C2 Hanging By A Thread

A small groan escaped Xianliang's pale lips as his head was ambushed with countless waves of headaches. His body was aching and screaming in pain. When he came to, his vision was blurred. He tried to wipe away the irritation in his eyes with his right hand when he felt the limb go numb. Looking over to the side with slight difficulty as his neck muscles had gone stiff, Xianliang saw an IV tube was attached to his small, thin and short length of an arm.

“Small…?” It took a while for him to process what was going on.

He slowly sat up on the bed and shifted backwards till his back was resting against the headboard as support. He winced at every movement he made and nearly spat out a mouthful of curses when the pain intensified. Soon, as the pain subsided, his small fingers gripped onto the heave and huge quilt, which was covering his body. As he was shifting it over to the other side, he found the task to be greatly difficult. Naturally, doing such a simple task like this had never required him an ounce of strength. Unfortunately, during that point in time, he had to exert a lot of force to flip the quilt over. It made him question logic.

‘How can a quilt be this heavy to flip over…? Why am I so weak…? What’s going on…?’ Thousands of questions ran through his mind and sadly, he had no answers to them. His memories were still fuzzy at this point of time, and he could not remember anything.

After he had successfully flipped the quilt over with difficulty, he could not help being speechless at the sight before him.

His long muscular legs were morphed to a shorter and thinner pair of legs. He was wearing shorts and he could see the bones visible and probing into his skin. He flinched in disgust when he used his index to poke the “bone” slowly. He could feel the rough surface of it. There were scars and blue-black bruises here and there. He was not sure what was happening to his body, but it hurt him everywhere.

When he looked over to his left, there was a mirror reflecting his reflection. He stared at it in shock. His teenage body was shrunk to a child’s. However, this child looked exactly like him, his younger version. Chocolate brown hair with a pair of darker brown doe eyes. His reddish plump lips and a button nose. However, the only differences were that; this body was too thin and frail, as if he was not well-fed. Additionally, it was full of scars and there were bruises everywhere. His skin complexion was paler as well, which reminded him of a corpse he had seen in the movies. It was a horrid sight, and he nearly puked his guts out. However, he forced himself to hold it in.

Right then, his chest started to ache, and he found himself having a hard time breathing. He gasped weakly when the pain intensified. His weak and trembling fingers grabbed a hold of his front shirt when the door to the room he was occupying was pushed open. A stranger walked in, and he recognised the get-up the young lady was wearing. It was a nurse. Hopelessly, he looked up to the nurse as he let out a raspy noise.

The nurse hurriedly walked up to him as she inspected his body and the vitals readings. He felt her touching him and he saw her mouth open, but her words seemed to be slurred. His head was spinning, and his vision blurred once again. Not long later, he passed out. The only thing he heard from her was "We need a doctor!".

Lei Huizhong had just got home from work when he heard the scream of a lady and his face almost faltered to a look of surprise. The only time they — be it nurses, the maids and/or the butler of the household — would call for a doctor was when the child had either awakened from a coma, or he was in grave danger. It was a rule set by Huizhong himself. Other than that, if they ever needed a doctor for health assistance and et cetera, they should visit the doctor privately in his quarters, and that included Huizhong himself. Without any delay, Huizhong immediately made his way up the stairs and headed towards the child’s room.

For three months, the child had shown no progress to be “awake” and his life was hanging by a thread since then. The doctor had advised him to prepare for the worse. Sooner or later, his brain activity might drop, and his heart would succumb. Upon receiving the bad news — and even though both he and the child are basically strangers, and they mean nothing to each other — Huizhong had felt something akin to a stab in his heart. They were not family to begin with and yet, he felt sadness and dread hanging around him. For the first time in his life, he had sympathised with someone. He wished nothing but the best for the child.

‘For he deserved better than being with his mother in this life. If he continues to stay and live on, I’ll do whatever it takes to shelter him for the best as no one deserves to be treated inhumanely.’ He prayed silently in his heart.

Miraculously, his prayers were heard.

The child’s room was no stranger to him. After hearing the dreadful news, he would come visit during the odd nightly hours when most of his servants are fast asleep and no one knew he would come over, not even the nightly shift nurses. He had their schedules noted down and he used their break time to visit the sickly child.

Outside of the room was crowded with nurses and a couple of maids. He nearly rolled his eyes, seeing how "free" his maids were, but he let it slide. Unbeknownst to Huizhong, his face was dark and gloomy by the time he arrived. His darker blue eyes were glaring at everyone who was in his line of sight. Everyone who was present, took a step back as they shivered in fear. They knew better not to anger the Young Master Lei Huizhong.

"What's the situation here?" He asked impatiently as he stood by the door, looking at the doctor who was working on his patient.

Seeing how busy the doctor was, the nurse from before nervously stepped forward and explained the situation at hand, "He had just woken up from a coma. However, no one was with him. I came in later to check up on him, but he was already suffering from complications by then..."

"Who was supposed to look after him in the first place? You?" He glared darkly.

The nurse almost trembled to her feet from his cold icy voice. She shook her head timidly and Huizhong turned around to glare at the other nurses. A few had avoided his eye-contact, whereas the others looked down in fear.

"It's impossible that no one has the shift. I'm sure Dr. Han Zhongli has divided the schedule time to look after this child accordingly and fairly. If you don't admit it right now, it's fine. I can always look into the records and report you to the head management," threatened Huizhong with an unconcerned look as he turned on his phone, planning to look into the records.

Not long later, from his side-gaze, two people stood forward and they were immediately bent down to their knees as they screamed out in tears.

“No! Please forgive us!”

“We were at fault!”