Chapter 155: Chapter 155: Waiting
*Grandmother Wuchen’s POV*
Three days.
Three entire days had passed since the accident.
Grandmother Wuchen had lived through brutal business wars, complex political disputes, and bitter family betrayals. She had buried her husband years ago, and later, her own son—Bael’s father—keeping a straight back and a completely calm expression through every tragedy because she believed that someone in the family had to remain standing when everyone else collapsed. She was the anchor of the Wuchen name.
But nothing in her long life had prepared her for watching absolute silence swallow an intensive care room for three endless days.
She stood inside the quiet room, her old hands folded neatly in front of her. The rhythmic, dull sound of the cardiac monitor filled the space, steady and unchanging.
*Beep.*
*Beep.*
*Beep.*
Runze remained exactly as he had been seventy-two hours earlier, lying perfectly motionless beneath the stiff white hospital sheets. The ventilator beside the bed worked in a slow, measured interval, breathing for him with a soft hiss. His face looked almost too calm under the harsh lights. If not for the thick white bandage wrapped around his head and the clear plastic lines surrounding the bed, he could have simply been sleeping after another late night spent working on his architecture blueprints.
Mrs. Wen sat quietly in the visitor’s chair on the other side of the room.
The poor woman had barely spoken a word since arriving at the hospital. Every few minutes, she would stand up on shaky legs, walk over to smooth a wrinkle that did not exist on Runze’s white blanket, adjust the edge of the sheet by less than an inch, and then sit right back down. It was a repetitive, empty movement—the only thing her trembling hands knew how to do to keep from breaking down completely.
Grandmother Wuchen understood. Some pain was simply too heavy to be carried with words.
A gentle, hesitated knock sounded against the heavy door.
Shen Rui stepped inside the room. His usually immaculate appearance showed severe signs of exhaustion. There were dark, heavy shadows beneath his eyes, his jaw was covered in light stubble, and the knot of his tie sat slightly crooked against his collar.
He bowed respectfully toward the older woman. "Elder Madam."
Grandmother turned her head slightly, keeping her voice very low so it wouldn’t disrupt the quiet of the room. "What did you find?"
Shen Rui hesitated briefly, glancing once toward the motionless figure on the bed before looking back at her. "The evidence our investigators pulled continues to point directly toward Secretary Liu. The financial routing logs, the truck driver’s private confession, and the offshore shell companies... they all lead straight to his personal digital signature."
Grandmother closed her eyes for a brief moment, her breath catching in her throat.
Secretary Liu. Wuchen Ming’s personal right-hand man.
Which meant... Wuchen Ming. Her own son.
Her thin fingers unconsciously tightened around the smooth wooden prayer beads hidden deep inside her long sleeve, the hard edges pressing painfully into her palm. She had spent years believing that no matter how greedy or overly ambitious Ming became, there would always be one final line he would never cross. She had believed he still possessed a shred of human conscience.
She had been wrong. Terribly wrong.
A long, suffocating silence settled over the room. The steady *beep* of the monitor seemed to grow louder in the quiet.
Finally, Shen Rui spoke again, his voice dropping to a cautious whisper. "President Wuchen personally left to handle the matter. He went to the location where our men are holding Liu."
Grandmother nodded once. She was not surprised at all.
Bael had not left Runze’s side for three days. He had completely refused food until the head doctors threatened to physically remove him from the intensive care unit for his own safety. He had refused to close his eyes until his body nearly collapsed out of the chair. The only reason he had finally walked out of this room today was because there was finally something tangible he could fight.
Helplessness was slowly destroying him from the inside out, and he needed to unleash the rage building in his chest.
After Shen Rui quietly excused himself and slipped out the door, the room became entirely silent once more.
Grandmother looked back toward Runze. The young man had always been unexpectedly quiet and private. Even when he first entered the chaotic, high-pressure world of the Wuchen family through their marriage, he had never fought for attention or material things. He simply worked hard, keeping his head down.
Apart from Mrs. Wen, who had looked after him with a mother’s fierce devotion, Runze had kept entirely to himself, never stepping on anyone’s toes or making demands of the family estate. Yet, without a single loud word or grand gesture... he had managed to ground them all. He provided a quiet, steady anchor for Bael, a respectful ease for her, and a sense of warmth that this fractured household had forgotten it even lacked.
Somewhere along the way... without anyone even realizing it... he had truly become family.
A memory surfaced unexpectedly in her mind. Only three days ago, the night of Runze’s big presentation, she had personally instructed the estate servants to prepare a special dinner. It was nothing overly extravagant, just Runze’s favorite traditional dishes. She had ordered fresh flowers for the dining room table, a small cake, and a handmade leather-bound sketchbook—smelling of rich, oiled top-grain leather and filled with specialized, thick architectural paper—rested inside a velvet box in her private study.
She had fully intended to sit down with him and finally say the words she had kept to herself: *"You have done well. You have honored this family. We are proud of you."*
Instead... the phone had rung.
She vividly remembered standing in the center of the dark dining room while the servants quietly waited for instructions. The soup had gone completely cold, the candles had burned themselves down to nothing but melted wax, no one had touched the cake. She had returned home very late that night from the hospital and simply told Mrs. Wen, *"Throw everything away."* She had not looked back at the dining room since.
The hospital room door clicked open, interrupting her thoughts.
Bael walked back inside.
Grandmother instinctively turned her head to look at him. Her grandson did not say a single word as he closed the door behind him, his white sleeves remained rolled up unevenly to his elbows. There was a fresh, dark bruise stretching across the knuckles of his right hand, and his clothes smelled faintly of sweat and cigarette.
His cold expression revealed absolutely nothing. There was no lingering anger, no relief, and no satisfaction on his face. There was only a profound, hollow exhaustion.
He walked directly to the right side of the bed, moving as if he were being pulled there by an invisible, unbreakable wire.
Very carefully, he sat down in the same hard chair. Even more carefully, he reached out his hand and slid his fingers beneath Runze’s cold palm, making absolutely certain not to disturb the clear medical tape securing the IV line against the pale skin.
His fingers closed gently around Runze’s limp knuckles. Then, in a voice so quiet it was nearly swallowed by the steady hiss of the ventilator, he whispered, "I am back."
Grandmother lowered her eyes, a heavy ache settling in her chest. She realized then that every single time Bael had stepped out of this room over the past three days, whether it was to speak to a doctor or to deal with his security team, he had returned and said exactly those same three words.
He did not say it to her or Mrs. Wen, he said it only to Runze.
It was as if he were absolutely terrified that Runze might wake up for a split second, look around the cold room, and discover he had been left entirely alone.
Bael leaned forward, resting his forehead lightly against the edge of the stiff mattress, his eyes staring blankly at the floor. Neither of them moved. Minutes passed in total stillness.
Then... Bael suddenly became completely rigid.
Grandmother frowned, noticing the sudden shift in his posture. His shoulders stopped moving, his breathing had completely stopped.
Very slowly, as if he were in a trance, Bael lifted his head. His gray eyes remained fixed entirely on Runze’s pale hand resting inside his own. He did not blink, he did not breathe.
"...Grandmother," Bael said. His voice was barely audible, a strangled rasp.
Mrs. Wen stood up so fast that her chair scraped loudly across the floor. "What is it? What’s wrong?"
Bael never looked away from the bed. Very quietly, almost afraid to believe what his own senses were telling him, he whispered, "...he moved."
Grandmother stepped forward immediately, her heart hammering against her ribs. Every single heartbeat felt impossibly loud inside the small square room.
Every pair of eyes fixed on the same pale hand resting against the white blanket.
Nothing happened. One second passed, two seconds, three seconds.
Then... Runze’s little finger curled ever so slightly, twitching weakly against Bael’s palm.
Mrs. Wen let out a sharp, trembling gasp. The small glass of water she had been holding tightly in her hands slipped entirely from her fingers. It struck the hard floor with a loud shatter, clear water and jagged glass fragments splashing across the floor.
Nobody looked down at the mess. Nobody moved to clean it.
Bael continued staring at the tiny, fragile movement of his husband’s hand, his gray eyes slowly filling with something Grandmother had not once seen in him since the car crash.
Hope.
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