Transmigration; Married to My Ex-Fiancé's Uncle-Chapter 341; Hospitalisation 2

Silence fell over the room, broken only by the steady beeping of the monitors and Lin Yueling’s labored breathing.

Lu Cheng stepped forward, his expression carefully controlled.

"Lin Yueling," he said quietly. "That baby is my grandson. My son’s only child. I know...." His voice caught, just slightly. "I know you love my son. I know this baby is important to you."

"Mr. Lu...." Lin Feng started.

"Let me finish," Lu Cheng said, not looking away from Lin Yueling. "If you choose to save yourself, I won’t blame you. No one could. But if you choose to save the baby..." He paused. "I will make sure he’s taken care of. I will make sure he knows who his mother was. What she sacrificed. He will never want for anything. And you, your sacrifice won’t be forgotten."

Mrs. Lu stood beside her husband, her face stone-hard. She didn’t add anything. Didn’t need to. Her position was clear.

Save the baby.

Whatever the cost.

Madam Chen was shaking her head frantically. "No. No, Yueling, you don’t have to, you don’t owe them anything. You’re my daughter. You’re....." Her voice broke. "Please. Please choose yourself. We can have other babies. You can...."

"I can’t," Lin Yueling interrupted softly.

She looked at her mother, and there were tears in her eyes.

"Mother, you know I can’t. That baby is...." She swallowed hard. "Lu Zeyan is gone. His mind is gone. That baby is the only part of him left. And if I let it die..." She closed her eyes. "I could never forgive myself."

"Yueling...." Lin Feng’s voice was hoarse.

"I’m sorry, Father," Lin Yueling whispered, looking at him now. Tears were streaming down her face. "I’m so sorry. But I have to.... I have to save the baby."

"No," Lin Feng said, the word torn from him. "No, I won’t allow it. You’re my daughter. You’re...."

"I’m twenty-eight years old," Lin Yueling said, her voice suddenly stronger despite her condition. "And this is my choice. My body. My baby. Mine."

She turned to the doctor.

"Do the surgery," she said clearly. "Save my baby."

"Yueling, please...." Madam Chen was sobbing now, gripping her daughter’s hand so tightly her knuckles were white.

"Mother, listen to me." Lin Yueling’s voice was gentle but firm. "I need you to listen. This is what I want. This is what I’m choosing. Not because they’re forcing me. Not because I owe anyone anything. But because...."

Her hand pressed harder against her belly.

"Because this is my baby. And I love him more than I love myself. And if one of us has to die tonight, it’s going to be me. Not him. Never him."

She looked at each of them in turn. Her mother was devastated. Her father, stricken. Lu Cheng and Mrs. Lu, tense and waiting.

"Promise me," Lin Yueling said, her gaze fixing on Lu Cheng. "Promise me you’ll take care of him. Promise me he’ll know, he’ll know I loved him."

"I promise," Lu Cheng said immediately. "I swear it."

"And Father....." Lin Yueling turned to Lin Feng, her expression softening with regret. "This is my choice...."

Lin Feng couldn’t speak. Could only shake his head, tears streaming down his face.

"Doctor," Lin Yueling said, her voice fading slightly. "Do it now. Before I.... before I change my mind."

The doctor looked at Lin Feng one last time.

The older man stood there, frozen, his whole world crumbling.

Then, slowly, he nodded.

Permission given.

"Prep for emergency cesarean," the doctor said to his team. "Priority is the infant. Move now."

Nurses swarmed immediately, unlocking the bed’s wheels, preparing to transport Lin Yueling to surgery.

Madam Chen clung to her daughter’s hand, walking alongside the bed as they wheeled it toward the operating room.

"I love you," Madam Chen sobbed. "Yueling, I love you so much....."

"I love you too, Mother," Lin Yueling whispered. "Take care of Father. And, and make sure my baby knows his grandmother loved him."

The doors to the operating room swung open.

"Family stays here," a nurse said firmly, gently but inexorably prying Madam Chen’s hand away from her daughter’s.

"No... please...." Madam Chen reached out desperately.

"We’ll do everything we can," the nurse said. "But you need to let us work."

The doors closed.

Lin Yueling disappeared behind them.

Madam Chen collapsed against Lin Feng, her sobs wrenching and raw. He caught her, held her, his own tears silent but no less devastating.

Lu Cheng and Mrs. Lu stood apart from them, waiting.

Watching.

Ready to claim their grandson.

The waiting room had never felt so suffocating.

So full of impossible choices and their consequences.

And somewhere in the city, Shuyin slept peacefully beside her unconscious mother, completely unaware that her half-sister was dying to save a baby that the world thought was hers.

The irony was almost cruel.

— — — — — —

The red light above the operating room door glowed like a warning beacon.

SURGERY IN PROGRESS.

Madam Chen’s sobs echoed through the sterile waiting area, raw, unrestrained, the sound of a mother watching her child slip toward death. Lin Feng held her tightly, one arm around her shaking shoulders, but his own expression had hollowed into something unrecognizable. The calm, calculating patriarch who’d built an empire on stolen foundations was gone. In his place stood only a father teetering on the edge of losing everything that truly mattered.

Across the room, Lu Cheng maintained rigid composure, hands clasped behind his back with military precision. His face was carved from stone, betraying nothing. Mrs. Lu sat beside him in one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs, posture ramrod straight despite the late hour, lips pressed into a thin, bloodless line. Neither of them looked at the Lin family. Neither of them spoke.

They simply waited.

Like vultures circling prey.

Minutes dragged into quarter hours.

Quarter hours stretched into full hours.

The second hand on the wall clock seemed to move through molasses, each tick loud enough to echo in the suffocating silence.

No one spoke.

No one dared.

The only sounds were Madam Chen’s occasional sobs, quickly stifled into Lin Feng’s shoulder, and the distant beeping of machines from somewhere deeper in the hospital, other lives hanging in balance, other families waiting for news that might shatter them.