The child's illness progressed rapidly. Soon, Yuan Lu felt the child in her arms was even hotter, and she was quite at a loss.
"…Teacher Xu, what should we do?" she asked Xu Gui worriedly.
Teacher Xu was equally bewildered. After all, she had never cared for a child before, let alone such a fragile human child. She even suspected that she could crush the child with the slightest pressure.
So when Yuan Lu asked her what to do, she could only look at her blankly. The two unmarried girls exchanged bewildered glances.
"Use this," Lu Baiyi said from the passenger seat, handing over a clean towel. He said, "I've already soaked it in water. Put it on the child's forehead; it should help lower the temperature."
Xu Gui took it, "Thank you." Then she carefully placed the damp towel on the child's forehead.
Earlier by the lake, the child had been giggling and laughing at them, seemingly perfectly fine. But now, her eyes were slightly closed, glistening as if brimming with tears. Her chubby cheeks were flushed red, making her look incredibly pitiful. And only
a dozen minutes had passed since then.
Xu Gui glanced at the child and came to a conclusion: human infants are truly too fragile, seemingly so easily killed.
Thinking this, she carefully placed a damp towel on the little one's forehead. However, as she withdrew her hand, the little one suddenly reached out and grabbed her fingers.
Xu Gui paused, looking at the little one, who made a soft, uncomfortable whimper.
So soft…
Xu Gui held her breath. The hand gripping her fingers was incredibly soft, as if boneless, making her wonder if she had used even a little more force and hurt her.
Xu Gui's fingers twitched.
Despite her small size and chubby hands, the little one had a surprisingly strong grip. Xu Gui felt her fingers being held tightly, and her tiny palms were warm and damp, perhaps due to illness.
Xu Gui pulled her fingers away with a sharp, cautious movement, her expression one of extreme concern. She breathed a sigh of relief once her fingers were completely free.
Just then, a dry white towel appeared before her. Looking up, Xu Gui saw Lu Baiyi, sitting in the passenger seat, turn to the side and smile at her.
"Miss Xu, please use this to dry yourself," he said.
Xu Gui looked down at herself, remembering she had just come out of the water and was covered in sweat. She thanked Lu Baiyi, took the towel, and dried her wet hair and body.
While drying herself, she couldn't help but sniff her arms—she wasn't sure if it was just her imagination, but she felt she smelled bad.
Lu Baiyi looked at the child in Yuan Lu's arms and casually asked Xu Gui, "Where did this child come from?"
Xu Gui was drying her hair. Hearing this, she looked up and casually replied, "Oh, I fished her out of the artificial lake in the park."
Lu Baiyi: ? ?
"Fished out of the artificial lake?" For once, Lu Baiyi's face showed a hint of bewilderment. This was the first time he felt his brain couldn't quite process what she was seeing.
Seeing his expression, Xu Gui explained, "She's the child from the small shop across from our orphanage. Her brother took her out and threw her into the artificial lake... I told her family, but they didn't believe me. They thought I was a liar, so I had to find her myself!"
She added proudly, "Now that I've found the child, let's see how they dare call me a liar!"
Lu Baiyi understood, but found it unbelievable. He couldn't help but ask, "How old is her brother? How could he throw her into the lake? Throwing such a young child into an artificial lake, isn't that murder?"
Xu Gui casually replied, "Probably out of jealousy."
"Her brother wasn't very old either, only nine years old. Before his sister was born, he was an only child, enjoying the exclusive love of his parents and elders. But after his sister was born, the love from his parents and elders was divided in two, and they even cared more about his sister than him... Perhaps because of this, he felt a sense of loss and became jealous of his sister."
It might have started as a slight imbalance, but over time, this imbalance turned into jealousy, and eventually, jealousy turned into malice and evil, until he could no longer bear it and took his sister out.
Xu Gui: "Maybe he felt that once his younger sister disappeared, his parents would only love him again, just like before."
Yuan Lu, listening nearby, couldn't help but say, "Families with two children definitely need to pay more attention to the older child's mental health... There was a family like that before. After the younger brother was born, they probably neglected the older brother, and he killed him and brutally dismembered him."
"Later, this older brother was probably scolded by his parents too much, and one day, he committed suicide!"
This family had only two children. The younger one was killed by the older brother, and then the older brother committed suicide. The family instantly lost both children. This was undoubtedly a huge blow to them. Later, Yuan Lu's sister told me that the couple were not even forty years old, but their hair was completely white, making them look more than ten years older.
Yuan Lu's tone was inevitably tinged with sorrow as she spoke of this—just hearing about it was shocking.
"Fortunately, this child met you, Teacher Xu..." Yuan Lu couldn't help but say.
If they hadn't met Xu Gui, if Xu Gui had truly abandoned the matter, this family's final fate would most likely have been the same as the family Yuan Lu had described—a broken family.
It could be said that Xu Gui saved not just the child, but the entire family.
Thinking this, Lu Baiyi looked at Xu Gui, only to see her head bowed, sniffing her hand like a small animal sniffing its scent, her face tightly scrunched up, her expression serious yet disgusted.
Lu Baiyi smiled.
Half an hour later, Xu Gui and her companion's car stopped outside the emergency room building of Ruian Hospital.
Before arriving, Lu Baiyi had contacted his friend. As soon as their car stopped, a young man in a white coat walked up to their car, followed by two nurses.
Lu Baiyi got out and told his friend about the child's condition: "This child was abandoned in the artificial lake, and now he has a fever..."
Xu Gui also got out of the car, draped in a large towel—she had been sitting cold in the car with the air conditioning on, so Lu Baiyi had given her a large towel to wrap herself in.
She glanced at the name tag on the doctor's chest, which read: Yan Wenkai.
Upon hearing his friend's words, Yan Wenkai's brows furrowed deeply. He immediately asked, "A child this age was abandoned in an artificial lake? Did you call the police? If not, I'll call them right now!"
As he spoke, he began examining the child, listening to her heartbeat with a stethoscope.
Lu Baiyi stood beside him, watching his actions, and said helplessly, "The person who abandoned the child is her brother. How can we call the police?"
Yan Wenkai's brows furrowed even more.
"The child just has a simple fever right now, and we can't see anything too serious, so for now, we'll focus on lowering the fever. However, we still need to take her for a thorough check-up. In a place like an artificial lake, who knows how many bacteria are in the water? I'm worried that the child might have drunk too much water and developed an infection in her lungs..."
He spoke very quickly, rattling off a sentence.
Xu Gui and the others took a moment to process what he meant. They didn't understand these things, but since the doctor said so, they listened to him. They had no objections, and Yan Wenkai took the child and left. His posture while holding the child was impeccable; no wonder he was a pediatrician.
After Yan Wenkai left, Xu Gui, wrapped in a blanket, stood there and sneezed. She rubbed her nose, feeling a little itchy.
Lu Baiyi was standing to the side, talking to a young woman. The young woman handed her a bag, which he took, glanced at, and said a few more words to her before walking over to Xu Gui and handing her the bag.
Xu Gui looked down at it, then looked up at him, her face showing confusion.
Lu Baiyi said, "These are clothes my secretary bought for you. They probably aren't very comfortable, so change them."
Xu Gui took the bag, opened it, and saw a set of clothes inside.
Speaking of changing, she sniffed, brought her hand close to Lu Baiyi, and whispered, "Smell my hand. Does it smell a little bad?"
Her sudden closeness made Lu Baiyi instinctively want to back away, but hearing her words, he stopped himself, glancing at her quickly.
"How is it? Does it smell a little bad?" Xu Gui frowned.
Lu Baiyi leaned closer, sniffed lightly, and then frowned as well.
"It does smell a little bad..." he said.
Upon receiving confirmation, Xu Gui immediately said, "Really? I think it smells a little bad too. I thought my sense of smell was wrong... Is the water quality in that artificial lake really that bad? I didn't notice the smell before!" She
hadn't noticed the smell before, but as the water dried, the stench seemed to become more and more pronounced.
Lu Baiyi said, "It's probably because the artificial lake is stagnant water, and it's in a park, so occasionally some unclean people might throw trash in, which is why it smells."
Xu Gui: "Ugh..." She felt like vomiting just listening to that.
The cameraman arrived at the hospital almost twenty minutes late. He got out of the car carrying his equipment and saw Xu Gui and Lu Baiyi standing face to face, quite close. His expression suddenly became somewhat confused.
"...What's going on?" he asked Yuan Lu.
Yuan Lu's face only showed an excited "I've hit the jackpot" look. Hearing this, she whispered, "I don't know... By the way, Brother Yang, who is this Mr. Lu? What's his relationship with Teacher Xu?"
The cameraman's lips twitched slightly, and he gave her a complicated look.
"I remember, he seems to be the grandson of that old Mr. Lu."
"Old Mr. Lu?"
"Well, the grandson of that old man Lu who was across from Teacher Xu's stall under the overpass." The cameraman said.
Yuan Lu glanced at Lu Baiyi, then recalled the "old man Lu" who had appeared in Xu Gui's live stream, and exclaimed in surprise, "Wow, that old man's family is so rich!"
The cameraman looked at her, "How did you know he's rich?"
Yuan Lu replied matter-of-factly, "Just look at this Mr. Lu! Do you know how much that car we rode in cost? I just searched it online, and it's probably worth tens of millions..."
The cameraman's eyes gleamed, "Oh? But that car looks so ordinary!"
Yuan Lu said, "You don't know that, do you..."
The two stood to one side whispering amongst themselves. On the other side, Xu Gui and Lu Baiyi were also whispering. After learning how dirty the water in the artificial lake was, Xu Gui's face turned green.
"It's okay, my family has a fixed VIP ward in Ruian. The ward has a bathroom, I'll take you there to take a shower," Lu Baiyi comforted her, "You'll be clean after the shower."
Xu Gui immediately nodded like a chicken pecking at rice.
She told the paparazzi and followed Lu Baiyi to the ward. When they arrived at the VIP ward Lu Baiyi had mentioned, Xu Gui realized that it was more like a resort hotel room than a ward—a large suite, even with a kitchen.
"Wow!" Xu Gui walked in, looked around, and earnestly stated, "This ward is even better than my hotel room." The living room alone was bigger than her small hotel suite.
However, although she said this, her tone wasn't overly surprised or envious; she was simply stating a fact.
Lu Baiyi said, "No one will come in here except our family. There are bathrooms inside and outside. Would you like to go take a shower?"
Xu Gui nodded, "Okay." She took the bag and went to the bathroom.
Once inside, she discovered that not only was the ward large, but the bathroom was also huge, even featuring a massive bathtub. Seeing the bathtub, Xu Gui's eyes lit up—she hadn't had a proper bath in a long time.
Xu Gui touched her arm, unsure if her skin was dry.
While she was showering, Lu Baiyi glanced at the living room and felt it wasn't appropriate for him to stay outside while a girl showered, so he went out. Therefore, when Xu Gui finished showering and came out, he didn't see her in the room.