After Becoming Roommates with an Obnoxious Wealthy Heiress - Chapter 38

Her pulse, faint and weak, flickered slowly.

“Severe hypoglycemia.”

The white-coated doctor looked down at the readings on the glucose meter.

2.7 mmol/L.

A state of severe hypoglycemia.

The moment the results appeared, the doctor’s expression turned complex as she stared at the data. She immediately moved to arrange an intravenous glucose injection.

Qin Shuyue’s lips were deathly pale, and her right hand hung lifelessly off the edge of the bed.

The doctor lifted her delicate, bone-soft right hand and pulled back the sleeve covering the back of it, carefully inserting the needle for the IV drip.

“Hypoglycemia?”

Zhu Lingyi stood at the door with her arms crossed, waiting. Upon hearing the result, her brow furrowed slightly as she stepped into the room.

“How can someone faint just from hypoglycemia?”

The doctor was tidying her medical instruments. Hearing Zhu Lingyi’s voice, she stood up instantly and bowed respectfully.

She nodded and replied, “Miss Qin is suffering from a severe case.”

The doctor presented the glucose meter and the diagnostic results to Zhu Lingyi.

Zhu Lingyi gave them a brief, superficial glance and waved her hand; the doctor promptly put them away.

“Will she die?”

As she spoke, her gaze remained calmly fixed on Qin Shuyue’s sleeping face.

Qin Shuyue’s sleep was restless. Her hands were trembling, a tremor that traveled through her entire body. Her eyebrows were knitted tightly together, forming a knot of sorrow that seemed impossible to unravel.

Zhu Lingyi walked to her side, extending a hand to press gently against the center of those furrowed brows, slowly rubbing in circles.

However, the moment Qin Shuyue felt the touch, her brow twitched violently and tightened even further.

The doctor watched this scene with wide eyes before quickly lowering her head. Don’t look at what shouldn’t be seen; don’t say what shouldn’t be said.

This was the warning Zhu Lingyi had given her on her first day of employment.

The doctor shook her head and offered reassurance: “She won’t die, it’s just”

“As long as she doesn’t die, that’s enough.” Zhu Lingyi didn’t wait for the doctor to finish. Her gaze remained anchored to Qin Shuyue’s crumpled, pained face.

“Yu Xian, can you use those instruments of yours to measure what is in her dreams?”

Yu Xian froze. She looked up at Qin Shuyue’s pale face, then back at the various surgical tools in her medical kit.

A look of confusion crossed her face. “President Zhu I’m afraid I don’t quite understand what you mean?”

“Though, perhaps.. what one thinks of by day, one dreams of by night?”

“Is that so?” Zhu Lingyi let out a soft, dry laugh. “Leave us.”

She calmly dismissed Yu Xian.

Yu Xian murmured an ascent and slung her medical bag over her shoulder. Before leaving, she addressed Zhu Lingyi: “Miss Qin’s condition is quite precarious. I believe it is necessary for her to remain on an IV drip for three days for observation. If her condition improves, we might transition to oral glucose.”

As she finished, she wasn’t sure if she heard a reply from Zhu Lingyi.

She stole a quick glance back, and whatever she saw made her pupils contract sharply. She turned and hurried out the door.

A servant was already waiting for Yu Xian outside. Seeing the sweat on her forehead, the servant thoughtfully offered a towel.

Yu Xian waved it away. “No need.” She started to walk away but paused. After a moment’s thought, she turned back to the servant. “Is there a spare guest room? I’ll need to administer the IV and monitor Miss Qin’s condition over the next few days. Staying here would save me a great deal in travel expenses.”

Inside the Room

Zhu Lingyi’s eyes betrayed no particular emotion neither sadness, nor joy, nor pity.

Her deep brown pupils watched the woman with a flat intensity.

Perhaps, under the glow of the warm orange lamp, her gaze reflected a few fractured shards of tenderness.

Zhu Lingyi slowly reached out a hand, stroking Qin Shuyue’s cheek, her eyes lingering on every inch of her skin.

“Qin Shuyue, are you living in hell?”

Then, she abruptly pulled back the long sleeves covering Qin Shuyue’s arms.

Hideous, terrifying scars, like a swarm of twisting, ugly centipedes, crawled across the entirety of Qin Shuyue’s arms.

There was a reason Zhu Lingyi had entered the room.

Originally, she intended to leave as soon as Yu Xian finished the injection, as she had a meeting to attend.

But when Yu Xian had lifted the sleeve earlier and accidentally revealed more than intended, no amount of covering up could hide the truth.

“Once again, I am meddling in your business.”

Zhu Lingyi’s hand slid down, touching the rough, uneven texture of the scars and feeling the chill of the IV solution flowing through the veins.

It was cold.

Is it as cold as her dreams?

What am I thinking?

Zhu Lingyi let out a soft, self-mocking scoff.

She closed her eyes briefly and readjusted the sleeves, pulling them back down over Qin Shuyue’s arms. As her fingers reached the wrist, she suddenly paused.

A pulse.

Thump. Thump. A slow, sluggish beat.

It was her faint pulse.

Despondent, powerless, and devoid of life.

Zhu Lingyi took a deep breath.

She let go, intending to turn and leave, but was suddenly grasped by another hand.

Zhu Lingyi turned back in surprise, her eyebrow twitching the moment Qin Shuyue gripped her wrist.

“Miss you.”

Zhu Lingyi frowned, her voice raspy as she asked, “Miss who?”

Qin Shuyue murmured a few more unintelligible words, but Zhu Lingyi couldn’t make them out.

“President Zhu, the meeting is about to start. Should you.”

The assistant entered hurriedly, clutching a tablet, her eyes fixed on the screen while her fingers swiped rapidly.

She glanced up briefly at Zhu Lingyi before looking back down. Then, her eyes froze on the tablet, snapped back up, and her face went pale as if she had seen a ghost.

What was she seeing?!

Zhu Lingyi’s right hand was being held by that weak, pale woman on the bed?

And was the woman on the bed acting spoiled, saying she missed Zhu Lingyi?

Wait?

What was going on?!

The assistant was frantic. She darted her eyes between the joined hands and Zhu Lingyi’s face. In the next second, she turned to flee, but her feet betrayed her.

One foot tripped over the other, and she nearly crashed to the floor.

“No! Haha, President Zhu.” The assistant was mortified. She tried to laugh it off. “I… I didn’t see… anything.”

“It’s not what you think.” Without anyone noticing when, Zhu Lingyi had already pulled her hand from Qin Shuyue’s grasp and walked over to the assistant.

She took the tablet from the assistant’s hands and reviewed the content seriously. Her expression was perfectly normal, showing no sign of impropriety.

“Are the agenda and the reports ready?”

The assistant nodded like a woodpecker, wishing she could gouge out her own eyes.

She shrank back, feeling guilty. “Yes, yes!”

Zhu Lingyi cast a fleeting glance behind her, and the assistant’s head sank even lower.

The movement reminded Zhu Lingyi of how Qin Shuyue would curl into herself when she was hurt or afraid.

“What are you feeling right now?”

Zhu Lingyi looked up, suddenly staring at her with genuine curiosity.

The assistant froze.

She had already rehearsed a thousand different interrogation scenarios and excuses in her head. She never expected her boss to ask this.

It was like playing Rock Paper Scissors, and while she was agonizing over whether to throw Rock or Paper, her opponent suddenly asked how the weather was.

She was at a total loss for an answer.

“Ah, um…” She seemed to be thinking desperately.

Is this related to what comes next? Does President Zhu have a deeper meaning I’m not catching?

“Are you afraid?”

Huh?

The assistant’s mouth hung open as she stared up at her boss, who was a full head taller than her.

Why would the boss ask such a bizarre, psychological question?

Was she hinting at something?

Should she act afraid? Or…

Was the boss still savoring the scene of that sickly woman on the bed begging for her?

Did she want her to…

The assistant swallowed hard.

Zhu Lingyi, however, had no idea that her assistant of three or four years possessed such a vivid inner monologue, capable of twisting a simple question into something so distorted.

Under Zhu Lingyi’s bewildered gaze, the assistant suddenly grabbed Zhu Lingyi’s wrist and dropped to her knees. She pressed herself against Zhu Lingyi’s abdomen, tilting her head back with tears welling in her eyes, looking up at her boss.

Trembling, she stammered:

“I’m sorry please, punish me severely!”

Clatter!

The sound of metal hitting the floor echoed from behind them.

Both women turned to see the end of the second-floor hallway littered with medical equipment. Yu Xian was on the floor, scrambling in different directions to find her stethoscope.

The stethoscope was right in front of her.

She was clearly pretending to be busy.

The assistant’s vision went dark; she felt dizzy for several seconds.

So, everything her kneeling and her words had been heard perfectly by Yu Xian?

Fine. She could officially say goodbye to her dignity and sense of shame.

She had embarrassed herself all the way to the banks of the Seine.

“Ah, found it.”

Yu Xian finally “found” the stethoscope right in front of her face. She quickly hung it around her neck and turned to make her escape.

“Yu Xian.”

The voice, cold as the Grim Reaper’s, came from behind her.

Yu Xian closed her eyes in resignation.

Don’t look at what shouldn’t be seen. She had seen everything today.

Was her career over?

Before she could sink into self pity, she heard Zhu Lingyi’s cold command: “My assistant’s brain seems to have malfunctioned today. Fix it for her.”

Without even looking up, Zhu Lingyi walked straight into the study with the tablet.

Left behind were the kneeling assistant and the cowering Yu Xian.

The two made eye contact in the long corridor. The assistant was the first to give in; her vision blurred, and she went limp, collapsing onto the floor.

It’s over!

Seeing the assistant faint, Yu Xian scrambled to shove her equipment back into her bag and hurried over to her.

She put on her stethoscope and performed a thorough check-up on her heart, liver, spleen, stomach, and kidneys.

“Whew.”

Yu Xian exhaled in relief and sat down on the floor next to her.

“She’s fine. Just excessive shock.”

The assistant was fine.

But I’m doomed!

She shouldn’t have asked the maid to stay just to save on travel costs. She saved some money, but she was about to lose her job!

She silently held up three fingers in her heart.

If I can just keep my career, I’m willing to pay triple the travel expenses!

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