Chapter 568 — Visiting Zhong Yongliang

"It won't have been for nothing! An Jianwen, Gu Pengzhan — I won't let either of them off!" Zhong Yongliang shook his head. "Still, for now, let's squeeze the soft persimmons first. Dad, aren't you handling the shantytown demolition? I know for a fact that Wei Zhao's girlfriend lives there. When the demolition comes around, make trouble for her family on purpose. Better yet, steer the conflict onto Young Master Bing. Wei Zhao likes to redirect trouble — he used An Jianwen's hand against me, so we'll use Young Master Bing's hand against Wei Zhao. When something goes wrong, Wei Zhao and Gu Pengzhan will be furious at Young Master Bing, not at us!"

"Hmm..." Zhong Fabai nodded at his son's suggestion. "That's one way to do it. But if their family won't play the holdout, there'll be no conflict to stir up."

"Then we manufacture the conflict ourselves! A forced demolition, say — heh heh — just bulldoze their house flat, and best of all, let Young Master Bing work the machine himself!" Zhong Yongliang suggested.

"All right, I'll do what I can." Zhong Fabai hated Wei Zhao just as much; if he could use Young Master Bing to get at him, he would gladly do it. As he spoke, his phone rang. He took it out and saw it was Zhong Yongliang's homeroom teacher. He answered at once. "Hello, Teacher Liu... Oh? You've organized the students to come and see Yongliang? Thank you so much... You're already at the hospital gate? Good, good, come on over — Ward 418, Building Four of the inpatient complex."

After hanging up, Zhong Fabai said to Zhong Yongliang, "Your teacher and classmates have come to see you. I'll step out for a smoke."

Zhong Yongliang nodded, and warmth spread through his heart. So his teacher and classmates had not forgotten him after all! The trip he had treated everyone to last time had paid off. Otherwise, how pitiful would it be to lie in a hospital bed with not a single classmate showing up?

But after a while, no one came up. Finding Building Four from the main gate would take a while, he supposed. So Zhong Yongliang picked up the iPad 2 Apple computer beside his bed, logged onto the Mobile Phone Reading Base website, and started reading a novel called *So Pure, So Ambiguous: The Prequel*.

It was a thoroughly wish-fulfilling urban campus novel, and its protagonist was something else — the way he trampled people was supremely satisfying. Zhong Yongliang had been hooked on it these past few days, forever imagining himself as the hero, summoning wind and rain at will and grinding Wei Zhao and An Jianwen beneath his feet.

The more he read, though, the gloomier he felt — how was he so much like one of those side characters who got trampled? And so Zhong Yongliang began to fantasize about whether that side character could rise up and finish off the protagonist.

He did not know how long had passed. He was reading with great relish when footsteps sounded outside the ward, and then the door was pushed open and his classmates filed in one after another.

Zhong Yongliang hurriedly set the Apple computer aside and looked up with a smile. Though he spotted Shen Yushu and Gu Mengyao at the front immediately, there was nothing improper in his gaze.

He had learned to hide himself. That Gu Mengyao and Shen Yushu had come back safe did not surprise him much — if they had not, An Jianwen would never have dared make a move. As for how they had been rescued, Zhong Yongliang did not bother thinking about it, because there was no point in it at all.

"Oh! Little Liangzi, I hear you had a kidney cut out?" Shen Yushu exclaimed the moment she entered the ward. "So after the kidney's gone, does that mean you don't count as a man anymore?"

Hearing this, Zhong Yongliang was overcome with shame and fury, yet he had no outlet for it — he was the one who had kidnapped them first, and Shen Yushu had surely come to jab at him. The trouble was, her expression was so innocent that no one would take her for a girl insulting someone.

"Ahem, Shu, don't talk nonsense. Of course he's a man — he just doesn't have a kidney..." Gu Mengyao wanted to laugh, but for once in her life she played along with Shen Yushu's feigned ignorance, because she hated Zhong Yongliang too.

"Oh, I get it. Then he's not a whole man anymore!" Shen Yushu nodded, as if a great truth had just dawned on her.

The exchange drew wave after wave of laughter from the classmates. There was no help for it — sympathetic as they were to Zhong Yongliang, Shen Yushu's words were simply too funny. Not a whole man? That carried quite a double meaning!

Zhong Yongliang's face burned red, yet he could not refute a word. How could he? He really was missing a kidney — incomplete... Shen Yushu was not wrong.

"Wow! Little Liangzi, isn't that an iPad 2? I was online the other day and read a report about a guy who sold his kidney to buy an iPad. That wouldn't be you, would it?" Shen Yushu looked at Zhong Yongliang in astonishment.

"..." Dark lines covered Zhong Yongliang's forehead, and he had the sudden urge to smash the iPad. His family was rich, all right? What need did he have to sell a kidney? It had been cut out of him, all right? Zhong Yongliang wanted to say, you of all people know perfectly well how I lost my kidney.

But he could not say that. Saying it would be as good as admitting he had kidnapped Gu Mengyao and Shen Yushu. That he could never admit — admitting it would turn it into an entirely different matter. Zhong Yongliang was not stupid, so he could only let Shen Yushu spout her nonsense.

Just then Teacher Liu came in, and Shen Yushu stopped her nonsense, standing off to the side with a grin, holding Gu Mengyao's hand, her eyes full of curiosity.

"Shu, let's go. Looking at him puts me in a bad mood," Gu Mengyao frowned, unwilling to stand too close to Zhong Yongliang.

"Mm, let's go then." Shen Yushu nodded. "I just wanted to see what a person missing a kidney looks like. He seems pretty normal, actually."

"There was never anything strange about him to begin with, was there?" Gu Mengyao shook her head, and the two went out hand in hand. As for Wei Zhao, he had not come forward at all; he had simply followed Gu Mengyao and Shen Yushu here.

With Zhong Yongliang, most of them had no real friendship to speak of; they had come out of pity. Now that they had seen him, they were ready to head back to school. Senior year was a tense time, after all, and many of them needed to get back to their books.

Gao Xiaofu had come along with everyone, trembling with fear. He did not know the truth about Zhong Yongliang's kidney being cut out, but he had a vague feeling it had something to do with the kidnapping of Gu Mengyao. He was scared out of his wits, afraid that he would be the next target.

So when everyone else had gone, Gao Xiaofu stayed behind, and asked in a low, cautious voice, "Brother Liang, what on earth is going on here? Who's coming after you?"