After Mistakenly Marking My Ex’s Older Sister, the Disabled Alpha Stood Up - Chapter 66

Before long, the sound of hurried footsteps drew closer. Dr. Yaqi rushed in, her face full of concern.

When Jin Yunxi carried Yan Qingruo back, the woman was already burning with fever, drifting in and out of consciousness, murmuring Yunxi’s name over and over in restless unease.

“Jin Yunxi, she’s a patient—she just had surgery. How could you let her get caught in the rain?” After taking her temperature, Dr. Yaqi gasped sharply.

Yunxi covered her face, slowly removed her glasses, and gave a bitter smile. “Maybe… maybe it’s just another act.”

She was like a bird startled by every rustle, helpless against the shadows of her past. She admitted it now—she had developed a kind of PTSD, one named Yan Qingruo.

The vines of suspicion grew wild in her heart. Faked injuries, faked fainting spells—who was to say this wasn’t yet another ploy? Another ruse to tug at her sympathy and set the stage for a fresh deception.

Dr. Yaqi’s face hardened. “No one risks their life for a performance.”

She ticked off each point with her fingers: “She took a knife for you—if that wound had been an inch deeper, she would’ve bled out. She left the hospital only to stand in the rain, risking infection. Once, twice, again and again, she put her

life on the line. When you lost your memory, she was the one shuttling between two countries to keep the Jin Corporation afloat. I saw it with my own eyes, as did Yuan Liu. We completely changed our opinion of her. Yunxi, an ordinary woman couldn’t have done what she did.”

Yunxi’s gaze lingered on the woman lying pale as snow on the bed, tossing uneasily in her fevered dreams. Her hand brushed over her leg, and she finally spoke the truth of how Yan Qingruo and her mother had once left her crippled.

Yaqi, the outsider, struck directly at the heart of it. “Let me ask you—was it Yan Qingruo herself who poisoned you?”

“…No.”

“Then there you have it. It was her mother. Maybe she never even knew. And besides—your legs recovered because of Yan Qingruo’s pheromones. Doesn’t that count as making amends?”

Yunxi fell silent for a long time. At last, her eyes softened on the fragile figure before her, and she said quietly, “Take her to the hospital for treatment.”

If she stayed here, Yunxi feared only growing more restless, more at a loss for how to face her.

Dr. Yaqi nearly wrung her hands in exasperation. “Yunxi, ask yourself honestly—do you really feel nothing for her? If so, why not keep her here under the best care? The private medical facilities at Jin Manor are second to none—you know it, and so do I. Are you avoiding her because you’re afraid of falling again, or because you truly don’t care anymore?”

Her voice sharpened. “If you won’t admit it, then I’ll take Miss Yan away and send her abroad for treatment. Whatever happens to her from then on—life or death—won’t be your concern.”

But both of them knew: with her injuries compounded by fever, she was in no condition to be moved again.

At length, Yunxi let out a long sigh. “I’ll take care of her. Just tell me the medication schedule and the precautions.”

Dr. Yaqi set up an IV for Yan Qingruo, gave detailed instructions, then left, shaking her head helplessly.

Long lashes trembled against fever-flushed cheeks, damp with crystalline tears, as fragile and luminous as dewdrops on morning lotus leaves. Yunxi let out a quiet sigh. Her hand gentled of its own accord as she wiped the sweat from Qingruo’s brow. Yet just then, a tear slipped down her cheek.

Yunxi’s hand froze. She caught that drop of warmth, and it seared straight through her chest.

Then, through broken sobs, came Qingruo’s dreambound murmur:

“Mom… I’m sorry. I can’t take revenge on Ah Yun anymore. I saw her long before you told me she was our enemy… I already saw her then.”

In fevered tears, Yan Qingruo laid bare the truth—that from childhood, she had been molded into nothing more than her family’s tool of vengeance.

Yunxi listened in silence, from beginning to end, without a single word.

That night, the study’s lamp in Jin Manor flickered on and off, shadows shifting across the walls as the figure inside paced back and forth, torn in indecision. At last, that wavering silhouette drifted back to the bedroom and sank into the chair at Qingruo’s bedside—keeping vigil over her the whole night through.

A day later, her fever finally began to break.

Dr. Yaqi had left a medicinal soak with special restorative properties. Yunxi instructed Ivy to prepare the bath, but the woman only frowned deeply, her face twisted in rejection. She stared blankly, unresponsive, caught between hysteria and the lingering fog of illness.

Yunxi’s heart clenched tight. How did it come to this? Panic churned in her chest as she dialed Yaqi’s number again and again, but there was never an answer. Desperate, she contacted Yuan Liu, who advised: “Have her take the medicinal bath to flush out toxins. Observe for now—we’ll decide the next step later.”

Yet Qingruo refused both medicine and bath. Since discovering that Yunxi had thrown away their wedding portrait, her condition only worsened.

Her body grew frail, pitifully thin, her backbones sharp beneath the skin. She curled into herself, clutching something in her hands, fragile as a lost little girl.

“What’s that?”

The familiar voice stirred her dazed gaze. It was the voice that haunted her dreams, the voice she feared would vanish at any moment.

Amid a bath strewn with rose petals, Qingruo lifted her hazy eyes. Beads of water slipped down her skin like scattered pearls along her delicate curves, falling into the tub. But her hand stubbornly clutched that secret object.

Yunxi leaned closer, trying to see. But Qingruo flinched, quickly hiding her hand behind her back, her body curling instinctively as if guarding the most precious treasure in the world. She whispered softly, “Together… Ah Yun, bathe together… then you can see.”

The tight line of Yunxi’s brow eased. A trace of helpless tenderness flickered in her eyes.

Slowly, she began unfastening her clothes. With the soft rustle of fabric, her Alpha’s tall, graceful figure was revealed, smooth and strong in every line.

Warm water closed around her as she stepped into the tub, the surface rippling.

Qingruo’s dazed eyes reflected only her beloved. With a yearning that bordered on desperation, she reached out and flung her arms around Yunxi, holding her tight, as if letting go would mean the woman would vanish like a dream.

Their bodies pressed close. With a soft splash, the object slipped from her hand into the water.

Yunxi’s eyes narrowed. Slowly, a six-inch acrylic wedding frame floated to the surface.

As the dampened paper revealed the words hidden on its back, her chest seized, struck as though by lightning.

Qingruo panicked, fumbling to touch her face, stammering: “Don’t… don’t cry, Ah Yun.”

On the soaked photograph, words once written in secret now emerged at last, glowing with unyielding devotion across the distance of years:

“There are trees on the mountain, and branches upon them,

My heart longs for you, though you know it not.

—To Jin Yunxi”

*“That first encounter by the Rhine—how I longed to tell you that it was you who made that sunset more beautiful.

Pretending to marry you in my sister’s stead… knowing all along it was a scheme between Mother and me. On our wedding night, in the empty loneliness, I suddenly wished you were by my side. So I wrote these words—you would likely never see them. Perhaps it’s better that way.”*

At the bottom of the page was a tearstain, blurred but indelible—only now, after so many years, did it finally reach and wet Yunxi’s own eyes.

“To my Cloud—Ah Yun. From the very first moment, my heart was yours.”