an end."
……
……
In the hospital.
Lying in the hospital bed, Mrs. Ye appeared gaunt and despondent.
She had just returned from the brink of death, every part of her body throbbing with pain she could scarcely endure.
She coughed heavily.
"Honey, do you think Ye Fuli will come back?"
Ye Fu Li's father sat by her bedside, his temples now streaked with gray.
He was consumed daily by the agony of losing his daughter, and this despair had sapped much of his vitality. In just a year, he looked as though he had aged twenty years.
"I don't know if she'll come back."
Ye Dad sighed.
He looked at his wife, his lifelong companion, with a deep gaze.
"I don't know either. Why do you suddenly want to see her so badly?"
He sensed something was off.
But he couldn't quite put his finger on what it was.
Mrs. Ye's lips curved into a faint, gentle smile. "She is, after all, my daughter. It's only natural I'd want to see her, isn't it?"
"Just focus on getting better, okay? Stop tormenting the medical staff around you."
"Then will you still divorce me?"
Mrs. Ye was quite persistent about this answer.
Even though she was the root cause of this family tragedy, at this point, Ye Dad—a man skilled at compromise—chose to yield once more.
"No, I won't."
"At our age, what's the point of divorce?"
"We don't have much left, do we?"
Mrs. Ye exhaled softly. "Yes, we have nothing left. We truly did raise an exceptional daughter—more exceptional than both of us combined… But now that I think about it, I realize I never wanted a daughter like this."
Hearing this, Ye Dad visibly trembled.
He lifted his head, his gaze deep and intense as he looked at the woman lying in the hospital bed.
Mrs. Ye pulled a stack of items from beneath her pillow.
It was a stack of awards and certificates Ye Zhen had brought home from school during her graduation year, along with her graduation photos from every age.
"Zhenzhen is dead! Stop looking at these things!"
Ye Dad reached out to snatch the items, but Mrs. Ye clutched them tightly to her chest.
She murmured, "If Zhenzhen were still alive now, I'd love to take her traveling. I'd take her to see the Northern Lights, to gaze at the starry skies over the grasslands…"
Ye Dad slumped, releasing his grasp.
He found it hard to believe these words could come from her mouth.
"Too late, isn't it?"
He gave a cold laugh and sat back down where he had been.
"She doesn't want us anymore. Nothing you do will change that!"
Tears glistened in Mrs. Ye's eyes.
Perhaps it was middle age, the loss of all wealth and power, coupled with the relentless recurrence of her illness—she finally understood Ye Zhen's state of mind after the burns.
Loneliness, helplessness, and a desperate longing for release.
Just as the two of them reached an impasse, Ye Fuli approached from the hallway and paused at the ward door.
She slowly pushed the door open.
"Dad, Mom, I'm back."