[Quick Transmigration] Rescue Little White Flower (GL) - Chapter 12: Saving Little White Flower in Workplace (12)

Chapter 12: Saving Little White Flower in Workplace (12)

Outside the operating room, the familiar sound of high heels grew closer. Shen Qingwei turned and saw Zhao Xingyue hurrying toward her. She immediately went to meet her.

Shen Qingwei was helpless and lost. Most of the money in the medical card was already spent. Whether her mother would survive depended on this final, desperate effort today.

Zhao Xingyue gave her a firm hug. “Don’t be afraid!”

How could Shen Qingwei not be afraid?

Her hands trembled as she signed the surgical consent form.

Her mother’s condition was dire. Without surgery, she had only days left, surviving on a ventilator in a hospital bed. With surgery, the risk was high, with only a fifty percent chance of success. But if it worked, it could extend her mother’s life by years.

To have a chance to talk with her mother again, Shen Qingwei chose to take the risk.

Signing the surgical agreement was the most significant decision of her life, second only to filling out her college entrance exam preferences.

But she was still terrified.

Her heart and soul trembled with fear, dreading that if anything went wrong on the operating table, she’d regret it forever.

In her moment of paralyzing fear, Zhao Xingyue arrived.

Shen Qingwei couldn’t explain why she had called Zhao Xingyue or why she hoped Zhao Xingyue would come to the operating room to be with her. Before she could figure it out, Zhao Xingyue had already hung up the phone.

She thought Zhao Xingyue wouldn’t come.

But she did.

Shen Qingwei felt like a dandelion seed drifting in the wind, suddenly finding a place to land.

The two sat on the chairs outside, Shen Qingwei clinging tightly to Zhao Xingyue, hoping to draw strength from her.

Perhaps it was psychological, but with Zhao Xingyue there, Shen Qingwei felt her emotions stabilize.

She wasn’t as scared or lost anymore.

The Shen family weren’t cowards, she thought. If her mother were conscious, faced with a choice between lingering in pain for a few days or fighting for a chance at life, she would surely choose the latter, just as Shen Qingwei did.

After all, if living only brought pain, what was there to fear in death?

Zhao Xingyue didn’t know how to comfort her, so she just held her hand.

Again and again, she said to Shen Qingwei, “Don’t be afraid.”

In the repeated reassurances, Shen Qingwei found her tears stopping. But she didn’t want to leave Zhao Xingyue’s embrace, wanting only to hold her quietly.

She feared that if she let go, she’d become a rootless weed again, swept into an endless whirlpool by the current.

Time ticked by, second by second.

Ding—

The operating room light turned from red to green, and the door opened.

A stern-faced nurse emerged first. “Make way, make way, the patient is being transferred to the ICU.”

Seeing her mother being wheeled out, Zhao Xingyue and Shen Qingwei hurried after the doctors.

Outside the ICU, Shen Qingwei peered through the glass, watching her mother surrounded by bustling doctors and nurses.

In just half a month, her mother had wasted away, barely recognizable.

Her cheeks were sunken, her cheekbones protruding sharply. If Shen Qingwei hadn’t seen her mother tormented by illness day by day, she wouldn’t believe this was her.

In her memory, her mother was always beautiful. When Shen Qingwei was young, her mother often wore homemade floral dresses, holding her as they went out, while her father snapped photos with a point-and-shoot camera.

The doctor who performed the surgery removed his mask and said to Shen Qingwei, “We’ve done all we can. Now it’s up to your mother’s fate. If she survives the critical twenty-four hours, she should be fine. But if complications arise, we can only do our best to save her.”

Shen Qingwei understood his meaning and choked out, “Thank you, doctor. You’ve worked hard.”

Zhao Xingyue put an arm around her shoulders.

For the next twenty-four hours, she stayed by Shen Qingwei’s side.

Zhao Xingyue wasn’t mortal. Even in a human body, she didn’t need sleep. While her body rested, her soul monitored Shen Qingwei’s condition.

Shen Qingwei didn’t sleep either—she couldn’t.

They sat outside the ICU. When Zhao Xingyue dozed, Shen Qingwei stared blankly at the ICU room.

Suddenly, Zhao Xingyue sensed a familiar icy presence. She opened her eyes and saw a familiar figure in the room.

Noticing her gaze, the soul-reaping ghost messenger turned, eyes widening.

He stammered, “M-My Lord?”

Zhao Xingyue shook her head at him.

The ghost messenger looked troubled. “My Lord, her time has come. If I don’t take her soul in time, I’ll be punished by the Underworld’s Lord when I return.”

In her mind, Zhao Xingyue said, “I know it’s difficult for you. Her fate doesn’t specify an exact moment of death, only an hour. Please be lenient and let my friend say goodbye.”

For ordinary people, the time of death was precise to the minute. But for someone like Shen’s mother, whose death was hastened by malevolent forces, the timing was only set to an hour.

Dying at the first quarter of the hour or the second was still death.

Whether she could live a bit longer depended on the ghost messenger’s timing and mood.

It wasn’t a big request. The ghost messenger thought it over, re-entered the room, and lightly brushed Shen’s mother’s face. The monitors in the room began blaring wildly.

Before Shen Qingwei could react, doctors and nurses rushed into the room, pulling the curtain and blocking the view.

Shen Qingwei’s hands were as cold as ice, gripping Zhao Xingyue’s hand, the chill seeping into Zhao Xingyue’s bones.

Zhao Xingyue held her shoulders tightly. “Don’t be afraid.”

Shen Qingwei said nothing.

Though she could see nothing, her eyes stayed fixed on the ICU, hoping for good news.

Moments later, an exhausted doctor emerged from the room.

He said, “The patient is awake and wants to see you. Come with me.”

“My mom’s awake?! Really?!” Hearing her mother was conscious, Shen Qingwei’s face lit up with joy, but under the doctor’s sympathetic gaze, she slowly calmed. “Is it… her final moments?”

The doctor didn’t answer, only saying, “Her time is short. Make it quick.”

Shen Qingwei’s nose stung, and she nearly cried again.

But she held Zhao Xingyue’s hand, drawing strength from her.

Zhao Xingyue said, “Don’t cry. Go see your mom.”

Shen Qingwei fiercely wiped her face. “No crying. I won’t cry. I’ll smile.”

She forced a smile uglier than tears.

Inside, the doctors and nurses stepped back as they entered.

Shen’s mother was indeed awake, as the doctor had said.

Her ventilator was removed, and her eyes, fixed on Shen Qingwei, were full of reluctance and tenderness.

“Xiaowei…” Shen’s mother said.

Shen Qingwei hurried over, grasping her mother’s outstretched hand, responding brightly, “Yes.”

Though she told herself to smile and stay cheerful for her mother, when she held her mother’s skeletal, claw-like hand, her tears fell uncontrollably.

Shen’s mother said, “Don’t cry. There’s nothing to cry about. I’m happy now. I just saw your dad. He said if I don’t go soon, he’ll leave without me. My only… only worry now is you.”

She continued, “After I’m gone, take care of yourself. Eat well, sleep well, and don’t… stay up late on your phone. It’s bad for your eyes, got it?”

Shen Qingwei said, “I know, I know. I understand.”

Shen’s mother struggled to lift her hand, touching her face with a warm smile. “Such a pity… I haven’t met my future son-in-law…”

Shen Qingwei’s heart ached, but she feigned shyness. “Mom, what are you saying?!”

After saying what she wanted, Shen’s mother noticed another person in the room.

Seeing Zhao Xingyue, she smiled.

“This girl… she’s really pretty,” Shen’s mother said.

As her words fell, the heart monitor flatlined.

In the piercing alarm, it took Shen Qingwei a moment to realize what had happened.

She collapsed onto her mother’s body, sobbing loudly.

“Mom, Mom—”

…

Zhao Xingyue helped Shen Qingwei arrange the funeral.

Shen Qingwei’s grandparents had passed long ago, and the Shen family had few relatives. Only a few long-time neighbors attended, offering condolence money. Seeing Shen Qingwei’s red eyes, they didn’t know how to comfort her, only sighing, lighting incense for Shen’s mother, and leaving.

The burial plot was chosen long ago, next to Shen’s father.

On the day of the burial, Zhao Xingyue came.

Shen Qingwei stood beside her, dressed in black with a white mourning band on her arm. Her expression was calm, but her red, swollen eyes revealed the hysteria behind that calm.

Leaning on Zhao Xingyue’s shoulder, she said in a barely audible voice, “I don’t have a mom anymore.”

One less person in the world she could rely on.

Zhao Xingyue didn’t speak. Her gaze was fixed on two faint figures at the grave.

A man and a woman, both young, around thirty. The man wore a suit, tall and refined, with thin-framed glasses, looking like a cultured youth. The woman wore a bright red floral dress, happily clinging to his arm, leaning on his shoulder.

They smiled at Zhao Xingyue and Shen Qingwei.

Behind them, the familiar ghost messenger nodded slightly to Zhao Xingyue.

He said, “The Underworld’s Lord heard of your situation and specially permitted them to return to see their daughter one last time.”

Zhao Xingyue said, “Thank you.”

As they left, nearing the edge of the cemetery, Shen Qingwei suddenly turned back, as if sensing something.

She waved into the air. Zhao Xingyue saw Shen’s father and mother, about to be taken by the ghost messenger, waving back.

Shen Qingwei called out loudly, “Goodbye, Mom and Dad!”

Shen’s father and mother said, “Goodbye.”