Love For Life

17. She Was Taken Away

''Thank God, Xia He isn't here. She must still be alive. Oh, thank God!" Gu Zechuan said, the passion in his voice grew with each word.

When the warden of the morgue, who stood guard by the gate heard Gu Zechuan speaking to himself out loud, he hesitated for a while, then cut in, ''Mister, are you perhaps looking for Ms. Xia's body?''

Upon hearing the morgue warden's voice, Gu Zechuan once again froze in place. All of a sudden, fear filled his heart. He was afraid of hearing the answer, afraid of what the morgue warden might say about Xia He, about her death.

He gripped his fist tightly. After a long silence, he turned around slowly to look at the warden. He croaked, ''Xia He isn't here. She can't be here.''

Looking at Gu Zechuan's display of emotions, all the warden could do was breath out a heavy sigh. Then he said to him, ''Mister, if you're looking for Ms. Xia, her family took her body away two hours ago. It was the right thing to do. It would do no good to keep her body here in the morgue for too long.''

Gu Zechuan faltered, his knees almost lost the strength to even stand up straight in place. He thought of many possibilities, but the one possibility he didn't think of, the one that he refused to thing of, was that Xia He really had left this world.

And he didn't even get to see her one last time...

A pain began growing in Gu Zechuan's heart. It was faint at first, but with each passing second its intensity grew, until it became a heart shattering pain in mere moments, as if his heart was gouged and ripped out from his chest. He did this. He refused her pleas. He ignored her final request to see her one last time. Could she have lived longer if he had agreed to take her to the hospital then? He reflected back, that in mere days ago when Xia He called him, ad broke the news to him in perfect calmness, that she was going to die soon, the first thought that came to him was, ''What is that woman playing at this time?'' He never thought that Xia He was actually deying on her deathbed in all honesty and truthfulness. But how? How could she remain ever so calm even knowing that she was about to die? Was she so disappointed in him? Was that why Xia He sounded so calm when she called him, because she had lost all hopes in him?

Gu Zechuan never cared for Xia He, and anything and everything about her. He doesn't even know what other families she might have. He doesn't know just who had came and took Xia He away. Was it her mother? Or was it her uncle? But no matter who they were, he still wanted to see her, just one last time.

'' Who took Xia He away? Can you tell me? What do they look like? Was it a man, or a woman?'' Gu Zechuan questioned the morgue warden in an outburst of emotions.

The warden replied, troubled, ''the one who came for Ms. Xia's body was probably her mother, but I can't say that I know that for sure, since when she came in she was already bawling in tears, so it isn't like I can take a good look at her...''

Like lifeless puppet, Gu Zechuan stumbled out of the hospital. Just as he came out through the front door, a call came. It was from his assistant, Xu Feng. He told Gu Zechuan that a letter had came in to the company, addressed to him, from Mrs. Gu.

As soon as he heard that the letter was from Xia He, Gu Zechuan drove like a madman making a mad dash for the company. On his way, his phone rang, many times, but none of the calls can reach his mind, even when Yang Qinglian called him.

Yang Qinglian already received the news that Xia He had died.

In their ward at another hospital, Yang Ruolan and Yang Qinglian laughed, happily and merrily. It finally happened, exactly like they wanted. Xia He was finally dead, and Yang Qinglian was finally in the clear to become Mrs. Gu. There were no more obstacles. Though one unexpected happening was that Xia He's brat lived, but someone already came and took the kid away. Nothing else in the world could harm her, or her position.

''Mother, with that little fox finally dead, when do you think Zechuan will hold our wedding?'' Yang Qinglian asked her mother.

Yang Ruolan replied cautiously, ''Now is not the time to rush things along. That little fox only just died, and if you go asking him right now when he will marry you, he'd definitely suspect that something isn't quite right. So wait, be patient.''

Hearing what Yang Ruolan said, she agreed. Yang Qinglian decided to wait patiently for a while. Since Gu Zechuan thought that she was her savior anyway, he would agree to just about anything she asked.