Imperfect Desires

Dr. Ling didn't linger around for long but before leaving, she didn't forget to warn, "Xiao Li, don't tell him anything that could worsen his condition. We barely managed to save him."

"I won't," replied Xiao Li.

When she left the room, Darren said, "I had been wondering why she looked familiar. Seeing her talking to you so casually reminded me that I have seen her photo with Ying and you."

Xiao Li wasn't surprised to hear that as he replied, "That's expected." He took a pause and said, "Anyway, can you tell me how Chen Xiu was before dying? I mean I heard she received a lot of backlash from people online. She must her suffered a lot."

"You could have just looked up her name to know how she suffered," said Darren.

"Nothing comes up," replied Xiao Li. "You said that Liu Nuan's miscarriage had been all over the news and Chen Xiu was labeled as the jealous mistress. But by the time, I heard about her death, there was no such news left on the internet. In fact, every post slandering her had been taken down." He looked at Darren thoughtfully before asking, "Were you behind it all?"

Darren snorted, "I wasn't that capable back then." He thought about it before saying, "But I did want to. I wanted people to stop talking about her or defaming her after her death. So, I did think about wiping every negative thing about her from the internet. However, someone else was faster than me."

"Someone else?" questioned Xiao Li. 

"From what I learned, it was Xin Suyin," told Darren making Xiao Li's eyes widen slightly. "Back then, I truly wondered how a malicious person like Liu Nuan could be Xin Suyin's daughter. I actually thought your aunt was a good person just like everyone else. I just got to know that she was never the good type."

If Xiao Li had heard about it before, he'd have wondered why his aunt would go to such lengths for Chen Xiu but not anymore. Now, he already knew that his aunt seemed to truly believe that Chen Xiu was her daughter. But after what she did to her, it left her with no way to apologize to the supposed 'daughter.' And maybe that's why she tried to make herself feel better by wiping anything negative about Chen Xiu from the internet.

No wonder, he heard nothing about it all. Because if the one to wipe the data was Xin Suyin, then it'd be difficult for one to dig deeper.

"And how did you figure out that my aunt is not a good person?" 

"Because she killed Chen Xiu," answered Darren straightforwardly. Xiao Li's brows furrowed up as he wondered how Darren knew about so much. Clearly, he also hadn't been around at that time.

"Wait! You weren't able to contact Chen Xiu for months before her death," began Xiao Li. "You also weren't in the country. Neither did you browse about her on the internet. By the time you came back, obviously, all the articles about her were already gone. Then how do you know about any of it? Whether it's Liu Nuan's miscarriage or aunt Suyin kidnapping Chen Xiu. How do you know about it?"

Darren was left silent momentarily. Obviously, he heard about it all from Xiu herself. How was he supposed to tell that to Xiao Li? 

In fact, he also didn't know that Liu Nuan had a miscarriage. He also only learned it because of the trauma that incident left on Xiu's mind. And if Xiu hadn't talked about it herself, he might have never got to know about any of it. Just like he didn't know anything about Xin Suyin kidnapping Chen Xiu. After all, Xin Suyin was a veteran in crimes. She always knew how to hide her tracks. It was very difficult to link anything to her.

"Does it matter?" retorted Darren when he couldn't find any other way to answer.

Xiao Li's eyes squinted at him doubtfully. He could see that Darren was hiding something from him. But he wondered why would Darren need to hide anything from him? Was there really a need to hide something from him?

....

On the other side...

After spending over an hour with herself, Xiu finally emerged from the room. Her face held a serenity that was different from the brightness she always had in her eyes. This serenity came directly from her heart and it made her feel peaceful.

"Oh, Mrs. Slavay!" Dr. Ling called out when she noticed Xiu. "What have you been doing here? Don't you know your husband is missing you?"

Xiu looked at Dr. Ling and asked, "Regan is awake?"

Dr. Ling nodded in reply, "Yes, he is." Seeing how Xiu had to tilt her neck to look up at her from the wheelchair, she thoughtfully crouched down beside her and asked, "How are you feeling?"

Xiu looked into her eyes, "You're my husband's doctor, not mine."

"I know," said Dr. Ling. "But I learned a very interesting fact recently. Would you like to hear it?"

"What is it?" Xiu asked curiously.

"Apparently, your husband's health is directly proportional to yours," answered Dr. Ling. "As long as you're healthy and happy, he'd be healthy and happy as well."

Xiu frowned at her, "Doesn't his health depend on your treatment?"

Dr. Ling shook her head, "There is only so much we as doctors can do." She smiled at Xiu as she went on, "Oftentimes, it's the patients' will to live that works better than any medicine." She patted Xiu's hand as she said, "Your husband's will to live is you. That's why to make sure that my patient is recovering well, I need to also keep a note of how you're recovering."

Xiu tilted her head sideways and said, "I have never found anyone weirder than myself." Dr. Ling's brows raised in surprise as she went on, "But now that I have met you, I feel like you're a threat to my exclusive title of being the weirdest one."

Dr. Ling laughed out at her words, "But I find you rather cute, not weird at all."

Xiu snorted at her, "That's because you don't know me yet."

Dr. Ling shrugged her shoulders, "That could be the case... But you also don't know me yet." She looked at Xiu's arm that didn't move and asked, "I heard you had therapy today."

"Yes," answered Xiu.

"That's good. I wish you a speedy recovery," Dr. Ling was still smiling at Xiu. She had seen so many people's concern for this girl that it instinctively made her want to know her. And now that she talked to her, it seemed to her that Xiu was actually pretty cute. "But I heard you're not very bothered by the lack of movement in your arm."

"It was fine till last night," said Xiu. "I thought it'd not bother me at all. But now it does."

Dr. Ling pursed her lips together. She could imagine how she must be feeling because of this disability. "Right. It must be very difficult to manage day to day things with only one hand."

"That doesn't bother me at all," said Xiu. "What bothered me is that I can't embrace my husband with only one arm. He doesn't fit in."

Dr. Ling was choked for words. She really didn't know what to say to that. It had to be a first for her to hear something like this from a patient. 

 "No wonder everyone loves you so much," Dr. Ling couldn't help saying.

Xiu didn't say anything about that. Instead, she asked, "Doctor, can you tell me how my husband is doing?"

"Huh?"

"I mean what's his real condition?" asked Xiu further. "He doesn't seem to want to tell me. I know something happened while I was unconscious and I know everyone is hiding it from me. I won't try to probe into that but as a wife, I deserve to know how my husband's doing. Can you honestly tell me about his condition?"

Dr. Ling looked into her eyes and couldn't bring herself to say no to her. How can anyone say no to those eyes? She definitely wasn't able to do so.

Taking a deep breath, she decided to tell her honestly, "His condition was critical when I was called. But currently, he is doing better than we had actually expected. If he takes proper rest, follows our instructions, and doesn't let his emotions get in the way, we believe that he'd recover soon."

Xiu listened to all of her instructions and noted them down mentally. She wasn't in the condition to take care of him but she could work on making sure that he takes proper rest and follow every instruction. As for his emotions, that'd be a little difficult. Because if she wanted to control his emotions, she'd have to hide all that she learned from him. 

No! She shook her head. She couldn't hide anything from him. She had to think of some other way to make sure his emotions don't mess up with his health.