A Bad-Hearted Doctor is Unbearably Beautiful - Chapter 90

The sea breeze whipped across their faces, carrying a heavy, salt-laden mist.

Lu Xiao was still gripping Shen Zhao’s hand tightly as he lay on the ground. When he caught sight of Old Zhou’s awkward expression, he finally let go. Shen Zhao paused for a fraction of a second, but he immediately reached out, grabbed Lu Xiao’s wrist, and expertly checked his pulse.

When Shen Zhao looked up again, the lingering traces of terror had not yet vanished from his face, but his eyes had turned professional and cold. He glanced toward the direction Old Zhou had come from and pushed himself up from his kneeling position.

“Where is he? Take me there.”

Before the words had even fully left his lips, he was already several meters away. Shen Zhao sprinted to his car, threw open the trunk, and grabbed the medical kit he had prepared before leaving the house. Clutching it to his chest, he ran toward Wang Deng.

4:30 AM – First Light

Wang Deng had been moved to the side of a blue shipping container. He was propped up against the cold metal, his legs stretched out straight on the ground. One of his hands was clamped tightly over his thigh, his fingers trembling uncontrollably. He was deathly pale, sweat beaded on his forehead, and his left trouser leg was completely saturated with blood.

“Doctor Shen…” Wang Deng looked up as if seeing a savior. “What are you… doing here?”

Wang Deng gritted his teeth, his words coming in short, ragged bursts. Beside him, Wu Di stood with his hands clasped to his chest, muttering something under his breath—it sounded like he was praying for Wang Deng’s life.

“Don’t talk. Focus on your breathing.”

Shen Zhao knelt down and quickly produced a blade, slicing open Wang Deng’s blood-soaked pants. The mangled thigh was still oozing; blood welled up with every ragged breath or slight movement Wang Deng made.

Wang Deng hissed through his teeth, forcing out a sentence: “I’m… I’m really okay. Go check on the Captain…”

“I’ve already seen him. Relax,” Shen Zhao muttered as he tore open a sterile medical pack.

He calmly laid out hemostatic forceps, gauze, and a few wooden splints for temporary stabilization. He applied a tourniquet to the upper thigh, disinfected the area, and picked up a pair of tweezers. As he carefully probed the wound, his fingertips remained astonishingly steady.

The shrapnel wasn’t deep; the injury looked manageable. Shen Zhao decided to remove it on the spot.

“Bear with it.”

Unlike the lengthy preparations in a hospital operating room, Shen Zhao’s movements were clean and decisive. Seeing this, Wu Di leaned in and looked at Wang Deng with a face full of tragic resolve. “Do you want to… bite my arm? If it hurts, just bite me!”

Wang Deng, who was on the verge of fainting from the pain, looked at Wu Di’s “heroic” gesture with utter exasperation. “Wu Di… your… your primary mission right now… is to stop watching idol dramas…”

“Both of you, shut up,” Shen Zhao snapped. For a fleeting second, his stern demeanor was a mirror image of Lu Xiao’s.

Shen Zhao clenched a flashlight between his teeth. Offering no further verbal comfort, he moved his hands. Three detectives circled around them, holding their own flashlights to provide extra lighting. Shen Zhao focused entirely on the wound, clamped the shrapnel without a moment’s hesitation, and pulled it out cleanly.

Blood trickled from the wound. He quickly applied pressure with hemostatic cotton, performed a basic cleaning, and wrapped it tightly with gauze.

“Get him to the hospital, now.”

Everyone on the scene finally let out a collective sigh of relief. Shen Zhao turned around only to find Lu Xiao staring at him intently.

Shen Zhao blinked. “You need to go to the hospital too.”

Lu Xiao took a step forward, wiped the water from his arm, and pulled Shen Zhao toward him. Despite his pale face, he managed a low chuckle. “I have you. Why would I need a hospital?”

“Stop talking nonsense. Didn’t you tell me you were working overtime at the station?” Shen Zhao shot him a fierce glare but didn’t argue further, turning back to pack his medical kit.

As he stood up, he saw another man lying on the ground nearby.

“Li Lin,” Lu Xiao noted briefly. “Chen Qiang’s superior, and the man whose name was on the receipts.” Shen Zhao nodded.

Two detectives were pinning Li Lin down. The man’s face was a sickly shade of purple as he coughed up murky seawater mixed with bile and food scraps. His chest heaved like a dying beast; he no longer had the strength to struggle.

Li Lin was hauled into a police car, his hands cuffed behind his back and his ankles fitted with heavy shackles. Lu Xiao frowned at the sight of the leg irons and turned to Old Zhou. “Tsk… do we really need those things?”

Old Zhou snorted. “Can’t be helped. He put our brothers through hell tonight. Let him deal with it.”

Lu Xiao pursed his lips and nodded. “Fair point. We still haven’t settled the tab for little Wang Deng yet.”

Li Lin eventually caught his breath. He sat in the police car in stony silence, his gaze still flickering with a trace of malice and defiance.

The convoy started up and pulled away from the pier. Shen Zhao followed in his own car. Through his windshield, he could see Lu Xiao and Li Lin in the vehicle ahead.

Old Zhou was driving, while Lu Xiao and Li Lin sat together in the back seat. The atmosphere inside that car was frozen. Lu Xiao had a clean jacket draped over his shoulders to absorb the water, but the chill hadn’t yet left his bones. He stared at Li Lin. “When did you arrange that fishing boat? Where were you planning to go?”

Li Lin let out a sneer, keeping his head fixed forward and avoiding Lu Xiao’s eyes. Lu Xiao’s expression darkened, and he reached out to search Li Lin’s person.

“What are you doing!” Li Lin yelled, startled.

Lu Xiao didn’t care. Since Li Lin’s hands were cuffed, he could only twist his upper body to dodge. Lu Xiao searched his torso and then moved to his pants. Li Lin’s face contorted with rage—until Lu Xiao pulled a mobile phone from his back pocket.

The moment the phone emerged, Li Lin’s expression shifted, though he quickly masked it with a defiant glare. Lu Xiao smirked, tilted his head, and offered a cheeky smile to Shen Zhao in the car behind them.

“That phone must be soaked through, right?” Old Zhou asked from the driver’s seat, glancing in the rearview mirror.

“Old Zhou, give me your phone. Also, do you have a pen with a fine tip? Or a paperclip?”

Just as Old Zhou reached for his pockets, Lu Xiao’s hand reached forward from the back seat to search him. It made Old Zhou’s skin crawl; he nearly laughed from the tickling sensation.

“Enough! Can’t you just wait for me to give it to you?” Old Zhou snapped, the steering wheel wobbling slightly.

“You focus on driving! Don’t get distracted!” Lu Xiao played the role of the “helpful” passenger, fishing the phone out from behind Old Zhou. Then, while Li Lin was still trying to act composed, Lu Xiao popped out the SIM card.

Lu Xiao held the tiny card between two fingers and waved it in front of Li Lin’s face with a smug, playful expression. “Look closely—this belongs to me now~”

Li Lin bit his lip and said nothing. Lu Xiao felt surprisingly energized, as if he could go another eighty rounds with a dozen criminals. He wiped the SIM card on his sleeve, wrapped it in a tissue, and looked at Old Zhou. “Turn on the heater for me, will you?”

Old Zhou switched on the AC. Lu Xiao held the wrapped SIM card in front of the vent for a while. Then, with a flourish, he slotted the card into Old Zhou’s phone.

The moment the phone powered on, a single unread text message popped up on the screen.