Finally Made It in Time

Lu Wenkai was an honest, ordinary worker. He could never have believed that making a new dish could fetch the astronomical price of 1.5 million yuan.

Only after Lu Yuan took him to an ATM, where he saw the balance on the bank card with his own eyes and counted the zeros himself, did he believe it was real.

He only believed the money was real. As for whether what Jia Shengnan, the man who had given them the money, had said was true, Lu Wenkai thought it was still necessary to check after they got back.

But this was no time to think about any of that. Good fortune had come so suddenly that Lu Wenkai was in a daze. After Lu Yuan reminded him several times, he came to his senses a little and immediately took his son and daughter to the attending physician to arrange payment.

At the same time, Xu Yongmei was still waiting for her husband in the ward. She wanted to urge him again to hurry back. Their son was about to take the college entrance exam, and she couldn't let her situation hold him up.

She had actually come to terms with it and could calmly accept her fate of death. She only regretted that she wouldn't get to see her children go to college, marry, and have children of their own. That was one of a parent's greatest regrets.

At the thought, tears streamed down Xu Yongmei's face.

The woman in the next bed couldn't keep her mouth shut again. After all, 1.5 million was so expensive-how could she resist showing off? She said:

"Sister Xu, it's not that I like to run my mouth. You're a good person, but you married the wrong man. He can't even come up with his wife's medical fees. What kind of man is he?"

Xu Yongmei ignored her, but the woman's own husband couldn't take it anymore.

"Give it a rest. No one's going to think you're mute!"

"Huh? What objection do you have to me talking about someone else?"

The woman's eyebrows shot up, and she was ready to argue. Her husband fell silent.

Just then, two young nurses came in pushing a gurney.

"Bed two, time for treatment."

As they called out, they started moving Xu Yongmei onto the gurney.

Xu Yongmei was taken aback. She didn't remember having any treatment scheduled for today. So she asked, "Nurse, what treatment am I getting?"

"Xikangnuo treatment," the young nurse answered casually. "Someone just paid for you."

The nurse had spoken without thinking, but the whole ward fell silent in an instant. Several patients looked at one another, thinking that Lu Wenkai looked timid and dressed poorly, yet he had paid 1.5 million without a word. You really couldn't judge a person by their appearance.

Only Xu Yongmei knew that her husband couldn't possibly have that much money. She hesitated for a moment before asking:

"Nurse, have you got the wrong person?"

Xikangnuo was a lifesaving medicine, and of course she hoped to receive it. But Xu Yongmei had a conscience. She couldn't take someone else's lifesaving medicine to save herself.

"Exactly, you've got the wrong person, haven't you?" the woman in the next bed chimed in again. "Where would her husband get that kind of money?"

"Hm? Did we get it wrong?"

The young nurse was confused by their words. She looked over the payment slip, pointed to the payer's name, and asked:

"Lu Yuan paid for it. Who is Lu Yuan to you?"

"Lu Yuan is my son, but..."

"Then there's no mistake!"

The young nurse paid no attention to any "but." As long as a family member had paid, that was enough. The two nurses, one at each end, lifted Xu Yongmei onto the gurney and quickly left the ward.

Xu Yongmei was completely in the clouds until she saw her husband and daughter outside the treatment room. Only then did she feel reassured.

"Where's Dabao?" Xu Yongmei asked.

"I'm here." Lu Yuan came out from inside. He had been in there signing the paperwork.

At the sight of his mother, Lu Yuan opened his mouth to call her Mom. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't get a sound out of his throat. Only tears flowed in a thousand streams.

"Dabao, what's wrong?"

"Brother?"

By rights, this was a happy occasion. Xiao Bing hugged her mother, laughing and carrying on, and the whole family found Lu Yuan's reaction strange.

No one knew that Lu Yuan had been parted from his mother by life and death for twenty years!

"Xu Yongmei!"

The doctor in the treatment room had called her name, so the family had no time to worry about Lu Yuan and pushed Xu Yongmei inside.

Lu Yuan leaned against the wall and slowly sank to the floor. He covered his face with both hands, and tears streamed through his fingers. In this life, I finally made it in time!

"Brother, you don't have to be like this," Xiao Bing complained as she wiped his face with a tissue. "Don't scare me."

Lu Yuan took a deep breath and steadied himself. "It's okay, it's okay. I'm just a little emotional."

The family waited outside the treatment room for about thirty minutes before Xu Yongmei was wheeled out. The Xikangnuo treatment wasn't complicated. It was somewhat like an intravenous injection, only a little faster.

A curtain had blocked their view, so no one had seen the treatment. They hadn't had the chance to see for themselves what the legendary Xikangnuo looked like, either, which was a great pity.

Xiao Bing wasn't ready to give up and went to ask the nurse for the bottle. The medicine had been administered, so surely they could keep the bottle.

"Xikangnuo vials are controlled materials and have to be collected for return," the young nurse explained patiently. "The cost of the medicine doesn't include the bottle."

"There's such a rule!"

The whole family had learned something new.

The family wheeled Mom back to the ward. This time, rather than trouble the young nurses, Lu Yuan took charge himself, with his sister helping and their father bringing up the rear.

On the way, Lu Yuan briefly explained to his mother where the money had come from. Once Xu Yongmei heard it hadn't come from anything illegal or criminal, she was relieved. Though she had no idea why her son's cooking was worth so much money-after all, she had always been the one who cooked at home before.

The couple surely had plenty of questions, but those could wait until later. This wasn't the time to discuss them.

After they wheeled her into the ward, the elderly couple in the opposite bed were the first to ask with concern:

"Have you received it?"

"Yes."

"Congratulations."

Xu Yongmei nodded her thanks. There wasn't much she could say about it, since they hadn't received it yet.

But Xu Yongmei wasn't so polite to the woman in the next bed.

She deliberately spoke to herself in a very loud voice:

"My husband and I don't have a bit of ability between us. Who would have thought we'd have such a capable son? He didn't steal or rob, and in three days he brought home more than a million."

Xu Yongmei hadn't recovered yet, but she was so happy that her eyebrows danced as she spoke. For parents, nothing was more worth showing off than children who made them proud.

Lu Wenkai got carried away too and chimed in, "Unlike some people who've been in the hospital for so many days without their children coming to see them once."

The woman in the next bed looked as sour as could be. She was usually sharp-tongued, but now her tongue had finally fallen silent.

She seemed to want to say something else, but Lu Yuan gave her a cold glare, and she immediately shut her mouth.

What else could she say? Their children were right there, and their son was tall and strapping. If she said too much, she might end up getting beaten.

Lu Wenkai and his wife had finally vented their pent-up anger!

The family was reunited in the ward, chatting and laughing with no end of things to say. But it was a hospital ward, after all, and they couldn't keep disturbing the others' rest.

Xu Yongmei still needed to stay in the ward for two or three days of observation before she could be discharged and go home. Lu Yuan and Xiao Bing needed to head back first; they had classes tomorrow.

Before that, Lu Yuan also wanted to take a True Essence test at First Hospital. He needed to confirm that True Essence was the same as the True Essence in the system. Other things had kept delaying him, and he hadn't found time to do it. Besides, small hospitals in Ning City didn't offer True Essence testing. Only major hospitals like Jiangzhou First Hospital provided the service.

Xiao Bing waited in the ward. She wanted to spend a little more time with Mom and Dad. She kept acting spoiled in front of their parents, so Lu Yuan smiled and went to the True Essence testing area by himself.

He first went to the payment counter and paid the fee. A single True Essence test cost 1,200 yuan. Sure enough, it wasn't cheap. Surprisingly, they even offered a monthly pass. It cost 3,300 yuan, but testing was limited to five times that month.

It seemed this service was offered specifically for exam candidates. Some candidates-those enrolled in expensive cultivation classes-might need frequent True Essence tests to track changes in their data. That was Lu Yuan's analysis.

"Do you want one or not?" the young woman at the payment counter asked impatiently.

"No!"

What a joke. He had the system monitoring him twenty-four hours a day. Why would he need to run to the hospital for tests every day? His money didn't blow in on the wind.

Thinking of the system, Lu Yuan took another look at the system interface.

Merit Points: 1499 points

True Essence: 111/120 Ling+

Spiritual Pressure: 12 Feng

Divine Sense: 24 Nian

It had changed again!

It was no surprise that his True Essence had increased by one point since morning. That should have been its natural recovery over the course of the morning.

But the number in the Divine Sense field had increased by four points.

He had absolutely no idea how that had happened.

In fact, Lu Yuan didn't even know what Divine Sense was for, much less how it had increased.

Forget it. He wouldn't think about that for now. First, he would confirm the True Essence.