Do Not Speak Ill of My Mother!

In the hospital room, the alarming sounds and chaotic footsteps finally subsided, leaving only the rhythmic and faint beeping of the life monitor, like a heart that has finally stabilized after utter exhaustion. 𝒻𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝘯𝘰𝑣ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮

Grandma Ji was forcibly pulled back from the brink of death and now lay in a deep slumber. Her face was pale to the point of being almost translucent, and each breath seemed tremendously laborious.

Ji Li sat rigidly in the chair beside the hospital bed, like a clay statue drained of its soul.

His hand clutched tightly onto his grandmother’s thin, cold fingers, as if they were the only vine connecting him to the edge of the cliff.

Yan Yueqing’s cold, angry words—"One can lack everything, but not a conscience!"—still buzzed in his mind, intertwining with the fragile flame of life in front of him, forming an immense, nearly crushing sense of tearing.

After an unknown length of time, Grandma Ji’s eyelids fluttered slightly before slowly opening.

Her clouded eyes struggled to focus in the dim light, eventually landing on her grandson’s pale little face.

"Lit...tle Leh..." Her voice was as faint as a whisper, her dry lips moving slightly.

"Grandma!" Ji Li was suddenly wide awake, nearly throwing himself beside the bed, tears bursting forth, "Grandma, you’re awake! You scared me to death! How are you feeling? Where does it hurt?"

Grandma Ji shook her head laboriously, wanting to lift a hand to touch her grandson’s head, but she couldn’t muster the strength. She just mustered all her energy to squeeze Ji Li’s hand back, conveying endless solace with that weak grip.

"Silly child..." she panted, her voice intermittent, "Grandma’s old now, no longer any good, it’s time..."

"No! Grandma, don’t say that! You’ll get better! The doctors will cure you!" Ji Li shook his head desperately, tears dropping heavily on the back of his grandmother’s hand.

"Don’t cry..." Grandma Ji’s eyes were filled with reluctance and an almost relieved calmness, "Little Leh, Grandma’s biggest worry is you. Back in the village, I couldn’t close my eyes, afraid you’d have nowhere to go..."

She paused for a long time, gathering her strength, gazing out into the dark night, seemingly reminiscing, her lips curving into an extremely faint, comforting smile: "Now, it’s better. Heaven has opened its eyes, letting us meet someone like Miss Yan, such a living Bodhisattva. She lifted you out of the mud, treated Grandma, sent you to a good school... Even if Grandma passed now, she’d be content..."

"Grandma!" Ji Li’s heart hurt like it was being pierced, each word of gratitude toward Yan Yueqing felt like a dagger carving his heart. He couldn’t understand how Grandma could trust this woman whom he saw as full of schemes.

"Little Leh..." Grandma Ji seemed to sense the stiffness and resistance in her grandson’s body. Her clouded eyes tried hard to focus on Ji Li, laden with unprecedented solemnity, "Tell Grandma... Why do you dislike Miss Yan so much? Why target her? She is our great benefactor..."

Ji Li’s body trembled violently, clamping his lips tightly, his eyes becoming incredibly complex in an instant.

He lowered his head, not daring to meet Grandma’s eyes.

In the hospital room, only the sound of the monitor beeping and the heavy breathing of the grandparent and grandchild remained.

"Grandma...I..." Ji Li’s voice was thick with nasal tones and struggle, biting hard into his lower lip, almost drawing blood.

The fears, confusions, and rage buried deep in his heart finally surged like a flood under the immense grief of Grandma’s impending departure and the stark questioning of the moment, no longer suppressible.

"...I keep having strange dreams..." Ji Li’s voice was very light, with a dreamlike daze, "In the dreams, there’s someone good to me, who smiles at me, helps me and Grandma. Her name is Qin Youran, she also helped many children in the orphanage, just like the newspaper said..."

He lifted his head, eyes full of bewilderment and pain: "In the dream, it was she who saved us, she who took us away from Canglong Village, arranged for Grandma’s treatment, and sent me to school... But waking up, there’s nothing, only Yan Yueqing."

Ji Li’s voice suddenly rose, filled with resentment and unwillingness: "Why her?! Why is it Qin Youran in the dreams?! Why was Qin Youran taken away?! The newspaper said she committed a crime, is it true? Or was it Yan Yueqing who did it?! What really is true? What is false?!"

His emotions surged again, his small body trembling with the immense confusion and long-suppressed fear.

He had clung to that ’dream’ and that old newspaper article about Qin Youran, treating them as his only weapon against Yan Yueqing’s ’hypocrisy’, as the ’reasonable’ source of all his hostility.

Yet reality tore apart dream and report alike.

Grandma Ji listened quietly, no surprise in her clouded eyes, only profound sorrow and understanding.

She squeezed her grandson’s hand, her voice even weaker, but imbued with the wisdom of a lifetime: "Silly child... Dreams are just dreams. Qin Youran being taken was the law of the land. Without concrete evidence, the country wouldn’t falsely accuse someone..."

She breathed heavily for a while before continuing: "Grandma doesn’t understand those grand principles, but I’ve lived a lifetime, and judge people by heart, not by ears, and certainly not by dreaming."

"Miss Yan, she’s right before us, everything she’s done, Grandma has seen. The new medicine is wondrous, easing Grandma’s pain, letting me accompany you these extra days, all thanks to her. She supports your schooling, gives you the best, yet never seeks any return. Isn’t this sincerity enough?"

Grandma Ji’s eyes locked onto Ji Li’s confused and pained gaze, word by word, using all her remaining strength: "Little Leh, use your heart to see, use your heart to feel. Don’t let dreams blind you, nor let past things block your path."

"Miss Yan is truly kind to you and Grandma. This grace, this affection, is real. When Grandma leaves, I can at least rest easy entrusting you to such a person."

"Use your heart to see..." Grandma’s voice grew fainter and finally turned into a whisper as she wearily closed her eyes.

"Grandma!" Ji Li frantically called out, only relaxing a bit when he saw the slight rise and fall of Grandma’s chest and the existence of waveforms on the monitor.

He slumped back into the chair, Grandma’s words like stones cast into the chaos of his mind, creating ripples that refused to settle for a long time.

Use your heart to see... Don’t let dreams blind you...

The cold words of Yan Yueqing rang again in his ears: "With my capabilities, what kind of talent do I not have? ... Betting time, energy, and massive resources, on a single eight-year-old’s uncertain future? ... Do you think this is a smart move?"

Indeed... Someone like her, standing so high, possessing so much.

The grandfather who was C City’s richest, the mysterious and formidable mother Jiang Yu, even a giant like Blue Sea bowed and offered up ninety billion, plus that unfathomable Jun Residence...

She had remarkable figures around her, so many elite talents.

The universities, projects, talents she funded, probably too numerous to count.

What was Ji Li? A solitary and biased boy crawled out from a poor mountain ditch, capable of nothing except burying himself in books.

What did she want from him?

Banking on his potential success a decade later? Then why not wait until he’s truly succeeded to recruit him? Why invest so much when he was an unruly child, tolerating his hostility and defiance?

Seek gratitude? But she never asked for a word of thanks, nor implied any need for repayment. Even when Grandma was critically ill, she was the first to appear, staying by the side...

Could he really have been wrong?

That dream about Qin Youran, those articles in the newspaper... Might they have been his wishful thinking after all? His constructs and excuses concocted to escape reality and refuse Yan Yueqing’s kindness?

Ji Li blankly gazed at Grandma’s slumbering face, recalling when Yan Yueqing closed the curtains and said "don’t look yet", and the red marks on her wrist he had grasped... Those minute actions he deliberately ignored now became clear under Grandma’s words and Yan Yueqing’s questioning.

He slowly lowered his head, staring at his clenched fist, as if it still held the sensations of anger and pushing against Yan Yueqing.

The icy hatred ebbed like a tide, leaving a shoreline in disarray.

What should he do? What should he believe?

In the hospital room, only the regular beeping of the monitor persisted, like the footsteps of time, urging a child, beneath the shadow of his dearest life’s flame nearing its end, to begin, with great difficulty, examining the high wall built within his heart, and the world beyond that he long denied, bathed in the light of ’reality’.

He fell into a long, silent contemplation.