242: Chapter 237 Awakening

Two days later, at noon, in a Grade A tertiary hospital in Hotan City, inside an intensive care unit, a young man lay on a hospital bed with his eyes tightly shut and his face pale. An oxygen mask covered his face, and sensor pads were densely packed over his head. Beside the bed, a girl with delicate features was slumped over the edge, resting, yet her hands never released the young man's hand.

"Beep~ Beep~"

Suddenly, the equipment emitted a sharp alarm. The girl woke up instantly, the intense sleepiness caused by exhaustion vanishing in an instant. Her eyes stared fixedly at the fluctuating waves on the EEG monitor interface, and she looked at the young man on the bed with a mix of shock and joy. Seeing the eyeballs under his eyelids seemingly rolling, she immediately called out softly, filled with pleasant surprise: "Cao Xiao! Cao Xiao! Wake up quickly!"

"Doctor! Doctor, quickly, come in! Come quickly and see if Cao Xiao is about to wake up!"

There was no need to press the emergency call button by the bed; for the past two days, several senior physicians invited from all over the country had been guarding outside the ward at all times.

"The patient's brain waves are starting to become active, heart rate and breathing are both slowly accelerating, and the body is showing reactions to external stimuli. Judging by the pulse, we can be certain the patient should wake up within six hours. All the patients suffered shock and fainting due to strong vibrations and impacts to the brain triggering the body's self-protection mechanism. The brain is the most precise yet also the most fragile organ in the human body. Fortunately, after our careful examination via instruments, apart from slight hemorrhaging in the organs, there is no obvious damage to the brain. Now that all the patients have fainted, we don't know the specific cause of the injury, so we cannot make rash judgments and have no way to proceed, so we can only carry out conventional conservative treatment. Ultimately, we must rely on the patient's body to self-regulate and recover. As for whether there will be any sequelae... we will have to wait until the patient wakes up and observe slowly before drawing a conclusion."

This was a stern, humorless old physician, a nationally renowned brain expert. Since being hurriedly invited here early yesterday morning, he and the other doctors, all over fifty, had not closed their eyes for nearly forty hours. Now that the patient showed signs of improvement, they all perked up in unison; since the patient was not in serious danger, they could finally be relieved and rest.

"Thank you all! I will have someone book the nearest hotel immediately, everyone go and rest first! There are hospital doctors here to look after him, and if there is any situation, I will notify you all in time."

He Yueyou had been running around for a while, and her mind had been in a state of high tension for the past few days, unable to rest peacefully. Suddenly relaxing, her fatigue became unbearable, and sleepiness overwhelmed her like a tidal wave. Although her entire heart was tied to Cao Xiao, now that Cao Xiao's condition was basically clear, she could finally rest with peace of mind.

Sending away the doctors and experts, the ward returned to silence. He Yueyou, however, did not go straight to sleep. She held Cao Xiao's hand and sighed softly:

"In this world, countless things happen every day, and everything one experiences or learns about brings nothing more than knowledge and emotions, whether good or bad, changing you imperceptibly. And I seem to have a naturally indifferent temperament; I don't have much curiosity and won't get to the bottom of things. I have always passively chosen what to know and what not to, never caring about interest or meaning, just like an observer standing from God's perspective with an absolute distance from reality, indifferent, numb, and resolute. I am very grateful for your accidental appearance; perhaps this is what is called fate, allowing me to have a sense of participation, trying to integrate into life, and slowly starting to find back the human emotions that should have belonged to me. Therefore, your existence is what gave my life a new meaning. I don't want to lose it, so please, before you lose meaning, never be absent! Is that okay? I believe you can hear me. This is my secret, oh, I hope it won't scare you!"

"Cao Xiao, you must wake up quickly! I don't know what you are doing, but you really scared me this time. If it weren't for Brother Duan luckily remaining conscious at the time and desperately flying the plane back, I dare not imagine the consequences! I didn't tell your family about your accident because I was afraid of scaring them, so I came here myself. But for the past two days, strange people have come to find me and say strange things. Their attitude is very tough, and they speak very harshly. If I hadn't tried my best to stop them, you would have all been taken away. But those people haven't left yet. I don't know how to handle it; they said they were waiting for you to wake up to give an account, and they even announced on the spot that they had removed you from some position. Even for someone in a deep coma, they have to put on airs. I'm starting to get curious: what exactly are you doing?"

"However, I also have to thank them, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to invite those great physicians who view money as dirt."

"... I'm really too sleepy... When I open my eyes, you must wake up too..."

As her voice faded, only soft snoring remained in the ward.

...

Cao Xiao's mind was muddled at this moment, without thought or self, as if he were about to sink into eternal silence until he vanished. Suddenly, it was as if someone was muttering in his heart. The voice was very pleasant and very familiar, but he just couldn't think of who it was. No, as soon as he started to think, his soul felt as if it were being torn apart by pain. The worry and panic revealed in the words made him inexplicably start to panic, so he struggled to endure the pain and kept thinking, until a name surfaced in his heart, piercing through all darkness, bathing in light, and memories rushed back like a tidal wave.

"Yueyou... Yueyou... Yueyou!"

I don't know how much time passed, but a weak yet firm voice broke the silence of the white world.

The girl didn't seem to hear it and was still sleeping soundly.

Cao Xiao felt his mouth was dry. As his breathing accelerated, he felt some unnaturalness on his face. His right hand was being held by someone and couldn't move, so he laboriously lifted his left hand to take off the oxygen mask. Opening his eyes, all he saw was white; he could tell it was the ceiling. Slowly using his hand to brace himself, he turned over and saw that familiar face.

Seeing He Yueyou sleeping soundly, he didn't wake her up. He slowly withdrew his right hand, slowly rubbing his body to dispel the numbness. Once he regained some sensation, he sat up.

He found his mobile phone on the bedside cabinet, but discovered that for some reason it wouldn't turn on. This didn't stump him. In less than two minutes, a new phone appeared in his hand, even the SIM card was new, and all the information stored in the old phone had been copied to the new phone.

However, what made Cao Xiao frown was that his phone had signs of having been dismantled, and the personal information and system data logs inside had been browsed, with the time being yesterday. It wasn't that he was afraid of leaking any personal privacy; with his cautious nature, every minute of information generated while his phone was on would be transferred to his central intelligence and all traces thoroughly erased. With current electronic technology, even if it developed for another hundred years, it would be impossible to recover the information deleted by his central intelligence, and one wouldn't even be able to find traces of deletion; one would only mistake it for a newly bought phone.

Thinking of what He Yueyou said in the void just now, he couldn't help but be furious. He didn't know who those people were, but no matter who they were, what identity they had, or what unit they belonged to, for them to make things difficult for He Yueyou while he was between life and death, and to investigate him so domineeringly, then they shouldn't think about ending this well.

At the same time, there was some doubt in his heart, and also some secret joy; his fiancée was not simple!