Chapter 33: Let Me Protect You (I)

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Chapter 33: Let Me Protect You (I)

Shang Ke peeked outside through a crack in the cargo crate. Six or seven figures were searching their way toward them from not far away. The surrounding area was piled with miscellaneous junk of every size—empty cargo crates, discarded parts, and all sorts of rubbish.

Although the light was dim, the moment they ran out from behind the piles of junk, they would immediately be spotted. Yet if they remained where they were, they probably wouldn’t escape being found either.

What Shang Ke needed to do now was keep himself and Feng Juan from being caught until the police arrived. Otherwise, those people would undoubtedly kill them without hesitation. Although he had studied martial arts, his current body was only that of a child. In height, strength, speed, and every other physical aspect, he was no match for an adult. The only advantage he could rely on was agility.

Seeing the group draw closer and closer, Shang Ke whispered to the child in his arms, “Stay here and don’t move. I’ll go out and draw them away.”

Feng Juan tightly gripped Shang Ke’s hand. Although he didn’t say a word, his refusal was obvious.

Shang Ke twisted his wrist and easily slipped free of Feng Juan’s grasp, then repeated, “Stay here and don’t move!” Crouching low, he slipped out of the crate and crept toward the other side, “accidentally” kicking a bottle along the way.

“Over there! Get him!” someone shouted, followed immediately by a rush of footsteps.

Without looking back, Shang Ke relied on his ears to judge what was happening behind him.

One, two, three… Five people had come after him.

Five? Shang Ke’s heart sank. There had been seven people searching for them. If only five had followed him, then the other two… He abruptly looked back and, sure enough, saw two figures moving around the place where Feng Juan was hiding.

Not good!

Shang Ke changed direction sharply, using the momentum to dodge several people lunging toward him before darting through the clutter like a wildcat.

“There’s another one here.” A man roughly hauled Feng Juan up.

Feng Juan struggled violently, a low growl like that of a small animal rumbling from his throat.

“Damn it, these little brats are a pain in the ass.” As the other man spoke, he raised the butt of his gun and swung it toward Feng Juan.

Feng Juan’s eyes widened, filled with fear and despair, along with a faint trace of unwillingness to submit to his fate.

At the critical moment, a small figure suddenly came charging in and slammed into the man with all his strength, knocking him off balance.

The instant Shang Ke landed, he pushed off with his right leg and leapt high without the slightest pause, kicking hard at the wrist of the man holding Feng Juan.

The man cried out in pain and released his grip.

Feng Juan fell to the ground, but before he could recover, Shang Ke yanked him back to his feet and dragged him along, dodging their pursuers as they rushed toward the mouth of the alley.

Feng Juan stumbled after Shang Ke in their desperate escape, his arm nearly being pulled from its socket, yet the small, slender, courageous figure in front of him became deeply engraved in his heart.

“Police! Don’t move!”

The rescuers Shang Ke had been waiting for finally appeared! A large group of plainclothes police officers rushed toward them.

“shit！”

“Shit!”

A curse sounded from behind them, followed by a rapid series of gunshots.

Shang Ke immediately realized that several bullets were clearly aimed at him and Feng Juan. Without hesitation, he threw himself over Feng Juan and knocked him to the ground. Unfortunately, he was still a step too slow. One bullet struck his shoulder and another his right leg, while the bullet that hit his shoulder passed straight through and lodged in Feng Juan’s left arm.

The two collapsed together, their blood mingling on the ground.

“Requesting medical assistance! Two children have been shot!”

A burst of commotion filled Shang Ke’s ears, and he felt someone lift him up. Knowing that they were finally safe, he relaxed and lost consciousness.

Two days later, Shang Ke woke to the smell of disinfectant. His shoulder and leg were wrapped in bandages, and an IV was attached to his hand.

Turning his head, he saw Feng Juan sound asleep in the hospital bed beside him. He didn’t appear seriously injured. At the very least, the tragedy of losing the use of both legs had been avoided.

“These children are heartbreaking, especially the older one. His body is covered in injuries. He must have suffered abuse for at least four or five years.” At that moment, a woman’s voice came from outside the ward. She was speaking English, a language Shang Ke happened to know quite well. After all, English was practically essential for studying computers.

“How are they doing?” another woman asked.

“We’ll need to observe them for a few more days, but they’re stable for now.”

As they spoke, the ward door opened and several people filed inside. Seeing that Shang Ke was already awake, they paused briefly before giving him reassuring smiles and slowly approaching his bed.

“Boy, are you all right?” A somewhat older man greeted Shang Ke with a smile. Looking at his delicate features and clear eyes, he couldn’t help thinking, What a beautiful child.

Shang Ke merely stared at them without speaking.

The woman beside the man suddenly realized something. “Detective Rowan, he isn’t from an English-speaking country. He may not understand English.”

“They should be Asian, but we don’t know whether they’re Chinese or Korean.” Rowan paused, then tentatively greeted Shang Ke in broken Chinese. “Hello.”

Shang Ke nodded to him.

Having confirmed his nationality, Rowan immediately asked the policewoman beside him to find someone fluent in Chinese.

They had failed to capture the mastermind during the raid, so they hoped the two children might provide some useful clues.

“Detective, they’ve just been through something horrific. I hope you won’t frighten them any further,” the female doctor reminded him.

“Of course,” Rowan assured her. He had personally seen the injuries covering the two children and sympathized deeply with them. But the matter was urgent. If the mastermind escaped this time, there was no telling when they would get another opportunity to catch them.

Before long, a middle-aged man in his forties entered. After greeting the others in the room, he came to Shang Ke’s bedside and spoke gently in Chinese. “Hello. I’m Professor Ramson. What’s your name?”

Shang Ke did not answer. Instead, he turned his head toward Feng Juan.

“Ah!” Feng Juan, who had been sleeping soundly, suddenly began breathing rapidly and appeared to be in great distress.

The female doctor hurried over to check his condition.

After struggling for a while, Feng Juan woke up. His face was pale and his forehead covered in sweat.

No one found Feng Juan’s reaction unusual. It was only when they looked back at Shang Ke that they noticed something strange. Wasn’t this child a little too calm? From the moment he woke up, he had not displayed even the slightest panic or fear.

Feng Juan looked around in alarm. Only after spotting Shang Ke in the neighboring bed did he relax slightly, then struggle to get up.

The doctor quickly stopped him so he wouldn’t injure himself. She had expected it would take some effort to calm him down, but Feng Juan didn’t insist and soon went still. He simply stared at everyone with wary, guarded eyes so intensely that it made them uneasy.

Rowan and the others were rather surprised. Both children they had rescued this time seemed unusually different from ordinary children.

Once the children’s emotions seemed reasonably stable, Professor Ramson tried communicating with them, beginning with a few simple questions. In the end, one remained completely silent while the other gave only vague, incomplete answers.

The doctor pointed toward Feng Juan. “This child may have suffered memory loss because of the trauma.” Then she looked at Shang Ke and hesitated. “There doesn’t appear to be anything physically wrong with his speech. It may simply be temporary mutism.”

Rowan and the others exchanged glances, helplessness flashing through their eyes.

“Looks like we won’t be getting any useful clues from them,” the policewoman said with a wry smile.

Shang Ke looked at them. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to talk. For the sake of staying alive, he simply couldn’t say anything for the time being.

According to the information provided by the System, the criminal organization behind all this was enormous, and they even had informants inside the police force. The group the police had raided was merely a small piece of bait deliberately thrown out by the larger organization. Most likely, the police hadn’t captured a single useful person alive.

Shang Ke didn’t know which police officers were compromised, but he did know that this organization would remain active for more than a decade, until Feng Juan had grown powerful enough to completely dismantle it.

If he revealed even the slightest useful information, he and Feng Juan would probably face an endless stream of assassination attempts.

During the transfer, they had caught sight of the mastermind behind the organization. Although it had only been a fleeting glimpse, the man’s appearance had left a deep impression in Bruno’s memories. Even the scattered fragments of information the children had overheard over the past few days would be enough reason for the organization to silence them permanently.

The mission the System had issued this time was to protect Feng Juan until he turned twenty-two.

Shang Ke, who had thought this would be nothing more than an ordinary babysitting mission, realized that he had once again been far too naive…

The police were unable to obtain any information from the two children, not even enough to determine their identities. They could only notify the embassy and ask them to investigate.

Shang Ke already knew the investigation would ultimately go nowhere. They simply wouldn’t be able to identify either child.

The original Bruno had been born in a mountain village along the Sino-Mongolian border. He had never even been entered into the household registration system. Abused by his father from a young age, he eventually reached the point where he could no longer endure it and ran away from home, wandering from place to place until human traffickers captured him.

Feng Juan, meanwhile, came from a family plagued by severe internal power struggles. His older brother had been murdered, and Feng Juan himself disappeared while being sent away. The turmoil that followed dealt the Feng family a devastating blow, leaving them with no energy to search for him. It wasn’t until five years later that they finally regained their footing, but by then, all trace of Feng Juan had already been lost.

During their recovery in the hospital, Shang Ke and Feng Juan were treated quite well. They had dedicated doctors and psychological counselors, along with all sorts of activities suitable for children.

Detective Rowan seemed quite fond of them. Although he hadn’t obtained any useful clues, he still came to visit frequently. Even though Feng Juan remained openly guarded toward him and Shang Ke never said a word, Rowan was not discouraged.

Nothing unusual happened during this period, so Shang Ke guessed that the organization had probably relaxed its vigilance toward them. Even so, he didn’t risk revealing anything to Detective Rowan, despite knowing that Rowan would later become one of the main people responsible for destroying the organization. Unfortunately, Rowan cared too much about the two children and visited them too frequently, which actually made it less safe for Shang Ke to confide in him.

After half a month of recuperation, Feng Juan’s injuries had essentially healed.

Shang Ke’s right-leg injury, however, was more troublesome. Even after it healed, he would no longer be able to perform strenuous movements, though it would not interfere with ordinary walking.

“Keke, don’t worry. I’ll stay by your side forever.” Feng Juan had forgotten his past, and the boy before him was now the only memory he still possessed.

Shang Ke smiled and nodded, taking Feng Juan’s right hand and gently brushing his thumb over the mole in the center of his palm.

From that day on, they knew one another, and from then on, they would remain by each other’s side.

He hadn’t been able to stay with this man in any of the previous three worlds. This time, he didn’t want to give up again. Feng Juan still had sixteen years before he turned twenty-two, and to Shang Ke, sixteen years by this person’s side was already an unimaginable luxury.

Even by the time they had recovered, the embassy had failed to uncover any information about their identities. The local authorities therefore decided to send them to a children’s home, where they would settle in this foreign land from then on.

When they were discharged, Detective Rowan personally came to see them off. He fussed over them with endless reminders the whole way, happily carrying on the conversation by himself while neither child responded.

By the time they reached the entrance to the children’s home, Rowan was visibly reluctant to part with them.

Wearing the little backpack Rowan had given him, Shang Ke suddenly said to him in English, “Thank you.”

With that, he turned around and walked into the children’s home hand in hand with Feng Juan.

Rowan froze, staring after the two small figures as they gradually disappeared into the distance. Only after a long while did realization strike him: not only could this boy speak, but… perhaps he had understood English all along?

So his silence this entire time had been deliberate?

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