Fortunately, Su Xiaobai was calm enough at this moment to deduce that the person in front of her still had a faint breath. Who would be foolish enough to bring a corpse to a tile factory?
She made a rather clichéd move, carefully extending her index finger to press lightly under Qiao Nan's nose. After feeling a faint, almost imperceptible breath, she sighed in relief. Then, she quickly dragged him out of the cardboard box, checked him over for injuries, and, finding none, grabbed an umbrella and ran outside.
On the way, she encountered a few workers from the tile factory heading to the restroom. Without a word, Su Xiaobai shouted at them and led them to the warehouse.
"What... what's going on here?" The two employees from the tile factory stood dumbfounded, unable to believe that there was a half-dead person hidden inside their warehouse.
"Um, we should call Director Zhang, have him send someone over quickly... This is serious," one of them said, pulling out his phone to call, but was immediately scolded by Su Xiaobai.
"You two idiots, what are you standing around for? You, go find something to put under him, be gentle. And you, call a car to take him to the hospital. Forget about calling 120, it's too late for that, we'll take him to the hospital first."
The man holding the phone hesitated, his voice uncertain, "Sis, we can't just do that, this is a big deal, we have to report it to the factory leadership first..."
"Report my ass! If he dies here, I want to see how your factory takes responsibility. Stop talking nonsense, hurry up and get the car!"
Su Xiaobai watched as Qiao Nan's face slowly turned pale, then bluish. She couldn't tell if he was poisoned or internally injured, but in a hurry, she unbuttoned the top two buttons of his shirt to make it easier for him to breathe.
The employee who had been scolded, probably feeling the urgency, couldn't afford to ignore Su Xiaobai's instructions. He rushed out and soon returned with a truck.
Su Xiaobai and another man carefully lifted Qiao Nan, both afraid to exert too much force in case he had broken bones or other injuries. One of them supported his arm around their neck, while Su Xiaobai held him around the waist, gently lifting him. The truck driver jumped out, and the two men finally managed to get him into the vehicle.
Since the factory mostly used trucks to transport goods, and time was pressing, Su Xiaobai had no choice but to ride along. The other man stayed behind. Luckily, the front passenger seat was large enough for Su Xiaobai to hold Qiao Nan in her arms, like a mother protecting her child, her eyes anxiously watching the trees blur past the window.
After getting to the hospital and following the medical staff to the emergency room, Su Xiaobai wiped her face, unsure if it was sweat or rainwater, and sighed in exhaustion before collapsing weakly onto a bench outside.
It was about an hour before Qiao Nan was wheeled out of the operating room. Su Xiaobai saw the doctor stand up and, removing his mask, nod toward her. "Are you the family of the patient? He's out of danger now. He was mildly poisoned, and we've already flushed his stomach. He'll need to be observed here for two days. Please handle his admission paperwork."
Su Xiaobai nodded quickly and then glanced back at Qiao Nan. His face was still pale, but much more stable than when he had been brought in, and it seemed that there was no longer any threat to his life.
After handling the admission and other formalities, Su Xiaobai called her colleagues at the branch factory, requesting a half-day leave. Since most of the urgent tasks had been completed and only a few things remained regarding the new factory, the branch leadership agreed without hesitation.
Su Xiaobai also took the time to remind the tile factory workers not to spread word of the incident. She personally called the factory's manager to discuss it. Both parties agreed that they didn't want the matter to escalate, and they decided not to involve the police.
In reality, Su Xiaobai knew that this situation was serious. The most important thing was to confirm that Qiao Nan was no longer in danger. As for the other matters, she believed that once Qiao Nan regained consciousness, he would handle things himself. At that moment, she didn't intend to get involved in the mess.
The next day, after finishing her work in the morning, Su Xiaobai took a taxi to the hospital in the afternoon. On the way, she passed a fruit stall outside the hospital and decided to buy a fruit basket.
She arrived at Qiao Nan's hospital room, opened the door, and found that Qiao Nan was already awake, sitting on the bed, talking on the phone. When he saw her enter, he simply nodded lightly and then continued speaking into the phone.
"I'm fine here, I'll be back the day after tomorrow. As for the matters at the office, let Zhang Duo handle them with you. He's in charge of overseeing this selection process. Yeah, the ceremony should be manageable. Alright, let's leave it at that. We'll talk later."
Su Xiaobai gently placed the fruit basket on the table opposite him. She noticed that there was a copy of Kelly McGonigal's The Willpower Instinct on the table. It seemed to have been recently bought for him by someone. Flipping through the book, she noticed that nearly two-thirds of it had been read already. She could tell that Qiao Nan must have woken up quite a while ago.
As she set the book down and turned around, Qiao Nan had just finished his call.
"You seem to be in good shape, looking quite well," Su Xiaobai said, crossing her arms and tilting her head with a smile.
Although Qiao Nan still looked a bit pale, he seemed to be in overall good spirits. His expression didn't carry the unease of someone who had just survived a major incident. Instead, he appeared calm, his dark eyes locking with hers.
"I'm alright. Went around in circles, but no one wanted to take me in. Guess I'm not dead yet," Qiao Nan said with a teasing tone, pouring her a glass of water and handing it over.
Su Xiaobai stared at him intently. Her brows furrowed slightly, and her fingers tapped rhythmically on the glass she held. She couldn't shake the feeling that the Qiao Nan in front of her had turned into the same troublesome figure from the day before in her room.
Unaware of the doubts in her mind, Qiao Nan assumed she was asking about the poisoning incident, so he casually explained, "It was a kind of poison. After I was poisoned, it led to respiratory failure and unconsciousness."
Seeing how casually Qiao Nan said those words, and noticing the calmness on his face, Su Xiaobai nodded, "I heard the doctor mention it last night."
Su Xiaobai, being clever, had no interest in digging into the details of how he was poisoned. She had no intention of going that far.
She stared at him for a long while, and indeed, she felt there was something about Qiao Nan that made people want to peel away his layers of masks and uncover what kind of person he really was. How could someone who was poisoned remain so calm while talking about the event as if it were nothing?
It wasn't until a nurse came in to change his IV drip that Su Xiaobai snapped back to reality. She noticed the young nurse blushing and constantly stealing shy glances at Qiao Nan. Su Xiaobai felt a little awkward—had she been looking at the nurse with that same gaze earlier?
It wasn't surprising that the young girl was infatuated with Qiao Nan. Compared to men in their twenties, Qiao Nan had a much more captivating charm.
With sharp brows, starry eyes, a straight nose, and thin lips, his features weren't overly perfect, but the more you looked at him, the more you were drawn in. Especially his eyes, as dark as ink, their depth impossible to decipher. One could not tell if he was good or evil; perhaps he was a mixture of both. His gaze, always calm yet powerful, never allowed a single mistake when it landed on someone. It was like a snake circling around your neck from behind, its tongue just barely brushing your carotid artery. If you made a mistake, it would strike, and blood would spill everywhere.
Su Xiaobai shook those thoughts from her mind, and simply pulled out a chair. She picked a large, red apple from the fruit basket and began peeling it with a knife.
She made sure the peel stayed intact the entire time. Satisfied with her work, she handed the apple to Qiao Nan. He took it without rushing to bite into it, clearly waiting for her to say something.
As expected, she saw her beautiful eyes glimmer with a bit of fox-like cunning before she spoke softly, "So, does this mean I saved your life, like a lifesaver?"
"Sort of," Qiao Nan replied directly, which caught Su Xiaobai off guard. She hadn't expected him to be so straightforward.
"Then let me be clear," she continued. "Since I saved your life, I don't ask for anything in return, but if something comes up in the future, I might need your help."
At that moment, there were only the two of them in the room, so she didn't need to awkwardly refer to him as 'Uncle Qiao'. Besides, the person in front of her now felt much more approachable than the one she had seen outside the hotel.
"What trouble do you have?" Qiao Nan, still holding the perfectly peeled apple, didn't realize she was subtly maneuvering to trap him.
"I want to divorce Fang Cheng, but it seems he won't agree," Su Xiaobai said with a frown. She had tried multiple times in the past few days to bring it up over the phone, but Fang Cheng skillfully avoided the subject. Su Xiaobai knew he was deliberately dodging it, but there was nothing she could do about it, so it had been bothering her for days.
"That's between the two of you, I don't really want to get involved," Qiao Nan replied.
Su Xiaobai wasn't having any of that. "Stop fooling around. You clearly said that you had a way to deal with it. Although it seemed like a joke, I know you must have a way to make Fang Cheng divorce me." At this point, she hadn't realized that she was no longer hiding her true feelings. She was bargaining with Qiao Nan like a housewife.
Indeed, at that moment, Su Xiaobai had latched onto Qiao Nan. And it wasn't without reason—since she had saved his life, asking for a small favor in return seemed perfectly reasonable to her.
Qiao Nan simply pulled out his phone, dialed a number, and handed it to her.
Su Xiaobai, confused, took the phone, looking at him questioningly. Without thinking, she pressed the phone to her ear. The familiar voice on the other end immediately made her heart race. In a panic, she almost threw the phone onto the bed, as if it were a plague.
"Uncle Qiao?" came the voice on the other end.
Gritting her teeth, she glared at Qiao Nan. If she answered the call, it would make it seem like she had been spending time with him. No matter what she said afterward, Fang Cheng would certainly think she was involved with Qiao Nan. This would give Fang Cheng the upper hand, and perhaps, in his frustration, he might agree to the divorce. But she would be in the wrong, and the divorce would not be smooth.
No, this was too dangerous.
Damn it, Qiao Nan was too cunning. His heart was as black as ink, and she could already feel it.