CHAPTER 63: CHAPTER 63; CURING THE SILVER-HAIRED GIRL 2

Yuyan’s eyes went wide with shock and fear. Six months? She’d been unconscious for half a year? The last thing she remembered was sitting at the piano, playing Chopin, feeling suddenly cold, so impossibly cold, and then nothing.

"Six months?" she breathed, her voice rising with panic. "But that’s... Father, I don’t remember anything. I just remember being so cold, and then..." She clutched at him desperately, her own tears beginning to fall. "I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to...."

"Shh, it’s not your fault," Lu Yuze murmured, stroking her hair with shaking hands and tenderness. "None of this is your fault. You’re awake now. That’s all that matters. You’re back."

They held each other, father and daughter reunited after months of helpless waiting and desperate prayers. Lu Yuze made no effort to hide his tears, and Yuyan cried into his shoulder, overwhelmed by the time she’d lost and the raw emotion radiating from her normally stoic father.

Shuyin and Ah-Ling had quietly moved to the couch positioned against the wall, giving them space for their reunion.

Ah-Ling’s own eyes were suspiciously bright, he’d watched his master suffer for six months, had seen the powerful man reduced to a desperate father haunting hospital corridors. Seeing Yuyan awake was like witnessing a miracle.

Shuyin simply observed with her usual detachment, though something in her jade eye might have softened fractionally. She understood the bond between parent and child, even if she viewed it through the lens of her own species’ customs.

After several long minutes, Lu Yuze finally composed himself enough to pull back again, though he kept one hand firmly holding Yuyan’s, as if afraid she might slip away.

"How do you feel?" he asked, his voice still rough with emotion. "Any pain? Dizziness? The doctors need to check you over...."

"I feel... strange," Yuyan admitted, looking down at herself. She was thinner than she remembered, her muscles weakened from months of disuse. "Weak. Tired. But not cold anymore. I was so cold before, Father. Like ice in my veins. But now..." She flexed her fingers experimentally. "Now I feel almost... warm. Alive."

Her gaze drifted past her father to the two figures on the couch, landing on Shuyin with her impossible glowing eyes.

"Who is she?" Yuyan asked quietly. "She was here when I woke up. She told me to..." She hesitated, the strange request suddenly seeming like it might have been a fever dream. "She told me to call her mother."

Lu Yuze stiffened slightly, then turned to look at Shuyin. Their eyes met across the room, his electric blue filled with complex emotions, hers jade green and unreadable.

"Yuyan," he said carefully, turning back to his daughter. "There’s something I need to tell you. Something important happened while you were unconscious."

"What do you mean?"

Lu Yuze took a deep breath. "This woman... her name is Lin Shuyin. And as of this morning, she became your stepmother. We got married today."

The room fell into stunned silence.

Yuyan’s mouth fell open, her eyes darting between her father and the strange woman on the couch. "You... you what? Father, you got married? But you always said... after Mother died, you said you’d never..."

"I know what I said," Lu Yuze replied, his voice gentle but firm. "And I meant it. But circumstances changed. Yuyan, she’s the reason you’re awake right now. The doctors couldn’t help you. No one could. But she..." He gestured toward Shuyin. "She had knowledge, abilities that saved your life. I made a deal with her. Marriage in exchange for waking you up."

Yuyan looked at Shuyin with new eyes, shock, confusion, and reluctant gratitude warring on her young face.

"You saved me?" she asked softly.

Shuyin stood up from the couch with fluid grace and approached the bed. Up close, Yuyan could see that the woman was young, probably only a few years older than herself, and strikingly beautiful despite the alien quality of her glowing eye.

"Your father was desperate," Shuyin said, her tone matter-of-fact. "Desperate people make interesting deals. I had the means to cure you, so we made an arrangement. He gets his daughter back. I get..." She glanced at Lu Yuze with an expression that might have been amusement, "a husband, legal identity, and resources to exist in your world."

"My world?" Yuyan frowned at the odd phrasing.

"Never mind that," Shuyin continued, reaching out to tilt Yuyan’s chin up, examining her with clinical interest. "What matters is that the cold poison is purged from your system. You’ll need rest and proper nutrition to regain your strength, but you’ll survive. You should thank your father, he was willing to give up everything for you. Now you are a penniless heiress.."

She released Yuyan’s chin and stepped back.

"As for calling me mother," Shuyin added with that strange little smile, "it’s merely practical. We’re legally family now. Might as well play the part convincingly."

Yuyan looked between them, her father, who had apparently remarried a mysterious woman he barely knew, and the said woman, who spoke with cold detachment despite having just saved her life.

"This is insane," she finally said, though her voice lacked real anger. "Father, you married a complete stranger to save me?"

"I would have done far worse," Lu Yuze replied simply, squeezing her hand. "You’re all I have left of your mother. I couldn’t let you go. I wouldn’t."

Yuyan’s eyes filled with fresh tears, but these were different, gratitude mixed with the overwhelming realization of how much her father loved her.

She turned to Shuyin, swallowing hard. "Thank you," she said quietly. "I don’t understand any of this, and honestly, you’re kind of terrifying with those eyes. But... thank you for saving my life. And I’m sorry you got dragged into our family drama."

Shuyin studied her for a long moment, then nodded once. "You’re more gracious than most humans I’ve encountered. That’s... acceptable."

It wasn’t warm praise, but coming from her, it seemed to be the equivalent.