Mistakenly Marked – Chapter 19

Replacement

“‘Fiancée.'”

“Are you sure the location shows a hospital?”

            

After receiving confirmation, Xu Shangning hung up.

Within moments, the butler sent the precise coordinates to her phone.

Xu Shangning set the phone on its mount, tapped the location link, and switched on navigation, making a U-turn.

            

“Why…” Lin Qingman sat in the passenger seat, staring in disbelief at Xu Shangning’s flurry of actions. “How is there tracking software installed on Xu Jialuo’s phone?”

Xu Shangning spared a glance at Lin Qingman’s shocked expression. “Don’t get the wrong idea, Miss Lin. I’m not some creep who needs to track her sister’s every move.”

Her fox eyes — always brimming with laughter — had, for once, shed their unreliable flippancy. Her tone dropped a register.

            

“Luoluo was kidnapped once. After that, the family installed tracking software on all our phones, just in case.”

Lin Qingman startled. “Oh… I see.”

After a moment’s thought, she asked, “During her senior year of high school?”

            

Xu Shangning raised an eyebrow. “You know about that?”

“No, I just guessed. Because she took a really long leave of absence around then.”

Xu Shangning’s eyebrow climbed higher even as she floored the accelerator, yet she didn’t pass up the chance to tease. “So Miss Lin’s been caring about our Luoluo since way back then?”

            

“Of course not, it’s just that…”

It’s just that the person she cared about was always with Xu Jialuo.

But the words rose to her lips and she swallowed them just as fast. Lin Qingman cleared her throat. “Right, so that’s why I agreed to the family’s arrangement with Xu Jialuo.”

            

The late-night roads were nearly empty. Xu Shangning cast a sidelong glance at Lin Qingman and said nothing.

She pressed the accelerator again.

A little over ten minutes later, the Maserati pulled up outside the hospital. Xu Shangning opened the door, stepped out, and strode briskly toward the building.

            

Lin Qingman jogged after her through the entrance.

She heard Xu Shangning ask the reception nurse, “Was a patient named Xu Jialuo admitted recently?”

The young nurse looked up, paused. “…No.”

            

Catching that split-second hesitation, Xu Shangning narrowed her fox eyes. “Are you sure?”

“…Yes.”

Xu Shangning pressed: “Why did you answer without checking the records first?”

            

“Uh…”

The nurse hastily ducked her head and made a show of flipping through files.

Lin Qingman wasn’t as sharp as Xu Shangning, but she too looked down, preparing to call Xu Jialuo’s phone one more time.

            

---

In the dim hospital room.

Bo Suiqing leaned slightly forward, her elbows resting on the edge of the bed.

The posture was far from comfortable, but she hadn’t moved in several minutes.

            

Their hands were still folded together. Xu Jialuo lay curled on her side, quiet.

Cool fingertips had been warmed soft and toasty.

The fever seemed to have broken — at least she wasn’t cold anymore.

            

Bo Suiqing tilted further down, pressing her cheek against the edge of the mattress. In the darkness, she watched Xu Jialuo’s sleeping face in silence.

Until a knock came at the door.

The driver stood at the entrance, knocking softly.

            

She knocked once, then caught a hazy glimpse of the scene inside the room and froze.

She was about to turn and leave when she met Bo Suiqing’s lifted gaze.

The peach blossom eyes that had been warm and shimmering just a moment ago returned, the instant she straightened up, to their familiar cool austerity.

            

The driver opened the door with careful, quiet movements and murmured, “Miss, I shook off the people tailing the car.

“Assistant Xiao Nan asked me to pass along a message — you have a morning event. They need you at the venue by seven for styling prep.”

“Understood.”

            

“Would you… like me to drive you back to rest for a bit?”

Checking the time — even if she started resting right now, there’d be less than three hours left.

Bo Suiqing didn’t answer.

            

The driver stood at attention in her uniform, hands behind her back, her gaze couldn’t help stealing a glance toward the bed.

Because it was just so… extraordinary.

She’d held this job for less than two years. Her wealthy star employer was hardly difficult to work with, but she always gave the impression of cool detachment — interactions measured and precise, social when required but never invested.

            

Never like this…

Her gaze drifted again to the hands folded together at the bedside. The driver pinched her own fingers, confirming it was real.

The person in the bed wasn’t even conscious, yet she’d drawn out this much… patience from her employer.

            

Something about the feeling was faintly familiar. The driver blinked, suddenly remembering the black umbrella carefully stored in the back of the car.

Sensing the driver’s gaze, Bo Suiqing’s lashes fluttered. With calm composure, she gently withdrew the hand Xu Jialuo had been holding. “Wait outside for me.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

            

The driver slipped out of the room, light-footed.

Bo Suiqing looked down. Her freed hand rested on the bedsheet. She hesitated for a few seconds, then slowly raised it.

Before she could touch Xu Jialuo again, the phone on the nightstand lit up.

            

It had been muted — no ringtone sounded. But the screen blazed in the darkness, stark enough to cast light across Xu Jialuo’s face and draw a furrow to her brow.

Bo Suiqing picked up the phone at once and saw the caller ID again: “Lin Qingman.”

She was about to hang up when the vice president of the hospital appeared at the doorway in hurried strides. “Miss Bo, someone’s come from downstairs, asking by name for the patient you brought in.”

            

Her fingers paused. Bo Suiqing stood, carried the phone outside the room, and answered.

---

The call connected?

Lin Qingman, who’d held out little hope, brightened. “Hello? Xu Jialuo?”

            

Hearing her speak, Xu Shangning paused her interrogation of the nurse and looked toward Lin Qingman.

Standing in the corridor outside the hospital room, Bo Suiqing listened to the voice on the other end and replied coldly, “No.”

“Hm?” Noting the voice was wrong, Lin Qingman hesitated. “…Then who are you?”

            

When no answer came immediately, Lin Qingman decided to introduce herself first. “I’m looking for the owner of this phone. I’m her—”

The word “friend” rolled around her mouth. Remembering that Xu Shangning was still beside her, Lin Qingman changed course mid-sentence. “I’m her fiancée! Please tell me — what’s happened to the owner of this phone? How did you get her phone?”

Whatever was said after that on the other end, Bo Suiqing didn’t catch it.

            

Her mind had stalled on the tail end of that first sentence.

Under the corridor lights, the jade-smooth beauty of her face went instantly pale.

Xu Shangning asked Lin Qingman beside her, “What’d they say? Did someone find Luoluo’s phone?”

            

She asked urgently, voice loud, her trademark tone of devil-may-care nonchalance ringing unmistakably.

Bo Suiqing recognized Xu Shangning’s voice.

The caller was with Xu Shangning, claiming to be Xu Jialuo’s fiancée.

            

And Xu Shangning hadn’t corrected her. Hadn’t denied it at all.

Which meant — it was true.

The knuckles gripping the phone tightened sharply. The skin went bloodless from the force. Bo Suiqing lowered her eyes and coldly recited the room number.

            

Before the other end could respond, she hung up.

The driver beside her noticed Bo Suiqing’s expression was wrong, though she didn’t know why. Assuming it was physical discomfort, she started, “Miss—”

Before the words of concern could finish, a phone was pressed into her hand.

            

“Stay here. Give me the car keys. I’ll drive myself to the venue.”

The driver blinked, pulled out the keys, and handed them over, her voice tightening. “Miss, the wounds on your hands have…”

On the porcelain-pale skin, the wounds that had only just begun to close had cracked open again. Faint threads of blood seeped through.

            

Bo Suiqing looked down. Her light silver eyes swept across her palm as though she saw nothing at all.

“Tell them you happened to come across Xu Jialuo and brought her in.”

---

The call disconnected, and Lin Qingman didn’t think much of it. She quickly told Xu Shangning, “They said Room 607.”

            

Done tangling with the nurse, Xu Shangning followed Lin Qingman toward the elevators at a brisk pace.

She pressed the up button. Both elevators — one on the left, one on the right — began descending.

The left car came down from the third floor. The right, from the sixth.

            

Ding — the left elevator opened first. The two of them stepped inside.

A few seconds later, another ding.

The right elevator’s doors opened on the ground floor. The person inside walked out.

            

Xu Shangning stood in the elevator, pressed the close-door button, then reached for floor 6.

In the motion, her gaze swept past the narrowing gap of the closing doors — and caught a flash of a silhouette that seemed, somehow, familiar.

A slender figure, gone in an instant.

            

Before she could see clearly, the doors shut completely.

---

—”The test results are back! The doctor said our Awen’s gland has already entered its development phase. Once the gland finishes developing, Awen will differentiate into a powerful Alpha too!”

…

            

—”Why is that child’s gland developing slower than normal? Could there be something wrong? You must have it thoroughly examined — once her gland matures, proceed as quickly as possible…”

…

—”Unfortunately, the young miss’s gland is damaged. She can no longer differentiate.”

            

…

—”The gland is already ruined, what use is it? If you’d listened to me, you should have just…”

…

            

Xu Jialuo’s eyes snapped open. A white ceiling.

It took a few seconds to gather herself. Then she turned her head and surveyed the room.

“How are you feeling?”

            

The voice reached her ear, and Xu Shangning’s face appeared.

Her whole body ached, soft and weak. Xu Jialuo pushed herself up with effort and found, when she tried to speak, that her voice came out hoarse and rough. “…Hospital?”

“Yeah.”

            

Xu Shangning helped Xu Jialuo sit up against the headboard. “Does anything hurt? Headache?”

“…”

Following Xu Shangning’s prompt, Xu Jialuo took inventory of her body, then nodded. “Mm.”

            

She felt slightly sticky — she must have sweat heavily. Her whole body was sore and drained. Her head felt stuffed with cotton, throbbing dully, thick and muffled.

Xu Shangning picked up a cup of water from the side and handed it over. “Drink a little. Soothe your throat.”

Xu Jialuo took it, had a sip. Her dry throat felt better. “What… happened to me?”

            

“You don’t remember?”

Xu Jialuo frowned. “In the car… I was going to drive, and then I suddenly felt awful.”

“And then you just passed out in the car!”

            

Lin Qingman, carrying breakfast in, picked up the thread. “Thank goodness a good Samaritan happened to pass by, found you, and brought you to the hospital.”

Lin Qingman stepped aside, splitting a portion of breakfast for the person sitting in the corner. “This young lady right here.”

A few frames of blurry memory flashed through Jialuo’s mind — a tantalizing scent, a voice she couldn’t quite hear clearly, a woman’s trembling body—

            

and

“Don’t be afraid—”

Xu Jialuo turned her head.

            

The young woman seated to the side stood up, met Xu Jialuo’s gaze, and nodded.

Neat features, a competent ponytail, dressed in a crisp, practical uniform.

A face that had never appeared in Xu Jialuo’s memory before.

            

Her gaze lingered for a moment. Without knowing why, instinctively, Xu Jialuo kept looking around the room.

But there was no one else in the room.

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