Chapter 107
Chapter 107: Probably Not Here With Good Intentions
Du An Rao’s mental scream was like a bomb. It blew the smile right off Fifth Aunt’s face.
Fifth Uncle had just gone out to calm down and fix his mood. When he finally came back into the banquet hall and heard this bad news at the door, his foot twisted and he almost fell flat on his face.
Ruan Xiu Ru also froze. She had no time to worry about her own son and that troublemaking Bad Peach Blossom. She turned instead to grab her sister-in-law’s cold hand.
Du An Rao did not notice how strange the others looked. She worked hard to recall the plot that had to do with Fifth Aunt’s family.
As the male lead’s direct uncle by blood, Fifth Uncle and his family showed up pretty late in the story. But once they appeared, they brought a huge bomb with them.
Fifth Uncle’s child was diagnosed with leukemia.
Du An Rao completely lost it when she remembered that.
[People always say K?dramas have the three big treasures: car accidents, amnesia, and incurable illness. That last one includes, but is not limited to, cancer, leukemia, and a whole series of terminal diseases. Before, this stuff only harmed the male and female leads. Now it is spreading from person to person? They do not even spare kids anymore?]
Fifth Uncle and Fifth Aunt also could not hold it together. Like Ruan Xiu Ru’s family, they only had one son, who was two years younger than Du Hong Yun.
Their son and daughter-in-law had grown up together as childhood sweethearts. They confirmed their relationship early, got married early, and had a child early too. Their granddaughter was even a few months older than the one in Du Hong Yun’s family.
A few years ago, their son had a small accident that hurt his ability to have more children. If nothing unexpected happened, this would be the only child of this generation in their branch of the family.
The old couple had always loved children. In daily life, they treated this only granddaughter like a pearl, holding her in the palm of their hands.
Now they suddenly learned that this only little seedling would suffer a terminal illness. Their vision went dark. It felt like the sky was falling.
If they were not forcing themselves to hang on, pinning all their hopes on being as lucky as Ruan Xiu Ru and learning a way from Du An Rao to save the child in advance, the two of them might already have collapsed.
[Fifth Uncle’s family really loved this granddaughter. As soon as the diagnosis came out, they had the whole clan tested to see if anyone matched as a donor, but sadly no one did. When everyone was in despair, it turned out that Du Zhe Lei’s bone marrow matched her.]
Ruan Xiu Ru and Fifth Aunt both froze. They turned to look at each other without thinking, their feelings very complicated.
This twist in the plot was a stroke of genius for the story, but for Fifth Uncle’s family it was a disaster big enough to drown them.
Because of the side effects from the blood transfusion, Du Zhe Lei could barely protect his own life. How could he donate bone marrow to the little girl in Fifth Uncle’s family and save her from her illness?
To finally see hope, only to fall back into despair, was even harder to accept than never knowing about this at all.
Even though Fifth Uncle’s family knew it was not Du Hong Yun’s fault, they still could not untie the knot in their hearts. Especially in the years after that, whenever their granddaughter, weak by nature, burned with a high fever that would not go down and seemed at death’s door, they would always think: if only nothing had happened to Du Zhe Lei, if only their little girl had gotten a bone marrow transplant earlier, would everything have turned out different?
Later, with everyone’s endless efforts, they finally found bone marrow that matched the child and saved her life. But the harm from all those years of chemo was still irreversible.
Fifth Aunt was shaken to her core. She almost burst into tears on the spot.
She thought of how, before she left the house, that soft little granddaughter had still said goodbye to her in a milky little voice, kissed her on the cheek, and told her to come home early. Now, knowing that in a few years the child might have to suffer from illness, her heart ached so much she could barely breathe.
She was still so small and so weak, yet she would have to go through chemo and surgery that even grown-ups feared. How could she take it?
[Tsk tsk tsk, Big Cousin, just look at the mess you made. You really hurt people badly. No wonder the villain later tripped you up, and even Second Cousin could not be bothered with you. The fact that she did not take the chance to kick you while you were down was already very kind.]
Right now Fifth Aunt completely understood how Ruan Xiu Ru had felt just moments ago. Her fist clenched tight.
She wanted to rush over to Du Hong Yun and give him a mixed double beating right now, so he could once again experience a “complete” childhood.
[Good thing Big Cousin did not give the child blood this time. If they really matched, and both children’s bodies met the conditions, and both sets of parents agreed, then the little girl would be able to suffer less.]
Fifth Aunt’s eyes lit up. This really was a blessing in disguise. Except…
Fifth Aunt turned to look at Ruan Xiu Ru, heart full of mixed feelings, her eyes full of worry and pleading.
Of course Ruan Xiu Ru knew what she was worried about. She sighed and squeezed her hand to comfort her.
[But now that I think about it, this is ridiculous. Our whole house is full of cannon fodder, fine. But how did Big Cousin, who is already the male lead, still end up this miserable? Does this world hate everyone with the surname Du? Or is it only out to get our branch of the family?]
The Du family members watching all nodded in deep agreement. At the same time, their hearts hung high, afraid that the next unlucky one would be them.
[And I am just saying, Fourth Aunt, Fifth Aunt, you two really do not plan to find some time to go check your ancestral graves? One child having an accident is already bad enough, but two kids in a row? No matter how you look at it, that does not seem like a coincidence, right?]
The two aunties, and Fifth Uncle, who was swaying not far away, suddenly felt enlightened. They turned to look at each other without thinking.
Right, how had they not thought of that?
People care about their ancestral graves for two main reasons. First, for emotional comfort, to remember where they came from and to fall back to their roots in the end. Second, they hope the souls of their ancestors are still there, watching over their descendants and blessing later generations.
Now the only little seedlings in these two branches had both run into trouble. Could it really be a problem with the ancestral graves?
While they were all tangled up, a slightly mood-ruining voice suddenly sounded behind them: “What are all of you doing here, crowding together like this?”
When they heard this voice, many people’s faces changed, especially the nearby Du family members.
“You even invited him?” Du He Xuan looked reproachfully at Father Du and Mother Du. It was clear he really did not want this person here.
Mother Du said in a low voice: “We invited Second Granduncle from next door. It would have looked bad not to say anything to him. And I thought he would not come…”
But was it really possible this man would not come? By the end of her sentence, even Father Du himself felt guilty.
The one who had come was a distant relative of the Du family, already beyond the fifth degree of kinship.
There was no real blood feud between the two branches. They just had fights over money.
Father Du’s father, who was also Du An Rao and the others’ grandfather, had interacted with Du Ji Zu’s father. The two were about the same age and lived close by, so people often compared them when they were young.
Sadly, one of them was tall, handsome, and rich, while the other was short, fat, and poor. They were a cruel side-by-side comparison.
So this was different from Mother Du and Ruan Xiu Ru, who quietly competed with each other but did not have real malice.
Growing up under the shadow of Grandfather Du’s bright halo, Du Ji Zu’s father hated Grandfather Du to the bone. Because of that, he also hated Father Du, Grandfather Du’s son.
Mother Du whispered: “I heard that a few years ago his business caught the right wave and he made a lot of money. After that, he started acting even more high-profile and ridiculous. The fact that he showed up today probably means he did not come with good intentions.”