The Live-In Alpha Only Wants To Inherit The Young Lady's Estate - Chapter 4

“Thank you for your hard work, Auntie Li. It was my lack of consideration,” she said with a faint smile.

“Oh, Miss Zhu, you are still young, after all. When it comes to taking care of patients, you’re bound to lack a little experience.”

Returning to her room, Zhu Qingjia looked at Gu Ruoling’s expressionless, blank face. Suddenly, a thought struck her: during the days she hadn’t been around, how much of Gu Ruoling’s time had been spent exactly like this?

Even though her heart was deeply etched with agony, her face remained entirely numb.

Over the next few days, whenever Zhu Qingjia didn’t have classes, she would come back to keep Gu Ruoling company. She also carved out time to visit two different hospitals. The conclusions she gathered were more or less identical: there shouldn’t be anything wrong with the medication itself, but psychiatric disorders required proper clinical evaluations. To get an accurate diagnosis, the patient had to be brought in for an examination.

Soon, Friday arrived. Gu Ruoling sat on the carpet to take her medicine. She didn’t want to take it because she had noticed it made her drowsy and fall into a very heavy sleep, leaving her head feeling terribly weighed down the next morning.

Yet, Zhu Qingjia watched her take the medicine every single night, ensuring she was tucked in and asleep before leaving the room.

This time, after taking her pills, Gu Ruoling set her water glass down on the table. Zhu Qingjia happened to feel a bit thirsty. Not distinguishing which glass was her own, she casually picked one up and took a few sips.

That night, Zhu Qingjia was plagued by a barrage of strange dreams. In her dreams, she experienced a weightless, terrifying freefall, paralyzed by fear and unable to wake up. She even broke out into a cold sweat.

When she finally sat up from the bed, utterly exhausted, a sudden wave of nausea hit her before she could even stabilize herself. Turning dizzy and disoriented, she rushed to the bathroom to throw up, but nothing came out except clear water.

Rubbing her throbbing temples, Zhu Qingjia felt incredibly miserable, her mind clouded and sluggish.

Once she managed to gather herself, a thought bizarrely popped into her head: she should tell Gu Ruoling about how she was feeling later, as these symptoms sounded remarkably similar to what Gu Ruoling had described.

Wait! Remarkably similar symptoms.

Zhu Qingjia carefully recalled the past few days. They had eaten and drunk the exact same things, yet she had been perfectly fine before.

That meant something went wrong last night.

After changing her clothes, Zhu Qingjia knocked on Gu Ruoling’s door. When there was no response, she pushed it open and walked straight in.

Gu Ruoling hadn’t woken up yet, and her sleep seemed restless.

Zhu Qingjia glanced at the items on the table—there were fruits, paints, and paintbrushes, scattered rather untidily.

It was mostly identical to how it looked when she left last night.

Except for one thing, which had vanished.

The water glass she had used.

Enduring her nausea, Zhu Qingjia retraced her steps in her mind, acutely perceiving that something was deeply abnormal.

Despite feeling terrible, she did not leave. Instead, she stayed right there, waiting for Gu Ruoling to wake up.

If her guess was correct, Gu Ruoling would “go wild” again today.

Sure enough, the moment Gu Ruoling woke up, she began screaming and throwing things around, making a massive racket.

Before Zhu Qingjia could even restrain her, Auntie Li came rushing upstairs with a group of people, clearly well-acquainted with the routine.

Seeing Zhu Qingjia there, Auntie Li gasped in mock surprise and said worriedly, “Miss Zhu, do you need any help?”

Zhu Qingjia’s eyes remained fixed entirely on Gu Ruoling, having no time to entertain her. “No need. All of you, get out.”

Gu Ruoling bolted toward the window sill again. With a large stride, Zhu Qingjia grabbed her by the arm.

This time, she finally realized what Gu Ruoling was trying to do.

She was banging her head against the wall, her consciousness blurred as she cried out in pain.

Zhu Qingjia locked her firmly into an embrace, forcing Gu Ruoling to impact against her instead.

A human body would always be softer than a wall. Drawing from her previous experience, Zhu Qingjia held her tight, waiting for her to regain her senses.

But this time, Gu Ruoling was in exceptional agony. She lashed out, hitting and cursing at her. Because Zhu Qingjia was holding her so close, she couldn’t dodge the blows in time. In a moment of distraction, several bloody scratches were gouged into the side of her neck by sharp fingernails.

After wrestling like this for nearly two hours, Zhu Qingjia was thoroughly exhausted. She held the girl close, leaning back against the bed to wait.

This time, once Gu Ruoling snapped out of it, she didn’t say a word. Her eyes were fixed on the blood traces trapped beneath her own fingernails.

“Clear-headed now? Why aren’t you speaking?” Zhu Qingjia gently brushed away the long hair obscuring the girl’s eyes, her tone light and casual. “You’d better compensate me for my medical expenses. You’ve made such a mess of me, I can’t even show my face in public anymore.”

Gu Ruoling blinked but didn’t respond. She was becoming crazier and crazier. If things kept progressing this way, she might not even realize it if she ended up killing Zhu Qingjia one day.

No matter what purpose Zhu Qingjia had for approaching her, Gu Ruoling didn’t want to leave behind such an ugly, unhinged impression of herself.

Gu Ruoling was incredibly proud. Even when she was mistreated, she would never complain to others; she had her own ways of fighting back.

All along, she had used her own methods to preserve her precariously crumbling dignity. Even if she were to die, she wanted to die with her dignity intact.

“Go back and live at your university,” Gu Ruoling said. She pressed her pale fingertips down forcefully, speaking words that completely contradicted her heart. “I dislike you. You are disrupting my life, bossing me around, and you don’t even submit to me. You aren’t fit to be my wife at all.”

After spending so many days together, Gu Ruoling had finally handed down an “unacceptable” evaluation of her.

So, the next step was to sweep her out the door.

Zhu Qingjia had expected that coming here might involve dealing with many thorny issues, but she had never imagined that the very first person who wanted to drive her away would be Gu Ruoling herself.

The girl didn’t seem like such an unreasonable person, especially since she was fully lucid right now.

Did she even know what she was doing?

Zhu Qingjia understood her temperament. Wasn’t it just about submission?

“Sure, pay me my medical fees first. I want twenty thousand yuan.”

Zhu Qingjia indeed stopped showing up in front of her, but she didn’t return to the university either; she simply stayed inside her own room.

Gu Ruoling ate both her lunch and dinner downstairs, but she never saw a sign of her.

Returning to her room, Gu Ruoling got down from her wheelchair. While Auntie Zhang was helping her fold clothes, she quietly pressed her ear against the wall closest to Zhu Qingjia’s room.

The young heiress frowned. Is the soundproofing really this good?

She couldn’t hear a single thing.

It wasn’t until nightfall when Auntie Li came up to deliver her medicine that the door was pushed open—but the person who walked in was Zhu Qingjia.

Gu Ruoling didn’t dare to look at her.

The medicine was placed on the table, but the usual water glass was nowhere to be seen. Instead, a bottle of mineral water had appeared on the tabletop at some point.

“Take your medicine.”

Gu Ruoling’s shoulders trembled slightly. Her tone is so fierce.

Using the mineral water, she obediently swallowed her pills. The moment she set the bottle down, it was instantly snatched away by Zhu Qingjia.

Then, Zhu Qingjia walked into the bathroom, but she emerged again very quickly.

There was no telling what she had been doing inside.

Throughout the entire process, Zhu Qingjia had only spoken three words, completely devoid of any emotion.

Yet, Gu Ruoling felt an intense wave of suffocating discomfort.

She wanted to call out to her, but the door was already shut tight.

Standing outside the door, Zhu Qingjia let out a soft sigh and handed the bottle to Auntie Li. “I’ll have to trouble you to take good care of her, Auntie Li. I’ll be heading back to the university in a bit, and I don’t know when I’ll be back.”

“Don’t you worry, Miss Zhu. I will take excellent care of the young mistress. Perhaps in a few days, once she cools down, she’ll have you fetched back.”

Zhu Qingjia nodded and went back to her room to pack her belongings.

Shortly after, the sound of a car engine revving echoed from downstairs.

Gu Ruoling propped herself up against the table, standing up and jogging toward the window sill. All she managed to catch was the sight of red taillights slicing through the dark night sky.

She really left.

How rude. She didn’t even say goodbye.

For three consecutive days, Zhu Qingjia never showed up.

It felt as though the past few days had been nothing more than a dream—the emotional ripples she felt were fake, the creeping reliance was fake, and those unspeakable yearnings were entirely fake as well.

Yet, longing was quietly taking root and sprouting.

It was just that its host refused to admit it.

Gu Ruoling began drinking mineral water exclusively. It was a staple in the house anyway, so there was nothing unusual about it.

But every time she took her medicine, she would recall Zhu Qingjia’s tone from that night—the flat, unfluctuating cadence and the lack of any superfluous movements. It felt very much like a cold command.

Strangely, she didn’t feel angry at all.

On the fourth day, Zhu Qingjia still hadn’t appeared.

Instead, Secretary Xu, who always shadowed her mother, suddenly arrived.

Without any prior warning, Secretary Xu brought bodyguards along, immediately detaining the servants and launching a thorough search of the premises.

Aggressive and imposing, the servants trembled in fear, keeping their heads lowered in silence. Only Auntie Li kept darting anxious glances around, her subtle movements betraying her panic.

Not long after, a bodyguard emerged holding a plastic bag. Secretary Xu pulled out two boxes of vials from inside. One of the boxes was almost entirely depleted. She examined them closely, her face darkening by the second.

“Li Maidong, this was unearthed from your room. What do you have to say for yourself?”

Everyone’s eyes instantly locked onto Auntie Li. Auntie Li panicked on the spot. “I don’t know anything about this! Secretary Xu, someone is framing me! I have never given the young mistress any psychiatric drugs!”

Auntie Zhang, standing nearby, rushed forward and delivered a vicious slap across her face. “Still trying to talk your way out of it? Your denial is as good as a confession!”

Auntie Zhang had always known that the young mistress’s mental state wasn’t great. Especially during the first month after moving here, she had slept terribly at night and constantly needed someone by her side. Yet, shortly after Li Maidong arrived, the young mistress stopped throwing tantrums at night.

At the time, Auntie Zhang had assumed her dietary therapy was finally working. She had never imagined that the woman was straight-up drugging her.

No wonder the young mistress always complained of headaches upon waking up, and why her condition had been deteriorating steadily.

Auntie Zhang had cared for the young mistress for many years; she was the person originally handpicked by Gu Ruoling’s adoptive parents. When the adoptive parents agreed to let her be brought back to the birth family, one of their absolute conditions was to have Auntie Zhang remain as her personal caregiver.

With the truth laid bare, Secretary Xu disposed of the culprit directly without hesitation.

Once the matter was handled, she finally went upstairs to check on the young mistress.

The bodyguard tasked with watching over Gu Ruoling immediately stepped aside when Secretary Xu approached.

“Young Mistress, you have suffered. Thanks to Miss Zhu’s timely warning, a catastrophic mistake was averted. For the sake of your health, you really ought to visit the hospital.”

Sitting in her wheelchair, Gu Ruoling watched through the window as Auntie Li was dragged away.

“I’m not going.” She despised hospitals.

Secretary Xu knit her brows, looking caught in a dilemma.

“Where is she?”

Gu Ruoling didn’t need to specify who “she” was for the listener to understand.

Secretary Xu replied, “Miss Zhu has classes today. She should still be in a lecture at this hour.”

Gu Ruoling let out a very faint, nasal hum. Last week on this exact day, she was clearly at home. How is it that she suddenly has classes this week?

“Call her,” Gu Ruoling commanded.

Secretary Xu was somewhat surprised. This was the very first time the young mistress had ever asked her to do something.

Secretary Xu dialed Zhu Qingjia’s number and switched it to speakerphone.

It took a solid ten seconds before the call finally connected.

“Hello.” Zhu Qingjia’s voice sounded cool and detached.

“Miss Zhu, the matter has been dealt with.”

“Okay, I understand.” Her tone remained entirely flat.

Gu Ruoling waited in anticipation, hoping to hear if she would bring her up.

But the other side remained quiet, so silent that even the sound of breathing was imperceptible.

Secretary Xu asked, “Will Miss Zhu be returning tonight? I can arrange a car to pick you up.”

The other side seemed to ponder for a moment. “I don’t have time tonight. I have important matters to attend to.”

Gu Ruoling desperately wanted to demand what kind of important matters she could possibly have late at night.

But Zhu Qingjia had already hung up the phone.

The two hadn’t exchanged a direct word, yet it felt as though everything had been spoken.

Back then, it was Gu Ruoling who had driven her away. Now that the problem was resolved, Zhu Qingjia was refusing to come back willingly.

Gu Ruoling understood.

She was waiting for her to bow her head.

Clutching the fabric of her skirt, she crumpled it into a messy, wrinkled bunch.

Should I bow my head?

Gu Ruoling had never done such a thing in her life. She would rather suffer in isolation than lower her proud head.

But this person was Zhu Qingjia.

Zhu Qingjia was different from everyone else. She had just helped her.

Just this once… it should be fine.