Disabled Childhood Sweetheart: A Humble Puppy Begs for the Young Lady's Pity

Inside a private hospital.

Qiao Yue was carefully feeding the old lady porridge at her bedside, and the old lady looked at her with loving eyes.

"You are so much better than my daughter-in-law. It's kind of you to overlook Xiao Ze and come here to take care of me."

"Grandma, it's all my fault. It's normal that Jingchen doesn't like me. I'm not as pretty as that woman..."

The old woman straightened up. "You've seen her before?"

"Yes, you should know her too, her name is Wenxi."

The old woman's face suddenly turned cold. "Wenxi..." Her voice trembled, "It's her who's bewitched my grandson, making him so distracted! It seems I was too lenient six years ago, allowing her to shamelessly continue to harass our Xiaoze..."

"Six years ago?" Qiao Yue asked curiously. "You knew her before that?"

The old woman looked at her, her cloudy eyes becoming distant, and hummed in agreement. "I saw her six years ago."

.....

Wenxi changed into her costume backstage, wearing her number tag on her chest, and waited to go on stage.

She held her phone in her hand, looking down at the screen saver—a photo of her and Zhou Jingchen.

Her arms wrapped affectionately around his neck, their cheeks close together, and they laughed happily.

The voices of the host and the applause of the audience reached her ears. Amidst the noise, Wenxi closed her phone, and her thoughts suddenly drifted away.

She remembered the past.

It was June 1999. Hongxing Machinery Factory couldn't withstand the growing pains of the transformation period and went bankrupt, leaving my parents unemployed at home.

One Saturday night, around midnight, the family was sleeping at home.

Suddenly, the iron gate of the compound was kicked open violently, and a group of people wielding sticks rushed into the house menacingly.

The mother hurriedly got up and warned her in a low voice to stay in the bedroom and not to make a sound or open the door.

Outside the bedroom door, the sounds of smashing and breaking came quickly, mixed with foul curses. 19-year-old Wenxi huddled in the corner, trembling with fear, tears streaming down her face. She covered her mouth tightly, not daring to make a sound.

That night, her parents didn't have time to pack much. They took the only valuables they had and hurriedly left Pingjiang with her.

Wenxi didn't even have time to take away the photo of her and Zhou Jingchen; the only thing she kept was the necklace around her neck that she never took off.

At the time, she thought she was just going away to hide for a while, but she never expected that once she left, she would never be able to return to the small town where she was born and raised.

It was during their escape that her parents told her the whole truth.

During her senior year of high school, the Hongxing Machinery Factory was already struggling to survive, encountering obstacles in loan approvals, and the state required state-owned factories across the country to find their own way out.

The heavy burden fell entirely on the factory director's shoulders.

The land and equipment in the factory belong entirely to the state, and even the factory director has no right to sell or mortgage a single penny of them.

Wen Zhiting racked his brains and tried every possible method, but it was all in vain.

Seeing the factory he had worked so hard for his whole life about to come to an end, seeing Master Zhou fall unexpectedly under the factory's machinery and never get up again, seeing thousands of factory workers about to face layoffs and the hardship of having no means of livelihood, the responsibility on his shoulders and the torment of morality weighed heavily on him, making it hard for him to breathe.

With no other options, he had no choice but to take a desperate gamble and mortgage his entire house and property.

Even with all the family savings, they could only scrape together a little over a million yuan, while purchasing new equipment would require at least six or seven million. Where would they find the rest?

Desperate, Wen Zhiting turned to loan sharks.

At that time, he heard that the government might issue a series of support policies for the transformation of state-owned enterprises, including debt-to-equity swaps, mergers and acquisitions, and policy subsidies. All these possibilities gave him hope.

He thought he would borrow money at high interest rates to tide him over for a while, until the policy was implemented, and then the factory might be able to revive.

So, relying on his reputation built up over the years at the factory and his crumbling position as factory manager, he found the largest loan shark in the area and borrowed five million yuan in cash. Interest was calculated daily, and the loan had a one-year repayment period.

After the money arrived, he immediately used it to purchase new imported production line equipment for the factory.

Initially, the factory did receive a few orders, which gave everyone a glimmer of hope.

However, the good times didn't last long. Due to their high costs and outdated designs, the products of state-owned factories were quickly squeezed out by products from private and foreign-invested enterprises, resulting in mountains of unsold goods in warehouses and severe overstocking.

In 1999, Hongxing Machinery Factory ultimately could not escape the fate of bankruptcy.

This once glorious state-owned factory ultimately could not withstand the tide of the times, and its fate was sealed as it came to an end.

All the machinery and equipment in the factory were returned to state ownership, but Wen Zhiting was left to shoulder the enormous debt alone.

In that era, people like Wen Zhiting were not uncommon. This seemingly radical yet helpless choice was a microcosm of a specific period in history.

In the rapid development of society, people will sacrifice themselves at every stage; it's just that the ways they sacrifice themselves differ.

Wen Zhiting was a kind-hearted person. The passing of Master Zhou was an indelible blow to him, and he silently carried this burden on his shoulders.

Since the year Master Zhou passed away, his health has deteriorated day by day, with one major and minor illness after another, requiring medication year-round.

He carried the factory to the very end, never letting down Master Zhou or the millions of employees and their families, except for his own wife and children.

Accompanied by the piercing whistle of a train, the family fled Pingjiang and began a life of wandering and hiding from debt collectors.

At that time, Wen Zhiting and his wife Xiang Qin had almost no money left. They fled all the way to the remote Chizhou and barely managed to settle down in a small town.

Wen Zhiting was already in poor health, but he still gritted his teeth and went to work at the chemical plant in town. The harsh working environment made his condition even worse.

Even after hiding in such a remote place, loan sharks still found them, and they carried out another round of vandalism, looting, and arson. Left with no other choice, the family packed their bags again and fled urgently to Jinshi, and later moved to Weishi, Jiangzhou, Chenghua…

He fled and hid, working desperately to pay off his debts, but the debt with high interest rates snowballed and grew bigger and bigger.

Wen Zhiting's health deteriorated further amidst the endless running around and suffering.

In 2001, the family settled in Lianghe, where Wen Zhiting's health suddenly deteriorated, and he was rushed to the hospital. The test results showed lung cancer and a brain tumor.

Those days were the darkest time of Wenxi's life.

In the hospital room at dusk, she sat by her father's bedside, watching his graying temples and aged face, tormented by life and illness, and tears streamed down her face.

At that time, she had just finished a long day of work.

During the day, she worked at a small restaurant, serving tea and water, washing dishes and wiping tables, busy like a spinning top that never stops; at night, she went to a bar to sell drinks, having to read people's faces, smile obsequiously, and outwit those greasy men; late at night, she rushed to the hospital to take over from her mother and stay by her father's bedside.

Every day was exhausting, and every moment was filled with anxiety, fearing that their father would suddenly leave them.

Wenxi gently touched her father's hands, which were covered with rough calluses, the marks left by years of working away from home. Warm tears fell into his palm, spreading a small wet patch.

His skin was sickly sallow, his body was extremely thin, and he spoke weakly. He coughed incessantly, and with each cough, Wenxi's heart clenched.

That night, overwhelming fatigue and helplessness engulfed Wenxi, almost crushing her.

At that moment, she suddenly missed Zhou Jingchen terribly, so much so that her heart ached and she felt like she couldn't breathe.

She wanted to throw herself into his arms, to smell his scent, to have him hold her...

I want him to come and see his father.

She never contacted him again after that phone call.

She had transformed from a proud swan into an ugly duckling that had fallen into a ditch; the unrequited, one-sided affection had deeply wounded her. Especially in her later dejected and impoverished state, her pride and self-respect made it even more impossible for her to contact him again.

But at this moment, all her concerns were thrown to the back of her mind. She wanted to see Zhou Jingchen; she had to see Zhou Jingchen.

Once this thought emerged, it took root and became an urgent obsession, causing her heart, which had been enveloped in numbness and exhaustion, to beat violently again.

I felt uneasy and anxious, yet there was also a hidden sense of anticipation.

The next morning, Wenxi secretly went to the train station alone without telling her parents and bought a train ticket to Linshen.