Chapter 133: She Has Agreed to Donate Her Heart!

The years of devotion between her grandparents deeply moved Shi Runrun. Leaning against the wall outside the hospital room, she listened to her grandmother’s weeping and her incoherent murmurs, and could not help but shed tears of her own. Perhaps she should sacrifice herself to repay the kindness the elderly couple had shown her when she first married into the Xiao family. A decision quietly took root in her heart.

The next morning at nine, the hospital received a call from Shi Runrun. She had agreed to donate a portion of her cardiac muscle tissue. Furthermore, she requested that the procedure be performed as soon as possible, hoping to complete the partial heart transplant before her grandfather’s condition deteriorated beyond recovery, so that he might live.

Xiao Xuezheng learned of this news just as he was exiting his grandfather’s room. The events of recent days had left him utterly exhausted and overwhelmed. Upon hearing this, shock washed over his handsome face. He could not believe that the person capable of saving his grandfather was his own young wife—and that, after everything that had transpired, she was still willing to save him.

Xiao Xuezheng leaned against the wall, taking long, deep breaths to recover from the sheer magnitude of the surprise. He felt a profound sense of guilt and self-loathing; as her husband, not only had he failed to protect her, but he had also allowed her to be the one to constantly make sacrifices. He was not a good husband.

The terms were set unilaterally by Shi Runrun. The surgery was scheduled for three days later. From the moment she made her decision, Shi Runrun had to take a significant amount of medication. Although the doctors, mindful of her pregnancy, prescribed the mildest drugs possible to minimize harm, there were inevitably risks to the babies in her womb. Not to mention the toll such a major surgery would take. Shi Runrun could only pray every day, hoping her babies would be strong. She asked them to hold on just a few more days; once she had saved her grandfather and repaid the kindness of the elderly couple, she would take them and leave.

That afternoon, however, she finally saw the man who had been missing for several days. When he appeared in her room and stood by her bedside, it felt surreal to her. She had thought he would never appear before her again.

"Runrun..."

He called her name softly, using that familiar, deep, and melodic voice that resonated to her very core. But Shi Runrun knew she could no longer afford to have him. She lay in the hospital bed, her eyes hollow, suppressing the painful, frantic pounding of her heart and the tears pricking her eyelids. She struggled to keep from looking at him or responding.

The next second, he asked, "Why did you agree to donate your heart tissue?"

Shi Runrun remained silent.

"Why won't you answer me? Have you stopped loving me? Have you completely given up on me?"

This statement finally provoked her. She snapped her head up, her eyes turning toward him with a chilling gaze, and she curled her lips into a cold smile. "I thought you were very clear on that!"

"Is it because of Chi Wanwan?" Xiao Xuezheng stood by the bed, looking down at the face he had missed so desperately over the past few days, his voice softening.

Shi Runrun laughed.

His tone softened further, his haggard, weathered face revealing a sense of helplessness. "That day in her room, I asked you that for a reason. You stepped on her oxygen mask, cutting off her supply—if she had died, you would have faced legal consequences. You would have gone to prison, perhaps even paid with your life. It isn't worth losing your life over a woman like Chi Wanwan!"

Listening to this, her heart, previously as firm as iron, softened for a fleeting moment. Her brows knit together. Why did he speak of Chi Wanwan as if she were an unimportant outsider? Was she not the woman he had been keeping and deeply in love with? Had they not even had a child together? Though that child had been miscarried.

The next second, Xiao Xuezheng’s words explained her confusion. "Chi Wanwan's child was not mine. I have never touched her. I have done nothing to betray you. I told you before, can you please trust me unconditionally?"

Shi Runrun fell silent. In that instant, she truly wanted to believe him, but... she had already trusted him so many times. And what had each instance of trust earned her? It had cost her her first child in a car accident, led to her nearly drowning in a river, and now, she had almost died from a gunshot wound during a medical dispute. Every time she believed in him, nothing good came of it. Shi Runrun was afraid; she did not want to try again. She was truly tired.

So, despite how moving and firm his words sounded now, she had no intention of believing him.

She bit her lip, gave a faint smile, and said, "Xiao Xuezheng... it is all too late. I am truly, deeply exhausted. Every time I trusted you, I paid a heavy price. So this time, I have decided to let you go."

The man's reddened eyes widened. The next moment, Shi Runrun sat up, reached into the bedside drawer, and produced the divorce agreement she had prepared long ago, holding it out to him.

"I am leaving with nothing. I don't want anything from the Xiao family, and I don't want you. Sign the papers. I will donate the heart tissue to save grandfather. We are getting a divorce."

Xiao Xuezheng trembled, his dark, lifeless eyes fixed upon her. He did not reach out to take the agreement; he lacked the courage to touch it. He lowered his gaze, staring at her in a daze, and let out a bleak, hollow laugh before whispering, "No, I won't divorce you. I told you, I will only marry one woman in this life. You are just angry right now. Calm down, and when you are composed, I will come back to talk to you, to coax you, and to beg for your forgiveness."

With that, he walked out of the room in a hurry. The atmosphere here was too stifling for him. Xiao Xuezheng felt as if his throat were being crushed, leaving him unable to breathe. He was terrified that if he stayed for even one more second, she would force him to sign the papers and divorce her.

No! That was impossible! The word "divorce" did not exist in his life's dictionary. Especially not with her. Because... because he had already fallen deeply in love with her.

Inside the room, Shi Runrun held the divorce agreement in mid-air, unable to lower it for a long time. She sat blankly on the bed, watching the setting sun outside the window, and a self-mocking smile tugged at the corners of her lips.

He refused to divorce... but why? Shi Runrun could not understand, no matter how hard she tried. Was her leaving not a good thing for him? She thought to herself that he was always like this—hurting her with one hand while performing gestures of reluctance with the other. Sometimes, she truly did not know if there had ever been a place for her in his heart, even the smallest one. Did she exist in his heart at all?