Chapter 9 — The Brilliant Wife and the Mute CEO

The first rain of the season fell on the city on the night of one year and two months since the day Úc Bách Chu had an accident. Although no one in the mansion mentioned that milestone out loud, the atmosphere in the room at the end of the winter row that night was heavier than usual.

Xuân Lam passed by the small living room adjacent to Bách Chu's room, intending to stop by to say hello to him before going back to her room to rest, as had become her recent habit, when she suddenly heard the TV broadcasting an economic news bulletin at a fairly high volume.

"...According to our own sources, the family shareholder meeting of the Úc Thịnh Group is expected to be held earlier than planned, most likely to officially approve the appointment of Mr. Úc Gia Bân to the position of General Director, replacing Mr. Úc Bách Chu, who has been absent from management for more than a year due to health reasons..."

Xuân Lam stopped in front of the slightly open door and looked into the room. Bách Chu sat motionless in the wheelchair in front of the television screen, his hands clenched so tightly on the armrests that his knuckles were white, his teeth were clenched, and what stunned her the most were his eyes, shining with extreme pain that no amount of fake comfort could touch.

This is not the expression of someone who has given up and accepted his fate. This is the expression of a person who is tied up in his own body, helplessly watching everything he has ever built being taken away by others right before his eyes, without being able to utter a single word of protest.

She entered the room completely, not knocking as usual. Bách Chu was startled and turned around, hastily trying to regain his familiar calmness, but his hands were still shaking slightly and couldn't hide it.

"You heard everything they said, right?" Xuân Lam asked, her voice gentle but firm, not a rhetorical question, but a question she really wanted to hear the answer to, even if it was just a nod.

Bách Chu looked at her for a long time, then nodded slightly, his eyes not avoiding her.

This was not the first time Xuân Lam had known that Bách Chu still understood everything; Vệ Đình Long had told her that from the first day. But knowing it in words and witnessing the pain clearly shown on the face of a man being mercilessly rejected by his own family were two completely different feelings. For the first time, Xuân Lam truly understood the cruelty of what Bách Chu had to endure over the past year, not the cruelty of motionless legs or a silent mouth, but the cruelty of being treated like a dead person by his own relatives even though he was still breathing.

She pulled a chair closer, sat down at his eye level, turned off the TV, and let the room sink into silence, with only the sound of rain falling outside the window.

"I'm not good at saying beautiful words to comfort others," she said, her voice sincere. "But I thought, instead of leaving you alone to endure things like this, maybe I should stay here, even if it's just to let you know that someone is listening, even though I don't understand all the signs you and Mr. Ve use."

Bách Chu looked at her, a complex emotion that was hard to name arose in his heart. During the past year, people either avoided mentioning his condition as a taboo, or spoke about it in a pitiful tone, which hurt him even more. No one had ever sat down and frankly admitted that they didn't understand everything about him, but were still willing to stay and listen.

He reached for the small notebook and pen that were always placed on the bedside table, which he rarely used because writing with his hand was no longer completely flexible like before, taking him a lot of time and effort. But that night, he slowly wrote each word, the handwriting was somewhat scribbled but still read clearly.

"They want to take everything. I can't do anything."

Xuân Lam read the words, her heart suddenly aching with sadness. She took his hand, her calloused hand from slaughtering pigs wrapping around his thin hand in a natural gesture without any premeditation.

"You say you can't do anything, but I don't think so," she said, her voice determined. "Your legs can't walk yet, your mouth can't speak yet, but your head is still intact, sharper than the group of people who are planning to harm you. If you let me know, I can be your legs and mouth to do what you need to do. We are husband and wife, no matter what kind of husband and wife we are, I don't want to stand by and watch you being oppressed by people like this forever."

Bách Chu looked at her for a long time, then wrote another line, his hand shaking slightly because of emotion, not because of anger like before.

"Why are you so nice to me?"

Xuân Lam laughed lightly, a warm laugh that partly dispelled the heavy atmosphere in the room.

"Because what I hate most is seeing strong people bullying weak people, no matter who that weak person is," she replied. "Besides, you're my husband on paper. Even though we don't have any deep feelings yet, at least I don't want to live in the same house with someone I can't respect. The closer I get to you, the more I see that you don't deserve to be treated like that." That night, the two sat and chatted until late, Bách Chu wrote, Xuân Lam read and responded, sometimes mixed with simple conventional hand tapping rhythms that she gradually learned through each story. For the first time in a year, Bách Chu recounted, even through short lines, about the feeling of helplessness when waking up in the hospital, about the loneliness of seeing his loved ones gradually alienate him, about the suspicion that had been smoldering in his heart for the past year that his accident was not as simple as the official conclusion.

"You think someone intentionally hurt you?" Xuân Lam asked, her voice becoming more serious.

Bách Chu hesitated for a moment, then wrote down with shaky handwriting: "I'm not sure. But that night, I discovered unusual records about project investment capital. That file, after the accident, no one found it again."

Xuân Lam squeezed his hand tighter, her eyes shining with a new determination. She was not someone with business or legal knowledge, but she clearly understood one simple thing: if someone had intentionally harmed her husband to rob him of his inheritance, she would not let that person continue to live leisurely in glory and wealth built on the pain of others.

"From now on, you don't have to suffer alone anymore," she said, her voice as firm as an oath. "If there's anything wrong, just tell me, we'll find the truth together, no matter how long it takes."

Bách Chu wrote a few more lines, recounting in more detail about that fateful night, about how he received a call with an anonymous number right before driving through the construction site. The strange caller's voice only said a single sentence and then hung up, that someone wanted to meet him urgently at the construction site office to present an important matter related to the project's capital flow. When he arrived, he didn't see anyone. There was only a file left on the car seat. It's unclear who put it there when.

"So someone deliberately lured you there, then left the file ready for you to read on the way home?" Xuân Lam asked, frowning in thought. "It doesn't sound like a random accident at all. It's like someone knew you were going to drive over that stretch of suspension bridge at that exact hour." Bách Chu nodded, his eyes shining with both sympathy and old helplessness. Over the past year, he had thought and rethought this hypothesis countless times, but there was no way to collect evidence himself when he couldn't leave his wheelchair, and he couldn't ask anyone for help without fear of revealing the story to the very people who wanted to harm him.

Xuân Lam looked at him, a determination gradually forming in her heart more clearly than ever. She didn't understand much about investment records or the complex business tactics of the upper class, but she trusted her instincts, and that instinct told her that the story behind this accident was more complicated than what the whole family knew.

Outside the window, the rain was still falling, but in the room at the end of the winter row that night, for the first time after a long year, Úc Bách Chu felt a real warmth, not from the thick blanket or the fireplace, but from the hand holding his own tightly of the wife whom fate had tremblingly brought to him right when he needed it most.

Before leaving the room, Xuân Lam turned back and said one more thing, her voice light like a promise but firm as nails: "Sleep well, let me take care of the rest gradually. From tonight, it's like we're officially each other's allies."