Chapter 217 - 174: Accident

"...Something’s happened!" Chu Bamboo’s expression finally changed. A storm of thoughts raged in his mind as he once again tried calling Lu Muxue.

When he found that her line was also unreachable, he took a deep breath and grimly dialed Lu Jin’s number.

After a few moments, the call connected. But Lu Jin’s voice, coming through the phone, was filled with exhaustion. "What do you want?"

"What happened?" Chu Bamboo asked seriously. "I’m talking about Madam Xue Qian, and Lu Muxue."

After a brief silence...

"...Madam Xue is dead! Mu Xue is in the emergency room right now, they’re trying to save her." Lu Jin forcefully suppressed the roiling emotions within him, his voice slightly hoarse as he spoke.

Chu Bamboo: "?"

"Who did it? Or was it an accident?" Chu Bamboo was truly stunned.

Who was Lu Jin? He was a man who truly stood at the pinnacle of Jinghai City. Even in the entire Daqian, he was a top-tier magnate, just one step shy of the Sealing Envoy Level.

For a man like that, his wife was dead and his daughter was critically injured?

This was a blood feud that wouldn’t end until death! This was going to tear the heavens apart.

"You could perhaps call it an accident!" Lu Jin’s voice sounded as if it were being squeezed through his teeth.

After a short silence, Chu Bamboo said softly, "I hope you can explain the situation in detail. You should understand, I have access to certain information... perhaps I can be of some help to you?"

Lu Jin was silent for a full minute before he finally said, "Come to Jinghai City First Hospital. Or, should I send someone to pick you up?"

"I’ll go by myself."

...

「Zone One, Jinghai City First Hospital.」

Chu Bamboo looked at the seven-story building before him. In the Real World, this building would only be considered a shorty... or perhaps a tenement! But in Jinghai City, it definitely stood out like a crane among chickens.

Soon, Chu Bamboo found Secretary Song waiting at the entrance and followed him into the hospital.

Outside the operating room.

Lu Jin sat quietly on a chair, his back hunched, staring blankly at the floor.

Surrounding him were several department heads from the medical division, all in white coats. They forced smiles onto their faces, offering feeble reassurances.

"Please rest assured, our First Hospital possesses the most advanced Ancient Relic treatment equipment in the entire country."

"Yes, yes! And the lead surgeon this time is our most outstanding doctor... The medicines we’re using are all divine remedies found in Ancient Ruins!"

"Miss, Miss Lu is blessed, fortune will favor her..."

To this, Lu Jin merely nodded without a word.

Suddenly sensing something, he raised his head and glanced at Chu Bamboo, who had just walked in. "You’re here?"

"Talk." Chu Bamboo sat down directly beside Lu Jin. He calmly swept his gaze over the department heads gathered around, who were respectful and reverent, yet also tinged with a hint of panicked fear.

The area fell silent.

These department heads were truly terrified. In their eyes, Lu Jin might have appeared calm at that moment, but he was actually like an enraged lion, ready to unleash his fury at any second...

In truth, they didn’t want to be here making awkward small talk at all... They had been forced to come by the hospital director!

As for why the director wasn’t here... The director didn’t dare to be here!

After all, if the patient was successfully treated, that would be one thing... but what if she died? A Governor Lu grieving the simultaneous loss of his wife and daughter... The thought was too terrifying!

The director was well aware of what a medical dispute entailed... If Governor Lu were to start one, he could genuinely flay a whole group of people alive.

Under these circumstances, how could this newcomer dare to be so presumptuous? And... Governor Lu actually seemed to be tacitly approving of his attitude!

"At eight o’clock, Madam Xue and Mu Xue had just finished breakfast at Guangnan Early Tea on Huangpu Street in Zone One and were preparing to drive off. Then, for some reason..." Lu Jin paused briefly. "An assailant was hiding in the trunk of the car, and then..."

A chilling light glinted in Lu Jin’s eyes. "It looks like a simple accident... but I have a feeling it’s not that simple!"

Huangpu Street is the wealthy district of Zone One.

The number of cameras in the area, as well as the number of Police Chief Bureau patrols, is unimaginably large.

Under those conditions, how could an assailant just inexplicably hide in the trunk of a sports car in an underground garage?

This goes beyond outrageous...

Lu Jin had an almost subconscious certainty that someone was plotting against him.

Suddenly, a clamor erupted. A man in a sharp suit charged straight in, his face contorted as he yelled, "You have to save my niece! If she dies, you can’t afford the consequences! I’ll have all of you..."

"Enough!" Lu Jin roared, losing control of his emotions for the first time.

Taking several deep breaths, he stared at the man who had burst in with what could almost be called cold indifference. "Xue Fusheng, this isn’t Celestial Capital. Stop putting on your Second Master Xue airs! Who do you think you are? Threatening the doctors who are trying to save Xiaoxue while she’s in surgery? Who are you trying to intimidate with that scowl!"

"Lu Jin!" Xue Fusheng growled, grinding his teeth and staring daggers at him. "And whose fault do you think this is? If my sister hadn’t married you and come to this dump, Jinghai, this never would have happened if she’d been in Celestial Capital... No! Maybe it’s precisely because she got mixed up with you! That’s why..."

Chu Bamboo calmly watched the two men argue. He knew Xue Fusheng, of course, from previous reset timelines—

This younger brother of Madam Xue had an arrogant and condescending personality, a typical second-generation rich brat... Of course, while he seemed brainless, he was very close to Lu Muxue and was also a huge fan of Martial Hero novels. You could even say...

...he was the reason Lu Muxue had been exposed to those books in the first place.

’Though there’s one thing Chu Bamboo always found strange... How did this guy manage to mock the moronic villains in those "miracle doctor descends the mountain" novels—the ones who seem to line up just to get their faces slapped by the protagonist—while simultaneously doing the exact same moronic things himself?’

’The moment he walked in and opened his mouth, that whole vibe...’

’Holy cow! You’re basically a one-to-one reproduction of the novel villains you mock...’

’No way, are you deliberately copying the villains? Chu Bamboo felt there was just too much to ridicule. Of course, while this guy did act like a brain-dead villain... he also prided himself on having learned the "righteousness" from the novels... although to Chu Bamboo, it looked more like the gangster version of righteousness.’

’All you could say was, from the perspective of a second-generation scion, this guy was truly a piece of work!’

"Enough." Chu Bamboo cut Xue Fusheng off. He really couldn’t be bothered to watch this second-generation Xue Family heir perform the same moronic antics he himself mocked. Before Xue Fusheng could turn his anger on him, Chu Bamboo turned his head to ask a question.

"I’ll repeat myself! Eight o’clock, Guangnan Early Tea on Huangpu Street, underground garage? Do you have a more detailed location of the incident? The exact spot!"

Lu Jin gave Chu Bamboo a deep look and said, "The precise time of the incident was 8:27. The location was Nanyang Bridge..."

"If I remember correctly, the Nanyang River that Nanyang Bridge crosses is one of the dividing lines between the Second and Third Districts, right?" Chu Bamboo frowned. ’Are you kidding me? How did the location change so drastically? From Zone One all the way to here!’

"That’s right! I know what you’re thinking," Lu Jin said softly. "But the problem is, the car was speeding the entire time. The only conceivable time he could have gotten into the car, after thinking it over... was in the underground garage at Guangnan Early Tea!"

After a slight pause, Lu Jin continued, "Any earlier, they were driving out from home... I don’t believe the guards in our compound would let an assailant like that get close, do you?"

"So, have they caught the assailant? Did they dig up any useful information from him?" Chu Bamboo mused.

"Not yet... At the time, it seems the assailant wanted to force Madam Xue to drive somewhere else. Then, she chose death before dishonor and drove straight into a bridge pier, causing the car to explode! However, the assailant’s body wasn’t found in the car! He must have jumped into the river." Lu Jin said coldly. "Right now, Li Kang’s team is cordoning off the river to search for him!"

"I see!" Chu Bamboo’s eye twitched. He wanted to say more but held his tongue. ’Did Madam Xue really choose death before dishonor? From the sound of it, it feels more like... she was trying to throw the attacker off the car, or something?’

’After all, he knew what car Madam Xue drove—an electric convertible sports car. If she was buckled in, a sharp swerve might have been enough to fling the attacker off... It’s just that, the driving skill Madam Xue demonstrated was really...’

’No wonder Lu Jin said it was an accident at first. The assailant might not have intended to kill the mother and daughter; he might have had some other goal... It was just a twist of fate that led to this...’

Chu Bamboo forcibly pushed the presumptuous thoughts from his mind. After organizing the known information, he was suddenly taken aback. ’Li Kang still hasn’t found the assailant? ...Could he be a Transcendent?’

’If that’s the case, then things have become even more complicated. Was it a rogue Transcendent, or...?’

At that moment, Xue Fusheng seemed to realize something. He looked Chu Bamboo up and down with suspicion. "You, you are, wait, could you be that person with the surname Zhu..."

Before Xue Fusheng could finish his sentence, Chu Bamboo unhesitatingly bit down on the poison capsule hidden in his tooth.

The next instant, time reversed!