Chapter 14 (2/2)

Even so, she was still quietly gorgeous.

She was like a rose that was wilting after its full bloom. Although it was no longer as breathtaking as when it was in its prime, it was still beautiful in a broken sort of way.

The woman on the bed was Chen Qingzhi!

That was her mother, who should have died a long time ago!

“Mengmeng… Is it you, Mengmeng?” The woman on the bed had been fast asleep. She had not stirred, even though the middle-aged man next to her whispered a constant stream of passionate words into her ear.

When she heard the door open, however, when she heard Ruan Mengmeng’s footsteps approaching, she actually opened her eyes for once.

The disease had robbed her almond-shaped eyes of their initial shine, but the instant she saw Ruan Mengmeng, her eyes lit up with an intense gleam.

“Mengmeng… It’s really you… You’re finally willing to meet me… Oh, you’ve grown, you’ve grown so much…”

The woman’s pretty brows locked tightly together, pearl-like tears falling from her eyes in an instant.

Ruan Mengmeng thought she could harden her heart, but the instant she saw those tears falling like a broken string of pearls, all of her defenses fell apart.

Her heart instantly softened into putty.

She lunged forth and hugged Chen Qingzhi, even remembering to carefully control her strength and avoid all the tubes stuck in Chen Qingzhi’s body.

“Mom… Sob… Sob…”

Ruan Mengmeng cried like a helpless little child.

Li Junyu stood at the door, coolly watching this warm and touching mother-daughter reunion.

He remembered that stubborn little girl who had bitten her bottom lip in the study earlier, her tears pooling in her eyes but never truly falling.

At that thought, his pitch-black eyes slowly grew darker.

After a while, the mother and daughter finally stopped crying and calmed down.

That was when the middle-aged man who had been standing by the bed and watching them with a warm gaze finally spoke.

“Nice to meet you, Mengmeng. I’m Li Yaoyang, and you can call me Uncle Li from now on. Your mother didn’t mean to abandon you back then. She tried to drown herself in the ocean, but we just happened to save her with our yacht. Your father hurt her very deeply back then, and he even made her depressed. It took her a long time to recover from that pain.

“After that, when she wanted to return to look for you two, she realized that your older sister was already very independent, and she cared for you perfectly well too. Since the two of you were living happily, she was worried that her sudden return would disrupt your peaceful lives. That was why she knew it was too much to want to meet you, even though she’d been so ill all these years…”