The male nurse and the nurse, who originally watched Xia Yu, both helped to chase the woman. The woman was running and giggling while looking back frequently. Her untidy grey hair almost covered her eyes, but she still focused on sending the pills into her mouth constantly while running into the rain, with the white pills scattered all over the ground…

Xia Yu was shocked by this unexpected scene and stiffly stood still, gazing at the woman’s untidy grey hair. Soon, the woman who had an onset and the nurses all ran far away. Then Xia Yu saw the door aside was still open, and she heard a louder cry coming from the door. She limped to the door, only to find a crowd of female patients in blue hospital gowns running from the corridor, giggling, shouting, flailing, and jostling. They looked ferocious.

How could she describe the scene at that time? Xia Yu stiffly stood still in front of the door with great astonishment, and a phrase suddenly occurred to her mind that zombies were coming.

There was not an exaggeration. A large crowd of female patients jostled to run out of the door, chased by some nurses who were roaring and screaming. Some of them used a walkie-talkie, trying to contact with others.

“Some patients from No. 17 Inpatient Area ran away!”

“Damn! Rebellion!”

“Send more people to help quickly!”

“The door! Close the door first!”

A crowd of lunatics and a bunch of nurses, chasing each other and running into the rain, jostled and screamed while scolding angrily. Some fell down while some stamped on them and kept running forward, which turned the center which was originally deadly quiet into a bustling world at once. Those pills which had been scattered just now on the ground were all dissolved into white liquids in the rain…

The sweat crept on Xia Yu’s back because she had never expected this scene before. She raised her head, looking at the corridor in front of her. The door was still open, but there was no one in the corridor. The cold wind blew in from the outside and passed through the corridor. Slowly, she walked in and found that there were no lights in the whole corridor, so it appeared to be dim and cold, with the only light seeping in from outside the door. The air was sour, damp, and musty, probably because it was so enclosed that there had been no sunshine for years.

She passed through the corridor with her aching left foot. The whole building was quiet as if all the people had run away, only with the high walls on both sides remaining. Xia Yu turned a corner and finally saw a room gleaming with some lights in front of her, and the door was open. A sign hung above and showed that it was an activity room.

Xia Yu supported the wall to move over to the activity room, which was actually very large, with some chairs and tables scattered around inside. There were also two rows of cabinets which were half the height of a man and some bed-pans in the corner, which made the cold and damp air filled with a strong stench.

Xia Yu secretly took a deep breath. She subdued her disgust and took two more steps into the room. The inconvenience of her left foot caused her to bump into the chair beside her.

“Squeak!” After this sound, someone in the corner asked, “Have you all hidden yourselves yet?”

Xia Yu felt pins and needles on her scalp. She had thought that patients in this activity room had all run away, so she was unaware for a moment that there was one person lying on her hands at the base of the wall beside the cabinet. She looked over across several tables and found a woman in her fifties, who was very thin in the same blue hospital gown as other patients, with her long hair resting on her shoulders.

Why was she lying on her hands on the wall? Hide-and-seek?

Out of curiosity, Xia Yu walked over and patted her shoulder gently. “Hello…”

The woman who was lying on her hands on the wall turned around and stopped covering her hands on her eyes…

Xia Yu felt very shocked in her heart as if her throat was choked by something hard. The woman in front of her looked into Xia Yu’s eyes stiffly. The light above her head was too dazzling.

She once saw a photo of Aunt Jiang when she worked as a maid in Shen Family and another photo of her, which was recently shot by Zhou Yan and was given to her. So, she recognized Aunt Jiang at once.

Xia Yu gnashed her teeth and held Aunt Jiang’s hand gently, which was cold and bony. She rolled up her sleeve and saw her bony arm with many bruises and scars on it. Xia Yu closed her eyes and took a deep breath heavily. When she opened her eyes again, she found that the woman in front of her was still looking at her stiffly.

Gripping her fingers tightly, Xia Yu finally opened her mouth and said, “Aunt Jiang!”

It was more than half an hour later that Zhou Yan found Xia Yu, who was squatting under the porch of the No. 17 Inpatient Area. The small door aside had been closed. All the female patients who ran out had been brought back one by one. They roared and shouted, and some of them even struggled, intending to escape again. But they were dragged back with ropes by some male nurses. In this process, some of those patients laughed while some of them cried. Some even bit the ropes and pounced on…

The heavy rain and the dark clouds enveloped the whole rehabilitation center. Squatting at the door of No. 17 Inpatient Area and witnessing what happened here, Xia Yu shivered all over with fear until Zhou Yan came to her and wrapped his coat on her.

“Why not find a place to take shelter from the rain?” Xia Yu seemingly didn’t hear his question. Instead, she, squatting on the ground stiffly, buried her head into her arms and held tightly her knees, clenching her hands into fists. Zhou Yan was a little worried. “Xia Yu?”

The person squatting on the ground did not reply. So, he slightly squatted down and asked, “Are you scared? Someone ran out of the ward just now, but now everything is fine.”

Xia Yu didn’t say anything or even change her movement.

“Raise your head and look at me.”

Zhou Yan’s voice was soft and slow, but the woman in front of him didn’t respond at all. The raindrops kept falling down on these two people. Xia Yu had been soaked through the whole body. At last, Zhou Yan had no other choice. So, he tried to hold her waist to help her stand up. He had expected that she would avoid his touch as usual, but this time she was docile and showed no resistance, letting Zhou Yan hold her obediently. Her body rigidly leaned against Zhou Yan’s chest, which her left foot was lifted from the ground. She kept shivering and looked cold and cheerless with a blank look.

Zhou Yan gave a deep sigh. He silently wrapped Xia Yu in his coat and helped her walk out of the rehabilitation center without asking more. With great efforts, he carried her into the car. Then he immediately turned on the heating and wiped off the raindrops on her cheeks with the tissue. But Xia Yu kept silent during the whole process. Her eyes gazed at somewhere at a loss. She looked pale, and her pupils were lightless and wandering. As a professional, Zhou Yan could tell she was too scared.

“Did you get hurt inside just now?” The person sitting next to the driver’s seat gave no reply. She still clenched her fists tightly. The rain outside the car window was getting heavier. Zhou Yan was a little frustrated, so he decided to start the car and leave the place first.

He brought Xia Yu back to his clinic. It was already past off hours now, and all the staff were off duty in the clinic and left. Zhou Yan held her to walk into the innermost lounge in the corridor.

She still looked pale, but she did not shiver as violently as she did in the rehabilitation center just now. Zhou Yan took her to the tatami to sit down and then went to the washing room to fetch a dry towel. Then he helped her dry her face and hair little by little.

The smoke slowly rose from the censer on the table and dispersed. The whole process was quiet and long, which eventually helped Xia Yu come back bit by bit from her destroyed thoughts. Seeing her eyes move, Zhou Yan gave a gentle sigh and asked, “Shouldn’t I have taken you somewhere like that?”

As for Xia Yu, her back was wet with sweats as if she had just escaped from death. Her eyes were no longer blank, and she finally looked into Zhou Yan’s eyes as warm as the sun.

Her heart jolted. Zhou Yan smiled gently and raised his hand to stroke the corners of her wet and cold eyes.

“Release your fists!” His voice was so gentle and pleasant as usual. But Xia Yu shook her head. Zhou Yan had no other choice but to help her release her fingers. She backed down while Zhou Yan grasped her hands at once. “Release your fists! Be obedient!”

That day, the engagement ceremony of Bai Family and Jiang Family in Ruyi Tower parted on bad terms, and Xia Yu retorted Old Madame Jiang unyieldingly with such words later, which naturally made Jiang An feel happy. But in recent days Old Madame Jiang and Jiang Tao both vented their grievances constantly in the media.

What was more, Shen Mo added fuel to the flames. For a moment, all kinds of reports were overwhelming. Shen Yan was a little worried about Xia Yu, so he dialed her number, but he couldn’t get through after calling her for a long time.

Zhou Yan was reading documents in his office. The phone in the coat pocket had rung a couple of times, but no one answered. After they left the rehabilitation center, Xia Yu was still in low spirits now. She was almost unconscious when she was carried into the car by Zhou Yan. Under such circumstances, Zhou Yan casually put all the things into his pocket when he got back their cell phones and other confiscated items in the doorman’s room.

As the phone kept ringing in the pocket now, Zhou Yan had to stop working. He went over and took the wet coat off the hanger.

The phone rang for the nth time, and now Zhou Yan took it out and saw the word, “husband”, flashing on its screen.

This call was from Shen Yan? Zhou Yan pressed the answer button and got it through. “Hello?”

But the other side was silent for a moment and finally said after a long while, “Zhou Yan?”

“Xia Yu’s in my clinic.” Zhou Yan said.

Shen Yan arrived very soon. He walked in and went up the stairs which were covered with mosses on both sides. Then he walked through the corridor decorated with many green plants. Finally, he knocked on the door of Zhou Yan’s office.

“Come in.” Shen Yan pushed the door open and went in. He then smelled the faint fragrance of eaglewood at once.

A man sitting and reading the documents behind the desk then raised his head.

“You’re here?” He was still as gentle and calm as usual.

Shen Yan nodded. “Where’s she?”

Zhou Yan took off his glasses and glanced out of the door. “In the front lounge.”

Shen Yan didn’t leave at once. Instead, he stood at the door and cast a look at Zhou Yan. “Didn’t I tell you that? You just have to discuss that matter with me. But you actually took her to that place.”

He was speechless about what Zhou Yan did. He could understand his anxiety in his mind. But having waited for so many years, why couldn’t he be more patient? Why should he be so stubborn to involve Xia Yu into that matter?

Though it was true that she was bolder than ordinary girls, she was still a girl, after all. That place was so scary that even very few men dared to go there, let alone a girl. He really acted recklessly this time.

“But Xia Yu wanted to go there. And I really didn’t expect that she would go to that area.” Zhou Yan actually blamed it on him, too. He had reached an agreement with Director Hu, letting him bring Aunt Jiang to them alone.

But Xia Yu’s intrusion into that area was really unforeseeable to him.

“If you had foreseen everything, why would you have rushed about for so many years?” Shen Yan said and then left for the lounge with strides.

Zhou Yan lowered his head and smiled. Then he watched Shen Yan walk to the front lounge. Shen Yan opened the door and walked in, while the man in his chair rubbed the place between his eyebrows with his hand. He felt a little tired after so many years’ endeavor.

Shen Yan gently pushed open the door of the lounge in front of him. The room was very warm, with the light fragrance of citrus and bergamot in the air. There was a complete set of Nihonese style furniture in the room, a tatami with soft cushions, low cabinets, arranged flowers, and a picture of calligraphy and painting with these two characters, “Can Xin”, on the wall, which meant “a broken heart”.

Xia Yu was just standing in front of the picture, turning her back to the door. On the cabinet beside her was a pot of Clivia Miniata. When she heard the sound of opening the door, she turned around, with a glass of hot water in her hands. She was still in Zhou Yan’s clothes. She wore a light beige pullover, which was oversized and loose for her, resting on her slim and thin body.

She was a little surprised. “Why are you here?”

Shen Yan frowned and walked in. “Go back with me first!”

Xia Yu left the lounge with Shen Yan when Zhou Yan just came out of his office, with Xia Yu’s bag and her cell phone in his hands.

“Do you feel better now?” He asked gently.

But Xia Yu felt a little embarrassed, so she lowered her head. “I feel much better now. Thank you!”

Zhou Yan smiled and said, “You’re welcome. I didn’t do anything great.”

Shen Yan gave a soft cough behind them and then came over. “I’ll take her back home first. The clothes on her will be sent back to you another day.”

“That’s all right.”

Shen Yan forced a smile and took over Xia Yu’s bag and her cell phone from Zhou Yan’s hands. “We will leave first. Let’s have dinner together another day when we are free.”