As soon as his fingertips touched Han Li’s cheeks, Shen Kong instantly realized that something was wrong.
The skin touched by his hand was hot, and the breath under his palm was as hot as magma, almost ironing his palm.
He frowned and looked at Han Li, who was pressed against the wall in the darkness, asking in a very low voice: “Do you have a fever?”
Han Li shook his head slightly, his delicate and hot cheek brushing against Shen Kong’s palm. But he still stubbornly mumbled:
“…I’m fine.”
Considering Han Li’s behavior just now, Shen Kong couldn’t help but worry——could he be suffering from a fever-induced delirium?
At this moment, there were chaotic footsteps outside the door, knocking on the hard, smooth floor. They were rapidly approaching from a short distance, their sounds filtering through the crack in the door.
Shen Kong’s attention was attracted.
He instinctively pressed his palm down a little harder, and his knees habitually twisted and pushed, firmly pinning the restless body against the wall.
Han Li stiffened all over.
Shen Kong didn’t notice anything, only staring intently at the glimmering crack in the door, an undoubted meaning in his deliberately lowered voice:
“Don’t move.”
Han Li stopped moving.
The enclosed space was dark and quiet, with only a narrow crack in the door letting in some light, casting a hazy glow.
His eyes, heated by his body temperature, were particularly bright, shining like stars in the darkness. A bit of compelling light burned in the bottom of his eyes as he gazed at the young man’s blurred side profile in front of him, his thoughts a mystery.
Han Li blinked slowly and asked in a low voice:
“Who’s that outside?”
Shen Kong chuckled in a hoarse, low voice, and the vibrations in his chest transmitted through the bodies of the two who were pressed up against each other, causing Han Li’s heart to throb slightly:
“My father.”
Han Li was stunned for a moment, and a glimmer of clarity flashed through his muddled eyes. He remembered that he had sent someone to investigate Cheng Chen’s father, and a clue that had been ignored at the time shone brightly in the depths of his memory.
Suddenly, without warning, the tormenting hallucinations struck again along with the headache.
He abruptly closed his eyes and clenched his teeth hard, trying to resist the surging images in his subconsciousness——
The lightless night, the muzzle’s reflection, the fall, and the shattered leg bones.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
All the images were suddenly distorted by the high fever and pain. All the things that had happened and had not happened seemed to be mixed into a blur, colliding hard in Han Li’s brain, which was sometimes confused and sometimes awake, torturing his fragile and weak mind. The tense nerves quickly nibbled away at the little sanity he had left, causing him to fall into a semi-conscious state again almost instantly.
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The high body temperature almost burned through the clothes, spreading from fabric to fabric.
The footsteps outside the door were no longer rapid and dense. Although a faint echo could still be heard, it could be discerned that they had basically gone away.
Shen Kong cautiously let go of his palm covering Han Li’s mouth and nose, then slowly stepped back, trying to seamlessly increase the distance between them, but was stopped by the tightly clasped palms around his waist.
Han Li closed his eyes tightly, his lowered eyelashes trembling slightly. Broken words squeezed out from between his teeth as he murmured ambiguously:
“…Don’t, don’t go.”
Shen Kong’s movements couldn’t help but pause slightly, and his mind couldn’t help but recall the scene at the last time when little Han Li, who was feverish and delirious after the operation, held on to his clothes tightly and refused to let go.
——Sure enough, no matter how old he gets, this won’t change.
Yet Shen Kong couldn’t help but feel troubled at the same time. You know, he could tear off his own clothes last time, but this time he couldn’t take off Han Li’s arm.
Although it was not impossible… the footsteps outside the door were still lingering from time to time. It’s always bad to make too much noise.
You know, his opponents this time were no longer inexperienced gangsters from last time. His current physical condition was not very suitable for fighting. Plus, he was dragging an unconscious Han Li. There were also a bunch of classmates who knew his true identity waiting next door. No matter what they do, they have to be overly cautious, as there’s very little room for maneuvers.
Han Li, who had fallen into a state of chaos, knew nothing about Shen Kong’s complex mental journey, let alone that he almost had his arms taken off.
In the darkness, countless broken scenes spun in front of his eyes, grinning ferociously as they approached him. He seemed to have once again become that desperate and helpless ten-year-old child.
Han Li tightened his arms and hugged the cold and flexible body in his arms firmly, as if clutching the only life-saving straw. He pressed his hot forehead against the side of Shen Kong’s neck and breathed out heavily.
Under the vague and pungent smell of tobacco, he smelled a familiar scent in his dazedness——
Like forcefully nipping off the roots of green grass, with the clear bitter taste seeping into the fingertips from the greenish juice.
Han Li’s violently beating heart subconsciously slowed down.
——It was as if he could hear the smooth and steady heartbeat beating rhythmically in the darkness, causing his own nerves to gradually relax as well.
The menacing hallucinations and pain just now finally showed signs of disappearing.
Shen Kong keenly felt that the body relying on him was showing signs of relaxation, so he quickly and skillfully freed himself from Han Li’s arms.
At this moment, the footsteps in the corridor hovered near the door again, but this time the sound was obviously alone.
Only one person.
That would be much easier to handle.
Shen Kong slowly gripped the door knob, opened a crack in the door slightly, and closely watched the approaching shadow on the ground.
His back was slightly arched, showing a state of difference between tension and relaxation, like a leopard waiting for action, slowly mobilizing all the usable muscles in his body.
At last, when the shadow finally reached the estimated location, Shen Kong suddenly opened the door and rushed out, skillfully covering the stupefied man’s wide-open mouth with one hand. Before he could even make a sound, another hand deftly and ruthlessly hit his arteries hard, causing his brain to be instantly deprived of oxygen and fall into a limp coma.
Shen Kong held up his falling body and dragged him into the dark room.
The whole process lasted less than a few seconds. He was as fast as a shadow and as quiet as a cat. In just the blink of an eye, there was not a soul in sight in the corridor.
Han Li leaned against the wall and looked up at him. His face, which was burning red, was illuminated by the light. His pitch-dark eyes were also covered with a layer of bright mist. He didn’t speak; it seemed as if he was somewhere between distraction and consciousness. Even Shen Kong wasn’t sure whether he was conscious now.
He half-supported and half-dragged Han Li out of the private room.
——It was only a matter of time before those people would start looking for them from door to door. It was no longer safe to stay in this private room.
With one arm around Shen Kong’s neck, Han Li struggled to prop himself up, his voice hoarse and weak: “In the corridor ahead, turn left and keep going forward. That’s the security room.”
“——I saw it on the way up.”
Han Li added, for some unknown reason.
It was his own idea to set up a security room on each floor. There were usually four to five staff members permanently stationed inside to prevent unexpected things from happening.
Shen Kong helped Han Li up and walked in the direction he pointed. Sure enough, he found the security room he mentioned at the end of the corridor on the left.
But there was no one inside.
Han Li had regained some clarity in his mind at this moment. He let go of Shen Kong and limped forward a few steps. He gazed at the absolutely empty room and frowned slightly——he had once instructed that someone should always be stationed in the emergency room, so the situation in front of him shouldn’t be possible, and… he didn’t see a single attendant along the way just now.
In addition, PUZZEL’s access control was very strict, and it was impossible to enter without an appointment.
It was as if the conclusion was on the verge of coming out——
There’s a mole inside.
While Han Li was thinking deeply, Shen Kong had already searched for the sketch of this floor from the table. He lowered his eyes and thought for a while, then turned to Han Li and said, “Wait for me here and lock the door.”
Han Li was startled. He subconsciously wanted to stop him, but before he could open his mouth, Shen Kong had already moved sideways and left the door.
His fingers, half-raised in the air, tightened one by one, and in the depths of his pitch-black eyes, it seemed that some deeply suppressed emotion was slowly churning.
It’s always like this.
Staying behind like a burden.
Or be left behind without any reluctance.
Whether it was his family, his kin, or at that time…
Han Li lowered his eyes and limped to the table. He grabbed the phone on it and skillfully dialed a number.
He now remembered why he felt that Cheng Chen’s father seemed familiar to him before.
Before Cheng Zekang became a professional gambler, he was a well-known broker. After he became addicted to gambling, he began to work for casinos to fill his growing financial debt. The casino where he gambled most often happened to be in the East District, the same area where Lin Ziyu had warned him about the possibility of new players arriving.
It’s very likely that when Cheng Chen saved him from the gangsters in the rain that day in the East District, it caught the attention of the group originally watching him.
Han Li shouldn’t have been here tonight, but due to his fever, he fell asleep on the top floor, which caused him to oversleep and coincidentally stumble upon the events happening on the fourth floor.
And those who could infiltrate so deeply into PUZZEL’s interior, and even master the schedule and control the contacts, must have spent a long time sneaking in carefully and slowly. But why did they suddenly abandon their previous low-key strategy and instead blatantly send people to the fourth floor to search for someone on a grand scale? They knew perfectly well that once they took action, their previous efforts would likely be in vain, so why were they so nervous and urgent…?
The phone was quickly connected.
“Who is in charge of the fourth floor tonight?” Han Li asked coldly.
He lightly tapped the table with his other finger and then ordered: “Control all the relevant people, seal off the floor, and send people up immediately.”
The lights above his head shone down, covering Han Li’s eyes with a thin layer of cold light.
Han Li took out two aspirin pills that he kept with him, put them in his mouth, and chewed them slowly. The bitter and astringent taste spread between his lips and teeth.
——Unlike eight years ago, he’s finally no longer the child who can only wait helplessly in the basement.
He took a deep breath, lowered his head, and subconsciously stroked his left palm.
It was as if he could still feel the slightly cool touch of his skin in his palm, leaving the tautness and tremor of youth and vitality.
Han Li felt some kind of strange feeling rising from the bottom of his heart, arousing an unfamiliar and new emotion in his mind that was muddle-headed by the high fever. He pursed his lips and told himself:
This person named Cheng Chen is too dangerous and elusive, with too many unknown mysteries…
He needs to have more contact with him to confirm that he is not a threat to him.
The author has something to say: How could I possibly write such a dangerous plot about medicines! Your thoughts are too impure! (Bitter and hateful
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Thank you for the chapter 😍 ❤️ ❤️ ❤️
Han Li’s obsessive tendencies have awoken
thank you for the chapter!
and i am concerned on what is wakening