Although it was early autumn, the air conditioning inside the shopping mall was blasting on high.
The man wore a crisply tailored suit, adhering to his usual minimalist combination of pure black and spotless white without any other embellishments. Far from making him look dull or monotonous, the stark contrast highlighted his sharp features, making him exceptionally striking.
His handsomeness was lethal enough on its own, and his aura was even more overwhelming.
The boy on the floor, who had been wailing with absolute abandon, caught a sliver of the man’s deep voice. Looking up, his crying ceased instantly. He held his breath so hard he even stifled the violent hiccup catching in his throat, swallowing it back down in sheer terror.
As the old saying goes, “the wicked fear the truly formidable.” It really was the absolute truth.
Watching the scene unfold, Fang Jinshi wondered to himself in silence: Am I simply appearing too mild and harmless to people?
As he was reflecting on this, the formidable newcomer, Gu Tuo, shifted his gaze toward him. “Are you alright?”
Without even demanding a breakdown of the incident, his first utterance was a direct expression of care.
Fang Jinshi was caught slightly off guard. Yet, due to his inherent nature, he had never been one to display weakness in front of others. He replied almost by reflex, “I’m fine.”
He had no idea that his casual statement would be instantly seized upon by the woman as concrete proof and an ultimate weapon.
She let out a piercing shriek, “Aha! See, you are perfectly fine! I knew it! You’re a full-grown man; how on earth could a minor bump from a child leave you twisting in agony? You were clearly faking it!”
Even though she was clutching her child while sitting flat on the floor, she still managed to look up with an incredibly haughty, imperious attitude. “Our family might be wealthy, but our money isn’t meant to be extorted by people like you. Get the hell out of my sight before you contaminate my eyes any further, or I won’t let you off so easily!”
Hearing her venomous words, there was no longer any need to question how the incident had actually transpired.
Gu Tuo fixed his eyes back onto Fang Jinshi, only to see two tiny sparks of pure fire igniting within the youth’s dark eyes. It was clear his temper had been fully unleashed and he was preparing to dismantle the woman.
However—
Gu Tuo’s gaze drifted slightly downward, locking onto the bridge of Fang Jinshi’s foot. The skin there was exceptionally pale and slender, making the fresh crimson blood trickling down it look horrifyingly vivid. It had clearly been sliced open by a stray shard of glass.
It was a minor cut. If this had happened to Li Jin, Gu Tuo wouldn’t have spared it a single thought. But when it came to Fang Jinshi, a “minor cut” carried an entirely different weight.
Although Gu Tuo had never actively pried into Fang Jinshi’s personal affairs, two years ago—back when Li Jin was still desperately consumed by his affection for the youth—his nephew had mentioned that Fang Jinshi had been diagnosed with aplastic anemia and faced a severe, life-threatening crisis.
Aplastic anemia was universally dubbed the “soft cancer”—a severe disease of the blood system. Patients suffered a total failure of bone marrow function, making them severely prone to anemia. Any minor laceration could trigger a rampant, systemic infection; in severe cases, it could easily claim a person’s life.
Even though Fang Jinshi appeared perfectly healthy and vibrant since his return to the country, Gu Tuo dared not treat the matter with an ounce of carelessness. The absolute priority right now was to swiftly dissolve this dispute and get the youth’s wound treated immediately.
True to his efficient, storm-like nature, Gu Tuo gave a sweeping wave of his large hand. An executive assistant immediately stepped forward, awaiting orders. “President Gu.”
Gu Tuo stated in a deep, chilling tone, “Escort this madam out of the building.” His words were polite, but his cadence carried unmistakable disgust.
Catching the absolute finality in his voice, the assistant quickly signaled the mall’s security personnel, directing them forward to “escort” the woman.
The woman had never encountered such a heavy-handed response in her life, and she found the public display incredibly humiliating. Refusing to stand up, she thrashed wildly on the floor, shrieking hysterically, “What right do you have to throw me out? I spent money on goods here, which makes me a customer! What kind of business throws their own paying customers out into the street?”
Gu Tuo didn’t give her another direct glance, simply repeating coldly, “Get her out.”
The security guards hesitated no longer. Clamping onto the woman’s arms, they dragged her across the polished floor like a heavy sack of grain.
The woman continued to struggle frantically, kicking off her red stilettos in the process. Her bare feet thrashed relentlessly against the floor, accidentally slamming right into the shattered glass shards her precious son had left behind, triggering a fresh chorus of agonizing shrieks.
The sobbing boy watched his mother being dragged away in such a disheveled, pathetic state—looking absolutely nothing like the infallible superhero of his mind. Stunned into a stupor, it took him a long while to snap back to reality, howling for his mother as he bolted after her.
At this point, he truly forgot all about crying or throwing a tantrum. Watching his agile, monkey-like movements as he ran, it was almost impossible to believe he had just been wailing on the floor as if he had suffered the greatest injustice in human history.
The surrounding shoppers clicked their tongues in amazement. After a brief murmur of gossip, the crowd quickly dispersed.
With the corridor finally cleared, Fang Jinshi looked at Gu Tuo, offering a deeply earnest expression of gratitude. “President Gu, thank you for stepping in to resolve that for me.”
He was not an ungrateful person. Gu Tuo helping him was a matter of kindness, and he held deep appreciation for it in his heart. As for Li Jin’s drama—that was a completely separate matter.
However, the tycoon was, after all, Li Jin’s maternal uncle, which effectively made him a family elder in his eyes. Interacting with him always carried a somewhat stiff, uncomfortable edge. Fang Jinshi’s eyes darted around as he scrambled to formulate an excuse to depart, but Gu Tuo beat him to the punch.
“Come with me,” Gu Tuo instructed.
“Huh?” Fang Jinshi blanked for a second, his mind failing to track the transition.
Gu Tuo’s brows knit together slightly as he explained, “The laceration on your foot requires immediate treatment.”
Fang Jinshi submissively followed Gu Tuo into the shopping mall’s executive staff lounge. Watching the employees, who had been casually chatting a second ago, file out of the room in a silent, orderly rush, his brain was still slightly struggling to keep up with the pacing.
Gu Tuo guided him toward a plush lounge chair, giving a slight nod of his chin. “Sit.”
“Oh, right. Okay.”
Snapping out of his daze, Fang Jinshi quickly sat down. But because he lowered himself too rapidly, the sudden movement jarred the localized injury in his lower back, triggering a sharp spike of throbbing pain that made him let out an involuntary hiss.
Gu Tuo retrieved a first-aid kit from his assistant, initially intending to hand it over to let the youth manage the injury himself.
Yet, catching sight of the young man clutching his lower back with a pair of delicate brows tightly knit, his heart shifted. The youth’s face still carried the pale, translucent quality of a long illness, his lips devoid of deep color. With tiny beads of cold sweat breaking out on the tip of his nose, he looked remarkably fragile and pitiful.
Gu Tuo wavered for a brief fraction of a second. Placing the first-aid kit onto a low cabinet beside them, he dropped down into a deep squat, preparing to personally apply the medication.
Fang Jinshi had absolutely not anticipated the situation unfolding in this manner. Staring at the fiercely arrogant, powerful tycoon lowering his proud head directly before him, he frantically tried to yank his foot back, stammering, “I can do it myself! Really, I can do it myself!”
Yet the man’s hand had already clamped securely onto his ankle. Gu Tuo’s palm felt intensely warm against his naturally cool skin. “Don’t move.”
The tone wasn’t heavy, yet it carried an absolute, unyielding authority.
It felt as though a firework had suddenly detonated right next to his ear. Fang Jinshi’s physical reflexes overrode his logic, and he sat perfectly still in the lounge chair, completely submissive.
To facilitate applying the antiseptic, the man gently rested his foot onto a low footstool.
Perhaps because his heel was pressed at an awkward angle, Fang Jinshi gradually felt a wave of pins and needles creeping up his leg. Yet, having just been firmly reprimanded by the man’s commanding tone when he tried to pull away, the usually fearless young master of the Fang family suddenly found himself a bit too chicken to move an inch.
As he was fretting over his numb foot, a sudden, crisp wave of coolness washed over the bridge of his skin.
Fang Jinshi flinched slightly from the reflex, but immediately forced himself back into a perfectly obedient, sitting posture, letting the man proceed with his work.
After carefully wiping the area with iodine, Gu Tuo closely inspected the laceration. A tiny bead of blood was still oozing from the cut, but it wasn’t overly severe. From what he could observe, Fang Jinshi’s blood coagulation function was indeed slightly weaker than an ordinary person’s, but it hadn’t reached a critical threshold requiring emergency hospitalization.
“Sit quietly for a few minutes and let’s track the coagulation,” Gu Tuo stated calmly. “If the bleeding fails to stop completely, we are heading straight to the clinic.”
“Oh, right. Okay.” Snapping out of his thoughts, Fang Jinshi offered his thanks once more. “Thank you, Mr. Gu.”
Tossing the used cotton swab into a waste bin, Gu Tuo didn’t rush to stand up. Remaining in his squatting position to keep his gaze perfectly level with the youth, he said evenly, “You don’t need to repeatedly thank me. I believe if any person were to witness an aplastic anemia patient sustain an injury, they would have taken the exact same action I did.”
So, his exceptional care was entirely because he viewed him as a fragile patient.
Fang Jinshi had long reconciled himself to the reality of his medical condition. However, because he had always loved to put up a brave front, his family members were perpetually walking on eggshells around him, and his doctors and nurses always heavily handled his emotions with care. Encountering such a blunt, straightforward, and practical manifestation of help was a complete first for him.
Deep within his heart, a subtle, complicated wave of emotion bloomed.
Particularly, the minor detail of Gu Tuo keeping himself crouched down just to speak to him on equal eye level made him feel profoundly respected as an equal.
This man truly was vastly different from the cold monster of the rumors.
He was remarkably easy to get along with—a genuinely good person.
Fang Jinshi mused silently to himself, a soft, fluid shimmer coloring the depths of his crystal-clear eyes.