Chapter 787 - 787: The Chef Is in Trouble

Night fell as Zhao Guo'an pushed his shopping cart out of the mall.

Inside the cart, it was all vegetables and meat.

After all, with dozens of mouths waiting to eat, buying too little certainly wouldn't work.

He pulled out his phone, snapped a photo of the receipt in his hand, and sent it to Xiao Feng, waiting for reimbursement.

Objectively speaking, there was absolutely nothing wrong with what he was doing.

Cooking didn't come with an extra charge; couldn't possibly cover the ingredient costs as well, right?

After loading the meat and vegetables from the cart into the trunk, his phone chimed with a notification.

Zhao Guo'an unlocked it to find a transfer message from Xiao Feng, totaling 485.5 yuan.

He clicked to confirm the receipt and took another look at the receipt photo he sent, the amount was clearly 485.45 yuan.

"Actually gave me 5 cents extra?" Zhao Guo'an was incredulous: "Conscience kicking in?"

Just as he was thinking, a line of text came from Xiao Feng: "No need to return it, consider the extra money your labor fee."

Zhao Guo'an was stunned.

Though labor has become cheaper these days, it's not so cheap that you can hire a chef for 5 cents, right?

Who's being insulted here!

The more he thought about it, the angrier he got, and Zhao Guo'an immediately transferred back the 5 cents.

First, he didn't accept such an insult.

Second, to avoid adding more black marks to his history.

Imagine, one day things get tangled up, and Xiao Feng says, "Didn't I pay you for cooking?"

Then, others ask how much money he got, and he replies "5 cents," where's the dignity in that?

Closing the trunk, Zhao Guo'an walked to the driver's seat, opened the door, buckled up, and drove back to Jinyue Garden.

On the way, he switched the lights to high beams on a segment of unlit road.

This was also for safety considerations, since low beams have limited reach, and if you drive a bit fast, you might not brake in time if you see someone or an electric bike.

However, just as Zhao Guo'an turned on the high beams, he suddenly noticed a figure standing right in front of his vehicle.

Under the high beam light, the figure raised an arm, blocking the glare.

"Screech..."

He stomped on the brake, the car halted, less than a meter away from the figure.

From Zhao Guo'an's perspective, he was almost hitting the person.

"Huff... huff... huff..."

Zhao Guo'an kept taking deep breaths, his legs uncontrollably trembling.

"Click!"

Unbuckling the seatbelt, he stepped out angrily: "Do you have a death wish?!"

A middle-aged man wrapped in a military coat, looking quite ordinary, kept bowing and apologizing: "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I wasn't paying attention!"

Seeing his attitude, Zhao Guo'an felt his anger had nowhere to be vented, waved his hand and said: "Alright, go on."

Turned around to pull out a cigarette, lit it, and took a deep drag.

Zhao Guo'an decided to leave after finishing the cigarette, still shaken by the near-accident earlier.

He reached to open the car door, planning to rest inside.

But at that moment, there came a "puff" sound.

Simultaneously, a sharp pain tore through his waist.

"Ah!" Zhao Guo'an shouted, the cigarette slipped from his fingers, and he reached out to the car roof before turning to look.

What he saw was indeed the middle-aged man who he nearly hit and who kept apologizing.

And now, the man had plunged a fruit knife into him.

"Don't ask why. If you don't want to die, stay away from Jinghan."

Leaving those words, the middle-aged man ran into the woods by the roadside and soon disappeared.

Thud!

Zhao Guo'an fell to the ground.

As a skilled traditional Chinese medicine practitioner, he was sure the stab wasn't fatal.

This implied two possibilities.

The first, the man wasn't professional, didn't hit the vital spot.

The second, the real intention was a warning rather than actually wanting his life.

Zhao Guo'an leaned towards the second, because if it were murder, the man should have pulled the knife out to continue attacking, not just threatening and leaving.

But now was not the time to think about these.

Zhao Guo'an gritted his teeth and pulled out his phone, first calling for emergency services, then dialing Xiao Feng.

...

Meanwhile, Xiao Feng had already discussed with Sun Shijie about what poison to give Zheng Wei.

"Brother Feng, when's dinner?" Hui Shiba asked, clutching his belly with a bitter face: "I'm almost starving."

Xiao Feng replied irritably: "Have some backbone, alright? Compare yourself to the person standing by the courtyard wall.

They haven't eaten for who knows how long and aren't shouting hunger like you, are they?"

"He's too weak from hunger to shout, it's different from me." Hui Shiba chuckled.

Just then, the phone rang.

Xiao Feng answered, listened for a while, and his expression changed.

"Is there a problem?" Du Qingyue noticed his face, asked.

Xiao Feng replied somewhat speechlessly: "Forget about dinner here, go out or order takeout."

"What do you mean, Brother Xiao Feng?" the young girl asked.

"The cook's in trouble." Xiao Feng sighed: "On Fumen Avenue, someone stabbed him from behind with a knife."

After speaking, he looked at Lu Yao: "Check which hospital is closest to Fumen Avenue."

"Alright." Lu Yao agreed and started searching, in less than half a minute came back: "It's Jiangcheng City Central Hospital."

Xiao Feng nodded: "Alright, we won't all go, this isn't a fight, more people won't help.

Lone Wolf will come with me, everyone else stay home, if there's any situation I'll update everyone immediately."

...

Twenty minutes later, Xiao Feng and his group arrived at the Central Hospital.

Zhao Guo'an was in the process of having his wound treated.

According to the doctor, the issue wasn't too severe, no major organs were hurt, not life-threatening.

"Sister-in-law, this is partly my fault, if I hadn't asked him to go shopping, this wouldn't have happened." Xiao Feng said apologetically watching Zhen Jinghan, whose eyes were full of tension and unease.

Zhen Jinghan shook her head: "No one wanted to see this happen, let's wait for him to come out first."

After a dozen minutes, Zhao Guo'an was pushed out lying on a stretcher.

Seeing Zhen Jinghan, he looked at Xiao Feng, complaining: "Didn't I tell you not to tell her?"

"Could this be kept quiet?" Xiao Feng replied irritably: "If I don't tell sister-in-law, how do I explain where you went tonight, went to a bathhouse to relax?"

Zhen Jinghan ignored the bickering between Xiao Feng and Zhao Guo'an and instead found the doctor to understand the situation in detail.

After confirming multiple times that it wasn't a major injury and wouldn't leave any aftereffects, she finally felt relieved.

Arriving at the ward, while feeling distressed, Zhen Jinghan couldn't help but angrily say: "Who hurt you like this?"

"I don't know, mainly because I spaced out at the time, otherwise I would definitely have knocked him down." Zhao Guo'an said furiously.

Xiao Feng chuckled: "You're in this state, stop bragging, getting stabbed from behind, wasted all my years training you."