After Falling in Love with the Scum Alpha’s Beautiful Original Wife at First Sight - Chapter 22

In the hospital stairwell, Shen Baiyi’s aunt stood with her arms crossed, her face full of anger.

“Baiyi, just look at Xu Qingzhi’s attitude. How did she dare speak to me like that just now?”

“Aunt, don’t be angry. Xu Qingzhi might not have done it on purpose.”

Shen Baiyi’s aunt glared at her. “You’re still speaking up for her?”

“Wasn’t everything I said for your sake?”

Shen Baiyi only felt wronged. She quickly tried to smooth things over. “No, Aunt, that’s not what I meant. When you called, Xu Qingzhi was terrified. She probably thought her grandmother was sick again. She ignored me the whole way here. She must have been in a bad mood, so that’s why she snapped back at you.”

Shen Baiyi’s aunt sneered. “Why should I care whether she’s in a good mood or not?”

Then she gave her niece a sidelong glance. “As for you, I advise you to move faster. While her grandmother is right here, hurry and discuss the demolition compensation properly. As long as you persuade Xu Qingzhi’s grandmother, you won’t have to worry about that girl refusing to listen.”

Shen Baiyi naturally knew this matter could not be delayed any longer.

Today, Shen Baiyi’s aunt bringing the sick grandmother to the hospital was a perfect example. They had to make Xu Qingzhi understand that she could not leave her grandmother alone.

Shen Baiyi nodded. At the end, she complained, “If I’d known this would happen, I might as well not have called the doctor that night a year ago. Or I could’ve delayed for an hour or so before calling the doctor.”

“If Xu Qingzhi’s grandmother had died that day, wouldn’t the old house have fallen directly into Xu Qingzhi’s hands? Then I wouldn’t have to go through all this trouble now, racking my brains to coax Xu Qingzhi and her grandmother too. Not only is it annoying as hell, but the most important thing is that it wasted an entire year of my time.”

Shen Baiyi’s aunt comforted her without much concern. “All right, it’s too late to regret it now. If you hadn’t gone to the hospital that night and the old woman really had died, Xu Qingzhi would have been completely alone. With no one left to restrain her, whether she would have agreed to marry you would’ve been another matter.”

“Aunt, that’s not necessarily true.” Shen Baiyi hooked her lips frivolously, the faint chestnut tint in her pupils now flickering with a dark light. “An Omega, after all—it’s just a matter of a mark. If her grandmother had really died back then and Xu Qingzhi was overwhelmed with grief, I could have taken her out to drown her sorrows in alcohol. After that, who knows what might have happened?”

The aunt and niece spoke to themselves in the empty stairwell, completely unaware that Xu Qingzhi was standing in the corridor with only a wall between them.

The stairwell door had not been fully closed. The faint but chilling wind quietly carried every word they said through the gap.

Xu Qingzhi stood on the hospital’s marble floor, never expecting that she would hear such words at this moment.

In an instant, she felt as if she had returned to that deeply restless night a year ago. Fear, lingering terror, disappointment, and bitterness all surged into her heart at once.

The two hands clasped together, the embrace with their hearts pressed against each other, and that sentence that had completely broken through her defenses—“my heart ached for you”—so this was what it had truly meant.

She slowly forced her legs to move and turned toward another direction.

Stopping in a deserted spot, she took out her phone.

“Cui Can, I don’t want to look for another chance to catch Shen Baiyi in the act anymore.”

“If you have time, can you help me find a good lawyer? I want to divorce Shen Baiyi as soon as possible.”

—

When Shen Baiyi and her aunt returned to the hospital room, Xu Qingzhi was no longer there.

Only Xu Qingzhi’s grandmother lay on the hospital bed, her eyes half closed, looking as if she were about to fall asleep at any moment.

Where had Xu Qingzhi gone?

Just now outside, the aunt and niece had already discussed what they were going to say and were waiting to perform a scene in front of Xu Qingzhi and her grandmother. Unexpectedly, the most important audience member was not there.

Shen Baiyi and her aunt exchanged a look and immediately felt that something was wrong. So Shen Baiyi stepped forward and woke Xu Qingzhi’s grandmother.

Xu Qingzhi’s grandmother opened her eyes in a daze. Seeing the two of them, she looked surprised instead.

“Why haven’t you two left yet?”

Shen Baiyi and her aunt looked at each other.

“Grandma, I just took Aunt to eat. I didn’t say I was leaving.”

“Yes, yes. Where did Qingzhi go? Why isn’t she here?”

Xu Qingzhi’s grandmother did not know whether she was sleepy or muddle-headed from her cold, but even her words came out jumbled.

“…Qingzhi went home… She has work tomorrow… I told her to leave first… Xiao Shen, drive your aunt back. Just let me stay in the hospital by myself.”

She closed her eyes again, waved four fingers outward to gesture for them to leave quickly, then tugged the blanket up over herself, looking as if she was going to sleep.

Shen Baiyi had no choice but to leave the hospital room with her aunt.

“Xu Qingzhi left? If she left, why didn’t she send you a message and say so? Hurry and call her. Ask where exactly that girl is.”

Shen Baiyi frowned tightly and did as she was told. She called Xu Qingzhi and waited patiently for quite a while before Xu Qingzhi finally answered.

“Qingzhi, have you already gone home—”

“Baiyi, I forgot to tell you,” Xu Qingzhi’s voice was not very clear. Perhaps because of the phone, it sounded somewhat heavy and gloomy, as if she was in a very bad mood. “I just left by taxi. Remember to drive Aunt home.”

Shen Baiyi’s aunt, who heard Xu Qingzhi speaking beside her, looked deeply displeased. How could this girl just leave like that? She and Shen Baiyi had just discussed how to put on a show in front of Xu Qingzhi and her grandmother, yet when they turned around, the person was gone!

And Xu Qingzhi said she forgot?

Could Xu Qingzhi really forget two living people like Shen Baiyi and her aunt?

Shen Baiyi’s expression also did not look very good. She took a deep breath. “I—”

“The police station called me and said a few of my students got into some trouble, so I have to go over and handle it. I didn’t tell Grandma, and you shouldn’t tell her either. I’m afraid she’ll worry.”

Shen Baiyi immediately fell silent.

Fine. This was indeed quite urgent. No wonder Xu Qingzhi had suddenly disappeared.

She could only swallow back the questions she had originally prepared for Xu Qingzhi. “What happened to your students? Do you need me to go with you?”

“I’m not too clear yet. It’s probably a fight between a few students. You don’t need to come with me. I’ll go home after I finish handling it.”

Shen Baiyi said with slight reluctance, “All right, then.” Then she hung up the phone.

Plans could not keep up with changes. They clearly had such a good opportunity, but who could have expected that Xu Qingzhi’s students would get into trouble at this exact moment, not earlier or later?

Without an audience, who were they supposed to perform the rehearsed scene for?

Shen Baiyi could only put away all her calculations, press a hand to her forehead, and say to her aunt, “All right, Aunt. I’ll drive you home.”

But in truth, at this moment, Xu Qingzhi was sitting in the back seat of a taxi. Ignoring the driver’s probing gaze, she turned off her phone screen.

Her face was expressionless, completely different from how she had sounded on the phone.

The driver asked her, “Which police station are you going to?”

Xu Qingzhi shook her head. “Not the police station. Go to Shenglong Plaza.”

She could sense the driver’s confusion, but there was no need to explain.

Shen Baiyi was not the only one who could lie and act.

Right now, Xu Qingzhi could go anywhere. She just did not want to face Shen Baiyi.