Chapter 110: The Anxious Katerina

The next morning, Yangyang woke naturally, and for once, slept until he awoke on his own.

When he got out of bed, the bedroom was already flooded with sunlight from the window.

The glare was blinding, making sleep impossible to continue.

It was late morning in the truest sense, and Yangyang had truly awakened of his own accord.

He glanced at the clock hanging in the room. It was already a quarter past ten, almost noon.

"How strange. Why didn’t Chang Yu wake me?" Yangyang muttered, puzzled.

Under normal circumstances, Chang Yu always woke him before seven.

Usually, as soon as Chang Yu woke up, he would casually shake Yangyang awake as well.

Because of that, the little ginseng who had only been a human for less than a month had not managed to sleep in even once since taking human form.

Thinking about it carefully, he really was quite a failure as a ginseng.

He had even ended up being handled so completely by his own meal ticket.

"Chang Yu!"

"Chang Yu!"

He hopped out of bed briskly, pulled on his slippers, and shouted at the top of his lungs.

After a while, there was no answer from outside.

"Chang Yu, my boy!"

Still no response.

Something about this was off, and Yangyang felt a twinge of unease.

If Chang Yu had ignored the first two calls, that was one thing. Maybe he simply did not feel like answering.

But why had he not responded to the last one, either?

In Yangyang’s mind, Chang Yu should have answered with great excitement.

Even if Chang Yu did not want to call him Uncle Yangyang, he should at least be storming over with a rolling pin, furious and ready to fight, right?

When had Chang Yu ever been able to endure this kind of grievance?

Bad news.

Could it be that his meal ticket had abandoned him and run off alone?

The more Yangyang thought about it, the more likely it seemed, and the more complicated his expression became.

Hadn’t television always shown this kind of scene?

Parents who did not want to raise a child would quietly slip away while the child was asleep, as though shaking off a dead weight.

Come to think of it, with Chang Yu’s character, he really might do something like that.

Realizing that something was terribly wrong, Yangyang hurried into the living room, where he happened to see Chang Yu curled up on the sofa, fast asleep.

"Chang Yu is... still not awake?" Yangyang murmured uncertainly.

In his memory, Chang Yu very rarely slept this late and still did not get up.

"And... why is he sleeping in the living room? Does he think our bed is too small?"

At the time he said this, Yangyang still did not know that Chang Yu had moved to the sofa because he could not stand Yangyang’s wild sleeping habits at night.

Thinking of this, Yangyang’s expression turned somewhat hurt. "Since when did this huge house become too small for the two of us?"

"He clearly knows I’m still here, but he keeps wanting us to sleep in separate rooms. Tell me, has he changed his heart? Does he have another woman?"

"I love him so much. I’m devoted to him, I do everything for his own good, and I even help take care of this home. And yet, in the end, I was the one who had to bear everything alone."

"Let’s break up! You awful scumbag, we’re just not right for each other. A toad like you is not worthy of a swan like me!"

After smoothly reciting the lines he had learned from a daytime relationship show the night before, Yangyang’s eyes were already blurred with tears.

He stretched out his tiny hand and cautiously poked Chang Yu in the lower back, only to find that Chang Yu showed no sign of waking at all. That left him feeling somewhat defeated.

"Sleeping this deeply?" Yangyang refused to believe it and pulled back the blanket, then mischievously tickled Chang Yu’s soles with his fingers. "Let’s see whether you wake up now!"

Chang Yu was still sleeping soundly. His complexion was rosy, a faint smile rested on his lips, and there was no sign of him waking at all.

It was as if he were having a beautiful...

A beautiful dream. Even in the real world, a warm smile still bloomed on Chang Yu’s face.

"I’m hungry. Get up and cook for me."

At last, Yangyang lost all patience.

He plopped down on top of Chang Yu and began smacking his face with both hands, the blows fluttering down like a spinning windmill.

In an instant, the entire living room echoed with crackling slaps, and before long, Chang Yu’s face had been puffed up by Yangyang.

"Bad! Something must have happened to Chang Yu!" Though Yangyang lacked life experience, he still had eyes.

After taking that series of blows from him, let alone a person, even a pig should have woken up by now.

Yet for some reason, no matter what Yangyang did today, Chang Yu remained motionless in a deep, heavy sleep.

Chang Yu’s body must have gone wrong somewhere. That was Yangyang’s first thought; otherwise, he would have been awake by now.

"What should I do? What should I do?" Yangyang was so anxious he was like an ant on a hot pan, but he could not think of any solution.

He paced back and forth in the living room, his little face tight with worry, the mischievous smile of his usual self gone without a trace.

"If it really comes to it, if it really comes to it... then there’s only one thing left to do!"

After wandering in circles for a long time, Yangyang finally hardened his heart and made a decision that was very difficult for him.

He picked up Chang Yu’s phone and, with practiced ease, found Comrade Li’s contact information.

"Hello, hello, is this Comrade Li?" Yangyang called in a fluster and got through at once.

"Little Chief Yangyang! What is it?" Comrade Li’s distinctive, magnetic voice came through the other end of the line.

"Chang Yu, Chang Yu..." Yangyang opened his mouth to speak, but his voice broke into inexplicable sobs.

"What’s wrong with Chief Chang Yu? Speak up!" Realizing that something was terribly wrong, Comrade Li suddenly became alarmed.

"Chang Yu, Chang Yu... he might not make it. Hurry and prepare for his funeral!"

"What?" The voice on the other end rose by a full octave. "But Chief Chang Yu was perfectly fine yesterday, wasn’t he?"

"We were even drinking together yesterday. How did he wake up this morning and suddenly not make it? What exactly happened over there?"

"Was it a terrorist attack? Did enemies come for revenge? Or was it a retaliatory strike from the disasters?"

That string of questions left Yangyang completely stunned.

Heavens, he was only a child!

How was a child supposed to know so much?

"If I knew why he turned into this, why would I be calling you? Just get here already!" After throwing out that fierce retort, Yangyang hung up without another word.

"What a big fool," Yangyang muttered under his breath, and even he was not sure whether he was talking about Comrade Li or himself.

Ding-dong.

Suddenly, the doorbell rang from outside, jolting Yangyang out of his panic.

"Who is it?" Yangyang scampered toward the door on his short legs.

"It’s me." Katerina’s cool voice came from outside.

If Yangyang had listened carefully, he would have noticed a faint trace of urgency in her voice.

Unfortunately, he did not notice anything unusual about Katerina at all.

At this moment, his heart was already completely filled with fear and alarm.

He shivered uncontrollably, feeling a chill rise from deep inside him. "Y-you... you wicked woman, why are you here?"

"D-don’t tell me... you’re finally going to make your move on me? But I’m still little! You can’t use me to make tea."

He said it in such a trembling voice that it sounded as though he were walking on thin ice.

It was as if he were facing not a young and beautiful woman, but a notorious murderer.

"You’re overthinking it. I only came to check on Chang Yu’s condition," Katerina said, frowning slightly outside the door. She felt that Yangyang’s imagination was a little too wild, almost slandering a good person without cause.

Had she ever said she wanted to use Yangyang to make tea?

Was this not simply Yangyang’s own invention?

"Th-this..." Yangyang looked torn, his face turning pale and then white again.

Whether to open the door was a very serious question.

If he handled it badly, he might truly become the fish and meat on the wicked woman’s chopping board, at her mercy.

But if he did not open the door today, then what would happen to Chang Yu...

Just as Yangyang was caught in a desperate dilemma, Katerina spoke again from outside.

"I just heard Comrade Li on the phone saying that Chang Yu’s condition has now reached a critically dangerous stage."

"I do not have time to play childish games with you."

"I’ll count to three. If you still do not open the door when I’m done, then don’t blame me for breaking it down by force."

As she spoke, Katerina drew a brand-new miniature pistol from the back of her waistband and aimed it at the deadbolt.

The moment she finished counting, she would shoot the lock to pieces and rush straight into the house.

At that point, whether Yangyang opened the door or not would make no difference.

"One!"

Katerina’s firm, ringing voice made Yangyang realize she was absolutely not joking.

There was no time to hesitate. He immediately shouted, "Wait! Wait! I’ll open it, okay? I’ll open it!"

As he spoke, he rose onto his tiptoes and quickly unlocked the door.

Then, before Katerina could react, he darted backward and put distance between them.

In front of Katerina, Yangyang felt exactly like a pig or sheep about to be slaughtered facing a knife-wielding butcher, the helpless prey confronting its natural enemy.

Cherish life. Stay away from Katerina.

That was the life lesson Yangyang had long since learned.

Seeing Katerina stride in through the door in a single step, Yangyang backed away several more paces, widening the distance again before he felt a little safer.

"Let me warn you: don’t keep thinking of laying some crooked hands on me," he said, though perhaps because Chang Yu was not there to protect him, he was a little flustered facing Katerina alone.

The pressure Katerina gave Yangyang was simply too strong, so strong that even breathing felt difficult.

But Katerina had no time to trade words with him, because she had already seen Chang Yu lying on the sofa.

All her attention was already fixed on Chang Yu’s serene face.

In truth, when she learned from Comrade Li that something had happened to Chang Yu, her heart had been in utter turmoil.

As someone who had lacked parental love to an extreme degree since childhood, there were not many people who truly cared about Katerina, and Chang Yu was certainly one of them.

Because they shared a similar background, Katerina felt a natural closeness to Chang Yu.

In a sense, the two of them belonged to the same kind of people.

She was very, very afraid that Chang Yu had truly left this world, just as her parents had.

Perhaps even she herself did not realize that, before she knew it, her concern for Chang Yu had already become more than the concern of a superior for a subordinate.

There were also countless other things mixed in there, difficult to name...

"His condition is very unusual," Katerina said gravely as she checked Chang Yu’s pulse and breathing.

"Pulse normal. Breathing normal. That means Chang Yu is still alive." As a girl who had studied the art of health preservation and traditional medicine since childhood, Katerina made her judgment without the slightest hesitation.

Although she had confirmed that Chang Yu was still alive, her expression still did not relax.

"But what is so eerie is that no matter what, he cannot be woken up, like those in a vegetative state, able only to maintain vital signs."

"Though I am well versed in health preservation, I have never encountered anything so strange before."

If Chang Yu remained in this state and could not wake up, then even if he was alive, it would be no different from being dead.

With that thought, Katerina’s expression once again turned anxious.