The Sickly Double Doesn't Want to Be Spoiled - Chapter 21 

Chapter 21 

Meng Yuan’s face was as white as a ghost, his entire body trembling and drenched as if he had been fished out of water.

He had bitten through his own lip, and the seeping blood stained his pale mouth a layer of unnatural, vivid red.

Meng Yuan had tried every method, swallowing hard to adjust his breathing and pinching the tiger’s mouth (the web between thumb and forefinger) until bloody marks appeared but he still couldn’t suppress the wave of nausea in his stomach.

After tossing and turning for a while, he was on the verge of collapse, covering his mouth as he slumped into his chair.

Lu Cong didn’t dare touch him; as soon as he did, Meng Yuan would frown with a painful expression. Lu Cong could only loosely hold him to ensure he wouldn’t fall to the ground if he got dizzy.

A flight attendant brought a vomit bag. Lu Cong took it, propped it open, and held it to Meng Yuan’s mouth: “Come on, vomit here.”

Meng Yuan reached out with a trembling hand, but his shaking was so severe he couldn’t grip it at all.

Lu Cong pressed his hand down and held the bag himself: “It’s okay, just vomit like this.”

Meng Yuan seemed a bit embarrassed, his expression hesitant, but he couldn’t withstand the churning in his stomach. Shivering, he buried his head in the bag.

His stomach was already empty; the vomiting was difficult, consisting almost entirely of dry heaves.

Afraid of disturbing others, he did his best to keep his voice down. In the quiet cabin, there were only occasional sounds of choking, coughing, and the light rustle of the vomit bag.

After finishing, the nausea did not disappear. Meng Yuan leaned against the back of the chair, his spine trembling slightly and his chest heaving rapidly. His tears had long since blurred into a mess, and his eyes were bloodshot and red.

Lu Cong tentatively and gently stroked his back. This time, Meng Yuan finally stopped moaning in pain, merely hanging his head in exhaustion.

Lu Cong breathed a sigh of relief, pulled him by the shoulder, and propped him up a bit.

With one hand, he gently patted Meng Yuan’s back, while with the other, he took a tissue from the flight attendant to wipe the corners of Meng Yuan’s mouth. His fingers were stiff—a sign of tension he hadn’t even realized himself.

The attendant prepared motion sickness medicine and warm water. Lu Cong placed the cup in Meng Yuan’s hand: “Rinse your mouth first, then take the medicine.”

Meng Yuan’s ears were ringing; voices reached him as if through a layer of fog. It took some effort for him to hear what Lu Cong was saying.

He pursed his lips and nodded, trying his best to sit up and take the cup.

However, he had no strength left. He couldn’t even sit straight before losing power again and slumping softly against Lu Cong.

“Sigh.”

Lu Cong let out a deep sigh and took hold of Meng Yuan’s hand.

Meng Yuan couldn’t hold the cup; his hand shook, and it nearly fell, but Lu Cong gripped it more firmly, causing water to splash onto the back of his hand.

Lu Cong wiped the water droplets off and reflected helplessly: “Did I do something wrong to you in a past life, and now I’m here to pay it back in this one?”

Meng Yuan leaned against him with a pale face and vacant eyes. Hearing this, he actually thought about it seriously for a moment.

“No,” he shook his head firmly. “I didn’t know you in my past life.”

Lu Cong chuckled and didn’t argue further.

Meng Yuan was shaking violently a light tremor caused by full-body spasms and loss of strength. His fingers were cold and damp, gripping the cup so tightly that his fingertips were stiff and white.

Lu Cong tried to take the cup away, but Meng Yuan’s grip was too tight.

He had to rub Meng Yuan’s fingers first until the cold, stiff hands warmed up before he could gently pry them open.

“Open your mouth, I’ll feed you,” he said, lifting the cup.

The flight attendant, being very perceptive, handed over the motion sickness pill. Lu Cong tucked the pill between Meng Yuan’s lips and tilted his chin to pour the water in.

The tiny pill was so bitter it made Meng Yuan’s eyes welled up with tears. Immediately after, a mint candy followed.

Presumably, Lu Cong gave it to him because he saw he hated the bitterness. However, the mixture of sweet and bitter tasted like it could compete with the scent of mosquito coils in a toilet.

Meng Yuan rolled his eyes and let out a dry heave, though fortunately, he didn’t vomit the medicine back up.

Lu Cong was so startled his hand jerked. He held Meng Yuan, rubbing his back, and glared fiercely at the flight attendant: “What happened? Is that candy expired?”

Flight Attendant: “Huh?”

The beautiful attendant, who had been gentle all along, showed a look of bewilderment for the first time.

“Of course not,” she explained with a smile. “How could our candy have expired?”

Lu Cong: “He vomited from eating it, and you’re still saying it’s not?”

Flight Attendant: “…”

Meng Yuan closed his eyes in despair, feeling that Lu Cong was acting like a troublemaker.

He used his last bit of strength to grab Lu Cong’s collar, pulling back the man who was still trying to prove the candy was the problem.

Lu Cong’s breath hitched. Caught off guard by the sudden “throat lock,” his center of gravity shifted, and he fell over, pressing down on Meng Yuan.

“Careful!” the attendant cried out.

She instinctively reached out to help, but then paused.

They were a couple; falling together was normal. Even if they were pinned closely, it was harmless. Did they really need help?

She withdrew her hand and said respectfully: “Please be careful.”

Lu Cong: “?”

Are the employees on this plane robots?

Meng Yuan groaned from the impact. After all the commotion, he looked as if he had lost half his life, his face crumpled in pain.

Lu Cong quickly sat up, scooped Meng Yuan back up, and patted him gently: “It’s okay, it’s okay.”

The noise finally reached the back. Qin Qing and Song Zhen were woken up and saw the mess up front.

The two looked at each other and hurried forward.

Seeing what was happening, they both gasped.

Meng Yuan was being held in Lu Cong’s arms, his hands hooked around Lu Cong’s neck. His face was deathly pale and covered in cold sweat; he trembled occasionally and sobbed piteously.

Lu Cong looked like he was at his wit’s end being clung to.

“Can you please not strangle my neck?” Lu Cong tried to be reasonable.

Meng Yuan nodded through his tears, but his grip only tightened, hanging onto him like a sloth.

“I… I really,” Lu Cong gritted his teeth. “I must have owed you in my past life!”

He grabbed Meng Yuan’s arms, trying to pull him off, but the guy couldn’t be touched or scolded; use a little force, and he’d roll his eyes and vomit for you to see.

Lu Cong had no choice; he had never felt this powerless in his life.

He could only wrap his arms around Meng Yuan’s back, gently taking his wrists to pull them down, and slowly stroking his chest to soothe him:

“Alright, alright, I didn’t hurt you, right? It won’t hurt anymore…”

Qin Qing: “…”

Song Zhen: “…………”

Their expressions looked as if they had seen a ghost.

That was exactly how one coaxes a child. Since when did Lu Cong learn how to coax a child?

“What are you looking at?” Lu Cong glanced at them.

The frustration he took from Meng Yuan was bounced back double onto the two people beside him.

Song Zhen was a gold-medal assistant with professional training and ethics. Upon hearing this, he immediately looked away, focused on his own nose and heart, acting as if both the boss and the boss’s partner were invisible.

Before receiving the next command, even if the two of them died and came back to life, he wouldn’t spare them a single curious glance.

Qin Qing hadn’t been trained like that; she was dying of curiosity.

But she remained cautious.

She took a step forward and asked tentatively: “How about I take over, President Lu? Little Yuan, this child…”

Qin Qing didn’t expect Meng Yuan’s motion sickness to be this severe. After the previous allergy incident, she had clarified all of Meng Yuan’s physical conditions.

The report showed he didn’t get motion sickness. Why was it a mess now?

Qin Qing felt uneasy; this was her dereliction of duty.

“You take over?” Lu Cong raised an eyebrow.

Qin Qing nodded repeatedly: “Yes, let me take care of him. President Lu, you can go rest. I promise he won’t disturb you.”

She was trembling with fear. This was the first time she’d seen Meng Yuan so clingy, and she feared Lu Cong would lose patience.

After all, this gentleman’s patience had always been very limited.

To her surprise, Lu Cong smiled. He looked at the top of Meng Yuan’s head and said somewhat ambiguously, even suggestively: “Sure, you try.”

He lifted Meng Yuan slightly.

Qin Qing didn’t understand. She reached out her hand, but as soon as she touched Meng Yuan’s arm, he jerked violently, frowning and dry-heaving while clutching his stomach, looking very distressed.

Qin Qing froze on the spot, her eyes darting in panic, momentarily forgetting what to do.

Lu Cong quickly pulled Meng Yuan back, whispered a few comforting words, and glanced at Qin Qing.

Qin Qing felt that this look clearly said: “You want to try? You’d have to have the ability first.”

Qin Qing: “?”

“Fine, you two go back,” Lu Cong said. “Staying here is just getting in the way.”

Qin Qing wanted to say something else, but Song Zhen quickly pushed her away.

“Let’s go, Sister Qing. With the boss watching, nothing will go wrong.”

It wasn’t a question of whether something would go wrong; it was that Meng Yuan was actually clinging to him.

You have to know that Meng Yuan used to be a bit afraid of Lu Cong. Qin Qing had always been the one taking care of him. Lu Cong had only been visiting frequently recently—had the two of them already developed feelings?

Qin Qing felt she had missed something, but if it were true, it would be a good thing.

She felt a surge of joy, stopped trying to be a “third wheel,” and peeked back while walking away with Song Zhen, a smile creeping onto her face.

…

With two hours left until landing, Meng Yuan became drowsy after taking the medicine.

Having exhausted too much energy earlier, the feeling of nausea subsided slightly, and he began to lose consciousness.

Lu Cong had an online video meeting that had been scheduled long ago and couldn’t be postponed.

Now that Meng Yuan was on him and had finally fallen asleep after suffering for so long, it would be a bit too cruel to wake him.

Lu Cong couldn’t harden his heart. It was just work; how could it be more important than sleep?

After a moment of hesitation, Lu Cong switched the video to audio so they wouldn’t interfere with each other.

Lu Cong didn’t need to say much during the meeting. Most of the time, he just listened to his subordinates’ reports, occasionally asking one or two targeted questions.

He kept an eye on Meng Yuan’s condition; he hadn’t been woken up.

The meeting reached its end smoothly. Meng Yuan had a relatively comfortable sleep but woke up because his stomach began to ache again.

Meng Yuan realized he was nestled in Lu Cong’s arms, and Lu Cong was wearing headphones, speaking a few words from time to time not to him, but to the open laptop screen.

Two dialog boxes were connected on the screen; one was a black screen, and the other showed the company’s conference room.

Meng Yuan immediately understood Lu Cong was in a meeting, and his brain cleared instantly.

But he had no strength to move. Having stayed in one position for so long, his waist was uncomfortable, and half of his body was numb.

He tentatively moved a tiny bit, wanting to move out of Lu Cong’s arms, but as soon as he moved, his stomach began to churn again. Fearing a relapse, he stopped immediately.

He swallowed a couple of times, clutching his stomach and not daring to move again, resigned to nesting in Lu Cong’s arms with stiff limbs.

“What’s wrong?” Lu Cong looked down at him.

Meng Yuan opened his mouth to speak but remembered Lu Cong was still in a meeting, so he made no sound.

Lu Cong tapped something on the keyboard. “Alright, speak. The other side can’t hear you.”

“I want to get down,” Meng Yuan said softly.

Lu Cong held him: “Get down? Where? The plane?”

Meng Yuan: “…”

“From you,” he said. “Thank you for taking care of me. I’m much better.”

“You don’t look much better,” Lu Cong said bluntly as usual.

Meng Yuan was speechless and wanted to argue, but Lu Cong suddenly held him tighter, his cheek brushing against Meng Yuan’s ear. Meng Yuan stiffened.

Lu Cong leaned forward to click the mouse, not looking at Meng Yuan: “I’m listening, you all continue.”

“Yu Yangbo, didn’t you notice there are problems with the report data you submitted?”

“…Was it you who signed it? If you signed it, of course I’m looking for you.”

He seemed very busy, so Meng Yuan sensibly shut his mouth.

He honestly lay on Lu Cong, listening to him conduct the teleconference. As he listened, he became dizzy again from the heap of convoluted data.

It feels like being in a math class, so painful. As expected, not everyone can be a high-level “beast of burden” (corporate slave).

Meng Yuan wanted to vomit again.

He closed his eyes and endured it. He didn’t know if the motion sickness medicine had worn off, but this wave of nausea was particularly hard to bear.

Meng Yuan covered his mouth, feeling his stomach tie into knots. His vision went black for a moment, and sweat poured down instantly.

After finishing the last of his work, Lu Cong closed the laptop and took off his headphones, fuming at those subordinates who were getting paid for nothing.

He took a deep breath to calm his mood and looked down at Meng Yuan.

Meng Yuan had his head buried in Lu Cong’s arms, trembling as he reached for the vomit bag on the table. Lu Cong helped him, and Meng Yuan grabbed it, vomiting violently.

“Meng Yuan?”

Lu Cong steadied him. In the dim light from the floor strips, he saw Meng Yuan’s face had turned blue from straining.

The medicine he had taken earlier seemed to have worked for only a short moment. This time, Meng Yuan vomited even more fiercely, gasping for breath.

He didn’t actually vomit much. Having not eaten for a long time, his stomach was empty; no matter how much he vomited, it was only bile and a small amount of mucus.

His throat burned with pain. With every dry heave, his stomach contracted violently. Meng Yuan’s face turned bright red, physiological tears wet his eyelashes, and his vision was a blur.

Lu Cong, who prided himself on being iron-hearted, couldn’t bear to watch this scene any longer.

He supported Meng Yuan’s back while his other hand pressed against Meng Yuan’s upper abdomen, where he could clearly feel the tremors caused by spasms under the thin skin.

“Stop vomiting.” Lu Cong gently stroked him with his fingers, lowering his voice as if he couldn’t bear it: “Endure it, Meng Yuan. If you keep going like this, it’ll damage your stomach.”

Meng Yuan’s ears were buzzing. He wanted to speak, but when he opened his mouth, he could only let out a weak gasp.

He didn’t want to vomit either, but his stomach kept spasming, bringing up gastric juice and bile, burning his throat and esophagus.

For the next few dozen minutes, Meng Yuan was almost constantly dry-heaving, with a piercing pain in his stomach.

Medicine was no longer useful; as soon as it was fed to him, he would vomit it right back up, and the pain would become even worse.

The whole group was terrified. Qin Qing was anxious but couldn’t help, only able to stomp her feet in place.

By the time they reached their destination, Meng Yuan’s consciousness was already somewhat blurred.

He was carried off the plane by Lu Cong, wrapped in a thick layer of blankets, yet still shivering and cold all over.

A medical team was already waiting on the tarmac. As soon as the group landed, Meng Yuan was carried into an ambulance.

Simple motion sickness isn’t usually severe, but since Meng Yuan was an MDS (Myelodysplastic Syndromes) patient, the doctors needed to distinguish whether the current result was just motion sickness or if his condition had worsened.

Meng Yuan’s heart was beating fast, and his chest felt as if a stone were pressing on it, making it impossible to catch his breath. Cold sweat poured down along with his increasingly rapid breathing.

The world before him twisted bizarrely. He blinked hard, feeling a stinging pain as if his corneas were bloodshot.

Lu Cong joined him in the ambulance.

Meng Yuan saw Lu Cong’s lips moving, saying something to the doctor, but he couldn’t hear a sound.

Lu Cong’s clothes were neat, only slightly wrinkled at the collar where Meng Yuan had pulled him.

He looked exceptionally steady, without a single extra expression while speaking. His calm profile blurred in Meng Yuan’s tear-filled vision.

His last memory was Lu Cong leaning down, gently touching his face, his dark eyes almost occupying Meng Yuan’s entire field of vision.

His blood oxygen dropped rapidly. When the oxygen mask covered his nose and mouth, Meng Yuan’s tight chest finally relaxed.

In a pleasant swirl of dizziness, he completely lost consciousness.

Beep! Beep!

The monitor issued an alarm for low blood oxygen.

“Meng Yuan, Meng Yuan?”

Lu Cong called his name, his voice slightly cracking at the end with an urgency he hadn’t noticed himself.

The light inside the ambulance was a sickly white and swaying; Meng Yuan’s greyish-blue face swayed before his eyes as well.

Lu Cong was pushed to the side as the doctor began to urgently inject medicine into Meng Yuan. The long needle glinted coldly as it pierced Meng Yuan’s arm.

Because his veins were too thin, the whole process was not easy.

Lu Cong watched everything in silence, without a word, his gaze fixed on the section of the arm connected to the syringe, staring until his eyes were sore and aching.

A heart-wrenching silence filled the ambulance.

After about a minute or two, or perhaps five or six, the indicators on the monitor began to rise. A hint of color returned to Meng Yuan’s purple lips.

Lu Cong could gradually hear external sounds again.

The doctor gave him a reassuring look: “Please don’t worry, it won’t be a major problem.”

In an instant, something that had been tied into a dead knot in Lu Cong’s heart loosened. He belatedly realized that despite the well-air-conditioned vehicle, he was covered in a fine, dense sweat.

Seeing that he didn’t speak, the doctor comforted him again: “You don’t need to be too nervous. For now, we can rule out the possibility of an acute MDS episode.”

Lu Cong wanted to say he wasn’t nervous, but the words wouldn’t come out. In the end, he just twitched the corners of his mouth slightly.

“Thank you,” he said in a low voice.

After relaxing, Lu Cong found several marks on his palm from clenching his fist. He looked at them curiously for a while.

He knew he wasn’t someone who showed his emotions he never had been.

But the lingering rhythm of his heart hitting his chest was still clear, reminding him of what a storm he had just experienced.

Lu Cong buried his face in his hands and closed his dry eyes.

Though he seemed unwilling to admit it, something in his heart had truly, definitely been touched.

The feeling was terrible.