This condition couldn't wait any longer! Getting a hotel room for acupuncture wasn't too much, was it?

With the farce over, there was naturally no finishing the meal.

Although the restaurant manager had sent them red wine and waived the bill, remembering Zhao Yutang rolling around on the floor with blood all over his head would ruin even the heartiest appetite.

They took the elevator downstairs and walked out of the World Trade Center.

The early autumn night breeze blew into their faces, carrying a slight chill.

With both hands in his trouser pockets, Lin Bei strolled ahead, still muttering under his breath.

"Should've packed up that beef Wellington. After all that fuss, my stomach's still empty."

Walking beside him, Shen Ruoxi couldn't help laughing at his complaint.

She was wearing stilettos today and couldn't walk quickly.

Lin Bei deliberately slowed his pace to match hers.

Shen Ruoxi turned her head, studying the boy beside her under the dim yellow streetlights.

At school, he was always languid, seemingly unable to muster any enthusiasm for anything.

Yet at crucial moments, the composure and commanding presence this boy possessed, so at odds with his age, gave others an inexplicable sense of reassurance.

She recalled that instant in the restaurant when Zhao Yutang had gone berserk and attacked, and this boy, a full eight years her junior, had stepped in front of her without the slightest hesitation.

Shen Ruoxi's heart skipped a beat.

During her years of marriage to Zhao Yutang, she had always lived in fear. When had she ever experienced the security of being so firmly sheltered behind someone?

"What are you looking at me for? Got steak on my face?" Lin Bei suddenly turned his head and raised an eyebrow.

Shen Ruoxi looked away as though shocked by electricity, two blushes instantly blooming on her cheeks.

"N-no... nothing." She nervously smoothed the stray hair beside her ear, trying to hide her embarrassment.

Just then.

A slightly stronger gust of night wind swept down the street.

Shen Ruoxi's thin velvet gown offered no protection against the chill.

She shuddered violently and stopped in her tracks.

Immediately afterward, her face turned deathly pale, even her lips losing their color.

She doubled over in pain, both hands clamped over her lower abdomen, and sank straight into a crouch on the curb.

"Counselor Shen?"

Sensing something was wrong, Lin Bei immediately crouched down.

A fine layer of cold sweat had already broken out on Shen Ruoxi's forehead, plastering even the stray hairs at her temples to her face.

She trembled all over from the pain, biting her lower lip so hard that she left a deep white mark.

Without another word, Lin Bei grabbed her wrist.

He set three fingers over the cun, guan, and chi pulse positions.

Her skin was icy to the touch, and her pulse was an utter mess: deep, slow, and choppy.

Lin Bei's brows knotted tightly.

First the fright at the restaurant, then this gust of night wind outside.

The uterine cold that had accumulated in Shen Ruoxi's body for years had erupted ahead of time.

"Teacher Shen, this can't wait any longer." Lin Bei released her wrist, his tone unusually grave. "We have to force the cold out immediately. If you can't get through tonight, this condition will become a truly intractable knot."

Shen Ruoxi was in so much pain that even breathing was a struggle.

It felt as if dozens of ice blades were churning madly inside her belly. That agony, which made death seem preferable to life, was ten times worse than any period she had ever had.

She leaned weakly against Lin Bei's arm and nodded with difficulty.

"All right... I'll do as you say..."

Lin Bei wasted no time either.

He bent down and scooped Shen Ruoxi into his arms.

Shen Ruoxi cried out in surprise. Suddenly lifted off her feet, she instinctively wrapped both arms tightly around Lin Bei's neck.

A clean, refreshing scent of soap instantly filled her nose.

Through the thin fabric, she could clearly feel the astonishing heat coming from Lin Bei's chest.

Shen Ruoxi's cheeks burned fiercely, but the severe pain in her lower abdomen left her no room to concern herself with any of that. She could only bury her face in the crook of Lin Bei's neck and gasp in pain.

Holding a grown woman weighing a little over fifty kilograms without so much as a labored breath, Lin Bei quickly scanned both sides of the street.

There happened to be a five-star hotel beside the World Trade Center.

"Hang on. It'll be all right soon."

Lin Bei lowered his head to reassure her, then strode toward the hotel lobby on his long legs.

He pushed through the revolving door into the brightly lit lobby.

The two female receptionists at the front desk were chatting together. Looking up, they saw a young man striding toward them with a stunning young married woman in a haute couture evening gown in his arms.

That pairing, that sight.

The two receptionists exchanged a glance, the flames of gossip blazing in their eyes.

Could some rich woman have gotten drunk, only for the little puppy she'd just hooked to carry her straight here for a room?

"A room." Lin Bei reached the front desk and slapped his ID onto the marble counter. "One large bed. Somewhere quiet."

The receptionist paused, glanced at Shen Ruoxi trembling in pain in Lin Bei's arms, and asked cautiously, "Sir, is this lady... all right? Do you need us to call an ambulance?"

"No." Lin Bei casually made something up. "My sister ate something bad. Her stomach hurts too much to walk. Hurry up and get us a room so she can lie down."

The receptionist was dubious but didn't dare ask more. She swiftly checked them in and handed over a key card.

"1802. The elevators are on the right."

Lin Bei grabbed the key card and headed straight for the elevators, carrying Shen Ruoxi.

With a ding, the elevator stopped on the eighteenth floor.

Lin Bei swiped the card and pushed open the door to room 1802.

The five-star hotel's king room was spacious, with thick carpeting on the floor.

Lin Bei walked to the bedside and carefully laid Shen Ruoxi on the soft, large bed.

Shen Ruoxi was already growing hazy with pain, curled into a ball like a cooked shrimp.

Both her hands pressed hard against her lower abdomen. Her black velvet gown had ridden up as she struggled, exposing a large expanse of snowy-white thigh.

Lin Bei pulled over the quilt beside her and covered her legs first.

Lust was lust, and treating illness was treating illness. He still had that much of a bottom line.

Standing beside the bed, he shook out his wrists.

With a thought.

[Taiyi Divine Needle] instantly activated.

Within his dantian, the blue-green vortex of Spiritual Power abruptly spun faster.

Strands of pure Spiritual Power raced along his meridians, gathering at the tips of his right index and middle fingers and condensing into a silver needle of spiritual energy that was almost solid.

"Counselor Shen, forgive the intrusion."

Lin Bei spoke quietly.

Shen Ruoxi was in too much pain even to open her eyes and could only give an instinctive muffled groan.

Lin Bei collected himself, his gaze instantly becoming intensely focused.

He pressed his two fingers together and aimed at the Shenque acupoint in the center of Shen Ruoxi's lower abdomen.

His wrist flicked.

The fine needle of spiritual energy passed straight through the black velvet fabric and silently sank into Shen Ruoxi's acupoint.

Then came the others.

Guanyuan, Qihai, Zhongji.

Lin Bei's hands moved like butterflies weaving through flowers, so fast they nearly left afterimages.

Within just a few seconds, twelve golden needles of spiritual energy pierced twelve major acupoints around Shen Ruoxi's lower abdomen in succession, each precisely on target.

The needle formation took shape.

Lin Bei held his fingers just above the Shenque acupoint and slowly infused Spiritual Power.

The domineering pure yang Spiritual Power surged straight along the golden needles into Shen Ruoxi's blocked, icy meridians.

It was like pouring a basin of scalding lava into an ice cellar.

Shen Ruoxi abruptly straightened her body.

The tearing agony miraculously vanished the instant the Spiritual Power entered her body.

In its place came a warm, soothing current.

That warmth spread wildly from her lower abdomen throughout her limbs and every part of her body.

Her hands and feet, previously stiff with cold, quickly warmed up.

It felt like sinking into a hot spring at just the right temperature in the depths of winter, every pore in her body relaxing.

"Mmm..."

The extreme comfort made Shen Ruoxi unable to hold back a soft, sweet little hum through her nose.

The moment that sound escaped, the atmosphere in the room became somewhat intimate.

Lin Bei's hand trembled, and he nearly lost control of his Spiritual Power output.

He coughed, lowered his eyes in meditative concentration, and forced his gaze away from Shen Ruoxi's rising and falling curves, focusing on controlling his Spiritual Power to drive back the cold.

Shen Ruoxi slowly opened her eyes.

The pain in her lower abdomen had completely disappeared.

She turned her head and looked at Lin Bei, who stood beside the bed, concentrating on administering the needles.

The warm yellow light in the hotel room fell across his profile, outlining his strong, sharply defined jaw.

A fine layer of sweat had formed on his forehead. His eyes were crystal clear, without a trace of his usual devil-may-care roguishness, nor any of the nauseating greed those men showed when they looked at her.

There was only pure focus and earnestness.

As Shen Ruoxi watched him, her gaze gradually grew dreamy.

Some corner deep in her heart that had been frozen for a long time seemed to melt along with that warmth.

As the treatment continued, the cold obstructing her body was dispelled bit by bit.

Her nerves, taut for an entire day, finally relaxed completely.

An unprecedented wave of exhaustion swept over her like a tsunami.

Shen Ruoxi felt her eyelids growing heavier and heavier, until at last, enveloped in that warm, soothing current, she fell into a deep sleep.

Her breathing gradually grew long and even.

Lin Bei withdrew his fingers and dispersed the Spiritual Power at his fingertips.

Looking at the woman sleeping utterly unguarded on the bed, Lin Bei tugged at the corner of his mouth.

"Lucky you ran into an upright gentleman like me. With anyone else, there wouldn't even be bone scraps left of you tonight."

He casually pulled over the quilt and tucked it securely around Shen Ruoxi.