CHAPTER 246: CHAPTER 209

Chun Mei watched the departing car, her face turning blue with rage.

"Granny Lin, I’m here, Second Aunt."

Granny Lin, seeing Lan Tian arrive, beamed with joy, thinking about what delicious food to prepare for Lan Tian to nourish her, muttering Lan Tian’s name, "You finally came back, I thought you had forgotten about Granny Lin," she leaned forward to look behind, not seeing anyone else she asked, "Where’s your husband? Didn’t he come back with you?"

"He only had a couple of days off, the military sent someone to call him back for something urgent, he will come after he’s done with his work," Lan Tian replied, then turned back to look at them, not at all surprised, as if she had known about Mo Junhua’s return all along, and couldn’t help but wonder, "How did you know he was back?"

"A couple of days ago, the youngest one came back and said that he ran into your husband at the hospital entrance, otherwise how would we know about it!"

Lan Tian quickly realized what must have happened—it was probably Mo Junhua who had encountered them while taking Chunhua back to the hospital. She looked around and noticed that many people were missing from the house; Grandpa Lin and Aunt Lin were not there.

"Where’s Grandpa Lin? And Aunt Lin?" usually, when she came over, the whole family would be there.

"Your Grandpa Lin has gone to visit an old friend, and your Aunt Lin," Granny Lin said with a laugh, her face full of wrinkles, "The eldest son has found himself a girlfriend, and she’s gone to take a look."

"Brother Lin has a girlfriend now?" Lan Tian exclaimed in surprise, thinking that none of the three brothers would ever marry, with each getting on in age and not looking for partners. Then, she happily added, "A happy event is coming to the household, Aunt Lin must be so happy."

"Yes, indeed, she’s been so happy these past few days, acting all giddy, I’ve even heard her singing several times. Once the eldest gets married, it will be the second one’s turn, the old daughter-in-law, you should also hurry up, start looking for a suitable match," she then reminded Lin’s second daughter-in-law, who also shared this thought. Seeing that the heat was about to reach him, Lin Guofu quickly changed the subject.

"Lan Tian, Mr. Mo is coming back."

"Grandpa is coming back?" This time Lan Tian was truly surprised, "The one from Beijing is cured?" She knew the pills she provided could only prolong life but couldn’t cure the illness.

Lin Guofu shook his head, "Don’t know, Mr. Mo didn’t say, he just called to say he’s coming back, I think he must be cured, otherwise they wouldn’t let him go."

That’s possible, no one had seen Mr. Mo come back from Beijing except for that one New Year, and even then, a whole crowd came with him.

Lan Tian looked at Lin Guofu with a half-smile, "Your trip to Beijing wouldn’t have anything to do with Grandpa, would it?"

Lin Guofu smiled smugly, "Mr. Mo asked me to go there to pick him up, haha."

After chatting about family matters for a while, Granny Lin and Lin’s second daughter-in-law went to cook, and Lan Tian went with another to the second floor’s teahouse to have tea. After sipping on a pot of tea, Lan Tian went to Mr. Mo’s Medicine House, searching shelf by shelf until she finally pulled out a book from the bottom and went back into the teahouse to read.

When Lin Guofu saw the book in Lan Tian’s hand, he shook his head with a ’tsk tsk tsk’ sound. Lan Tian glanced at him and laughed, "Why the cryptic attitude? Just say what you want to say, holding it back isn’t like you."

"Do you understand medicine?" Besides medicine books, the old master’s Medicine House also kept many out-of-print rare books. Mr. Mo had never mentioned Lan Tian knew medical skills, and Lin Guofu and his brothers rarely saw her reading medicine books. Most of the time, she was reading odd and curious tales, and they’d comment behind her back that she had unusual interests.

Lan Tian neither nodded nor denied.

"We three brothers have looked at this book before, its words might as well be ghost talismans, incomprehensible. Mr. Mo puzzled over it for a while, but couldn’t understand it either and just left it on the shelf. The second brother didn’t want to give up and even purposely studied ancient texts, but those texts didn’t contain these characters. As time went by, no one looked at it anymore."

Lan Tian sat on the couch with the book to read, Lin Guofu leaned over curiously and asked, "Can you understand it?"

Even with his thick-headedness, Lin Guofu could sense something exceptional about Lan Tian, that she could understand this Heavenly Book which left him utterly impressed.

Lan Tian looked up seriously, "No, I can’t understand it."

She thought more deeply than Lin Guofu and his brothers. An illness that had been baffling for years wasn’t likely to be cured suddenly. Mr. Mo had even asked her for advice before. Based on what Mr. Mo had described, Lan Tian suspected that the patient might have been poisoned with an incurable and unusual chronic poison—one that Mr. Mo had not seen before, so he had been unable to treat it.

This time returning... for the sake of Mr. Mo, she inevitably had to intervene, and surely many people in Beijing didn’t want that person to be alive.

After lunch, Lan Tian went back and took that book with her. Lin Guofu asked her curiously why she took it back if she didn’t understand it. She told Lin Guofu, "It’s precisely because I don’t understand it that I need to take it back and ponder over it. If I understood, why would I take it?"

When she got home, Little Tao told her that Yanhua had come over. They talked for a while, mostly about how Yanhua encouraged Chun Mei to ask her for money and came up with a lot of bad ideas. When she left, she took away a dress from Chun Mei. Lan Tian had a lot of clothes, so one more or less didn’t matter to her.

Lan Tian didn’t know that this dress almost caused a big disaster.

Two days later, they agreed that Chun Mei would go to the hospital where she was and the two would go shopping. Yanhua would also buy some things for her parents and let Chun Mei bring them back. When she left, she gave Chun Mei two hundred yuan, because it was a rare trip to Shanghai for her, and she didn’t know what Chun Mei liked, so she gave her money to buy something herself. She also slyly pried into whether the two of them had fallen out, and badmouthed Lan Tian in front of Chun Mei, portraying Lan Tian in a very negative light.

When Yanhua came over, the family didn’t know, and when she left, the family also didn’t know. It seemed like she specifically chose a time when no one was home. They discussed trivial matters, and Lan Tian didn’t take it to heart.

Days flew by, and two days later, Chun Mei got up early and fussed around in the room. She put on her best clothes and shoes and wore a silk flower on her head. She left the three kids with Grandma Sun and Zhao Li to take care of them and went to the city after breakfast.

"She’s meeting with whom?" Zhao Li, holding the youngest kid in the yard, swaying and coaxing, "She doesn’t even take her own kids."

The two older kids wanted to go with her but got a good beating from Chun Mei. It was only after Grandma Sun took out some candy to coax them that the kids, while sobbing, stuffed their mouths and still looked outside the yard. Unfortunately, Chun Mei left so nonchalantly that there was no hint of reluctance.

Before noon, Chun Mei came back, staggering into the yard, her face as pale as a ghost and panic in her eyes that she couldn’t hide. She entered the yard searching for someone and, upon seeing Zhao Li, clung to her like a drowning person grasping at the last straw.

"Fifth Aunt, quick, come with me," Chun Mei cried, dragging Zhao Li out, "If we don’t hurry, it will be too late. Aunt, quick."

"What’s happened? Tell me calmly, don’t panic." Zhao Li was startled, about to scold her, but seeing Chun Mei as if she had been frightened, shivering all over, stubbornly gripping Zhao Li’s hand, she couldn’t break free.

Lan Tian was practicing calligraphy inside the house and heard Chun Mei’s voice in the yard sounding unusual. She put down her brush and came out. Seeing Chun Mei’s state at the entrance of the hall also startled her. A simple trip to the mall shouldn’t have scared her this way. She rushed to the hall, made a cup of tea with some calming ingredients, and brought it over.

"Drink up!" Her voice carried a bit of a vocal skill. Chun Mei uncontrollably picked up the teacup and drank. When the cup was empty, Lan Tian finally asked, "What happened? Weren’t you going shopping with Yanhua? Why did you come back alone? Where is Yanhua?"

After drinking the tea, Chun Mei calmed down significantly, but her body couldn’t stop shivering. The thought of being at home now made her voice tremble, "Yanhua was kidnapped."

"Who took her?" Lan Tian couldn’t help making a malicious guess. It couldn’t be that Yanhua had been involved with another married man, and his wife caught them. Considering Yanhua’s character in the previous life, it was something she could very well do.

Chun Mei shook her head; how could she know? They were walking on the street just fine when suddenly a group of people rushed out and dragged Yanhua into a car. They tried to grab her too, but she saw something was wrong and ran for it, squeezing into a crowded place, and they let her go.

"Chunhua was also kidnapped," Chun Mei suddenly blurted out another sentence. When the car door opened, she seemed to see someone like Chunhua inside. Later, she went to look for Chunhua in the hospital, but the staff said that Chunhua had gone out.

Lan Tian could have slapped Chun Mei to death for not speaking about these important matters earlier and babbling about Yanhua instead. Zhao Li also grew impatient. They both thought the same about Yanhua; the girl was not decent at all, dressing more and more provocatively. Who knew what she was up to outside.

Chun Mei had always been well-behaved, upright, diligently working in the hospital, getting along well with her colleagues, popular, and certainly hadn’t offended anyone. Why would someone kidnap her?

"Aunt, don’t worry, I’ll go find her in the city. I’ll bring her back safe and sound. Let’s not tell grandma and uncle about this yet to avoid worrying them. And don’t look for Mo Junhua; he’s busy with the military and also has to worry about Chun Mei. If there’s an error in his task..." Mo Junhua being occupied with his own trouble, he might not be able to find her. By the time they found help, it might be too late.

"Can you do it alone?" Zhao Li was full of worries, thinking that if something happened to Lan Tian, she would be heartbroken, "Maybe you should let your uncle go with you?"

"Auntie, don’t worry, I’m quite capable. No one in this world can bully me. It’ll be even quicker alone. Maybe I’ll be back this afternoon. Just stay at home, and keep an eye on her."

Lan Tian reassured Zhao Li and nodded towards the frightened Chun Mei. Zhao Li, looking at the bewildered Chun Mei, reluctantly agreed. Lan Tian stepped over to Chun Mei, pointing her index finger at her forehead, and her Divine Sense entered Chun Mei’s Sea of Consciousness. Chun Mei was terrified, her Divine Soul unstable, and Lan Tian easily reached her Sea of Consciousness, flipping through her memories of that day.

Zhao Li didn’t know what Lan Tian was doing, assuming it had to do with Chun Mei’s abduction. Without interfering, Lan Tian learned of the location and walked out. Leaving the yard, she used the Light Body Skill and headed towards the city.

Upon arrival, Lan Tian unfolded her Divine Sense and began to search.