Chapter 40

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"Qian Qian?" Bai Zhi shook his daughter gently, but Bai Qian was truly out cold, and even as Ye Hua picked her up gently, scooping her into his arms, Bai Zhi looked at her wound concernedly, "Did the hairpin pierce her lung?" "I doubt so, she seems to be breathing fine right now." Zhe Yan examined the wound, "I just do not understand why Xiao Wu is still bleeding this excessively."

"Poison." Ye Hua spoke all of a sudden, and even as Zhe Yan looked at him quizzically, Ye Hua gestured at the abandoned hairpin, "It must've been coated in poison." "But Su Jin was not aiming for a vein: she was obviously aiming for an organ...?" Bai Zhi picked up the silver hairpin from the ground, inspecting it closely, and Zhe Yan took it over, "Indeed, if I didn't know better, I would say she aimed for Xiao Wu's heart. But the angle at which she turned was odd. It was as if she wanted to strike somewhere lower..." Zhe Yan trailed off in thought, his eyes sweeping briefly across Bai Qian's abdomen, and meanwhile, Bai Zhi pulled off his cloak, covering Bai Qian with it as he spoke to Ye Hua, "Are we allowed to bring her back to Qing Qiu?"

"I think it should be okay to bring her back." Ye Hua shifted Bai Qian in his arms, "I do believe that Di Jun has us covered." "Then let us return. Bai Zhen and Feng Jiu are both very worried over what has happened here. Besides, it would be easier for me to treat her back where I have all my ingredients as well." Zhe Yan spoke up, no longer in his own thoughts, and with a quick exchange of nods, the three of them disappeared in a cloud of mist at once.

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"Gugu!" Feng Jiu was rather horrified to see Bai qian lying limp in Ye Hua's arms, and she stood up from beside Bai Zhen at once, rushing over to see what had happened to Bai Qian. But even as she went closer, Zhe Yan shook his head as he prevented her from nearing Bai Qian, "Xiao Jiu, I'll need you to step aside. We think that your Gugu has been poisoned." "Poisoned?! How?!" Feng Jiu was awfully confused, and Zhe Yan sighed, "She got in a slight scuffle with Su Jin and was stabbed with a hairpin coated in a substance. I'll need to examine if it really is poison, though, because it was just a suspicion on our part."

"Is she in a coma?" Bai Zhen came over, his eyes widening worriedly at the sight of his younger sister looking much less alive than the last time he had seen her, and Zhe Yan looked at his lover, "If I don't see to her now, then yes." "Then hurry. If anything happens to Xiao Wu..." Bai Zhen trailed off, meeting Ye Hua and Bai Zhi's gaze, and they all kept silent, knowing what each other meant. Bai Qian could not afford death or comatose, not when all her family were still around, and she'd leave her son behind if she were. She had too much to live for.

"She'll live." Bai Zhen spoke softly after the four of them stood in pure silence for a dreadful amount of minutes that felt like a stretch of hours, "She has always managed to turn all her misfortunes into something good. With that luck and life of hers, Fate won't let her die, not like this."

"One can only hope so." Bai Zhi replied gravely, before he sat down on a marble stool, "And now we can only wait...for Zhe Yan to bring her awake unharmed."

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"Xiao Wu...your pulse...it is literally going crazy..." Zhe Yan muttered to himself as he pulled his fingers away from her wrist, picking up the hairpin gently between his fingers as he stared at the blood that dried on it, before scraping it off gently onto a small plate. Her pulse was unsettled, slowing and speeding and random intervals so much so that it had turned into a hectic pulse, and Zhe Yan held the small plate close as he sniffed it, trying to cancel out the smell of the blood.

"This isn't poison..." Zhe Yan finally muttered after many rounds of sniffing the remnants of whatever had been on the hairpin, rubbing it between his thumb and index finger, watching as the bloodstained powder fell back onto the plate, "This is just a sleeping drug...with miscarriage or contraceptive properties when overdosed...?"

"Are you only asleep, Xiao Wu?" Zhe Yan leaned over her sleeping body, his brows furrowed in concern as he lifted her arm again, rolling her sleeves back hurriedly as he gripped her wrist once more, his fingers pressing into her vein as he felt for her pulse. Indeed, it hadn't changed; it still slowed at one point and rushed at another. But if she was sleeping, why would her pulse be so...?

His expression of concern morphed into a mystified one as Zhe Yan suddenly realised what he had mentioned to himself earlier. "Miscarriage properties..." Zhe Yan's eyes widened as he picked up the powdered drug now, "Could it be, Xiao Wu?" But surely you would have guessed, or known, Xiao Wu, wouldn't you? How would Su Jin know, if you do not? Zhe Yan wondered, reaching for her pulse a third time to check with what he knew.

The pulse now made sense, its sudden changes in speed explainable, and its slightly more sluggishness likely because of the sleeping medicine. There was no denying it; Zhe Yan was very much sure that Bai Qian was carrying Ye Hua's flesh and bone within her even as he hurried to find the ingredients for the supplements that could battle the side effect of the sleeping drug while Bai Qian slept it off.

"Mystery solved, then." Zhe Yan grinned to himself as he gently poured some of the medicine into her mouth, the worry lifted off his shoulders as he patted her sleeve back into order, "Xiao Wu, you're pregnant."

And he left his room quickly, to tell the four of her family members that she was very much fine, indeed.

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"How is she?" Ye Hua bolted past Zhe Yan and into the room after Zhe Yan exited the room, and Zhe Yan laughed, much to everyone's surprise, "She's merely asleep." "Asleep?" Ye Hua turned around, his expression confused, and Zhe Yan gestured at Bai Qian, "Take her pulse, Ye Hua, and tell me what you think of it." "Tell you what he thinks of it? Was she not poisoned?" Bai Zhi asked dubiously, watching as Ye Hua lifted Bai Qian's hand delicately, rolling her sleeve ever so slowly, and Zhe Yan only smiled mysteriously, "Oh, no. She was drugged, not poisoned."

"Her pulse is a mess...?" Ye Hua placed Bai Qian's arm back down, his eyes full of concern and confusion as he sat down beside her, brushing the hair out of her face, "High God Zhe Yan, what exactly happened with Qian Qian? Why is her pulse so messy, if she was only drugged, and is merely just asleep?" "She's asleep, yes. Without the drug, however, it would still be as such, Ye Hua." Zhe Yan grinned, and Ye Hua paused in his task of tidying her hair, his posture freezing, before he turned to Zhe Yan, "You don't mean..."

"My words are clear, Ye Hua. I mean what I say." Zhe Yan was still grinning, and Ye Hua was, for a moment, very tempted to hug Zhe Yan, but under Bai Zhen's glare, he held himself back, his voice shaking with his elation, "Th-thank you, High God Zhe Yan." "I don't suppose you have plans on how she'll find out?" Bai Zhi cut in, having seen the heavy thoughts beneath Ye Hua's expression that struggled to return to its default stony gaze, and Ye Hua broke into a smile after much resistance and failure to rein it in, "Father, Si Ge, High God Zhe Yan...Ye Hua would like you to keep it a secret for now. I...wish for Qian Qian to discover it on her own."

"On her own?" Zhe Yan's face paled, "Ye Hua, at the rate that Xiao Wu does things, you better be careful, if you don't let her know about it." "I don't wish to lose a grandchild." Bai Zhi added on rather unhelpfully, and Ye Hua quickly stood up. "I will ask for Feng Jiu's help too." Ye Hua bowed, and Bai Zhen laughed at Ye Hua's quick reaction, "Never mind that. We can rein her in Qing Qiu for the while. I doubt she can do anything reckless under our watch."

"That...would be the best. Thank you, Si Ge." Ye Hua bowed again, and Bai Zhen waved his sleeve, eyeing Bai Qian even as he chuckled, "No need to thank me; we are all family. But, Ye Hua, I am very curious to see how your plan will work."

And Zhe Yan muttered to Bai Zhen with a slight grin, "Aren't we all, Zhen Zhen. Aren't we all."

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A/N: Sorry that the chapter took so long...I've been having some problems lately...for example, getting a C for English :(

It's a connector kind of chapter, which is why it's not so interesting/long or barely involves Bai Qian at all, and I hope you guys don't mind the crappy quality of this chapter oops...

Thanks for all the support, anyway :)

Z, out.

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