It was true... he hated his mother... Even if she regretted it, even if she finally ran back to him, he would never forgive her; he would never love her so deeply again.

The hatred in his heart was real... But his mother never came back... Would she...

never return? The more he loved her, the greater the terror... The warmer things felt, the more afraid he became...

So, when he felt hurt, instinctively pushing her away was now just second nature. Unable to bear the thought of being abandoned one more time, he chose to leave her first... Yet, if she had only given him the slightest sign, he would have turned back in an instant!

He knew clearly that he had absolutely no resistance to her... But he forgot that no one was coming to reconcile with him... No one...

The pain in his chest felt like it was about to shatter... shatter completely... The bedroom was frigid, and the rain outside hammered down harder, fine strands drifting in to settle near the edge of the bed.

His dark lashes squeezed tightly shut, his lips pale and cracked; Luo Xi was trembling silently, his cheeks flushed with the scarlet bloom of a high fever. ... "…Then… let’s get married…" In the long, echoing hospital corridor, her voice was as still as a reverberation.

Ou Chen held her close, their two shadows overlapping, stretching long and skewed across the floor... She was finally... completely gone from him...

The room was cold as a winter night. Luo Xi slipped into a feverish, heavy unconsciousness. His dark lashes grew damp, as if he were trapped in a nightmare—a nightmare he was gently shivering through but couldn't awaken from...

Luo Xi had a scheduled appearance the next day. But Jennie waited and waited, and he never showed up. Tardiness was something rarely associated with Luo Xi, and his phone went unanswered, as did the landline at his apartment.

As the anxiety in her heart grew unbearable, she used the spare key to open the door to Luo Xi’s apartment, only to find him already inside, burning up in a feverish stupor! Dr. Zhang, who rushed over, diagnosed it as a severe fever brought on by a cold, noting that if the temperature didn't break soon, he would need immediate hospitalization.

Luo Xi burned with fever for two days and two nights straight. Although Jennie couldn't clearly make out the name Luo Xi mumbled deliriously, the raw, suffocating despair in his hoarse whisper calling out a specific name made her understand that something significant must have gone wrong between him and Senior Sister Xia Mo. She tried calling Senior Sister Xia Mo, but her phone remained perpetually switched off.

And Shen Qiang, having apparently heard the news from the company, actually rushed over to stay by Luo Xi’s side through the night. Day and night. Never leaving his side.

However, the entire time he was feverish, Luo Xi only murmured Senior Sister Xia Mo’s name. Watching Shen Qiang sit blankly by the bedside, the pain and loss etched into her eyes made Jennie’s own heart ache with compassion. Slowly.

Luo Xi’s fever finally broke. Looking at him leaning silently against the headboard, his lips pale and lost in thought, Jennie wrestled with the decision of whether she should try to find Senior Sister Xia Mo. Perhaps there was just a misunderstanding between them, and Senior Sister Xia Mo probably didn't even know how gravely ill Luo Xi was.

However, as Qiao entered, his face dark, he pulled her into the living room. In his hand, he held several newspapers, their screaming headlines almost identical: “Yin Xia Mo Set to Marry into a Wealthy Family!” “Yin Xia Mo and Young Master Ou Confirm Wedding Date!” The papers also featured a candid photograph taken during a date—Yin Xia Mo and Ou Chen sitting in a mountaintop coffee shop. Ou Chen gazed at her, while Yin Xia Mo’s expression remained completely blank.

Summer of Foam III