great-warnovel Chapter 1: A Narrow Escape from Death, and a Lovely Daughter Falls from the Sky
Chapter 1: A Narrow Escape from Death, and a Lovely Daughter Falls from the Sky
When Chen Hao left the hospital, he was holding a discharge summary in his hand, which read "Overworked, rest recommended".
He stood at the hospital entrance, looking at the bustling traffic on the street, and for a moment felt as if he were in a dream.
Three days ago, he worked overtime at the company until 3 a.m., working continuously for more than 20 hours. He fainted at his workstation and was taken to the hospital by an ambulance called by his colleagues.
After being rescued, the doctor said he had myocardial ischemia. If he continued like this, the next time it wouldn't just be a simple fainting spell.
He is 26 years old this year. He graduated three years ago and works as a programmer at this major Internet company. He arrives at work at nine o'clock every morning and is considered early if he can leave at nine o'clock at night. He often works overtime until the early hours of the morning and working six days a week is the norm.
The salary was indeed not low, more than 20,000 yuan after taxes, but over the past three years, he felt that he had almost completely overworked his body.
My hairline has receded, I have problems with my lumbar and cervical spine, and my stomach isn't very good either. The worst thing is that feeling of exhaustion that comes from deep within my bones, which I can't seem to recover from no amount of sleep.
Chen Hao thought a lot during his days in the hospital.
His hometown is a village under a county town in the south. His parents run a small shop and they make a living, though it's not easy.
He was the only one from the village to be admitted to a key university in Beijing. The whole village sent him off to school with gongs and drums, and his mother cried her eyes out.
After graduation, he stayed in Beijing and got a job at a large factory. People in the village thought he was going to make a lot of money in Beijing.
But only he knew that he had only saved a little over 100,000 yuan in the past three years, which was not even enough to buy a bathroom in Beijing given the housing prices there.
He made a decision—to go back to his hometown for a while.
It's not that I'm quitting completely, it's just that I'm going back to rest and recuperate, and I'll talk about it again when I'm back to normal.
He asked his supervisor for a month's leave, and the supervisor didn't make things difficult for him. After all, he had collapsed at his workstation, and the company was worried about something happening, so they gave him an extra subsidy.
Back in his rented apartment, Chen Hao began packing his things.
He rented a small, old shared room for 2,800 yuan a month. The room wasn't big; it contained a bed, a wardrobe, a table, and just enough space to turn around.
I lived there for three years and didn't have much stuff; a gray suitcase could hold most of my belongings.
He stuffed in a few changes of clothes, along with a charger, power bank, and laptop, and that was basically it.
He was squatting on the ground unzipping his suitcase when there was a knock on the door.
"Knock knock knock".
Chen Hao was stunned for a moment.
He doesn't have many friends in this area, and no one usually comes to visit him.
He got up, walked over, and opened the door.
A woman and a little girl of three or four years old were standing outside the door.
Chen Hao froze.
The woman was about 1.68 meters tall, wearing a minimalist off-white trench coat with a loosely tied belt at the waist. The fabric of the trench coat looked to be of very high quality, not the kind of material commonly found on the market.
She wore a black turtleneck sweater underneath, dark gray wide-leg pants, and black lambskin ankle boots with low heels, about three or four centimeters high.
She held the little girl's hand with her left hand, and on her right was a pink suitcase, not very big, about 20 inches, which looked like a children's size.
Her hair was black, reaching her shoulder blades, with a slight natural wave, without any signs of perming or dyeing. It was jet black and shiny, tucked behind her ears, revealing a profile so exquisite it was almost unreal.
Her skin was very white, not the kind of white achieved through makeup, but a porcelain white that shone from within, making her appear as if she had her own soft glow in the dimly lit corridor.
Her eyebrows were thin and natural, with the ends slightly upturned. She had large eyes with deep double eyelids and slightly upturned corners. Her pupils were dark brown, like a deep pool.
Her nose is straight with a small tip. Her lips are a natural light pink, full and slightly thicker than her upper lip. When she purses her lips, the corners of her mouth turn down slightly, giving her an innate sense of aloofness.
Each of her features is exquisitely beautiful on its own, and when put together, they are simply breathtaking.
This isn't the kind of beauty that comes with an internet celebrity face; it's a natural, elegant beauty.
She stood there, back straight, shoulders relaxed, her posture as elegant as if she had stepped out of a painting.
This contrasts sharply with the old, dilapidated walls, peeling paint on the door frames, and the dimly lit corridor.
Chen Hao's gaze shifted to the little girl beside her.
The little girl was about three years old, about the height of a woman's thigh, with two pigtails tied with pink hair ties, which were decorated with two small cherries.
She was wearing a light pink down jacket, zipped all the way up, with a white fur collar around the neckline, which made her small face look even smaller.
Inside was a white sweater with a cartoon rabbit embroidered on the chest.
She wore dark blue fleece-lined jeans and pink and white sneakers.
Her face was round and chubby, and her skin, like her mother's, was fair and glowing.
Her eyebrows were thin and curved, her eyes were big and round, dark and shiny like two black grapes, and her eyelashes were long and fluttering.
Although her nose bridge hasn't fully developed yet, it's already quite prominent, and her little mouth is a lovely pink.
At this moment, she was pouting slightly, her little hands tightly gripping the woman's fingers, her small body half-hidden behind the woman, peeking out half her head, looking timidly at Chen Hao.
Chen Hao felt that this woman looked very familiar, but he couldn't remember where he had seen her before.
The woman glanced down at the little girl, then looked up at Chen Hao and spoke.
Her voice was very pleasant, with a clear and crisp quality, like a mountain stream flowing over stones, unhurried and clear, with a slight Beijing accent but not too strong.
"Chen Hao?"
Chen Hao nodded subconsciously: "I am... and you are?"
The woman didn't answer immediately. Instead, she crouched down, gently pulled the little girl forward a bit, then raised her hand, pointed at Chen Hao, and said to the little girl:
"Xiaoting, look, this is your father. Call him Dad."
The little girl looked up at Chen Hao with her big, dark eyes filled with unfamiliarity and nervousness.
Her little hands gripped her mother's fingers even tighter, her lips pursed, and after a long hesitation, she finally managed to squeeze out a soft, trembling sound—
"dad……"
These two words were like a pebble thrown into a calm lake, creating huge ripples in Chen Hao's heart.
He was completely stunned.
dad?
This little girl calls him dad?
He suddenly looked at the woman in front of him, his mind racing, desperately trying to recall where he had seen her before.
Then, a name suddenly popped up from the depths of my memory—Shen Mengyao.