Chapter 1379 - 1355: Betrayed by a Woman

Chapter 1379: Chapter 1355: Betrayed by a Woman

Xiao Lin had been keeping guard outside the door, both hands almost dyed red with blood. He stared at the Black Doctor’s door, tightly shut.

After Yelü Shou finished bandaging himself, he sat down beside him. Chu Qi was lying on another bed; on his way back he’d run into another wave of attackers. Even without asking, just looking at that almost-scrapped car, you could picture the scene of crossing a line of fire.

Chu Qi hadn’t let Xiao Lin’s expectations down. He safely brought Xiao Ya back to Sin City, and those people had tailed them all the way until they entered downtown Palermo before giving up. Luckily he had military experience; only that allowed them to break out of the strong encirclement of gunfire at the last moment.

"Your spine, is it okay?" Yelü Shou wanted to check the injury on Xiao Lin’s back. During the fight with that group earlier, he’d already sensed something was off about Xiao Lin, and only after they returned to Sin City did he realize how brutal the wound on his back was. "Let me take a look."

Xiao Lin brushed away Yelü Shou’s reaching hand with one arm. He bent forward, forearms resting on his thighs, ten fingers clenched tightly together. His pitch?black eyes stared at a corner in front of him, with no room left for other thoughts.

Yelü Shou pulled back the hand that had been rejected. In fact, he didn’t need to worry too much; the fact that Xiao Lin could still sit that straight meant it wasn’t critical.

"Staying here won’t get you results any faster. Since you’re fine, let’s go to your office."

He didn’t need to look back to know Xiao Lin would follow.

"While you were zoning out, I sent people to dig into those guys’ background." Yelü Shou nestled under the air conditioner; with his constitution prone to cold, he liked warm places.

Finally, Xiao Lin showed a bit of reaction. He silently fixed his gaze on Yelü Shou.

"We’ve all been played." Yelü Shou shifted his sitting posture and stopped talking in circles. He tossed Xiao Lin the file he’d just gotten. "From Wang Zhanting to Mu Rongyun, everything was orchestrated by Quan Xianglin alone, including that Shao Qinyi."

Even though Yelü Shou didn’t want to put it that bluntly, it was still the truth. "Lian, the plan itself had no flaws, but there was a preconceived mindset. You didn’t factor in the full cause and effect, so bias was inevitable. Plus, your father never told you the whole story back then, and ’Black Crow’ doesn’t actually take orders from Lian. So..."

"So, you mean we’ve been taken for a ride?"

"More like used. Where are you going?" Yelü Shou grabbed Xiao Lin, who was bolting out in panic, tightening his grip so he couldn’t break free.

"Qing Yi and Lao Jiu!"

Xiao Lin frowned. If that was the case, then Hua Qingyi and Lao Jiu, who had been sent to Quan Xianglin’s side, were in the most danger.

"I’ve already got people bringing them back. You should thank yourself for taking it upon you to severely injure Young Master Hua; that made Quan Xianglin lower his guard."

Xiao Lin froze for a moment, then backed up and dropped onto the sofa.

Just then, the Black Doctor pushed the door open from outside. He looked exhausted, still carrying a medical case in his hand. He walked up to Xiao Lin without a word, forcibly turned his body, and tore open his clothes, exposing the entire wound on his back.

Fortunately, Xiao Lin had a special constitution; the wound showed signs of self?repair. But leaving it like this would lead to other adverse reactions. "You’re going on an antibiotic drip tonight. I don’t need to spell it out; you know this is necessary. Even if your constitution is special, it’s not omnipotent."

"How is he?" Xiao Lin accepted the Black Doctor’s proposal. If the situation wasn’t very bad, the Black Doctor rarely used antibiotics, which were not exactly good for the human body.

"He won’t die. But the other side hit hard; without a month or two of recovery, he won’t bounce back. The other one’s in good shape, just abrasions. One night’s rest and he’ll be fine."

Xiao Lin had thought the Black Doctor would just leave, but instead he surprisingly stayed in the office. The three of them fell into a tacit silence.

He didn’t know how long had passed before someone came up to report that Lao Jiu had returned. Hua Qingyi’s abdomen was wrapped in bandages, and Lao Jiu carried him into the room on his back.

The Black Doctor glanced at the area that had been bandaged and frowned. "Are doctors these days just eating for nothing?" Ignoring everyone else, he picked up his scalpel and in a few quick motions removed Hua Qingyi’s bandage, carefully inspecting his wound. "Young Master Xiao’s strike was very measured; the wound isn’t deep. But this suture will leave a scar—the thread is one size too thick."

"Hey, you’re not going to take it apart and stitch it up again, are you?" Hua Qingyi threw an arm across his abdomen. "A few scars on a man don’t matter."

The Black Doctor’s lips curled into a cold smile. With just one hand he easily picked open the knot on the suture; the wound split again. "Like this, your wound is going to take forever to close. The constant oozing of blood is because the tools were wrong. Over time, it’ll lead to infection."

Hua Qingyi was speechless. In front of a practicing doctor, his request was worth nothing. No matter what kind of people this man treated, it was still based on medical practice—and this man was far from an ordinary practitioner.

Though unwilling, Hua Qingyi had to admit the Black Doctor’s technique could be called outstanding. Without anesthetic, all he felt was a sharp sting in his abdomen, not that heart?ripping agony. In just a few seconds, the knot at the end was already tied off.

Xiao Lin’s expression had eased quite a bit. The not?so?large office suddenly felt cramped as a few tall men crowded in all at once.

"What’s going on?" Hua Qingyi stroked his own abdomen. Being dragged out of a hospital bed for no reason felt terrible. "Has the plan been called off?"

After a moment of silence, Xiao Lin suddenly raised his hand; three Silver Needles shot out, blasting apart the hidden camera embedded at the corner of the wall. As the screen instantly went dark, Lian’s expression looked anything but good.

In fact, the moment Xiao Ya came back, she had already begun to regret it. A bad premonition slowly crept through her whole body; sooner or later, Xiao Lin was going to come for her.

"How long will it take to find Quan Xianglin’s whereabouts?" Xiao Lin suddenly asked.

"Three days at the earliest, five at the latest," Yelu Shou answered crisply.

"I was too naive! From now on, at any cost, wipe out Quan Xianglin and Shao Qinyi."

Even without video, the sound was still there. Xiao Lin’s final words reached Lian’s ears, clear and distinct. This was tantamount to saying he no longer needed her as his Military Advisor. Clutching her chest in pain, Lian took a deep breath.

Among them, Hua Qingyi was perhaps the hardest to calm down, yet under circumstances like these he couldn’t say another word. No one understood better than he did the relationship between Xiao Lin and Lian. What Xiao Lin was doing now was, for Lian, tantamount to sweeping her out of his world. He couldn’t figure out why.

If it was just a failed plan, at worst it was a miscalculation. But from how things looked now, it was clearly not that simple. Several times he tried to speak, and each time Xiao Lin stopped him with a look. Forcing down the sense of unfairness he felt on Lian’s behalf, Hua Qingyi turned away and said no more.

The temperature in the room suddenly dropped to freezing. No one spoke again. Yelu Shou sighed helplessly. Hua Qingyi’s misunderstanding of Xiao Lin was, inevitably, because of Lian. But with Xiao Lin’s personality, he was never going to explain. Others might not care who was right or wrong in all this, but the fact remained: Lian had come from the Xiao Family, and there were far too few parts of this that couldn’t be suspected. On top of that, the heavy blow dealt to Xiao Ya all pointed toward the suspicion that Lian’s plan had provided support for it.

"Is it a direct strike this time?" Yelu Shou felt that at a moment like this he should at least say something, so the atmosphere wouldn’t sink any further.

"Finish it fast."

The door of the monitoring room was slowly pushed open the next second. Lian, standing with her back to the door, clasped her hands together nervously. She could feel the restrained fury radiating off Xiao Lin.

"Pack up. I’m sending you back to the Xiao Family."

Not a word of blame, not a single question; simple and plain, yet leaving no room for refusal.

Lian let out a sigh. In a blur, she caught the flash of hurt on Xiao Lin’s face. She knew that no amount of words could return things to the way they were.

The humiliation of being "sent back" had already made Lian the last person who should be wedged between Xiao Lin and Xiao Zhenfeng when they met.

"I’ve brought her back to you. From now on, there is nothing between us."

Facing Xiao Zhenfeng, Xiao Lin didn’t want to stay even a second longer.

"Without me, could you have found Xiao Ya?" Xiao Zhenfeng waved Lian away, indicating that she should leave.

"So this is your goal?" Xiao Lin braced his hands on the table in anger, his body leaning forward until he was almost touching foreheads with Xiao Zhenfeng. "I told you not to touch Xiao Ya."

"I wasn’t the one who went after him." Xiao Zhenfeng leaned back. The fury radiating from Xiao Lin still inspired a certain degree of wariness.

"Your grand scheme is to use everyone around me as your cannon fodder?" Xiao Lin drew a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down.

"’Cannon fodder’ is a bit much. I don’t recall teaching you to talk like that." Xiao Zhenfeng raised an eyebrow. In the light, Xiao Lin gave him an illusion—that the child he had painstakingly groomed was slowly drifting away from him. "If you want to eradicate Quan Xianglin, you have to throw out the most tempting bait. You did beautifully with the task involving Quan Mingyuan, but making Shao Qinyi the killer—that was beyond my expectations. Stirring up infighting among the death row inmates can indeed serve as a prelude to breaking down Quan Xianglin, but it doesn’t actually weaken his true strength. We still don’t know what Quan Xianglin has been doing in secret all these years."

"So that makes it okay for you to sell out your own son? You almost killed him!"

"As a descendant of the Xiao Family, you should have that kind of awareness. Without the Xiao Family, there would be no you. Do you want to see the Xiao Family destroyed overnight?"

"You used my trust in Lian, used Xiao Ya, you sent me out as bait for Quan Xianglin. What did you get out of it?" Xiao Lin asked through clenched teeth. "Is the Xiao Family the only thing that matters in your heart?"

"Without the Xiao Family, there would be no you."

Xiao Lin lifted an eyebrow and took a step back. "Fine. From this moment on, I’m no longer your son. I’ll find out what really happened more than ten years ago, and why my mother has to live in that forbidden zone, never seeing the light of day. I’ll uncover all of it." (To be continued. If you enjoy this work, you’re welcome to visit Qidian (qidian.com) to vote with recommendation tickets and monthly tickets. Your support is my greatest motivation. Mobile users, please read on m.qidian.com.)