C12 Chapter 12
Ten minutes later, outside the ER.
Lingxiao sat on a bench, lounging like she owned the place. Lazy posture, sure—but nothing about her felt ordinary. She had a presence that filled the hallway.
A doctor stepped out of the doors. “Who’s family?”
Lingxiao didn’t move.
The doctor glanced at her, remembering how she’d carried Lan Yu in earlier. Yeah—probably her.
“Kid, you… your boyfriend has severe acute leukemia. From here on out, try not to stress him out too much. He could die.”
Lingxiao’s expression didn’t change. She replied coolly, “He’s not dead, is he?”
“Uh…”
That sounded so wrong. Maybe she wasn’t the girlfriend—maybe she was some relative fighting over an inheritance?
System, quietly reading minds: Is this doctor always this good at making stuff up in his head?
Lingxiao rose from the bench. In an instant, her posture snapped straight—like she could strike any pose and look like a runway supermodel.
“Do I need to handle the admission paperwork?”
The doctor was briefly thrown off by her clear, striking voice. To cover his slip, he quickly called a nurse over to take care of Lan Yu’s paperwork and everything that went with it.
Lingxiao headed back to the billing window.
The young nurse saw her coming and smiled politely. “Miss, you’ve already paid enough. You really don’t need to add more.”
Lingxiao ignored her and calmly pulled out Lan Yu’s medical card and the doctor’s diagnosis.
The nurse immediately let out a quiet sigh of relief.
System: Someone who doesn’t like throwing more money in? What kind of saint is this? We should give her a medal.
Lingxiao: Idiot.
System: Agh! So annoying!
Lingxiao waited three days and three nights, nearly losing her patience. Finally, that sickly guy, Lan Yu, slowly came to.
“Why are you here?” Lan Yu’s eyes were wary, like a wounded animal.
“Nothing better to do,” Lingxiao said, telling the truth.
Over the past couple of days, she’d already gotten a full handle on the original owner’s coursework. With her all-around talent, dealing with that college major wasn’t going to be a big deal.
Whenever she had some downtime, she’d swing by the hospital to drop things off for her parents—and, while she was at it, “look after” the so-called villain heartthrob.
Ling Xiao let out a soft, amused snort. An excuse, right?
They had nothing to say to each other—one cold, one sly—and neither was willing to show their hand.
Then Ling Xiao picked the sofa in the hospital room, pulled out her laptop, and started coding for a project for the computer science department.
Her fingers flew. Dense, complicated data shifted and morphed through the backend like something alive.
Ling Xiao had it under control. In less than two hours, she built the core platform model for a new human-computer interaction system.
System: Oh my God! Girl, you’re an absolute genius!
This job alone could earn Ling Xiao a commission in the tens of millions!
What do you even need me for?
What do you even need me for?
What do you even need me for!!!
Ling Xiao stretched lazily, then melted into the sofa like she didn’t have a bone in her body, ready to keep digging into the original owner’s coursework.
The little pest seemed a bit unhappy and deliberately started chattering in her ear to throw her off.
“Girl, you have to make sure Lan Yu ends up happy, or your mission’s going to be graded as a fail!”
“Girl, want to hear Lan Yu’s story?”
...
The first time they met, she’d been poised and unhurried, stepping out of the night like a queen.
She’d effortlessly gotten Wang Xiaoye out of trouble, then turned the tables and sent the scheming creep straight to jail...
The second time, she acted like he didn’t exist—then even beat the crap out of him.
All of a sudden, he was curious. Every other woman who saw him used to light up, dazzled and greedy, obsessed with his looks.
So why, in front of Ling Xiao, did he suddenly seem like he had zero charm?
Unless... was this that move—playing hard to get?
