The cold winter wind howled across the concrete paths of the compound, cutting across faces like knives.
Private Xiao Li pushed Huo Jingchuan’s wheelchair, running so hard that his lungs felt ready to explode.
The soles of his shoes scraped sharply against the ground.
Jiang Mian followed behind, gasping for breath. Her old cotton coat puffed up in the wind, making her look like a clumsy penguin—but her steps were surprisingly steady, never lagging.
“What’s wrong with the old commander?” she asked.
Huo Jingchuan sat in the jostling wheelchair, hands gripping the armrests tightly, voice cold and steady, without a trace of panic.
Xiao Li, almost crying, said, “He had a bite of seafood at lunch, then suddenly grabbed his neck and said he couldn’t breathe… his face went purple! Now he’s unconscious! The experts from the military hospital are still on their way—they said ten more minutes before they arrive!”
Zhang Jianguo.
He was Huo Jingchuan’s mentor, the man who had watched him grow up and the biggest pillar of support in his military career.
Huo Jingchuan’s face turned ashen, eyes flashing with barely concealed anxiety.
Jiang Mian, trailing behind, heard the keywords—“seafood,” “can’t breathe,” “turning purple”—and her previously feigned panic froze into professional sharpness.
【Acute laryngeal edema from a seafood allergy?】
【This is life-threatening! Swelling can quickly block the vocal cords and cause suffocation. The golden rescue window is only a few minutes; if the brain is deprived of oxygen for over five minutes, even if saved, he could become a vegetable!】
【Ten minutes? By the time the experts arrive, it’ll be too late!】
Jiang Mian clenched her teeth and quickened her pace.
She wanted to be a lazy civilian, but a doctor’s instinct wouldn’t allow her to watch a life slip away due to suffocation.
They rushed to the red-brick general’s building at the back of the compound.
Before entering, they heard chaotic cries and panicked shouting from inside.
“Old Zhang! Don’t scare me! Wake up!”“Where’s the doctor? Why isn’t the ambulance here yet?”“Dad! Hang on, Dad!”
The entrance was crowded with guards and family members, all panicked, like a pot of boiling chaos.
Xiao Li pushed the wheelchair into the living room. On the wide sofa lay an elderly man, hair graying, his face a frightening shade of purple. Eyes tightly shut, lips blackened, he gasped with a hissing, bellows-like sound—signs of an airway about to fully close.
Beside him, a young, sweaty, twenty-something intern in a white coat trembled, holding a blood pressure cuff that he couldn’t even fasten properly.
“Blood pressure… can’t get a reading… pulse is weak…” The intern’s voice quivered, clearly frozen by the sudden crisis, unable to make a proper judgment.
Family members circled, crying and shouting, making the air even thinner and the room more tense.
Jiang Mian stood behind Huo Jingchuan. One glance and her temper flared instantly.
【Is that intern made of wood?!】【The patient is hypoxic, his larynx is spasm-ing, and he’s measuring blood pressure?!】【At this stage, BP readings are useless! One more minute of delay, and no one can save him! This is murder!】
Her hand instinctively reached for the needle package in her sleeve, eyes sharp as knives.
But the crowd in front was thick; no one noticed them.
Xiao Li shouted desperately, “Make way! The commander’s here!”—but his voice was swallowed by the chaos.
At that critical moment, the silent Huo Jingchuan slammed the wheelchair armrest.
“Bang!”
The thud wasn’t loud, but the roar that followed was like thunder breaking over a battlefield, carrying the aura of a warrior who had fought through death itself.
“Stop crying!!”“Get out of the way!!”
His voice was hoarse, but it carried absolute authority, ironclad and unyielding.
The once chaotic living room seemed paused in time.
Crying relatives, panicked guards, and frozen interns all turned instinctively toward the sound.
At the doorway sat the man in the wheelchair. Though thin, though his legs were crippled, his straightened back was an immovable mountain.
His eyes were dark and piercing, scanning the room like unsheathed blades.
The pressure he emanated was even stronger than the frail elderly general on the sofa.
The crowd parted instinctively, forming a clear path to the sofa.
“Xiao Li, push me forward.”
Huo Jingchuan’s cold order locked onto the nearly lifeless old man.
Jiang Mian followed behind the wheelchair, her heartbeat accelerating as she observed his broad back.
【Gotta admit, this Huo king’s control over a room is impressive.】【Legs may be useless, but this presence… damn, it’s enough to make knees weak.】【Alright, since he cleared the path, next up… time for this godlike doctor to perform!】
Jiang Mian inhaled deeply. Her sleeve-covered fingers already gripped the lifesaving silver needles. Her eyes shifted from “panicked little wife” to cold-faced emergency physician.
The Huo King wants to take a life?
He just asked me, Jiang Mian, with a needle.