Loved By The Villain And The Male Lead

The day of Su Ning and Minshi's trip to C Country came quickly. The latter excitedly chattered throughout the plane ride as it would be her first time seeing her parents' homeland. When the plane landed, the two went straight to Su Ning's house where she introduced Minshi to her parents.

Qin Lan and Su Kun were both taken aback by this new friend of Su Ning. The girl, Minshi, is especially excitable and energetic, even more so than Li YouQing. When the girl first greeted them, she immediately came for a hug and even attempted to kiss their cheeks. It was quite the culture shock for the middle-aged couple but they didn't dislike this new experience.

Minshi also tried to help Qin Lan in preparing dinner but was promptly 'kicked' out of the kitchen by the latter. How could Qin Lan let a guest work in her house?  And so, Su Ning and Minshi began to unpack and set up a cot in the former's room as they waited for supper to be ready.

Over dinner, Minshi happily chatted with Qin Lan and Su Kun using her elementary Chinese with a smattering of English words. Minshi usually communicated with her parents in English while they spoke to her in Chinese back in the United States. So the girl felt this was the perfect chance to show off all of the Chinese she knew. It seem to work out quite nicely since Su Ning was also present to help translate any difficult words that Minshi wanted to convey. Plus, Qin Lan's cooking is just so delicious that Minshi completely forgot her picky eating habits! She ended up just gobbling up whatever Auntie Lan put on her plate.

The next day, Su Ning woke up early to go for her checkup at the hospital and also to visit a good friend that she hasn't seen in a long time, RuRu. They both kept in contact with each other regularly via VeChat but recently the little girl has been missing her princess jiejie more and more. So Su Ning promised to come see RuRu when goes back to C Country. Su Ning woke up early and with a luggage full of toys and souvenirs from Osaka, she took a DeeDee to A City Hospital. Her friend Minshi was still asleep by the time Su Ning left. 

Today Su Ning's parents would be touring Minshi to some places 3-4hrs away from the city. Minshi had been saying how she wanted to see the provinces so Qin Lan offered to take her to the countryside, which the girl happily accepted. Su Ning couldn't be more delighted with this turn of events. This way, she could spend time with her little friend without any interruptions. To be honest, although Minshi was her friend, Su Ning occasionally found it difficult to keep up with the girl's boundless stamina. Minshi wasn't the type to be able to sit still. Recently, RuRu's condition had taken a turn for the worse and Su Ning wanted to stay with the girl for a whole day if it was possible so she didn't want the girl to be stressed by Minshi's energy.

..............

When Su Ning arrived at the hospital, it was still only 10am in the morning. She immediately came to see Dr Yang for her check-up. Su Ning had been very diligent in taking her medication daily and this time around, she didn't disclose the contents of her pillbox to anyone. In fact, she told her friends at Handai that these were vitamins. 

"How's NingNing's sleep as of late?" Dr Yang inquired and the polite young girl shook her head.

Dr Yang would have calls with the girl every few months to check on her condition. It appeared the girl was doing quite well except for her sleeping issues. Since that traumatic incident, Su Ning had been plagued with constant nightmares so Dr Yang had been working with her to manage this with medication as well as incorporating new lifestyle changes in the form of bedtime routines. It took several tries for Su Ning to finally get sleeping medication that worked well with her. Some of the prescription medication had caused her nausea while some others caused her to be constantly irritable and hungry. 

"Is the medicine no longer as effective?" Dr Yang asked. This was one of the downsides to using sleep aids constantly, their effect wears off after several months and it would take higher doses to reach the same efficacy. And since Su Ning was still young, he didn't want her to be heavily reliant on sleeping pills. 

"Yes," she admitted. "But I don't want to change the dosage just yet. Maybe there's something else I can add to my routine or maybe I can tire myself out more during the day so I can fall asleep easier." However, she knew that difficulty in falling asleep wasn't her only issue, it was also with staying asleep. Su Ning frequently had restless nights despite religiously doing her bedtime routine. Of course, she clearly remembers the relaxing night she spent with Gu YuChen beside her; however, she wasn't able to duplicate that night no matter how she tried. 'I mean, it's not like I can force Gu YuChen to always sleep with me,' she sighed. 'We aren't even in the same country!'

"I wouldn't recommend intense physical activity as it's bad for your heart. But if you're talking about light exercise then go for it," Dr Yang commented. "I will send over a list of recommendations for what you can change up in your routine. Let me know if it helps a bit. Otherwise, we should start looking into changing your medication. I think this one has run its course."

"Alright. Thank you, Dr Yang," Su Ning responded courteously.

.....................

Soon afterwards, Su Ning made her way to the pediatric ward and headed straight to where little RuRu was resting. She found the girl sitting up on her bed with a teary face refusing to eat the hospital meal. Knocking on the door, Su Ning made a small gesture towards RuRu's mother who had a look of relief on her face upon seeing Su Ning.

"NingNing-ah, I'm sorry to leave RuRu with you on a day like this. She hasn't been feeling well and has gotten tired of the bland hospital food," RuRu's mother kindly explained.

"It's alright auntie. I'll stay with RuRu. You can have lunch with uncle first," Su Ning replied.

"En. Thank you. Call me if anything happens," said RuRu's mother.

"I will." (Su Ning) 

And so Su Ning quietly made her way towards the girl's bed which was located by the windows. The girl had her arms crossed and was now staring out into the blue sky. 

"Aiyoh. I really wanted to see Xiao RuRu but it seems she's not in the mood to play with me?" Su Ning called out lightly.

"Princess Su Ning-jiejie!?" RuRu quickly exclaimed, she turned around upon recognizing Su Ning's melodic voice.

"Hello~" said Su Ning who pulled her pink luggage towards the girl's bedside. 

"RuRu's not feeling well today?" Su Ning asked with a tinge of worry. 

"[sniffles] The food is so tasteless. I don't want to eat this anymore," said RuRu as big droplets of tears began to fall on her face.

"Ahhhh.. RuRu is so strong. I was only here for a few months.. But I could barely eat the food. You're here a lot longer than I am. I understand if you cannot eat it anymore," Su Ning commented while patting the little girl's head.

"JieJie is not going to force me to eat it?" RuRu asked, her tears abruptly coming to a halt. 

"Well, I cannot force you to do anything you like. But just… JieJie brought a lot of toys from Japan and the instructions specifically said that children have to eat first before opening the box and playing with the contents," Su Ning said, appearing to be deep in thought.

"I guess I should come back when RuRu has eaten and taken her medication. Ah...but if RuRu doesn't want to eat hospital food anymore, I guess I'll just have to give away the toys to other children in the ward. Oof! This bag is heavy… there sure are lots of toys," Su Ning voiced out as she pretended to have difficulty maneuvering the roll on luggage. 

"Noooo!!!!" the little girl immediately cried out. 

** The author has something to say: ho ho ho sneaky sneaky. I see what you did there ningning. 

My lovely readers~ were you guys excited to see ruru once again!?

Thank you! Thank you! For all the VOTES and COMMENTS! ٩(๑> ₃ <)۶♥

189_shalini, Anna_Fornelli, Santra, Diana_Mandyzyuk, and Daoist862615  thank you for being a fan of the story!

Aigoo! I'd like to give a call out to everyone supporting my book but then it would be a whole chapter of your names!! So I'll try to call out different people each chapter! ☆d(o⌒∇⌒o)b

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Also, just a reminder that beginning the month of September, updates to LBVML will be on a weekly basis due to work conflicts. I am hoping to go back to daily uploads once more in October. Thank you so much for your understanding!! **