Chapter 50: The Prelude to the Approaching Storm (Part 4)

Mo Qingyu, who was still receiving an IV, yanked the needle from her arm in one swift motion. Blood immediately welled up and stained the blanket beneath her. She slowly climbed out of bed, straightening herself, her eyes brimming with unshed tears. Her already pale face looked as bleak and gray as a sky heavy with rain. There was a trace of anxiety in her voice as she spoke, “I think you must be mistaken. My sister is an outstanding student; she would never degrade herself like that. She would never do something so shameless.”

Though doubt flickered in her heart, suspecting the woman before her might be telling the truth, she still denied it aloud, “You must have made a mistake, you must have.”

“A mistake?” Zhao Yiya scoffed. “You really refuse to believe it until you see the coffin with your own eyes.” She brushed past Zhao Qingwu, who was standing in front of her, picked up the TV remote from the bedside table, and pressed the power button.

The screen instantly flooded with images of Mo Qinghan, clad in various revealing outfits, lounging wantonly in the arms of different men. In every photo, Mo Qinghan’s cheeks were flushed, her expressions seductive and alluring. With such a bewitching face, any man would eagerly fall at her feet. Scrawled across the images were words like, “Top student at a prestigious university, gold-digger, willing to be a plaything for men,” and other obscene phrases.

Zhao Qingwu stared at those harsh images, each caption a stabbing insult to Mo Qinghan, each word a knife twisting in her own flesh. She felt numb from the pain, her lips trembling as she said, “You didn’t come here just to tell me this, did you?”

Zhao Yiya’s lips curled into a faint, cold smile. “Of course not. I’m here to tell you that the man your sister is clinging to is my husband. Since she’s just his little diversion on the side…” She lingered wickedly on the words “little diversion,” her tone dripping with mockery. “When he tires of such amusements, it always falls to me, his wife, to clean up the mess. Tell your sister she’ll need to find another fool to pay for your worthless life—and she’ll have to pay with her own body…”

Mo Qingyu cut her off. “What do you mean by ‘worthless life with only a few days left’?”

“So Mo Qinghan does care about you—she hasn’t told you anything,” Zhao Yiya replied.

Mo Qingyu looked utterly lost. “What are you talking about?”

Zhao Yiya’s gaze fixed on Mo Qinghan as she quickly recalled her recent conversation with He Yurou. Combining that with her current exchange, she became certain: Mo Qingyu was Mo Qinghan’s Achilles’ heel. If she got rid of this sickly girl, there would be no need to deal with Mo Qinghan herself; events would naturally unfold as she wished.

“You don’t know you have acute lymphoblastic leukemia—blood cancer. There are benign and malignant forms, but unfortunately, yours is malignant.”

Mo Qinghan, standing quietly by the bed, listened in silence as her face grew whiter and whiter.

Zhao Yiya went on, “Do you know what malignant means?” She leaned in close to Mo Qingyu’s ear and whispered, “It means your chances of recovery are zero.”

She watched Mo Qingyu’s stunned, pallid face, devoid of any expression but misery, and pressed on, “If I were you, I’d rather die than drag my family down with me. Your sister is so young and beautiful—are you really going to ruin her life for your own sake? Isn’t that the greatest tragedy of all?”