Chapter 5

Did he hear me?

Perhaps he did, but he didn't look back.

Just as I despairingly thought I would be trampled to death here, that familiar figure actually came rushing back!

My desolate heart suddenly flickered with a faint light. He had come back for me after all…

However, Julian rushed to my side, but he didn't even look at me. Instead, he swiftly picked up a bracelet that had fallen from my hand at some point, clutched it tightly, and turned to leave again.

"Oh, thank goodness! I'm so glad you got it back for me!" Chloe's tear-streaked smile turned into laughter from afar. "This is my favorite bracelet! If it had been crushed, I would have cried for a day and a night!"

Julian hurried back to Chloe's side, his voice filled with the relief of finding what was lost, and his usual indulgent affection: "So, to keep my baby from crying, I got it back, didn't I?"

"You're so good!" Chloe happily kissed him.

So… he had only come back for a bracelet.

In his heart, I, his wife of five years, was apparently worth less than Chloe's bracelet!

A crushing wave of despair and heartbreak, like a final boulder, completely overwhelmed me.

My vision went black, and I passed out completely.

I regained consciousness again on a cold operating table.

The surgical lights stung my eyes. The doctor was preparing instruments: "Mrs. Thorne, you're awake? You have multiple soft tissue contusions, indications of fractured ribs, but the most severe injury is internal bleeding in your abdomen from being trampled, requiring immediate surgery…"

The anesthesiologist was preparing to administer anesthesia.

Suddenly, with a loud *bang*, the operating room door was violently kicked open from the outside!

Several black-clad bodyguards rushed in. Without a word, they ripped out the IV in my arm and brutally dragged me off the operating table!

"What are you doing! The patient needs immediate surgery!" The doctor exclaimed, both shocked and furious, trying to stop them.

But the bodyguards ignored them completely, forcibly dragging me, weak and covered in blood, out of the operating room.

"Let go of me… Where are you taking me…" I struggled weakly, the wounds agonizingly painful from being dragged.

No one answered me.

I was dragged directly to the VIP ward and roughly dumped onto the cold floor of a private room.

I looked up and saw Julian Thorne sitting by the bedside, carefully giving Chloe Sterling water.

Chloe looked merely a little shaken, with a few scrapes, nothing serious.

Julian saw my bloodied, disheveled state, but his eyes were completely devoid of emotion, only cold indifference.

He spoke, his voice as if淬了冰: "Chloe wants mini fruit tarts. I remember you make the best. Go to the hospital kitchen now and make her some."

I couldn't believe my ears!

I was covered in blood, yet he didn't spare me a thought. Instead, because Chloe wanted fruit tarts, he had me dragged off the operating table?

Years of accumulated resentment, pain, and despair finally erupted at this moment!

I struggled to sit up, my voice hoarse and broken, filled with a heartbroken accusation: "Julian Thorne! You've gone too far! Where were you when I was being trampled to death at the auction? Your eyes were only on *her*! Now I'm severely injured and need surgery, yet you drag me here because of *her* whim! After all these years, what am I to you? I'm your lawfully wedded wife! Are you just going to degrade me like this?!"

I screamed my accusations with all my might, tears mingling with the blood on my face, a pathetic and miserable sight.

But Julian's expression didn't change at all; not even his eyes flickered.

Instead, Chloe, in his arms, covered her ears in distaste, whining petulantly: "Julian, it's so loud… She's giving me a headache…"

Julian immediately hugged her tighter, covered her ears, and gently soothed her: "Shh, don't be scared, baby."

Then, he looked up at me, his eyes instantly turning cold and sharp: "So, after all that, you're still unwilling to go?"

My heart ashen, I stared at him.

Julian lost the last shred of his patience, his voice chillingly cold: "Since that's the case, lock her in the cold storage. She can come out when she's willing."

The bodyguards immediately stepped forward, and despite my struggles and cries, they dragged me towards the hospital's low-temperature cold storage for medications!

The cold storage door slammed shut.

The sub-zero temperature instantly enveloped me. My wounds felt as if pierced by countless icy needles, my blood almost freezing.

The internal bleeding seemed to worsen. I could feel my life slipping away bit by bit…

Despair and cold consumed me.

Just as my consciousness was about to completely fade, and I thought I would die there, my survival instinct finally overcame that pathetic shred of dignity.

With my last bit of strength, I crawled to the door, sobbing desperately, I banged on the cold metal door: "I… I'll do it… I'll do it… Let me out…"

The cold storage door opened.

I was dragged out like a rag doll and dumped in the hospital's small kitchen.

Dragging my cold, aching body, I mustered my last bit of willpower and made those mini fruit tarts.

When I brought the pastries to the ward, Julian merely glanced at them, then waved his hand at the bodyguard, saying, "Take me to surgery."

Pushed back onto the operating table, the anesthetic flowed into my body, and my consciousness began to fade.

My last tear slipped from the corner of my eye.

Julian Thorne, from this day forward, we are strangers.

I will never love you again.

The days after surgery were long and agonizing.

I lay alone in my hospital bed, watching the IV slowly dripping into my veins, feeling the dull, throbbing ache from my wounds.

Each dressing change felt like torture.

The nurse tried to be as gentle as possible, but the unmistakable pity in her eyes hurt more than the wounds.

"Just bear with it a little longer, it'll be over soon," the nurse whispered. After she left, I faintly heard her low whispers with a colleague outside the door.

"It's truly pitiful… so severely injured, and her family hasn't visited once. She had to force herself to sign the surgery consent forms…"