Chapter 79

Chapter 79: Suspension Bridge Effect

Du Lian Shuang’s breath caught. She almost fainted again on the spot.

Mother Du reacted quickly. She turned to the attending physician who had just examined Du Lian Shuang and asked: “Does she need to take medicine for this kind of situation?”

The attending physician was a bald male doctor in his early forties. He was stunned for a second by the sudden question. After a while, he stroked his chin and said slowly: “Heart problems can indeed be big or small. Have you done imaging tests before?”

“They have all been done. All the heart-related tests were done, and they did not find any problem.”

“Since there is no problem, then it is best to adjust her lifestyle instead of taking medicine,” he said. “Besides birth defects, triggers for irregular heartbeat are mostly related to daily diet and habits. For example, drinking too much coffee or strong tea, staying up late, drinking alcohol, heavy exercise, and strong emotions can all cause it.”

“First, have her follow a proper diet and sleep early and get up early,” he continued. “If it gets better after a few days, then there is nothing to worry about. If it does not get better, then we need to test other organs to see if something else is wrong and is affecting the heart.”

“What if we use medicine to help? What side effects would there be?” Mother Du asked.

“There will definitely be side effects,” he said. “Different medicines have different side effects. The most common ones are nausea, vomiting, dizziness, headache, insomnia, and depression. Especially propafenone tablets. They can control heart rate, but if they are used in the wrong way, they can stimulate the nervous system and cause nerve disorders and mental fatigue…”

No one could take in what the doctor said after that. In their heads, only words like “nerve disorder” and “mental fatigue” echoed again and again.

They thought again of what Du An Rao had said about her going insane. It was bright noon, the sun was shining, yet several of them still could not help shivering.

Du An Rao herself was not thinking that far. She was just honestly puzzled: “Mom, does our family, or Third Grandfather’s family, have any hereditary heart disease?”

“I do not think so…” Mother Du said, not very sure. She turned to look at Du Lian Shuang.

“No, our family has no history of heart disease,” Du Lian Shuang said.

“Then that is strange,” Du An Rao said. “Third Grandfather had asthma. Even if Aunt inherited something, it should have been the same disease. Why is it her heart that feels uncomfortable? If it is not inherited, then it must be caused by something later…”

“Right,” Mother Du reacted quickly. “I remember you do not like alcohol and you do not like coffee. You only drink a little tea and you rarely stay up late. Did something else happen recently? Is your mental pressure too high, so you feel unwell?”

“It is not really pressure, it is just…” Du Lian Shuang pressed her lips and carefully recalled what had happened during that time. She still felt scared as she said, “For several nights before my heart started feeling bad, I kept having nightmares. I dreamed that someone was knocking on my bedroom door in the middle of the night. Then I would suddenly wake up, covered in cold sweat.”

The others looked at each other, not sure how to comment on this.

But Du An Rao could not help thinking of a pilgrim she had seen a few years ago, who had brought a saker falcon up the mountain to worship and had mentioned a so-called hawk-breaking method.

To put it simply, it meant not letting the bird sleep and forcing it to stay awake all the time. This would break its will both physically and mentally until, in the end, it either died or was tamed.

It was similar to some ancient ways of torturing prisoners. They would lock a person in a dark room so he could not tell day from night. Once he got sleepy, they would make noise outside to wake him. Even if he managed to fall asleep, they would pour water on him to wake him up.

After a few days like that, both mind and body would collapse. Even a man made of iron would beg for mercy.

“People say what you think in the day, you dream at night,” she said. “And you had the same dream several nights in a row, Aunt. Could it be that something similar really happened in real life? That is why you could not forget it, and you kept dreaming about it at night.”

What she said reminded Mother Du. After all, their current main suspect was the man sleeping right beside Du Lian Shuang.

“You and Jue Yan sleep in the same room at home, right?” Mother Du asked. “When you woke up in fright, was he beside you?”

“…Yes,” Du Lian Shuang said. “I even asked him if he had heard anything, but he said he had not.”

[Is it possible that he is the one knocking on the door, or knocking on something, in the middle of the night to wake you up? When you ask, of course he says he heard nothing. Otherwise, how can he create a tense mood, make your heart go out of rhythm, speed up your adrenaline, and make you think your heart is sick?]

Du Lian Shuang’s eyes narrowed. At the thought of this possibility, her head felt like it had been hit hard. Her mind turned into a pot of mush.

In fact, after complaining in her heart, even Du An Rao herself was stunned for a moment.

[Why does this feel a little like the Suspension Bridge Effect Second Brother told me about a few days ago?]

The so-called Suspension Bridge Effect meant that when people were scared and nervous, their heart would beat faster without them noticing.

If they met someone of the opposite sex at that time, they might mistake that fast heartbeat as a sign that they liked that person and start to feel love.

Thinking about it carefully, was that not exactly how Du Lian Shuang and Cui Jue Yan had first met?

Back then, she had hidden her identity and just entered the company to take over the business. She knew very little about many things and was naturally busy, stressed, and tense.

Cui Jue Yan had appeared at just the right time, like a savior standing by her side. He helped her climb up step by step and gave her the illusion that they were supporting each other and fighting side by side. How could she not rely on him and not feel moved by him?

Now he was just using the same old trick again. He created hardship for her and then helped her solve it so that he could trick her into trusting and depending on him.

When the time was right in the future, it would not just be about secretly feeding her medicine that would make her lose her mind.

Even if it was poison, as long as he coaxed her a little, she would probably swallow it without any guard at all.

Du Lian Shuang’s face turned ashen. She thought of those nights when she woke up soaked in cold sweat and found Cui Jue Yan beside her every time, staying with her, comforting her, even holding her as they fell asleep together. Then she would be startled awake again, comforted again, fall asleep again… over and over.

Back then, she had only felt moved and guilty. Now she could not stop the chill that crept over her.

Did he really see her as a person? Or was he even a person at all? Why was he scarier than a man-eating monster?

The shock to Du Yun Ni and her brother was no smaller than the shock to Du Lian Shuang. Anyone who suddenly discovered that the father they had admired since childhood was not the gentle, caring, and reliable man he seemed to be, that he had another family he cared about outside, another little home, and that he had even harmed his own relatives and caused the death of the grandfather who loved them most…

Each of these things alone would be enough to make their sheltered little world collapse. Now all of it had been dumped on them in one go.

At this moment, Du An Rao’s attention was still on Du Lian Shuang, so she did not notice how strange the two children looked. But Du Yu Xi did.

She stepped forward, took the two children’s hands, and silently sent them her support.

It was just like when she had suddenly found out in the past that she was not the Du family’s child. When she had been panicked and lost, her family had given her unconditional trust and kindness.

The air in the ward was very heavy and strange when the two men who had been sent out to buy food finally came back.

As soon as they walked in, one of them said: “Lian Shuang, you are awake. You really scared me just now.”