April on Earth, a Hint of Joy (46) Part 3

That night, Yu Hao had been sitting up in bed all night.

Yu Hao had been sitting up in bed all night. At two in the morning, she heard the sound of the doorknob turning from outside.

She turned her head and, sure enough, saw Lu Huaizheng.

The man was also taken aback and subconsciously started to back out, but then he saw her staring straight at him with wide-open eyes, and then she smiled at him.

"Was I just hallucinating?"

The next second, Lu Huaizheng's hand was still on the doorknob.

Lu Huaizheng's hand was still on the doorknob. He lowered his head and chuckled, then walked in with his hands in his pockets, closed the door, casually grabbed a chair from the side, dragged it to her bedside, and sat down.

Yu Hao sat on the bed, hugging her legs, her head resting on her knees, watching him with blinking eyes.

The lights weren't on in the room. The window was open, and the wind was blowing in, making the curtains drift in the air. The faint moonlight illuminated the hospital room, and the two of them just sat there, quietly looking at each other for nearly ten minutes.

Their gazes connected, shimmering like gentle waves, adding to the room's tender and beautiful atmosphere.

"Congratulations," Yu Hao suddenly said.

Lu Huaizheng was taken aback. "For what?"

"I heard you're a Major now."

He understood and lowered his head with a smile.

"Does a Major get paid more?" she asked curiously.

"A little more," he answered truthfully.

"Do you have more time, too? You seem very free right now."

"I'm on leave."

"Is it because of that sickness?"

He nodded. "They gave me a month's leave. I'll go back after the initial screening is over."

She said, "Oh," not knowing what else to say.

"Lu Huaizheng, hold me."

He leaned back in his chair and looked at her for a while. The moonlight from the window made her face look almost bloodless, and she looked pitiful.

He stood up, moved toward the bed, and turned sideways to embrace her, just like that day in the dormitory. He pulled her into his arms with a pang of heartache. "Like this?"

Yu Hao rested her head against his chest.

Tears suddenly rolled down her cheeks. Lu Huaizheng was wearing a white short-sleeved shirt, and the thin fabric on his chest was quickly soaked. The tears felt like they were flowing into his heart, filling it to the brim. His heart suddenly grew heavy, and he couldn't help but tighten his embrace, as if trying to knead Yu Hao into his very bones.

He closed his eyes.

He gently stroked her shoulder.

The hot tears on his chest seemed to grow hotter.

"Come again tomorrow," she said.

"Okay."

"Come every day until I'm discharged."

"Okay."

She snuggled in his arms and said with a half-smile, "Then I'll never get discharged."

Lu Huaizheng rested his chin on her head, the smooth line of his jaw tilting up slightly as he smiled. "Okay."

Lu Huaizheng didn't break his promise. He came to see her every night after that. Sometimes they would just lean against the headboard in silence; other times they would just hold each other quietly, saying nothing, as if waiting for time to pass.

Sometimes, Lu Huaizheng would stare at Yu Hao and notice her gaze was empty and adrift, her thoughts seemingly elsewhere.

Yu Hao's mental state was very poor. When he spoke to her, she would zone out for a moment, which made Lu Huaizheng very uneasy.

He went to find Professor Han. When the old man saw him carrying two jugs of liquor, his brows twitched; he knew what the young man was here for. He took the gifts and raised an eyebrow, motioning for Lu Huaizheng to sit.

"You want to ask about Yu Hao?"

Lu Huaizheng smiled. "I really can't hide anything from you."

Han Zhichen grunted, "What do you want to know?"

Lu Huaizheng thought for a moment. He figured Professor Han probably wouldn't be willing to answer if he started from the beginning. Being smart, he chose a direct point. "Her mental state hasn't been good these past few days."

"She had a scare. It's normal."

Lu Huaizheng nodded, then suddenly pulled out an envelope and handed it over.

"I found this in her drawer."

Han Zhichen looked at him suspiciously, picked up his reading glasses from the side, and opened the envelope. A colorful pile of photos unexpectedly tumbled out. He picked them up and looked through them one by one, his expression growing graver with each photo he turned over.

It was obvious the photos were taken by a private investigator. The subject of the photos was an old man—so old that even Lu Huaizheng thought he could be Yu Hao's father.

Lu Huaizheng asked, "Who is this man? Why did Yu Hao have someone follow him?"

Shockingly, every single one of these photos was marked with a blood-red X!

Han Zhichen hesitated for a long time.

He finally decided to tell him everything. In the current situation, perhaps only Lu Huaizheng could pull her back.

"During her first year of high school, she was detained for thirty days for intentional injury. When she was six, her parents were sent abroad for work and were away for two years. During those two years, she lived with her youngest paternal aunt. The man in the photo is that aunt's husband. He's a pedophile. When she was eight, that bastard did some inhuman things to her. To an eight-year-old child, he showed her pornographic books and films, and taught her about things between men and women. Finally, while her aunt was away on a business trip, he snuck into her room in the middle of the night and tried to do something bad. When Yu Hao resisted, he beat her, leaving the little girl covered in injuries. When her aunt came back and found out, she immediately divorced that monster."

"But she wouldn't let Yu Hao tell anyone the reason for the divorce. In her first year of high school, her aunt remarried that monster. The little girl went crazy. She took a knife and tried to stab him but was stopped by her aunt. As a result, that bastard called the police, and Yu Hao was locked up for thirty days. Her aunt had to pull a lot of strings to cover the matter up. The Yu Family has complicated relationships. Since childhood, her other aunts all ostracized her mother. Only the youngest aunt was kind to her mother. Yu Hao always remembered that. Her aunt begged her repeatedly not to tell anyone what happened. The girl had a soft heart and agreed."

"To this day, her parents still don't know about this. Yu Hao knew that if she told her mother, she was afraid that the only aunt in the family who was nice to her mom would turn against them. Plus, the girl was proud and couldn't bring herself to say it. Old Yu always thought it was due to the pressure of her studies. Afterwards, Yu Hao became very resistant to men. She started seeing me after she got out. You know Shen Xiyuan, right? With his help, Yu Hao slowly began to open up. I remember when I first met her, if any man so much as touched her, she would tremble and vomit. She had severe social anxiety. Little Shen taught her step by step how to interact with people, telling her step by step that they weren't a threat. I remember once, when Little Shen tried to grab her shoulder, she zapped him with an Anti-Wolf Stun Baton. Little Shen was unconscious for most of the night. She was terrified of skin contact. Later, we slowly started with just patting her head, step by step. It took us several years to pull her out of the shadow of her past and cure her social anxiety."

"Until that day in Yunnan, after you were bitten, she called me a day later and said she had started vomiting again. I told her to come back immediately, but she refused, saying she would hold on for a few more days. I was quite puzzled at the time; how could it suddenly start again? Later, I heard from Xiao Zhao that there was a pervert there. I knew then that the situation was bad. I urged her over several calls, but she still wouldn't come back. She prescribed herself some diazepam, which you can't take too much of, so I had Little Shen take her old medicine and records over to check on her."

As Han Zhichen reached the end, it was as if he had finished telling a long story. When he got to the emotional parts, his eyes reddened, and he was choked with emotion, even unable to continue speaking at one point.

But in the end, he just sighed, looking at the man opposite him with a sense of helplessness.

"I'm afraid she'll do something foolish again. She just doesn't understand the ways of the world. She's definitely not a bad girl."