After the divorce, my ex-husband and son lined up to pursue me.

Chapter 55 A chance encounter

After being transferred to a regular ward, Jiang Xia remained unconscious for only a short time.

But unusually, he stared intently at Ruan Muhuai, his gaze deep and seemingly filled with a myriad of emotions.

"I remember now, I'm not her..."

"Who is it?" Ruan Muhuai had gotten used to Jiang Xia's nonsense these past few days and assumed she was talking nonsense again. Unable to correct her, he asked casually, "Who are you? Can you explain yourself?"

She chose to remain silent.

The nurse smiled and gave Ruan Muhuai a look, then lowered her voice and said, "Be patient. Her symptoms are slowly improving, and her cognition will gradually become clearer. Maybe she'll remember who you are."

Then I can't be her father.

Ruan Muhuai frowned, nodded slightly to thank the nurse, and then sat down on the edge of the bed to tuck Jiang Xia in. His voice, which had been very patient, softened considerably: "Why aren't you saying anything? You know I'm not..."

"I can't say," Jiang Xia suddenly spoke, interrupting him again. "It's a secret. I'm sleepy, I'm not going to talk about it."

Ruan Muhuai: "..."

What secret or not?
It's just about the orphanage when I was a kid.

Ruan Muhuai looked at Jiang Xia, who had turned over and fallen asleep, and his brows furrowed more deeply in helplessness.

Little did he know that Jiang Xia, who had fallen asleep again, finally had a dream after several days.

In her dream, she saw two girls of similar height and appearance from a third-person perspective.

One of them, wearing a white dress, said to the girl in the black dress, "Let's go, leave this place, and don't contact anyone anymore, and don't care about anyone else!"

"These are not your responsibilities, nor should you bear them..."

The girl in the black dress cried and hugged the girl in the white dress tightly. "No, I won't go. I can't bear to leave you, sister..."

"You have to leave!" The girl in the white dress also had tears in her eyes, but she forcefully pushed the girl in the black dress away and resolutely said, "If you don't leave, I'll die!"

"Do not……"

……

At this moment, the dream shattered like a broken mirror, startling Jiang Xia awake in a cold sweat. She raised her hand to wipe her face, only to find it ice-cold.

"Why are you crying?" Ruan Muhuai's voice came, and he came to the bedside in surprise. "Did you have a nightmare?"

Jiang Xia, still lost in her dream, couldn't pull herself out of her reverie for a long time, and it took her a while to look at him. "You... Ruan Muhuai?"

Ruan Muhuai was taken aback.

Hearing her call him by his full name again out of the blue, his pupils constricted, and he gripped her arms tighter: "You remember? Don't worry, I'll call the doctor."

Jiang Xia's head was still heavy. Her usually organized mind was now a complete mess, with many memories and past events all jumbled together in her mind, making it impossible for her to distinguish anything for a moment.

The doctor rushed in, performed a simple examination, and asked her a few questions, but Jiang Xia moved her lips, the answers were on her lips, but she just couldn't say them.

In the end, the doctor left the nurse behind to comfort and reassure Jiang Xia, and then gestured with his eyes to move to the corridor with Ruan Muhuai.

"It seems that her consciousness and memory are about to return, but we can't rush it. Let her get used to it."

Ruan Muhuai breathed a sigh of relief; it was all good after all. He nodded and said, "Thank you, doctor."

After that, it took a long time. Jiang Xia didn't speak or sleep. She just lay on the hospital bed, watching the sky outside the window gradually darken and the rain occasionally hitting and washing the window surface... The chaotic memories, like an hourglass, gradually flowed away and were also being digested and sorted out by her brain.

But somehow, just as the hourglass was about to empty and fill up, it got stuck on something—

Jiang Xia frowned, feeling uncomfortable, and pressed her fingers against her aching temples. When she saw the man approaching, she heard him say, "What's wrong? Didn't I tell you not to think about anything? You'll get better slowly."

She slowly raised her head and looked at the person in front of her: "I... I remember you, your name is Ruan Muhuai."

"..."

“You attended the academic conference with Grandpa Ruan that day, and you even brought me coffee.”

"!!!"

As Jiang Xia recounted these events, Ruan Muhuai's long-buried memories began to stir, and he quickly realized... she was remembering the time when they first met.

Jiang Xia's recovered memory stopped there. She smiled at him and said, "The coffee that day was delicious, thank you, but why am I in the hospital?"

This seemingly normal question was asked...

Ruan Muhuai gasped helplessly. To confirm a few things, he said, "Let's not talk about that for now. You remember my name, you remember the coffee I gave you, and then what? What else do you remember?"

“I remember…” Jiang Xia racked her brains, searching through her newly recovered memories, “Grandpa Ruan invited me to dinner and was going to introduce us formally, but you didn’t go. I had dinner with Grandpa, and then…”

She looked around, then glanced at her hospital gown and her right ankle in a cast, "and then I don't remember anything. But what happened to me? Did something happen?"

The problem comes back again.

But at least it allowed Ruan Muhuai to understand her current memory points.

He smiled wryly and said, "Yes, something unexpected happened. I happened to run into you and brought you to the hospital. Grandpa asked me to take care of you until you recover."

Lies come easily to him, all to appease the patients.

Jiang Xia believed her and smiled in relief: "Thank you, and I'm really sorry to have troubled you. How many days have I been in the hospital? It's time to be discharged. I'm fine now, but I have a project that's urgent, so I can't waste any more time."

She muttered the second half of the sentence almost to herself.

Helpless, Ruan Muhuai could only hold her down and prevent her from getting out of bed. "Listen to the doctor. The research institute has already given you sick leave. Check your phone if you don't believe me."

As he spoke, he reached out and grabbed the fully charged cell phone from the bedside table.

Jiang Xia looked at her phone, but it felt completely unfamiliar...

After all, her current memories are from seven years ago, and she wasn't using this model of phone then.

She asked in confusion, "This is mine?"

“Yes…” Ruan Muhuai had to make up another lie: “Your phone was broken in the car accident, this is a new one.”

"You bought it?" Jiang Xia realized instantly, but her fingers gripped the phone tighter, as if she cherished it very much. "Thank you so much. I'll transfer the money to you, plus all the expenses you paid for me."

Ruan Muhuai's lowered eyes were filled with complex emotions, and after a long while, his thin lips moved slightly: "...Alright."

And so, Jiang Xia added him on WeChat again, which made Ruan Muhuai realize that she had already blocked and deleted him. This realization fueled his anger, but he couldn't vent it.

Jiang Xia continued transferring money to him, noticing his strange expression, and gently explained, "I know you're a good person, but we've only just met, and I can't take advantage of you and cause you any loss."

(End of this chapter)