Chapter 55 Drugging

Chapter 55: Drugged

Li Wangyue ran down the mountain, shivering cold.

He didn’t dare to drive, scared Ting Zhenxi would find out. He knew Ting Zhenxi would check the cameras, so he had to get out before he noticed.

His phone and ID were all with Ting Zhenxi. He didn’t have a penny.

Luckily, Ting Zhenxi hadn’t blindfolded him on the way up. He relied on his memory of the route to barely make it down.

After walking for half an hour, he suddenly heard an engine from the next curve.

Li Wangyue’s heart jumped. He hastily hid behind the bushes on the mountainside, breaking out in a cold sweat, silently hoping it wasn’t Ting Zhenxi coming back.

The engine revved in fits, roaring once then cutting out.

It must have stalled.

After a while, it sputtered and grumbled its way back up the mountain.

This area was all private homes, and most people living up here were rich or powerful. But as long as it wasn’t Ting Zhenxi, he was fine.

Li Wangyue took another small path, one that let him see the winding road without being seen.

The path was rough, and visibility was bad in the evening. He couldn’t see well, fell a few times, and might have twisted his ankle, but he didn’t dare to stop.

It was starting to rain. A few drops landed on his face. He wiped them off quickly, gritting his teeth as he ran down the mountain.

His ankle hurt, the raw patch on his thigh hurt, his head hurt, and his heart did too.

The rain got heavier, pouring down cold and biting, and the road got even harder to walk.

Suddenly, a long line of lights appeared ahead, like a river of stars.

It was the bridge across the river.

Li Wangyue, like grabbing a lifeline, charged toward it without thinking.

The rain got worse, but his body temperature kept rising. His vision went blurry, and the world spun.

Li Wangyue blacked out.

A car’s headlights swept by, then a slow screech of brakes.

He hit the ground. A pair of shiny black leather shoes came closer. Tears spilled from Li Wangyue’s eyes, running down the bridge of his nose into the other eye.

…

When he woke up, machines were beeping in his ears.

Li Wangyue’s eyes snapped open, but he couldn’t move, and his hand was throbbing.

“You’re awake. Don’t move yet—you’re on an IV.”

The man sitting nearby looked up and reached out to help him sit up.

Li Wangyue flinched instinctively, then realized it was a stranger.

The man hit the call button for a doctor and said, “You passed out on the roadside. My sister and I happened to drive by. She was scared, thought we’d hit you.”

As he spoke, he eyed Li Wangyue warily, probably worried he was trying to scam them.

Li Wangyue’s head was still spinning, but he wasn’t hurt bad. “Thanks.”

Seeing that he wanted to leave immediately, the man quickly urged, “You should rest first. The doctor said you got caught in the rain and have a fever. Don’t let it become pneumonia.”

But Li Wangyue couldn’t relax.

He had to go.

He couldn’t stay here long.

The doctor had already arrived to examine him.

Li Wangyue had to stay for now.

After a moment’s thought, he asked, “Can I borrow a phone?”

The man didn’t refuse but couldn’t help adding, “Are you okay? When we brought you in, you had no phone or ID. The hospital couldn’t even contact your family.”

Li Wangyue shook his head slightly, took the phone, and said, “Thanks for covering the hospital bills. I’ll pay you back.”

The man hesitated, coughed awkwardly, and said, “That’s not what I meant…”

Li Wangyue first called Li Ping, but the call wouldn’t go through. Using someone else’s phone to call overseas was inconvenient, so he tried Ji Zhijia’s number instead.

Still no answer.

That was strange.

He sent a text to Ji Zhijia, deleted it, and returned the phone to the kind stranger.

Despite the man’s strong advice to stay in the hospital for a few more days, Li Wangyue left. He was too afraid that Ting Zhenxi would find him.

He had nowhere to go and was penniless, so he had to sell the watch Ting Zhenxi had given him.

The watch wasn’t in great condition, but its value held up. The buyer was straightforward, paid him, and said he could redeem it later.

Li Wangyue quickly counted the money and agreed, though he knew it was just a pretense. He didn’t want the watch back.

He had no place to stay, and he couldn’t reach Li Ping. Every time he thought about it, it felt like his heart was being cut open, suffocating him, driving him to imagine the worst.

After his grandfather passed away, the house in the county town was left to his father, but his father died young. Li Ping had taken him to the city, and the house had been sitting empty ever since.

Li Wangyue decided to go there for shelter.

He found a cheap motel that didn’t require ID. His fever was still raging, cold sweat streaming down. He wanted to shower but was afraid of worsening his condition, so he endured it.

Lying in bed, he didn’t dare close his eyes. The motel’s soundproofing was terrible; every footstep in the hallway jolted him awake.

Occasionally, footsteps stopped at his door. He’d scramble up, gripping a newly bought fruit knife with trembling hands, his eyes bloodshot, staring fixedly at the door.

When the neighboring door opened and the footsteps stumbled inside, Li Wangyue closed his eyes, cursing the drunkard under his breath.

He didn’t sleep all night. Before bed, he took some cold medicine, and in the brief moments he dozed off under the assault of recurring high fevers, he was plagued by nightmares.

Every nightmare was filled with Ting Zhenxi’s face.

Ting Zhenxi reached out to wipe away his tears, dragging him backward step by step, plunging into an endless abyss.

Ting Zhenxi asked him, "Can't you forget me, even in your dreams?"

Ting Zhenxi said with a smile, "Bro, you're seriously messed up."

Li Wangyue woke up in tears, his pillow drenched with cold sweat and tears. He was freezing, but his throat was on fire—every breath felt like inhaling flames.

At daybreak, he woke up and got ready to leave. Just as he packed his things and took his morning meds, there was a sudden knock at the door.

Li Wangyue froze, tightening his grip on the fruit knife.

"Is anyone in there?" a strong, confident voice called out.

Li Wangyue slowly approached and looked through the peephole. Outside stood two police officers.

"Hello, please open the door." There were two more knocks on the door.

Li Wangyue opened the door.

The officers flashed their badges and asked, "Are you Mr. Li Wangyue?"

"Yes..." Li Wangyue's sense of dread grew stronger. "Did something happen to my mom?"

The officers' faces changed, but they still followed procedure: "Please come with us to help with the investigation."

At the police station, Li Wangyue found out something had happened to the Ting family.

The officers brought out stacks of documents and reports. Li Wangyue couldn't really make sense of them, but the name on the test results was Li Ping.

The officers asked about how Li Ping and Ting Huayi first met and whether there were any abnormalities after the marriage.

Li Wangyue answered each question, still bewildered, his head pounding: "What the hell happened..."

An officer poured him some tea and said, his voice heavy: "The report shows your mother's been ingesting trace amounts of a harmful drug, which could cause premature organ failure."

"What?"

"The same thing happened with his first and second wives—both had the same substance in their system..." The officer looked at Li Wangyue cautiously, not revealing more: "It's lucky Ms. Li caught it early, or this might never have come out."

"But my mom had checkups, and everything was fine..."

Li Wangyue got it as soon as he said it—every checkup was with Ting Huayi, and he had assumed it was just his stepfather caring for his mother.

"We found it in an abnormal blood report from a private hospital, confirmed after layers of comparison."

At the mention of the private hospital, Li Wangyue remembered the day Ting Zhenxi took Li Ping away. Could it be that...

The officer said the investigation was still going on, but Li Ping was abroad, so they had to cooperate with local medical and police systems.

Ting Huayi was also missing—exit records showed he'd left the country before the police could track him down.

Now, with this sudden incident and rumors flying all over the media, the Ting family was in chaos.

Li Wangyue's identity was sensitive, and his recent movements were unusual. Although the investigation found nothing abnormal, the police still suggested applying for personal safety protection for him.

Li Wangyue was spacing out.

When the officer called him a second time, he snapped back to reality and nodded.

Taken to a safe house, where a doctor treated him, Li Wangyue felt drained, his mind in turmoil.

Outside, the rain got heavier, like the rainy season was about to hit.

The cops assumed he was hiding from Ting Huayi, which explained why he'd been off the grid lately.

He remembered Ting Zhenxi's phone ringing nonstop every day, his ever-calm face, and the exhaustion he carried when he came home late at night.

Now the Ting family was besieged from all sides, rotten inside and out, with predators circling hungrily.

What would become of him?

Li Wangyue stared at the ceiling of the safe house, the rain sounding like gunfire in his ears.

He drifted into a drowsy sleep and dreamed again.

In the dream, someone kissed him.

He knew that in all his past dreams, those illusions had been real.

But tonight, it was absolutely impossible.