Chapter 81; Chen Ru 1
The recovery ward existed in a state of suspended tension, the kind that thickened the air and made every small movement feel weighted with consequence.
Beyond the glass partitions of the private floor, the hospital continued its quiet rhythm—nurses passing with measured steps, the distant murmur of voices kept deliberately low—but inside the neonatal room, the atmosphere had settled into something far more oppressive.
The evidence lay spread across the table in a neat, damning array: laboratory reports confirming that the tablets matched the substance detected in Chen Ru’s blood, photographs of the hidden compartment in the western guest room, witness statements from servants who had seen Su Wan return to that same room before her abrupt departure.
The timeline aligned with unsettling precision. She had left shortly after breakfast. She had not answered calls. The medication had been found in the room she occupied.
Everything pointed in a single direction with a clarity that should have brought resolution, yet beneath the surface of the facts lay a quiet, persistent friction that refused to settle.
Old Master Lu stared at the reports, his expression hardening into something cold and absolute. A new heir had entered the world only hours earlier, and already the family’s bloodline had been threatened in a way that demanded immediate reckoning. His voice, when it came, carried the finality of a closing door.
"Bring her back."
The command required no elaboration. Nearby, the doctors lowered their heads, retreating into professional silence as they recognized the shift from medical crisis into something far more dangerous. Lu Shaohan remained where he stood, his gaze resting on the photographs without touching them. The hidden compartment. The sealed laboratory envelope. The neat alignment of every detail. It fit together too cleanly, like pieces arranged rather than discovered. He did not trust Su Wan—he had no reason to—but in his experience, truth rarely arrived wearing such perfect clothing. A faint unease stirred beneath his stillness, not loyalty, not defense, but the instinctive recognition that when evidence presented itself this readily, something essential was usually being obscured. His eyes drifted briefly toward the incubator where the newborn slept, small and fragile beneath the warm lights, his tiny chest rising and falling with the quiet determination of someone who had already fought his first battle simply to exist. A son. His son. Born into a house where the first breath had nearly been the last, and now the woman whose name he carried stood at the center of the suspicion that threatened to consume them all.
"Find her," he said, his voice cutting through the quiet with calm precision. The security officer straightened at once. "Bring her back. Whether she is guilty or innocent, she will answer for what has happened here."
The man departed without further words. The room fell silent again, filled only with the steady hum of machines and the soft, rhythmic breathing of the infant who remained unaware that his arrival had already ignited a war. Old Master Lu stood beside the glass, the brief flicker of satisfaction that had crossed his face upon learning of a male heir now replaced by something harder. Someone had reached into the Lu family’s future and attempted to extinguish it before it could take root. That alone was unforgivable.
"Seal the western guest room," he ordered. "No one enters without permission. Pull every surveillance recording from the last seventy-two hours."
The assistant bowed and left at once. Before the silence could fully reclaim the space, hurried footsteps sounded from the corridor. Another assistant appeared at the doorway, his face tight with urgency.
"Old Master. The Chen family has arrived."
Of course they had. No family would remain at home after receiving word that their daughter had nearly died giving birth. The door opened moments later, and Mrs. Chen entered first, her eyes immediately finding the incubator. Tears flooded her face as the reality of how close they had come struck her anew. Behind her came Chairman Chen, his expression controlled in a way that only made the anger beneath it more palpable. One glance at the room—the investigators, the doctors, the absence of any celebration—told him everything he needed to know. His gaze settled on Old Master Lu with quiet, dangerous weight.
"How is Chen Ru?"
The attending physician stepped forward carefully. "She is stable. The surgery was successful."
Stable. Successful. The words doctors used when survival had been anything but certain. Mrs. Chen’s face crumpled.
"My daughter was perfectly fine yesterday," she said, her voice cracking under the weight of everything she had held back. "How does a healthy pregnancy become emergency surgery overnight?"
No one answered. There was no answer that would satisfy a mother who had nearly lost her child and her grandson in the same terrifying hours. Chairman Chen’s voice, when he spoke, remained level, almost conversational, which somehow made the accusation land more heavily.
"My daughter entered the Lu Residence healthy. Now she lies in a hospital bed after emergency surgery. I want to know why."
Chen Ru’s elder brother stepped forward, his fists clenched at his sides. "Who did it? Someone gave my sister that medication. You expect us to believe no one inside this residence knows what happened?"
The atmosphere fractured. Voices rose, accusations overlapping, the Lu elders pushing back against the tone while the Chen family refused to yield. The doctors retreated toward the walls, unwilling to stand between two powerful families whose grief had sharpened into something far more volatile. Only the incubator remained untouched by the storm, the newborn sleeping peacefully beneath the lights, his existence already the center of a conflict he could not yet comprehend.
A doctor entered hurriedly from the corridor, his expression urgent as he addressed Chairman Chen. "Your daughter is awake."
Mrs. Chen rose at once. Without waiting for further explanation, the Chen family moved toward the recovery ward, the Lu family following in their wake. The private room they entered was quieter, the air cooler, the machines more insistent in their steady monitoring. Chen Ru lay against the white sheets, her face drained of color, her lips dry and cracked, dark shadows resting beneath her eyes. Several lines ran across her body, tethering her to the equipment that had kept her alive through the crisis. She looked less like a woman who had just given birth and more like someone who had been pulled back from the edge of something irreversible.
"Ru’er..." Mrs. Chen rushed to the bedside, fresh tears spilling as she took her daughter’s hand.
Chen Ru’s eyes opened slowly, unfocused at first, the effort of surfacing from anesthesia and trauma visible in every small movement. "Mom..." Her voice was barely audible, weak and hoarse, the sound of someone still fighting to remain present.
Her gaze drifted across the room—her father, her brother, Old Master Lu—before settling on Lu Shaohan near the window. Her hand moved instinctively beneath the sheets toward her abdomen. The emptiness registered at once. Panic flickered across her pale features.
"The baby—"
"He is alive," Lu Shaohan answered before the fear could fully take hold. His voice remained steady, carrying across the room with quiet certainty. "A boy. He is in neonatal care. Small, but stable."
Relief washed over her expression in a visible wave. Tears gathered at the corners of her eyes and slipped down her temples. Alive. Her child was alive. For several moments, no one disturbed the fragile quiet that settled over the bed.
Then Chairman Chen spoke, his voice gentler than it had been in the neonatal room, though the seriousness beneath it remained unchanged. "Ru’er. Think carefully. Did you take any medicine recently? Anything that felt different from what you had been given before?"
Chen Ru frowned faintly, her brows drawing together as she tried to push through the haze that still clouded her mind. Her memories came in fragments—tea being brought, servants moving through the rooms, the familiar supplements she had swallowed each day without thought. The days blurred together into something indistinct and unreliable.
"I..." Her voice trembled with the effort. "I don’t remember clearly. We’ve been taking medicine every day..."
Mrs. Chen leaned forward, her grip tightening. "Anything unusual? Anything at all?"
Silence stretched. Then slowly, Chen Ru’s expression shifted, confusion deepening into something closer to unease. "There was... something. I thought she was one of the servants. She said the doctor sent it." Her voice grew fainter, the memory slipping even as she tried to hold it. "I didn’t think... I didn’t question it."