Chapter 4: The Fiancée Turned Away and a New Life Born of Despair

An Yilin was holding on by sheer force of will alone, the only thing keeping her from collapsing outright in the cold corridor.

Her tears had long since smeared her entire face, her once-exquisite bridal makeup completely ruined, tears and dried bloodstains mixing together on her cheeks, her whole appearance utterly wretched. And yet, at this moment, like someone drowning in a catastrophe clutching at the last strand of a lifeline, she walked with heavy, unsteady steps, step by step, toward Li Yu'en's parents.

"Dad... Mom..." The moment she opened her mouth, her voice shook out of all rhythm, her throat so hoarse she could barely force out a complete word.

Li Zhengde stood there, eyes red-rimmed, his once-straight back now deeply hunched, his expression as ashen as if he had aged ten years in an instant. Beside him, Lin Shuhua had been driven to the very edge of madness by overwhelming grief, her face streaked with tear marks, yet her eyes burned with undisguised fury and resentment.

Bearing that knife-sharp gaze, An Yilin, her voice trembling, begged almost humbly, word by word: "Let me... let me see Yu'en off, one last time, please? I'm his fiancée... I want to send him off properly, as his wife... I beg you..."

The moment the word "wife" left her mouth, it was like a red-hot poisoned needle plunging straight into Lin Shuhua's already taut nerves. She jerked her head up, glaring at An Yilin with eyes about to split from fury.

"You still have the nerve to call yourself his wife?!"

Lin Shuhua's voice was piercingly sharp, laced with venomous hatred: "An Yilin, look at that wedding gown you're wearing! Do you really think putting it on means you can just walk into our Li family's door? You're the one who cursed my son to his death! You bringer of misfortune!"

An Yilin's face drained instantly, paler even than the white gown she wore. Her bloodless lips moved, still trying to plead further, but Lin Shuhua, as if looking at something utterly disgusting, took a large step back, her tone as cold as it could get, without a shred of warmth:

"Impossible. Yu'en is a son of the Li family, and his funeral affairs will be handled entirely by us, the Li family. You're an outsider, you don't need to interfere anymore — and don't even think about setting foot in the Li family's memorial hall!"

"Mom..." An Yilin's tears burst forth again, and she turned helplessly to Li Zhengde. "Please... Yu'en wouldn't want me to be abandoned..."

"Enough."

Li Zhengde, who had remained silent all this while, finally spoke. His voice was hoarse beyond words, yet pressed down heavy, carrying an indisputable coldness and exhaustion: "This is no longer any of your business. Miss An, please go back now."

In that instant, it was as if An Yilin had been struck a stunning blow to the head.

Her entire body froze completely in place, her mind blank, as if she couldn't believe what she had just heard.

It had, after all, been her and Yu'en's wedding day. They had been just moments away from exchanging rings, becoming husband and wife. But now, the person she loved most was gone, and she found herself stripped completely of even the right to see him off one last time, to look at him one final time.

Lin Shuhua looked at her, not the slightest softening in her eyes — only deep rejection, wariness, and coldness remained.

She had loathed this marriage from the very beginning. She had resented that An Yilin's family background was too lofty, too complicated, its reach into both the legitimate world and the underworld far too dangerous. Now that her only son had died so tragically, all she wanted was a complete break — she never wanted An Yilin to touch anything belonging to the Li family ever again.

An Yilin stood there alone, and in that moment, it felt as though the whole world had utterly abandoned her.

The dual blow to her body and spirit finally pushed her, in that instant, to her absolute limit. The weakness from blood loss, the sudden shock of the car crash, the collapse of reason into hysterical weeping, and now the Li family's merciless expulsion — it all became the final straw, mercilessly draining the very last of her strength.

Her body swayed violently twice, her vision rapidly darkening, her face turning nearly transparent white. In the next instant, without any warning, her whole body went limp, and she pitched straight forward.

"Yilin—!"

Xia Xingcheng screamed and, quick as lightning, rushed forward, reaching out to catch her. Gu Yanxi lunged in as well, and the two of them, straining with all their strength, barely managed to hold her up.

"Little Lin!"

An Jingchuan arrived like a whirlwind in an instant, moving with extraordinary speed to scoop his limp sister up into his arms. Looking down at his sister, her eyes shut tight, her breath so faint it was barely perceptible, his expression tightened to something frightening, the veins on his forehead standing out.

"Get a doctor! Prepare a VIP room right now!" An Jingchuan's voice was cold and heavy as iron, his dark eyes suppressing a wildly churning mixture of fury and heartache.

[The Hidden Eye of the Storm]

Inside the upscale VIP hospital room, the smell of disinfectant still hung sharp in the air.

While An Yilin was being taken for a full-body examination, the entire room fell into a suffocating silence. An Jingche, An Jingchuan, Xia Xingcheng, and Gu Yanxi all kept watch by the bed, none of them speaking a word.

No one knew how much time had passed before the attending physician entered the room holding a report, his expression faintly grave. He glanced once at An Yilin, lying lifeless on the bed, then turned to face the two stern-faced An brothers.

"The examination results are in. Miss An's condition is primarily shock, caused by extreme emotional collapse and physical exhaustion." The doctor paused, took a deep breath, and what came next dropped like a depth charge into the calm surface of the sea:

"However, she is pregnant."

The moment those words left his mouth, the entire room fell so silent you could have heard a leaf fall.

Xia Xingcheng's mind went completely blank, frozen in place, unable to move; Gu Yanxi clapped a hand over her mouth, even her breath catching for an instant.

An Jingchuan's body jolted violently, his hands, which had been hanging loosely at his sides, suddenly clenching into fists. And the eldest son, An Jingche, standing by the window with his expression hidden in shadow, immediately lifted his gaze — in those ink-black eyes, the core of the underworld itself, a deep, extremely complex emotion surfaced in an instant.

"It's only been about a month or so, still very early," the doctor added dutifully. "But given her current psychological state and the sheer intensity of her emotional swings, it's extremely dangerous both for her own body and for the fetus — there's a real risk of miscarriage at any moment."

At this, the handful of people in the room fell once more into a deathly silence.

Li Yu'en was dead.

And yet, inside An Yilin's womb, his flesh and blood was, at this very moment, growing.

For the An family, already reeling in this storm, this news was simply too heavy, too sudden. If it were leaked to the Li family right now, given Lin Shuhua's current state of frenzied, extreme distress, it would only send things spiraling completely out of control — it might even provoke the Li family into an all-out, ruthless battle to seize the child.

Just as the tension in the room stretched to the point of breaking, the door to the room was pushed open, and the true head of the An family — An Hengchuan — strode in, the matriarch Shen Tinglan at his side.

After listening to the doctor's full report, a flicker of deep contemplation crossed An Hengchuan's dignified face — a face that commanded respect in both the legitimate world and the underworld. He looked at his daughter, pale as death on the bed, and made his decision in a low, steady voice:

"Don't say anything for now. Lock down the news throughout the entire hospital. This matter stays hidden, for the time being."

His voice was low, deep, yet carried the absolute weight of someone at the very top, instantly pressing down every restless, anxious emotion in the room.

Standing beside him, Shen Tinglan's eyes carried an extraordinarily complex weight. As a renowned practitioner of traditional medicine, she stepped forward gently and pressed her fingers to her daughter's cold pulse, her brow knitting tight. After a long silence, she finally nodded through tears, agreeing to her husband's decision.

An Jingche said nothing the entire time, only walking slowly to the bedside. His body, forged through the harshest military training, was tense, his gaze as deep and unfathomable as the night itself. He understood full well that this child's arrival would make the situation ahead a thousand times more complicated, a thousand times more dangerous.

But he also understood, just as clearly, that this not-yet-formed child might be the last thread of hope, the last thing keeping Yilin tethered to life, that Li Yu'en had left behind for her in this world.

Xia Xingcheng, eyes red, tears swimming in them, lowered her voice and asked quietly, "So... when Yilin wakes up, what do we do? Do we tell her?"

In that vast, luxurious, empty hospital room, no one could offer an answer.

Because every single person there knew, with absolute clarity, that after this night, the smooth, happy path that should have been An Yilin's life had been utterly torn apart, sending her down a completely unpredictable road strewn with thorns.