Lihua tiredly opened her eyes and the first face she saw was of a worried and crying Lu Bojing.

"Y-You are awake!"

Words cannot describe how happy he felt. Qingqing jumped at Lihua's side and nudged her furry face against her cheek.

Don't scare others like that, human! You are my servant. A Queen's servant cannot be that weak!

Lihua asked, "Where am I.."

Lu Bojing wiped his eyes and stammered, "B-back at Jiang Zhen's house...He refused to let you in the hospital. S-So.." he shivered, "t-that man.."

Lihua frowned. She saw a small saline bottle hung at the top by the bedside. "Who.."

He hugged himself and found it difficult to speak. "L-Li-"

"Ah, so you are awake!"

Qingqing immediately hissed as Li Dong stepped in. Lu Bojing's color turned pale once again.

Behind Li Dong was Jia who had made her presence completely unnoticeable. Her heart beat fast and tears stung in her eyes seeing Lihua conscious again. She felt as if she had almost died seeing her faint.

Li Dong smiled. "How are you?" He extended his hand to take her pulse, but Lu Bojing slapped it away. Qingqing was just as ready to strike him with her sharp paws.

Meoww!!

Don't touch my servant!

Li Dong paused and narrowed his eyes. "Subject 026 seemed to have grown some balls in my absence."

"D-D-Don't touch Song Lihua...S-stay away.." he breathed hard.

"Ah but you still stammer in fear. I like it. You didn't disappoint me, after all."

Lu Bojing burst into tears.

Li Dong glanced at Lihua and smiled. "Don't worry. I won't poison you. You don't need to throw daggers at me. You are very precious to Jiang Zhen, especially your baby~ I have been ordered to nurse you back to health."

"...out. Get out!" She gasped and took deep breaths. "You and Jiang Zhen...I... don't want to see your faces at all! You disgust me! Get out!"

Suddenly, she felt a slight pain in her abdomen.

Lu Bojing shook his head, feeling horrified. "P-please don't get agitated. N-not g-good-"

"You better stop shouting, young lady, or you will lose your child. You have no clue how much your stress hormones are bouncing back and forth in your body," he chuckled. "Those hormones are lethal for your child. You don't need to necessarily fall for a miscarriage to happen. Just keep screaming like that, and the job is done."

Lihua froze. Tears pooled in her eyes. Today was a horrible day. Too many things got exposed, and she didn't even have the liberty to feel depressed.

"...Leave. Please leave," she tiredly said.

Jia instinctively moved her hand towards her but stopped just in time.

Lihua..

Li Dong shrugged. "Whatever. I will come back for a checkup again. You better behave and not scream at me like that. I have a short fuse, you know. You can ask Bojing if you want. He knows it, right subject 026?" He smiled.

Lu Bojing shuddered.

historical

Li Dong looked back at Jia. "What are you standing like a statue like that? Getting emotional for this woman?"

The frost returned in her gaze. "No, Boss."

"Gooood~ I like you. If you want to work with me, you ain't got any feelings, understand that. Follow me."

Jia gazed at her for a second before she went away with him.

Lihua asked, "What happened after I.."

Lu Bojing sniffled. "We took you back here, and the Jiang family was sent back. Jiang Zhen said that he will make their lives miserable from now on."

"And Wei?"

Lu Bojing hesitated.

"Tell me Bojing. Where is Wei?"

"He-he is still at the base.."

Her eyes slowly widened. "Is Shen Yang h-hurting him?"

Lu Bojing took her hand in his and anxiously. "Please don't worry about him. He-he will be fine. Jiang Z-Zhen will not kill him."

She dryly laughed. "He wants to see us in pain...he wants to laugh at us as we cry.."

He said nothing.

"But Wei won't cry. He... won't."

He quickly said, "Don't think about what happened now. You need to rest. I will press your head. You sleep."

"I don't want to. I want to ask you something."

"Yes?"

"How is it that I don't remember when I met Wei in the past? I... really don't recall meeting him in my childhood."

Lu Bojing pursed his lips. "You shouldn't stress about this."

She smiled. "I am not. Believe me. I just want to know."

"R-really?"

"En. I don't want to hurt my baby. I won't be tense, I promise."

Lu Bojing thought about it. "I-I also don't remember parts of my childhood, and I know it's because I have shut them myself due to extreme trauma."

She was immediately concerned about him. "It's that doctor, Li Dong, right? Was he the one who kidnapped you?"

He lowered his head. "I don't know. Don't remember...I just recognized his voice from somewhere and then a dark place. And then I see myself in bruises. I remember Boss asking me what happened during that period when I first came to Yang mansion. But I was blank. S-So he told me that my mind was shutting those memories out to protect me because they were too much to bear. It doesn't necessarily mean that I have amnesia. Do you get flashes of memories sometimes that you don't understand? Or some weird dreams of your childhood?"

Lihua thought about it. "No. Not really. I never had such strange dreams before.."

"It might be because there was no trigger for all these years."

"But when I met Wei for the first time in college, couldn't that be a trigger? But I felt no familiarity."

"But he also easily attracted you. It might not be just his face, but subconsciously, your mind knew that you knew him from before. Do you trust people easily?"

"N-not that quickly.."

She remembered the first time she met Jia's friend and cop, Mo Huojin and even Lu Bojing as her neighbor. There was a sense of awareness for both of them like anybody would when they met a stranger.

But it wasn't like that with Wei. It felt so natural to like him at first glance.

"But only Wei was different."