The doctor wrote the address for Susu and said, "I'll contact my friend and arrange for your friend to be hospitalized as soon as possible."
Susu thanked him repeatedly, put away the address, and went to find Sophie.
On the way, she thought about how to talk to Sophie to get her to agree to be hospitalized. No matter how she thought about it, she couldn't come up with a good way to say it, and she was afraid of irritating Sophie's sensitive nerves.
She arrived at Sophie's residence and knocked on the door. The nanny who was home opened it.
The nanny looked at her with surprise, "Miss Gu, why are you here? Didn't Miss Sophie go on a business trip with you?"
"Business trip?" Susu said inexplicably, "Sophie didn't go to work today. I thought she was resting at home, so I came to see her."
The nanny said, "That's not right. Miss Sophie left early this morning with this bag and some basic necessities, saying she was going on a business trip for two or three days. She also said she was going with you, so I didn't think much of it."
Susu walked into Sophie's residence and looked around. She found that Sophie was indeed not there and immediately asked, "Did she say where she was going on the business trip?"
"No," the nanny said worriedly, "Then, has something happened to Miss Sophie?"
Susu hadn't expected Sophie to run off again, and this time she said it was a business trip, which meant she had likely left Lancheng. She didn't know what to do for a moment.
"But if she was going on a business trip, did she book any plane or train tickets to anywhere?"
The nanny nervously rubbed her hands together and suddenly remembered something. "Oh, yesterday when she was fiddling with her phone, I happened to glance at it and saw her checking train tickets. She entered a place called, called Eshan. I know this place is a scenic area developed in recent years within the province, so I glanced at it again. But Miss Sophie immediately covered her phone, fearing I would see."
Susu sat down stunned and said nothing, thinking about where Sophie was going and what she was doing. That place was the orphanage where she had stayed before.
Susu remembered Sophie mentioning the orphanage once recently. It was because she hadn't told Sophie about Xiaoxiao. Was Sophie going to the orphanage because of this?
She felt a headache coming on. She had to find Sophie first.
It seemed that Tianyi was right. Sophie's mental and psychological problems needed to be solved by professionals. Her help was not helping Sophie at all; it seemed to be having the opposite effect.
Susu quickly checked her phone for the earliest train ticket to Eshan, intending to bring Sophie back and then send her to a specialized hospital for treatment.
...
Sophie arrived at Eshan and headed straight for the orphanage according to the map on her phone.
She walked to the foot of a mountain and could see a Western-style building with a pointed roof built halfway up the mountain from afar, like an inconspicuous church commonly seen abroad.
She had searched for information about the Eshan scenic area on the train. The orphanage here was converted from a former church.
100 years ago, a Western missionary came to Eshan County and saw the overlapping mountains, beautiful scenery, and simple folk customs... He decided to stay there to preach and built a church with all his savings.
After the missionary passed away, the church was abandoned. Later, it was converted into an orphanage by the local government, which was a good place to raise children.
Sophie pretended to be someone returning from abroad for tourism and went to the orphanage. She said at the entrance that she wanted to visit the building and also wanted to donate to the orphanage.
The person at the gate let her into the orphanage. It was the children's nap time, so the courtyard was very quiet, with lush green trees everywhere.
She couldn't help but sit on a bench under the shade of a tree, thinking that Susu had grown up in such an environment. It was like a paradise, and it wasn't bad to be away from the noise and chaos of the outside world.
However, this was, after all, a small county town, and it really didn't have good medical facilities.
When she came out of the train station, she passed through the county town, which was the most prosperous place here, but she didn't see any decent large hospitals.
At this moment, an orphanage staff member walked past the bench where she was sitting. Finding her unfamiliar, they stepped forward and asked, "What are you doing here? This is a welfare institution, not a tourist attraction."
"I know, I'm here to donate," Sophie quickly asked, "But it's quite large here, with many trees and grass. I'm lost. I don't know where to donate?"
The staff member said, "Oh, go find the director. The director is responsible for donations, and then the finance department will register it."
"Where is the director's office?"
The staff member turned and looked at a small building behind them, saying uncertainly, "It's a coincidence. Someone came earlier than you today to say they wanted to donate. The director should be receiving them now. I don't know if they are still in the office. Please wait a moment."
"Someone else is coming to donate? Who is it? Is their surname Qin?"
The staff member shook their head.
"Then, surname Gu?"
"No, that person said their friend, who is in a wheelchair, grew up in this orphanage. They brought their friend back to visit and donate along the way."
Sophie said "oh" and thought that Qin Tianyi and Susu wouldn't be here at this time.
"Then, does your orphanage have any children with leukemia who need fundraising recently?"
The staff member said, "No, I don't think so. No children have leukemia. Miss, are you mistaken? All the children here are fine recently."
Sophie suddenly realized, was Susu lying to her?
But where did the child that Susu and Qin Tianyi were helping come from? Why was Susu unwilling to tell her the truth?
Seeing that Sophie was silent, the staff member said to her, "Then please wait a moment, I have to go back to work."
Sophie fell into self-pity again and didn't notice that the staff member had already left. She felt that this trip was in vain.
She picked up her phone to send a message to Uncle Lu when she suddenly saw a tall man pushing a wheelchair towards her from another tree-lined path.
A middle-aged woman in rustic clothing was walking beside the tall man, and they were talking about something.
Sophie only heard the tall man with mixed-race features say to the woman beside him, "Director, I'll push him around and see if he can remember anything here. Can we go to the back mountain too?"
"Mr. Allen, please feel free to wander around. Thank you for your donation to the orphanage, which will help many children," the middle-aged woman said gratefully.
But Sophie could no longer hear anything. She just stared at Yang Sijie in the wheelchair, trembling all over, thinking she had seen a ghost. She fell from the bench to the ground and hurriedly crawled into the grass behind her.
She hid in the grass, which was half her height, and peeked at the man in the wheelchair again. There was no mistake, it was Yang Sijie.
This was the man she would never forget even if he turned to ashes. She covered her mouth with her hands in fear and panic, not daring to make any sound, and watched as Allen pushed the wheelchair further and further away...
Susu arrived at Eshan County by the fastest train in the evening. She had sent a message to Qin Tianyi on the way, telling him not to worry. With three bodyguards following her, she was sure she could bring Sophie back safely.