Do You Feel Sorry for Her
"That's great... Quentin, you'd better hurry home, or your dad will get worried. I'll come find you tomorrow to play. My aunt gave me lots of little trinkets—tomorrow I'll show them to you, and you can have whichever ones you like!" Lucy Lou's eyes sparkled as she looked at Quentin Lin, her gaze cautious, as if afraid he might refuse.
Quentin Lin looked at Lucy Lou's expectant eyes and felt a pang of sympathy. Tilting his head, he grinned, "Alright, tomorrow I'll come see your treasures with you!"
"Deal! Tomorrow, it's a date!" Lucy Lou exhaled in relief, stood up from the ground, and watched Quentin Lin leave.
Quentin Lin hopped away, while Lucy Lou kept standing in place, craning her neck to watch him until his figure disappeared around the corner of the corridor. Only then did she lower her head, feeling a sudden emptiness.
Lucy Lou felt so lonely, so isolated. Even though Madam Lou and Marquis Valor cared for her, she never had a companion, a friend—not ever.
Study.
Quentin Lin sat at his desk, picked up his brush, and recorded the pulse diagnosis he had just performed on Lucy Lou, feeling a surge of guilt in his heart.
These days, Quentin Lin had been using the excuse of treating Madam Lou's injured foot to deliberately get close to Lucy Lou every day, secretly checking her pulse and recording it, hoping to help Dr. Rowan Lin reconstruct the formula for the forbidden elixir.
But Quentin Lin's purposeful approach had made Lucy Lou feel the closeness of true friendship.
Although Quentin Lin was young, he was precocious and sharp-minded. Naturally, he noticed that Lucy Lou—who had never had a friend and was so lonely inside—had already come to see him as a friend.
Even though there was a fifteen-year age gap between them and Quentin Lin was just a little kid, Lucy Lou didn’t seem to mind at all. As long as she had someone to talk to and play with, it didn’t matter that her companion was only a five-year-old toddler.
Lucy Lou seemed to trust him deeply, but was also afraid Quentin Lin might reject her.
After finishing his medical notes, Quentin Lin slumped over his desk, looking utterly listless.
Dr. Rowan Lin walked over, pulled out the pulse record, and examined it carefully, his brows furrowing now and then as if deep in thought.
Quentin Lin pouted, his chubby little lips sticking out: "Dad, if you manage to reconstruct Master Uncle's False Death Elixir, could you find a way to clear the leftover poison from Lucy Lou's body?"
Dr. Rowan Lin was busy reviewing the pulse record and didn’t even lift his eyelids: "If I can truly reconstruct the formula, of course there’s a way to clear the poison. But that toxin has been inside Lucy Lou for twenty years, already corroding her organs. Even if we clear it now, it won’t make much difference. Lucy Lou—her fate was sealed the moment she took the False Death Elixir as a baby. She won’t live long. At most, she’s got five years left."
"She—she only has five years left?" Quentin Lin’s little face went pale. "Isn’t there any other way?"
Dr. Rowan Lin shook his head: "No. The False Death Elixir was likely just developed by your Master Uncle back then, and its effects weren’t fully controlled—plus, it was given to an infant. Lucy Lou surviving and living to twenty is already a miracle. What’s wrong, Quentin, are you feeling sorry for her?"
Quentin Lin drooped his head, his chubby little arms limp at his sides: "Dad, Lucy Lou really isn’t a bad person. She’s pure-hearted, and she’s suffered scorn and bullying since she was little. If someone else had gone through all that, they’d probably be bitter and vengeful. Because of the False Death Elixir, she’s had nothing but hardship—twenty years, and not a single friend. Dad, didn’t you say it was Master Uncle who gave her the elixir? Since it was our Lin family who did this to her, we can’t just stand by and watch. At the very least, we should clear the poison from her body so she can live a little longer."