Surrounded by the Billionaire's Deep Doting-Chapter 621 - 485: Shocking Numbers—Who Should Be Held Responsible? (Part 2)

Chapter 621: Chapter 485: Shocking Numbers—Who Should Be Held Responsible? (Part 2)

Prince Huang hurriedly said, "I, I and Shuangshuang, picked them downstairs."

Su Xiaomeng quickly said,

"Didn’t Mom tell you not to pick flowers randomly?"

"It’s okay, the gardener from downstairs helped them pick it."

Bai Sixian took the cup, pouring water while saying to her,

"These two little ones used such choppy English, it’s a wonder the gardener understood them."

"Haha, really? How did they say it?"

Su Xiaomeng couldn’t help but ask; usually, Shuangshuang and Huang Huang would often use their very choppy and scattered English to talk with Lily Claire at home.

But... it was really too choppy.

"Mom! Sick! Flower! Like!"

Bai Sixian shrugged, "Probably just those few words."

Su Xiaomeng smiled and patted Prince Huang’s head.

She understood this child’s cleverness better than anyone.

"How are you feeling, is there anywhere that feels particularly uncomfortable?"

"Just my foot hurts a bit, otherwise it’s fine, much better than a few days ago."

After three days of unconsciousness, she had woken up occasionally, but the high fever had been recurring, leaving her in and out of consciousness.

In her drowsiness, the people around hadn’t stopped coming; she had heard her parents’ voices, but didn’t know if it was a dream or reality.

Have the siblings changed these flowers two or three times already?

"Are you thirsty? Have some water. The doctor will come to do a check-up later."

"Oh, okay!"

Bai Sixian raised the bed slightly, holding a wide-mouthed glass bowl in one hand and a spoon in the other, sitting by Su Xiaomeng’s bedside, feeding her... 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

"Mom, I can do it mys—"

Xiaomeng’s words got stuck in her throat when she saw the tears suddenly welling up in her mother’s eyes.

She said nothing more, obediently opened her mouth, and drank the water quietly...

Bai Sixian’s emotions had actually calmed down a lot over the past three days.

The aftermath of the hostage crisis continued to be tracked and reported by the media.

There were a total of one hundred and eighty-three hostages, with seventy-eight survivors, thirty-nine of whom were seriously injured.

All thirteen hostage-takers were shot dead.

Fortunately, there were no casualties among the rescue personnel.

How could the public know how many hostage-takers there were?

But those involved in the rescue operation were well aware there were seventeen hostage-takers, four of whom escaped.

The false report of the numbers was simply to appease the public and provide some solace that the government avenged the innocent citizens who died tragically.

One of the four who escaped was Han Tan, while the other three were mercenaries.

Bai Sixian shivered with fear after seeing these shocking numbers...

Even when she arrived in London and saw Su Xiaomeng lying on the hospital bed after her surgery, she couldn’t stop repeatedly asking her husband,

"Is she really okay? Is she really okay? Really... survived..."

This disaster would ultimately be recorded in the annals of major terrorist incidents in history.

Celebrate for those who survived? Happy?

Probably no one felt like celebrating.

The incident was so tragic...so tragic that those who experienced it might forever harbor a shadow in their hearts.

After three days, Bai Sixian’s emotions had calmed considerably, but still...

She took a deep breath and tears silently streamed down her face.

Seeing her mother like this, how could Su Xiaomeng feel any better?

The event had created such a commotion, even if she wished to downplay its seriousness, the non-stop reports continuously heightened its presence...

Her mother wasn’t a fool; how could she not imagine the terror and horror of the scene?

Su Xiaomeng wanted to say something.

Mom, I’m fine, aren’t I recovering well? It’s not that scary actually...

But she couldn’t bring herself to say it in the end.

"Sorry for making you worry..."

After a long pause, that’s all she said.

Shuangshuang and Huanghuang were there by her side; although Bai Sixian was somewhat unstable emotionally, tears streaming down her face, she made no sound.

Bai Sixian didn’t say much more; after feeding her water, she held her hand,

"I’m so grateful...so grateful to have a daughter like you, who despite causing worries, constantly making one’s heart race with fear, is so incredibly resilient."

"..."

"Worries are inevitable, fear is inevitable, how could it not be when you’re my only daughter?"

"Or else... why don’t you and Dad have another one?"

Su Xiaomeng lifted her eyes, actually suggesting playfully, and with her teasing words, a couple of tears slipped down her cheeks as well.

"What nonsense!"

Bai Sixian glared at her and then couldn’t help but laugh.

Su Xiaomeng also laughed and cried along.

Shuangshuang and Huanghuang blinked, looking blankly at their grandmother and then at their mother; the siblings murmured sneakily to each other.

At this moment, outside the door stood someone crying much worse than Su Xiaomeng and Bai Sixian.

Su Chengji was wiping away tears with his left hand and snot with his right, holding back his tears without daring to make a sound.

Yin Shixiu stood to the side, holding a pack of tissues in his hand.

He watched as the thickness of the entire pack of tissues was drastically diminished at an astonishing speed.

As he hesitated whether to ask a nurse for another pack, Su Chengji finally calmed down.

As a father, witnessing his daughter endure such a calamity, his heart felt like it was being sliced open.

His wife was comparatively rational, but he, by nature, was an emotional soul.

Though he was a grown man, at times like these, he cried even more than the women.

Su Chengji took several deep breaths and took the tissues from Yin Shixiu’s hand, "I’m going to wash my face, don’t tell the mother and daughter."

"...Okay."

Despite his tears, Su Chengji was still a man, a father, a husband, and could not cry like a coward in front of his wife and daughter.

Yin Shixiu leaned against the wall, able to hear the conversations and laughter of Su Xiaomeng and Bai Sixian from the ward.

Though their talk and laughter inevitably carried traces of the shock and fear left from the aftermath.

His lips gently curled upward, slowly exhaling the long, held-in breath from his heart.

A hundred and five lives.

A death toll that was awe-inspiring, most of whom belonged to the upper echelons of British society.

The rescue operation... could be considered quite the failure.

The British Government held countless press conferences and incident reports for this reason.

They calmed the people, suppressed public opinion, even rallied to completely destroy a certain organization...

As if the only ones responsible for these 105 lives were the brutal hostage-takers.

In reality, what led to such shocking casualties was the oversight and error in intelligence by the rescue team.

Su Hang was right; the British military indeed acted prematurely.

But why did the British military act early...?

When Yin Shixiu found the general to inquire, the general told him that a scout had been discovered by the hostage-takers, forcing them to act early.

And the decision to act early was agreed upon by the commander of the Chinese support team.

How was that scout discovered...?

"That’s also something I can’t quite understand. I asked the soldier several times after the mission, but he couldn’t figure it out either. He was still some distance from the church, and that position should have been a blind spot for the hostage-takers’ lookout, yet a hostage-taker emerged and fired, raising the alarm... though that taker was shot and they fled after that."

After that, Yin Shixiu didn’t ask the general any further questions.

The doubt in his heart couldn’t be completely verified from the general.

If it was indeed Su Hang’s doing, given the serious consequences of the incident, once the British military knew that the rescue’s failure wasn’t due to them misjudging the situation...

This probably wouldn’t just be a matter of his personal grievances.

Yin Shixiu suspected that the person the scout encountered wasn’t an actual hostage-taker, but rather someone in disguise.

It was night, after all; disguising oneself wouldn’t be difficult.

It wouldn’t be hard to confirm his suspicion.

Not counting the six people from Shan Mingxu’s team.

They had originally snuck into London to carry out the mission secretly and had already done their utmost within their capacity. Exposing themselves recklessly would only lead to more disputes.

Twenty people, four of them wounded, two with burns, two with gunshot injuries.

The scope immediately narrowed.