Old He~ Hey! Old He! Aah!!! (Please Keep Reading!)

?

He Laosan was in trouble?

The news immediately put Xu Shi on alert.

"What exactly happened?"

He grew serious and pressed for details.

"The information I received wasn't very detailed. It only said that He Yuqiang had been severely injured and was currently receiving treatment at a hospital in District 16."

Su Lin shook her head. "But come to think of it, Young Master... shouldn't you have heard about something like this before I did?"

"..."

That did seem to be true?

Xu Shi blinked. No matter what, his superficial brotherhood with He Yuqiang was still intact, and the two of them usually shared plenty of information with each other.

Yet this time, he had only learned about it afterward, and Su Lin had been the one to tell him... It wasn't simply because he had been busy dealing with Jiang Fengshan lately.

It was because He Yuqiang had never told him.

"...Take Miss Jiang home first."

After pondering for a moment, Xu Shi immediately ordered, "Then we'll go see what happened."

There was no need to bring too many people on a hospital visit, and Jiang Chengcheng, who had just undergone her transformation, truly needed proper rest.

There was no need to worry about her safety—Xu Shi had long arranged security for her equivalent to a level-three alert, so certain people would not try their old tricks again and create more trouble.

Besides, the modifications she had made to the security system at home were not to be underestimated either.

Only after settling all that did Xu Shi head to the hospital.

Given his status, no one would naturally stop him. He smoothly entered the intensive care ward where He Yuqiang was staying.

The moment he saw the other man, Xu Shi instinctively clicked his tongue.

He really was in a sorry state.

Though his left cheek was tightly wrapped in gauze, one could tell at a glance that he had lost an ear.

The optic nerve in his left eye had also been damaged. After surgery, he looked utterly ferocious.

Well, damn... Xu Shi stared at his face for a moment, thoughts racing. He suppressed the laughter bubbling up inside him, put on a grief-stricken expression, and after a brief buildup, wailed aloud.

"Old He~ Hey! Old He! Aah!!!"

Paired with his frantic chest-beating and stomping, anyone unaware of the situation would have thought He Yuqiang had failed to pull through.

"...So noisy! Who is it?!"

The commotion naturally woke He Yuqiang. He groggily opened his eyes and glared over.

Since being injured, the double torment of body and mind had pushed him to the brink of collapse. He had not slept well for days.

He had finally managed to doze off after his IV drip today, but before his eyes had even been closed for long, this funeral-like wailing had driven away every trace of sleepiness.

His first instinct was to slap the person across the face.

But when he saw who it was, he had no choice but to restrain his anger. "...Old Xu?"

"Oh, Old He, you're awake?"

Xu Shi stopped at just the right moment, then asked with both surprise and concern, "Y-you... What on earth happened to you? We haven't seen each other for only a few days. How did you end up looking like this?"

That was knowingly asking the obvious.

The act he had put on in the office that day had been intended to use Shark Tooth against Spark, making He Yuqiang and Shen He tear into each other.

But He Yuqiang ending up like this had truly been beyond his expectations.

He had expected that such tactics alone would never completely break up Shen He and Spark, but then again, Shen He's current strength should not have been enough to leave He Yuqiang in such a state, should it?

Damn, are you even more useless than I—the original owner—was?

"I..."

He Yuqiang hesitated.

He really could not explain it. He could hardly tell Xu Shi the truth—that he had been set up by Spark and ended up like this, could he?

Wouldn't that indirectly admit that he had been colluding with them behind the scenes?

"Oh, come on, what do you mean, 'I'? What's the relationship between us? Why are you hemming and hawing?"

Xu Shi urged anxiously. "Did someone bully you? Tell me. I'll get revenge for you, brother!"

"..."

Xu Shi's heartfelt appearance left He Yuqiang somewhat stunned.

To be fair, although his negotiations with Shen He had fallen through, Shen He's words had still affected him.

Xu Shi had to be guarded against.

That was why he had not told Xu Shi about his accident... But seeing Xu Shi act like this, the suspicion in his heart could not help but lessen somewhat.

He did not look anything like Shen He had described. It felt like this idiot still considered him a brother.

Hmm...

"...Forget it. If you don't want to talk about it, Old He, then don't."

Seeing him hesitate, Xu Shi sighed and rose to leave. "Focus on recovering and get well soon... I'll come see you again in a couple of days. Once you've recovered, we'll go play Impart again."

That little tactic of playing hard to get struck directly at He Yuqiang's weak point.

Although his attitude toward Xu Shi had changed, one could not deny that Xu Shi was the only person who had visited him since he had been hospitalized.

From the time he was injured until now, his father had paid him no attention at all. His eldest brother and second sister had not checked on him either, as though the He family did not even have someone like him.

Yet Xu Shi, an outsider... Whether he was sincere or not, at least he had come.

Young Master He felt rather moved, and finally stopped Xu Shi before he left.

"It's actually nothing major... I was merely ambushed by some lowlifes from Sin City."

He recounted what had happened in fits and starts.

However, He Yuqiang kept his guard up. He glossed over the important parts and did not specifically mention Shen He or Spark, instead replacing them with the names of other gangs.

But that was already enough for Xu Shi to understand everything.

Well, that was strange.

Xu Shi was not surprised that He Yuqiang and Shen He had still been able to negotiate under those circumstances.

Because Xu Shi knew that this was Shen He's ability.

United Will—an ability that dispelled negative emotions in others' hearts, while stimulating positive emotions as much as possible and spreading them to others.

Its effects were astonishingly similar to Malice Entropy, yet its essence felt somewhat opposed to it.

No wonder this villain had it so rough. Even their abilities were completely countered by the protagonist.

Unless someone had been influenced to the extent of Jiang Chengcheng or Su Lin, no villainous female executive would likely be able to resist being won over by the protagonist's Yasasii. Sigh.

At this point in time, Shen He should already have undergone one Re-Ascension of his ability, gaining an aura-like area-of-effect rather than needing physical contact to activate it like Xu Shi did.

If he progressed another step, the positive emotions produced by those he influenced—trust, loyalty, admiration, love, and so on—could all feed back into him as buffs, greatly enhancing his physical fitness and mental strength.

A standard commander-type ability... Ahem, that was beside the point.

In any case, under such influence, it made sense for He Yuqiang to waver.

But then again, if that was true, the person who had ambushed He Yuqiang definitely could not have been Shen He.

Shen He was not stupid. After losing the drone, he would certainly try every possible way to repair his relationship with Shark Tooth.

Risking everything to stabilize He Yuqiang, only to ambush him afterward? Only an idiot would do that.

Even if he had turned him into One-Ear, let alone actually killed him, it would still have been more loss than gain for Shen He.

There had to be someone else firing shots from the shadows... But who wanted to fan the flames at a time like this? Xu Shi truly had no clue.

The main problem was that people like them had made plenty of enemies over the years. Looking through them, anyone seemed possible, making it difficult to identify the culprit for the moment.

The only certainty was that this meant there would no longer be any chance of cooperation between Spark and Shark Tooth—even if He Yuqiang eventually figured things out, after something like this happened, he would never want anything to do with Shen He again.

"Alright, I understand."

Xu Shi nodded thoughtfully. "Rest up, Old He. Once I return, I'll gather my forces and slaughter every last bastard who harmed you!"

Of course, he was only saying that. It would be a mistake to take it seriously.

But figuring out who was stirring things up behind the scenes was still important. This was a situation that had never appeared in the original novel, and Xu Shi did not want unforeseen developments like this to arise.

After leaving the ward, Xu Shi was still puzzled. He did not even hear Su Lin call for him, his mind entirely occupied with the question.

Just then.

His gaze happened to fall on the virtual portrait displayed in the lobby.

The instant he saw the person in the portrait, he understood.

...Could it have been her?