Lin Mu hastily followed along.
In the dead of night, they sped wildly toward the hospital.
Li Yanxing didn’t usually live at Brocade Creek Bay—he had no fixed residence.
As a result, not only were supplies incomplete here, but there was also insufficient staffing.
Li Yanxing was frequently injured and had long grown accustomed to such incidents, paying them little mind.
Thus, there was no professional medical team stationed at Brocade Creek Bay.
The location was also quite far from the hospital.
Even though Lin Mu stomped on the accelerator so hard it nearly sparked, they still hadn’t arrived.
Li Yanxing, holding the girl in his arms, roared uncontrollably, “Lin Qingfu, did I allow you to die?”
“Wake up for me, did you hear me!”
Only after getting in the car did he realize that Lu Chiwan had multiple injuries. He couldn’t tell where the bleeding was coming from, but the blood wouldn’t stop, nearly soaking through his clothes.
If this continued, she could bleed to death.
Life felt terrifyingly fragile in that moment.
“Lin Qingfu, wake up, I’m telling you to wake up!”
Li Yanxing’s emotions spiraled out of control as he shook Lu Chiwan frantically, shouting in a frenzy.
Lin Mu said fearfully, “Yan Ge, don’t—don’t shake her. I’m afraid you’ll shake her to death…”
Li Yanxing froze, only then noticing that the girl in his arms was growing paler and losing more blood by the second.
He immediately stopped his frantic movements, his gaze locked intensely on the girl whose life was fading away in his embrace. He had no idea what to do, completely immobilized by overwhelming helplessness.
Lin Mu drove as if launching a rocket, finally reaching the hospital.
He had already contacted people on the way. Late as it was, the hospital’s top specialists were summoned, picked up by special transport.
Many had been dragged straight out of their dreams in the middle of the night.
Who was Young Master Li, after all?
He was no good-natured fellow. If provoked, he could tear the hospital apart and have the experts buried on the spot.
The prestigious Li family, the foremost of the great clans, had somehow produced such an unruly scoundrel!
Lu Chiwan was rushed into the emergency room.
Just yesterday, Li Yanxing had brought her out of the hospital.
Standing outside the emergency room, Li Yanxing instinctively reached for another cigarette.
When he was agitated, he didn’t turn to heavy drinking but smoked fiercely instead.
A young nurse who had followed the doctors into the emergency room glanced at him and frowned, saying, “This is a hospital, and the patient is still inside receiving emergency treatment.”
The nurse probably didn’t know Li Yanxing’s identity and, seeing Lu Chiwan covered in blood, assumed he had beaten her, which explained her less-than-polite attitude.
Li Yanxing’s eyes sharpened.
Lin Mu, terrified, prepared to rush forward and pull her away.
However, after a moment of silence, Li Yanxing said nothing. He walked to the side, not only extinguishing the cigarette but also tossing the rest of the pack into the trash bin.
Bang!
Frustrated, he kicked the trash bin violently.
The force was so extreme that the bin was destroyed beyond use.
Lu Chiwan had inhaled water and sustained multiple external injuries. Fortunately, no bones were broken, but her condition still required hospitalization.
The hospital was funded by the Li family. As the young mistress of the Li family, Lu Chiwan was honored with the highest level of care—her room’s environment was no different from a private villa.
Although Lu Chiwan hadn’t broken any bones, her injuries were severe, and she remained unconscious.
Li Yanxing didn’t even change his clothes, staying by her side in the hospital room.
Lying in the hospital bed, the young girl, pale from excessive blood loss, showed little sign of improvement.
At this moment, she was utterly still, a far cry from the lively, boisterous girl who had once pounced on him without warning.
He hadn’t known her for long—from the time they met until now, including her coma after the car accident, it had only been a little over ten days.
She was the woman of his enemy.
Given his temperament, even if he couldn’t catch Chen Yang, there was no need for him to care about this woman’s life or death. If she jumped into the lake and died, so be it.
But…
“Yan Ge, that person is dead. When he jumped… his head hit a rock.”
“The trail has gone completely cold. We’ve worked for nothing this time.”
Lin Mu pushed the door open and entered.
The assassin’s body had already been fished out.
The last living witness was gone.
He glanced at Lu Chiwan, still unconscious on the hospital bed, and wondered what kind of mess this was—the trail had gone cold, the target hadn’t been caught, and they had almost lost one of their own in the process.
Li Yanxing said nothing.
Lin Mu looked at the blood staining his clothes and hesitated for a moment before speaking up, “Yan Ge, why don’t you go change your clothes first?”
“There are nurses here…”
“Get out!”
“Alright.”
Without another word, Lin Mu promptly made his exit.
He had followed Li Yanxing for many years, and the two shared a bond forged in life-and-death situations.
They had escaped together from the darkness overseas.
He understood Li Yanxing’s temperament all too well.
As he reached the door, Lin Mu couldn’t resist glancing back. Li Yanxing sat slumped in the chair by the hospital bed, the lamplight stretching his shadow. His back, no longer upright, leaned listlessly against the chair. The bloodstains on his clothes only added to his air of desolation.
It had been a long time since Lin Mu had seen Li Yanxing so defeated.
Both of them had clawed their way out of hell, struggling to survive step by step.
That was why, even when seriously injured or facing grave situations, they rarely took things to heart.
But this time, he knew Li Yanxing was deeply troubled by Lu Chiwan’s injury.
Lin Mu quietly closed the door and left, wondering to himself—how had Yan Ge fallen so hard in such a short time?
After all, that girl’s identity was… complicated.
Meanwhile, in an underground factory.
A man of ordinary appearance, with tattooed sleeves on his arms, was enjoying himself, embracing women on both sides.
“Second Master, it’s done.”
“But that Lu family girl refused to come with us and nearly died jumping into the lake. Wasn’t that overacting?”
A sly-looking, scrawny man darted nimbly like a monkey to stand before Chen Yang—Second Master Chen.
The man reveling with women on both sides was none other than Chen Yang, whom Li Yanxing had been searching for all these years.
He was extremely cautious, rarely operating above ground, preferring to hide in shadowy, clandestine underground factories like this one. With the backing of powerful figures protecting him, finding him was as difficult as scaling the heavens.
“Nearly died?”
Chen Yang pinched the slender waist of the beauty beside him. “That Lu family little princess is a peerless beauty. What a waste if she died just like that.”
“But whether she lives or dies doesn’t matter. As long as she’s ruined by Li Yanxing and stirs conflict between the Lu and Li families, our mission is accomplished.”
“To set this trap, I even sacrificed my real lover.”
The scrawny man nodded eagerly. “Second Master is right. This time, all our men died. Li Yanxing should believe in that Lu girl’s identity now. He’ll keep trying to use her as bait to lure us out, not realizing that she’s the bait we set to hook him.”
“Li Yanxing is supposed to be smart. Who’d have thought he’d fall for this?”
Chen Yang sighed in frustration. “To lure Li Yanxing into this trap, the boss sacrificed more than half of his forces.”
“That kid has a tough fate and is ruthless. He actually survived in such conditions and even returned to the Li family.”
“No matter what, the Li family is still the foremost aristocratic family in the southern city, with roots so deep they’re hard to shake. To completely bring down the Li family, we need to get the wealthy families from the northern city involved.”
“The Lu family reigns supreme among the northern city’s wealthy families. Lu Chiwan’s eight brothers are all outstanding talents, exceptionally capable. Their only weakness is this younger sister.”
“As long as something happens to Lu Chiwan while she’s in Li Yanxing’s hands, the Lu family will inevitably fight the Li family to the death. Then our boss can reap the spoils, and both the northern and southern cities will be ours.”
“Second Master is right. We’ll just wait quietly for that kid Li Yanxing to torment that little beauty properly.”
“…”
When Lu Chiwan woke up, it was already the third day.
The moment she opened her eyes, she saw Li Yanxing covered in blood and was terrified.
“Husband, what happened to you? Are you hurt?”
Lu Chiwan struggled to get up.
But she had no strength in her entire body, was extremely weak, and her head still hurt.
Li Yanxing had been guarding her for three days and couldn’t hold on any longer. He had just dozed off for a while when the young girl woke up.
“Stop moving!”
Seeing her start to move around right after waking up, the anger Li Yanxing had been suppressing instantly flared up, and he roared fiercely at the young girl.
Lu Chiwan was frightened, staring at him blankly.
“Jumping into the lake, you’re really something.”
“If they told you to go with them, you should have just gone. If you’d left, you wouldn’t have suffered like this.”
“Do you know you almost died!”
Li Yanxing stood up and pressed Lu Chiwan back onto the hospital bed, his gaze darkening as he looked down. “I didn’t want you dead, do you hear me!”
He had indeed used her as bait and hadn’t cared about her life or death.
But when something actually happened, he felt extremely irritable and couldn’t harden his heart.
He had been guarding her for three days, sitting and thinking for three days, but still couldn’t figure out what was wrong with him.
Lin Mu wanted to call it lovesickness, but was afraid Li Yanxing would cut off his head and use it to make wine.
Lu Chiwan pursed her lips, her voice very soft as if frightened by him, “But, but I couldn’t let them use me to threaten you.”
“If I had been captured by them, you would have been the one getting hurt.”
Li Yanxing was slightly stunned, the anger in his heart abruptly stopped, instantly fading away, unable to be expressed.
“You… what did you say?”