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At this moment, some noises suddenly came from the direction of the living room.

Lu Shicheng and Wen Tingli turned their heads at the same time to listen to the noise, and then looked back at each other at the same time.

Unconsciously, there seemed to be a little more mysterious tacit understanding and trust between the two people. The dimples on Wen Tingli's lips moved, and she whispered to Lu Shicheng: "Doctor Louis is awake, I'll go out and take a look."

Lu Shicheng nodded with the thermometer in his mouth. Wen Tingli looked at him and smiled, then picked up the empty bowl and other things on the table.

Louis sat on the sofa in the living room and rubbed his eyes.

"Miss Wen, how is Mr. Lu?"

Wen Tingli told Louis what had just happened. After that, she went straight to the kitchen and asked Louis to make a cup of tea. When she returned to the inner room, she saw that Lu Shicheng had fallen asleep with his head tilted to one side, with a thermometer in his mouth.

Wen Tingli said worriedly: "It was the same just now. He was awake one second and fell asleep the next."

"Don't worry, he doesn't have a fever."

Lewis took out the thermometer and looked at it, then explained to her, "It's normal for Mr. Lu to love to sleep. He has suffered a brain injury. Although he has been taking medicine these days, the blood clot can only be absorbed slowly by himself. In addition, the dosage of the painkillers I gave him was relatively large, and there were some sleeping pills in the medicine. In addition, his nervous system is still recovering, so he is sleepy. Even if he wakes up, he will be in a trance."

Wen Tingli was surprised. No wonder he was so well-behaved, sometimes even a little childish.

Louis sighed: "You are so badly injured, it's good to be able to sleep. Rest more and the wound will heal faster."

Wen Tingli nodded carefully.

***
Just as Louis said, Lu Shicheng spent most of the next week in a coma, but every time he woke up, his condition was obviously better than before.

That morning, Lu Shicheng woke up and found the room empty.

He cast his gaze towards the door and waited patiently.

Soon, footsteps were heard outside the door, and it turned out to be Louis who came in.

"Awake?" Louis said in a relaxed tone, "Well, you look much better this morning."

Lu Shicheng looked at him disappointedly, but Louis walked to the bedside and said solemnly, "Mr. Kuang returned to Shanghai last night and sent a message this morning saying that everything went well."

Lu Shicheng nodded, and Louis fed him some food and helped him walk.

Whenever he passed by the door, Lu Shicheng would always stop and turn his head to listen. Louis pondered and asked, "Does Mr. Lu want to contact Mr. Kuang?"

Lu Shicheng shook his head.

Louis helped Lu Shicheng lie back on the bed. When he changed the dressing, he looked up inadvertently and saw Lu Shicheng staring at the door.

"Mr. Lu?" Louis couldn't help but speak again.

Lu Shicheng turned his gaze back to Louis' face as if nothing had happened.

[Is Miss Wen not at home? ]

Louis showed an expression of sudden enlightenment.

"She left early in the morning. She said that her new drama will start filming soon. The crew will hold a seminar in advance today. She is the lead actress and cannot be absent."

After saying this, Louis finally felt Lu Shicheng's loss. He wanted to say something, but Lu Shicheng didn't seem to want to communicate with him, so he had to take the plate out. Xiao Taozi and Zhou Sao happened to come back from the vegetable market. Xiao Taozi saw that the door was open, so she quickly shook off Zhou Sao's hand and ran into the house.

“Come out quickly and don’t disturb Mr. Lu’s rest.” Mrs. Zhou hurriedly chased after him, but Louis stopped her.

He motioned to Mrs. Zhou to look inside. Lu Shicheng was listening to Xiao Taozi with great interest.

"Good morning, Mr. Lu." Xiao Taozi greeted Lu Shicheng just like her sister did, but as usual she called "Lu" as "Ru".

Lu Shicheng smiled slightly, stretched out his uninjured hand and shook hands with Xiao Taozi's chubby hand. Xiao Taozi felt Lu Shicheng's friendliness and encouragement, and laughed happily twice.

Seeing that Xiao Taozi was quite sensible, Mrs. Zhou felt relieved and went to do other things.

Little Taozi paced back and forth in front of the bed. When passing by some sundries, she grabbed the edge of the cabinet with both hands and stood on tiptoe to look up.

She was very curious about the difference between what Lu Shicheng ate and what she ate.

She soon found something on the cabinet, turned to look at Lu Shicheng, and confirmed that Lu Shicheng had no objection to her taking things from above, then moved something that looked like a can from the top of the cabinet.

"Nutritional paste." Xiao Taozi slapped the can lid, "Sister, I bought it from a big pharmacy. It's expensive. Only Mr. Lu can eat it. Mr. Lu is a patient. Xiao Taozi doesn't need to eat it."

After saying a lot of things, Xiao Taozi finally held the jar in front of Lu Shicheng with sympathy.

Lu Shicheng wrote the word "thank you" on the bed rail and then looked at Xiao Taozi.

Little Taozi looked confused. She was only three years old and was not familiar with words written on paper with pen and ink, let alone invisible words written with fingers. She tilted her head and thought for a while, then ran out with "dong dong dong". After a while, she came back with a pile of textbooks.

"Sister is teaching me how to read." Little Taozi pointed at the page with her chubby finger and read proudly, "山, 中, 大, 小."

Lu Shicheng looked at the notebook. The row of words on the left were obviously copied by Wen Tingli. They were all in neat regular script. She copied the entire notebook and each word was written in huge size.

Judging from the crooked scribbles on the right, Xiao Taozi has just learned to the fifth page.

When reading to the sixth page, Xiao Taozi got stuck.

That is the character "water".

Lu Shicheng looked around, then pointed at the water cup beside him and asked Xiao Taozi to look inside.

Xiao Taozi looked down, still with a puzzled look on her face, so Lu Shicheng pretended to drink water from his neck, pointed at the water in the cup, and then motioned Xiao Taozi to look at the word "water" on the notebook.

Little Taozi finally understood a little bit, staring at the word and saying blankly: "Water."

Lu Shicheng raised his eyebrows.

Every time Xiao Taozi said the word "water", Lu Shicheng smiled and nodded.

Xiao Taozi became completely excited and ran out with the notebook in her hand to find Mrs. Zhou: "Water, Mrs. Zhou, water."

Mrs. Zhou and Louis mistakenly thought that Lu Shicheng wanted to drink water, so they ran over. After figuring out that Xiao Taozi had just learned the word "water", Mrs. Zhou walked into the house a little helplessly and said, "It's hard for Mr. Lu to be so patient. This child usually quarrels with her sister like this. It will never end if it goes on like this. You must be tired. I'll take Xiao Taozi out right away."

Lu Shicheng just shook his head. Xiao Taozi became more interested and ran back to the bed to ask Lu Shicheng to teach her the next word.

This time it’s the character “花”.

Lu Shicheng thought about it and looked up towards the window. The pot of peanut seedlings planted by Wen Tingli stood quietly in the morning light, with a few dark green leaves reflecting the bright white light.

He pointed to the windowsill and encouraged Xiao Taozi with his eyes to tell her what it was. Xiao Taozi really said loudly, "These are the peanut seedlings my sister planted."

Lu Shicheng took the opportunity to point to the word "flower" on the notebook. He thought that Xiao Taozi would learn it quickly after the previous experience, but Xiao Taozi said, "Sister!"

Or it’s just “grass”.

After teaching her many times, she still couldn't learn it. Lu Shicheng looked around the room and suddenly found two celluloid flowers embedded on the doll shoes on Xiao Taozi's feet.

He propped himself up with his arms and slowly moved a few inches out of the bed, letting Xiao Taozi look down at her shoes.

Little Taozi slowly squatted down and stroked the soft flower bud with her little hands: "Huahua."

Lu Shicheng immediately motioned to Xiao Taozi to look at the word "花" in the book. This time Xiao Taozi got it right: "花!"

Lu Shicheng touched Xiao Taozi's head, and Xiao Taozi ran out excitedly. In a blink of an eye, she came back with a big box. When she opened it, it was full of various candies.

Among the pile of snacks, Taozi's favorite was a chocolate ball wrapped in gold paper. She picked one out specifically to give to Lu Shicheng.

"Mr. Lu, eat."

Lu Shicheng pointed to the wound on his head apologetically, indicating that he couldn't eat.

Xiao Taozi still took out two pills and placed them next to his pillow, and said to Lu Shicheng generously: "Don't eat them yet, eat them when you're ready."

Then, she peeled a candy, put it in her mouth with great care, chewed it carefully for a while, and rummaged in the jar again. After a while, she took out a few cookies wrapped in paper and introduced them to Lu Shicheng, saying, "Sister loves to eat this. The chocolate is from Xiao Taozi. Sister has no money, so she eats sparingly. When sister makes money from filming, she buys lots of chocolate for Xiao Taozi and lots of cookies for herself."

She opened her chubby arms and drew an infinitely large circle towards Lu Shicheng. Lu Shicheng was silent for a moment, then took the cookie from Xiao Taozi and looked at it carefully.

Little Taozi ate only one chocolate and couldn't bear to eat any more. She carefully closed the lid, ran out with the jar in her arms, and came back to hold the little notebook and asked Lu Shicheng to teach her how to read.

***
At this moment, Wen Tingli was holding a meeting in the business department of Golden Pictures.

It was originally scheduled to start filming on Tuesday, but for some reason Huang Yuanshan had a disagreement with Liu Menglin, the big boss of Golden Pictures, which caused the start time to be postponed again. However, the company attached great importance to this drama. Huang Yuanshan not only called several leading actors of the crew to the company in turn to discuss the play, but also personally took Wen Tingli to the company's studio to familiarize herself with the environment in advance.

The studio was rented in Caojiadu, with an area of ​​500 to 600 square meters. The camera was the latest Bell camera bought from an American businessman, and there were also all kinds of equipment such as mercury lamps and carbon lamps (Note). After entering the studio, Wen Tingli felt dazzled. Although she often performed on stage, this was her first time to shoot a movie in a studio. She had no experience in how to move around or how to find the camera. Huang Yuanshan had just explained a few words to Wen Tingli when a newspaper reporter came to interview Huang Yuanshan. Soon, several stagehands came and said that a batch of new props needed Huang Yuanshan to inspect in person.

After a while, the head office called and the producer had several important matters to ask Huang Yuanshan in person. Huang Yuanshan immediately left the stage.

Wen Tingli was dumbfounded by the constant back and forth. She had never known filming to be so troublesome. It looked like Huang Yuanshan had no time to teach her, so she had to ask the seniors on the set for advice. However, the people in the studio were all unfamiliar, and everyone was busy with their own things. No one had time to pay attention to her. Wen Tingli hit a wall several times in a row and could only hold the script in a corner and ponder it by herself. When it was almost dark, the assistant director came running and said, "Hurry up, the crew of Sands of Time is going to shoot a night scene."

Wen Tingli was almost chased out of the studio.

She simply didn't know how to describe her day. She stood at the door for a long time, and then groped her way to the dressing room at the back to remove her makeup. As she was removing her makeup, she suddenly realized that she hadn't seen several of the main actors in the same crew all day.

She knew that the male lead of this play was the popular actor Wu Sheng, and the supporting roles were played by veteran actors such as Wen Guanhua and Lin Shaoyun. In front of these seniors, she was a complete newcomer. This morning, she was the first to rush to the company, ready to greet the seniors one by one when they arrived, but she didn't see any of them until ten o'clock. After that, she stayed in the studio for a whole day, and these people didn't even show up.

Wen Tingli was wondering in her heart when she heard voices outside.

"Hey, what do you think happened?"

"what?"

"Didn't you hear them say just now? The White Dragon Gang seems to be searching for someone recently."

Wen Tingli's ears perked up.

"The strange thing is that they dare not look for it openly, but only look for it secretly."

"Oh, are you looking for someone important?"

The more Wen Tingli listened, the more panicked she became. Although Lu Shicheng was alert, he was still seriously injured. Zhou Sao and Xiao Taozi were unarmed, and it was unknown whether Dr. Louis had a gun. If the White Dragon Gang came to their door, they would be in great danger.

When she went out, she saw that the two people in the corridor had already gone far away. Wen Tingli hurriedly called a taxi to rush home. When she was almost at her apartment, she felt that something was wrong around her. There were more suspicious people on the side of the road, and there were more than ten cars parked along the road.

Wen Tingli quietly clenched the gun in her bag and asked the rickshaw driver to go around to the other side. There was a telephone office on the side of the road, so she immediately got off the rickshaw and called home.

Louis answered the phone.

Wen Tingli held her breath and asked, "Doctor, is everything okay at home?"

"Miss Wen?" Louise responded quickly, "Oh don't worry, everything is fine at home."

While talking, she could vaguely hear Xiao Taozi laughing on the other end. The relaxed atmosphere didn't seem forced, and Wen Tingli breathed a sigh of relief.

I hurried home, and as soon as I entered the house, Lewis happened to come out. "What did Miss Wen hear outside today?"

Wen Tingli said anxiously, "I heard that Mr. Lu Sanye and the White Dragon Gang are searching for Mr. Lu everywhere. On the way back, I saw a lot of suspicious people."

Louis smiled and said, "Don't worry, those are all Mr. Lu's people. Mr. Kuang brought people here this morning. Now the Lu family is everywhere within a few miles. Mr. Lu Sanye and the White Dragon Gang will never have the courage to show up again. In Nanyang, Mr. Lu has also received the news. It is said that he will arrive in Shanghai in the next two days."

Wen Tingli's heart was at peace, and she suddenly remembered what Third Master Lu said to Lu Shicheng that night. Mr. Lu was anxious to return home, not necessarily out of concern for his eldest grandson. She instantly felt sympathy for Lu Shicheng and glanced into the room: "Is Mr. Lu asleep?"

"I just fell asleep half an hour ago." Louis wiped the sweat from his head. "Mr. Kuang saw that Mr. Lu was having difficulty moving, so he asked someone to buy a wheelchair. Miss Wen, please go inside and take care of him for a while. I'll go make two phone calls."

Xiao Taozi ran out from the other side holding a big box. She looked up and saw Wen Tingli. She ran over like a gust of wind and stuffed the box into her sister's arms.

Wen Tingli was stunned. It was a jar of her favorite cookies. A few years ago, Qiao Baoxin brought a jar from home and shared it with her classmates. She fell in love with it at first taste. It had a strong caramelized aroma and melted in the mouth. But because the price was too expensive, she had never been willing to buy it from the foreign company since the incident at home.

What Xiao Taozi stuffed into her was a brand new can with the seal on the lid still intact.

"Where did this come from?"

Xiao Taozi dragged Wen Tingli towards the master bedroom without any explanation.

As soon as she entered, Wen Tingli was shocked.

Her bedroom was filled with all kinds of snacks like a mountain, including Xiao Taozi's favorite chocolate, preserved fruits, milk powder, nutritional paste, some newly released foreign high-end snacks, and a pile of newly bought picture books and literacy textbooks.

And at the front of the pile were her favorite cookies, neatly stacked together, at least fifty boxes in total.

Xiao Taozi was jumping around in the snack pile like a little rabbit. "This is for my sister, this is for Xiao Taozi, this is..."

Mrs. Zhou came in and explained with a smile, "Mr. Lu asked someone to buy it. In the morning, a Mr. Kuang brought people here. I don't know what Mr. Lu said to him, but when he came back, he bought a lot of things. I looked and saw that they were all Miss and Xiao Taozi's favorites, and I even got some. Mr. Kuang was so kind and said a lot of good things, asking us to accept them."

As she was speaking, Xiao Taozi shot out like an arrow again. Wen Tingli and Mrs. Zhou hurriedly chased her out of the door, but Xiao Taozi just ran back to her room, took out a notebook and stuffed it into her sister's hand.

Opening the book, Xiao Taozi babbled the words on it: "Water, flowers, sky, wood..."

All of them were characters that Wen Tingli had not taught yet.

"Mr. Lu taught me." Mrs. Zhou said with admiration, "He taught me over and over again. He taught me one page in the morning. At noon, I was afraid that Mr. Lu would take a rest, so I dragged Xiao Taozi out. But in the afternoon, I didn't keep an eye on her and she ran back in again. Mr. Lu continued to teach her and she taught me all three pages of words."

Wen Tingli didn't know what to say: "You little rascal."

Little Taozi tilted her head up and waited for her sister to praise her. Wen Tingli kissed her on the cheek and said, "Our little Taozi is the smartest, but don't bother Mr. Lu next time. I'll teach you when your sister comes back."

Mrs. Zhou said, "You haven't eaten yet, there's food on the table, and it's still hot."

Wen Tingli agreed and walked into the inner room quietly.

The sun was about to set, the light in the room was a little dim, and Lu Shicheng was sleeping soundly on the bed.

She sat down beside the bed and watched him sleeping. She couldn't imagine how Lu Shicheng taught Xiao Taozi, but she knew that it must have required extraordinary patience.

She pondered the situation in her mind and almost laughed out loud. She glanced down and saw the jar of cookies in her hand. She propped up her chin and asked in a low voice, "How did Mr. Lu know that I like to eat this?"

It must have been Xiao Taozi who told him. This little traitor!

Naturally, Lu Shicheng couldn't answer her questions at this moment.

He slept deeply.

He seemed to dislike sleeping right in the middle of the bed. On the contrary, he always buried his face in the pillow, as if sleeping more soundly and safely that way.

Wen Tingli was just about to put the cookies aside when she discovered that the small notebook next to his pillow was open, with a line of words written on the blank page.

【Is everything going well today? 】

Wen Tingli's heart was moved.

He probably wrote this sentence in advance and wanted to wait for her to come back to show it to her, but he fell asleep before she came back.

She couldn't help but laugh.

She always reported good news but not bad news. In response to his concern, even though she knew he couldn't hear or see her at the moment, she still picked up the pen and wrote word by word on the paper:
[It went very smoothly. It was my first time in the studio today. Everyone was very helpful to me. Sister Huang asked me to get used to the set for a few days before starting filming.]

At this time, Louis came over with two guards from the Lu family, each holding a food box in his hand. They nodded silently at her at the door, and Wen Tingli hurried out.

The two of them said politely, "Miss Wen, you haven't eaten yet. In the afternoon, Master Cheng said that Miss Wen loves the food here, so he specially asked us to buy it. Why don't you eat first, Miss Wen?"

They opened the food boxes and placed the dishes on the table one by one. There were four dishes and one soup. One could tell at a glance that they were bought from Guangyaju, which was where she had invited Lu Shicheng to dinner for the first time.

Wen Tingli felt sweet in her heart, and asked Louis and the guard earnestly: "Have you all eaten?"

After getting a positive answer, he pulled Mrs. Zhou and Xiao Taozi over to eat together. He first drank a sip of the flat-pointed tofu skin soup, which not only warmed his stomach but also swept away all the tiredness in his body.

Wen Tingli finished her meal contentedly and went back into the room to take care of Lu Shicheng. He still maintained the same sleeping position as before and did not even turn over.

She guessed that he would need to sleep for quite a while, so she quietly took out the script from her bag, sat down on the edge of the bed, and began to recite it silently in the setting sun outside the window.

(End of this chapter)