Chapter 91: Covenantor (XIV)

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Chapter 91: Covenantor (XIV)

Yue Xuan was brought back to the isolation chamber. Lady Chang immediately rushed to his side, cupped his face, and asked anxiously, “Little Xuan, how are you?”

Yue Xuan stared blankly at Lady Chang without saying a word.

Tears streamed down Lady Chang’s face as she asked in a trembling voice, “They really operated on you? Little Xuan, tell Mother—is that what happened?”

Yue Xuan remained silent. His vacant eyes resembled a stagnant pool, utterly devoid of life.

The sight broke Lady Chang’s heart. She screamed frantically toward the outside of the isolation chamber, “Lu Xiufan, you’re abusing your authority for personal reasons! The Yue Family and the Chang Family will demand justice from you!”

Lu Xiufan stood outside the isolation chamber and watched her coldly, his face completely expressionless.

Just then, his communicator suddenly rang. The caller was one of the guards he had assigned to Shang Ke.

Lu Xiufan answered. After hearing only two sentences, his expression became terrifying. He spun around and strode out while summoning his guards, killing intent rolling off him.

Shang Ke had actually encountered danger despite being under his protection! Every muscle in Lu Xiufan’s body tightened like a beast ready to tear someone apart, frightening the surrounding guards into barely daring to breathe.

Lu Xiufan jumped into a hovercar and activated the tracking system. Shang Ke’s vehicle was racing toward the outskirts at an extraordinary speed, clearly far beyond the limits of normal physical endurance. An ordinary person could not possibly withstand that velocity for more than a few hours.

Lu Xiufan’s expression darkened further as he sped toward Shang Ke’s location with his guards.

Even after pushing his own vehicle to the fastest speed he could control, it still took him an hour to catch up.

Ahead, Shang Ke’s hovercar flashed back and forth in a zigzag pattern over the lake, maintaining a height of roughly three to five meters above the water. The air currents churned the lake into intersecting trails of spray, while a person floated near the center. Lu Xiufan immediately zoomed in and, as expected, saw that it was not Shang Ke.

Still, if someone had managed to escape from the car, then Shang Ke had clearly found a way to save himself.

Lu Xiufan left the person in the lake to his guards and focused all his attention on Shang Ke and the runaway hovercar.

Shang Ke was so dizzy by this point that he did not notice Lu Xiufan’s arrival. He could only continue following the route he had already set over the lake, where the open surroundings at least meant he did not have to worry about striking an obstacle.

He should have abandoned the car long ago, but Yun Ling had fallen completely unconscious in the back seat. If Shang Ke left the vehicle, Yun Ling would certainly die. Blood seeped from Shang Ke’s eyes, ears, nose, and mouth, while a splitting headache made it almost impossible to think clearly.

“Little Ze, jump!” At that moment, a familiar roar suddenly came from the distance.

Shang Ke jolted slightly awake. Through his blood-blurred vision, he saw several indistinct vehicles.

Lu Xiufan was here!

“Little Ze, jump now!” Through the remote monitoring system, Lu Xiufan could clearly see Shang Ke in the driver’s seat. Several streaks of blood stood out starkly against his deathly pale face. His bloodshot eyes resembled crimson gemstones, while sweat mixed with blood around their corners, blurring his vision beneath a reddish haze. The terrible yet striking sight made Lu Xiufan’s heart seize. He wanted nothing more than to rush over and pull him out immediately.

Lu Xiufan ordered his men to deploy a sensor safety net across the surface of the lake. As long as Shang Ke jumped within its range, it would minimize the impact as much as possible. But Shang Ke still refused to abandon the car, leaving Lu Xiufan frantic enough to keep shouting at him.

Shang Ke tilted his head toward the back seat. Only then did Lu Xiufan notice another person inside, slumped sideways and completely motionless, clearly unconscious.

“Little Ze, forget about him and jump!” Lu Xiufan shouted again, this time in a commanding tone. He had assumed Shang Ke would unquestionably obey him, yet Shang Ke made no move to do so and continued driving the hovercar through the air.

“Damn it! Little Ze, jump! I’m telling you to jump!” Veins stood out on Lu Xiufan’s forehead, and his clenched fist nearly smashed the control screen.

This was the first time Shang Ke had ever disobeyed one of his orders, and it was merely for the sake of someone who had nothing to do with him personally. Lu Xiufan had always believed Covenantors were not truly devoid of emotion, and the scene before him proved his theory once again. But right now, he would rather have been wrong.

Covenantors always committed themselves without hesitation. Once they decided on something, they would never waver, even if it cost them their lives—or perhaps they simply did not understand how precious their own lives were.

Shang Ke’s consciousness was muddled, and his body had nearly gone numb. If he died here, he should be able to satisfy the heroic-death requirement. Yet Lu Xiufan’s shouts kept reaching his ears, making him unwilling to give up.

Shang Ke forced himself to pull together, and his mind began working again.

With Lu Xiufan’s sensor safety net spread across the lake, Shang Ke no longer needed to worry as much about the drop or the force of impact. If he and Yun Ling could land within the net’s range, they would have an eighty percent chance of survival.

There’s still one chance! Shang Ke’s eyes snapped open. He drove the hovercar straight ahead, rapidly leaving the lake behind until the vehicle became a tiny black speck on the horizon.

Lu Xiufan had not expected Shang Ke to suddenly race away from the lake. His anxiety surged, and he immediately gave chase.

But after pursuing him for only a few hundred meters, Lu Xiufan saw Shang Ke’s vehicle rapidly approaching again from the distance.

Lu Xiufan immediately stopped and stared. The driver’s seat was empty. At some point, Shang Ke had crawled into the back seat. One arm held the unconscious Covenantor tightly while the other gripped the door, his gaze fixed straight ahead.

At the hovercar’s current speed, Shang Ke had only a two-second window in which to jump, and the timing had to be exact. If they fell outside the safety net’s range, their chances of survival would become almost nonexistent.

Shang Ke concentrated every scrap of attention he had left, silently calculating the distance and timing.

One, two, three… now!

Holding Yun Ling tightly, Shang Ke threw the door open and leapt from the vehicle.

Their bodies plunged downward. An energy field swept across them, and the instant they struck the surface, they rebounded one or two meters before falling again and crashing into the water with a loud splash.

The icy lake water enveloped Shang Ke completely, washing the blood from his face and carrying away the sensation of pain.

When Lu Xiufan found him underwater, Shang Ke had already lost consciousness, yet both arms remained locked tightly around Yun Ling.

Lu Xiufan separated them, handed Yun Ling to the guards, and swiftly carried Shang Ke to the surface himself.

Shang Ke’s breathing was faint, his face deathly pale, while his lips had turned a deep purplish red.

Lu Xiufan’s face remained completely expressionless, but the slight trembling of his arms betrayed his panic.

Emergency responders soon arrived and immediately treated all three of them. Jill, who had jumped first, suffered the lightest injuries, but Shang Ke and Yun Ling were in poor condition. Shang Ke in particular had pushed his body to its absolute limit, severely overtaxed himself mentally, and sustained serious damage to his heart and lungs.

An ordinary person would have had virtually no chance of surviving under those circumstances. Most would have crashed the moment the system went out of control. Even with the vehicle’s relatively advanced safety systems, traveling at that speed without protective gear would be fatal no matter how strong the driver was.

Even if someone managed to avoid crashing, the next problems would be soaring blood pressure, blurred vision, impaired thinking, and eventually unconsciousness or shock. At that stage, escaping would be difficult enough; simply remaining conscious would already be an extraordinary feat.

When people later reviewed the surveillance footage, Shang Ke’s escape astonished them. In such a desperate situation, he had not only preserved his own life but saved two others. The final jump looked deceptively simple, yet he had made an extraordinarily precise judgment while on the verge of mental collapse, calmly calculating the required straight-line round-trip distance and the exact moment to jump. If he had turned back too soon, the vehicle would have crossed the lake before he could reach the correct position. If he had gone too far, he might have lost consciousness before he could make the jump at all.

Of course, if he had abandoned Yun Ling from the beginning, Shang Ke could have escaped much earlier and would never have been injured so severely.

At the hospital, Lu Xiufan sat beside the bed and silently gazed at Shang Ke’s sleeping face. During the operation, while Shang Ke hovered between life and death, Lu Xiufan had been tormented by fear. The feeling was strangely familiar, as though a brand buried deep within his soul were slowly heating up and burning him with unbearable pain.

He could not shake the feeling that this was not the first time he had experienced the terror of possibly losing Shang Ke at any moment.

Lu Xiufan held Shang Ke’s hand and felt the pulse beating beneath his fingers. Only after confirming again that Shang Ke was alive did his heart finally settle, though the lingering fear remained lodged in his chest.

Knock, knock. A soft knock sounded at the door.

“What is it?” Lu Xiufan asked without turning around.

“Her Majesty requests your presence at the palace.”

“Tell Her Majesty that I’m unwell. I’ll pay my respects in a few days,” Lu Xiufan replied coldly.

He knew perfectly well why the Queen wanted to see him. Even if the Yue Family chose not to pursue the matter of Lady Chang and her son being detained, the Chang Family certainly would. Although the Chang Family was not a major aristocratic house, it possessed considerable influence within the military.

A sharp light flashed through Lu Xiufan’s eyes. If the attempt on Shang Ke’s life had not been arranged by one of Lu Xiufan’s own enemies, then the Chang Family might very well be involved.

【Congratulations, Host. Main Mission completed—Become the Yue Family heir once again. Reward: five additional years of stay time.】

【Additional Mission 1 activated—Establish a Covenantor protection system. The Host activated this Additional Mission ahead of schedule. Completing it will grant a special item reward.】

A special item reward?

Shang Ke slowly woke from his deep sleep, his consciousness still somewhat hazy.

“Little Ze?” A large hand gently brushed the hair away from his forehead. The voice beside his ear was deep and hoarse, as though its owner had not spoken for a very long time.

Shang Ke looked to the side and was immediately greeted by a stubble-covered chin.

Lu Xiufan’s current appearance really had a certain… rugged masculinity to it.

“How do you feel? Is anything uncomfortable?” Lu Xiufan asked while pressing the call button.

The doctor hurried over to examine Shang Ke. Throughout the entire process, Lu Xiufan stood nearby staring at him ominously, looking as though he might chop the doctor across the back of the head at the slightest sign that something was wrong.

Fortunately, the doctor was highly competent. He completed the examination smoothly, confirmed there were no major problems, and finally escaped from beneath Lu Xiufan’s murderous aura.

Lu Xiufan poured some water for Shang Ke to rinse his mouth, then ordered his subordinates to bring over some food.

After doing all that, Lu Xiufan fell silent and simply sat beside the bed, staring quietly at Shang Ke.

The hospital room fell completely silent. The two looked at each other as though carrying on some kind of wordless conversation.

After a while, Shang Ke asked, “Do you have a mirror?”

Lu Xiufan opened a drawer, took out a small mirror, and handed it to him. “You’re still just as handsome. Don’t worry.”

Of course Shang Ke wasn’t worried. With the Perfect Expression Pack, even punching himself in the face would probably only produce the beautifying effect of a “Pretty Face Restoration Punch.” The person he wanted the mirror for was Lu Xiufan.

Shang Ke turned the mirror toward Lu Xiufan. “Sir, your appearance is currently rather untidy and unbecoming of your status. Would you like me to help you tidy yourself up?”

Could the person lying in the hospital bed please stop worrying about everyone else for once?

Lu Xiufan tossed the mirror back into the drawer, then went into the bathroom with a dark expression to clean himself up.

As Shang Ke watched his retreating back, a fleeting trace of amusement flashed through his eyes.

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