Chapter 121

Chapter 121

Qin Zhiguo was known for getting things done efficiently. He immediately got up and went to the backyard to call his apprentice, telling him to look into Huang Jun.

After giving a few brief instructions, he looked at the neglected yard and was struck by memories.

Back when the old lady was still alive, the yard had always been full of vegetables.

He snapped back to himself, scraped the soles of his shoes on the doormat, and looked up to see Han Lie wiping down the kitchen cabinets.

He was so serious and meticulous that anyone who didn’t know better would think he was carrying out some solemn duty.

Qin Zhiguo studied him carefully. Seeing the faint traces of military-style housekeeping in the way he worked, he couldn’t help feeling a bit more favorable toward him.

Wanting to probe a little, Qin Zhiguo half-jokingly pointed toward the yard outside. “You’re Han Lie, right? Look at my old lady’s backyard. Ever since she passed, it’s gone completely wild.”

“Qin Ying’s hands aren’t made for rough work.”

“Since you’ve already moved in, one of these days you can get some stones and wooden stakes, tidy up the yard, plant some flowers and grass.”

“From the looks of you, you used to be in the military? You should know how to do that, right?”

Qin Zhiguo didn’t actually mean to make him work as a temporary gardener. He just wanted to find out a bit more about where he came from.

Han Lie had stopped what he was doing as soon as Qin Zhiguo began speaking, looking perfectly respectful as he listened.

At that, he followed the direction of Qin Zhiguo’s finger and looked over.

Through the glass, he could indeed see that the backyard was overgrown with weeds.

Han Lie immediately nodded and said in a hoarse voice, “Okay.”

Qin Zhiguo laughed. “Speak normally. Don’t put on that breathy voice. You sound like you’ve got lung disease.”

At the mention of lung disease, he coughed twice, but he didn’t pay much attention to it. He took out a pack of cigarettes and handed one to Han Lie.

Han Lie had no idea what the thin little stick was, but since it was being offered to him, he accepted it with both hands.

Qin Zhiguo lit his cigarette with practiced ease and was about to bring the lighter over to Han Lie when he noticed that Han Lie was holding the cigarette like a pen, pinched between his thumb and index finger.

He froze. “You don’t smoke?”

People who smoked would instinctively hold it between their index and middle fingers.

Han Lie looked at the thing in his hand, then silently shook his head.

His intelligence wasn’t exactly high right now, and he had a bit of a blank, simple-minded air about him. But Qin Zhiguo coughed and laughed.

“Cough. Not many people don’t smoke these days. That’s a good thing.”

“Oh, right. Where are you from? What do your parents do?”

Very naturally, he took back the cigarette he’d given Han Lie and put it back into the pack.

With his head lowered, he didn’t notice that Han Lie’s eyes were emptier than some people’s entire lives.

In his current state, how could Han Lie possibly understand what Qin Zhiguo was asking?

After scratching his head, he opened his mouth and said dully, “This thing makes people sick. Don’t smoke anymore.”

Only then did Qin Zhiguo feel that something wasn’t quite right. This tall, strapping young man in front of him didn’t just seem quiet.

He seemed a little slow!

Qin Zhiguo took the cigarette from his mouth, wanting to get a closer look at him, when Qin Ying suddenly poked her head in. “The takeout’s here. Come eat.”

When Qin Zhiguo reached the dining table, he saw that the entire table was covered with an outrageous amount of late-night snacks.

He wasn’t the type to tell Qin Ying to spend less money. The younger generation had earned their own money, and they could spend it however they liked.

But he pulled Qin Ying aside and whispered a couple of sentences to her. “That Han kid looks like he’s not quite right in the head. Have your fun and leave it at that. Once the novelty wears off, hurry up and get him out of here.”

What was the use of a pretty face? When girls dated or got married, the one thing they absolutely couldn’t do was charity work.

If he wasn’t right in the head, he wouldn’t produce smart children. Better to kick him out early before she got too invested.

“Uncle.” Qin Ying raised both hands in surrender, but what she said was, “He’s not stupid. His situation is just a little special right now.”

Those words were tantamount to making it clear she had no intention of sending Han Lie away anytime soon.

As Qin Zhiguo fumed, Han Lie, who had been pricking up his ears behind them, visibly relaxed his shoulders.

“Eat your late-night snack.”

Qin Ying pulled out a dining chair for Qin Zhiguo and had him sit down.

Unexpectedly, Qin Zhiguo waved a hand. “I’m not eating. I just came to check on you. I still have to go back to duty in Chengnan.”

Qin Ying knew his temper: when he said he was leaving, he would leave. So she quickly split half the takeout from the table and stuffed it into his hands.

“None of it’s been opened yet. Take it and eat with your coworkers.”

This time, Qin Zhiguo didn’t refuse. Just like when he arrived, he left in a whirlwind.

As he stepped out through the courtyard gate, the cigarette smoke caught in his throat, and he started coughing again.

Qin Ying couldn’t help frowning. The last few times she’d seen Qin Zhiguo, she had heard him coughing every single time.
Then Qin Ying thought about how much he usually smoked, and she couldn’t help feeling worried.

She figured that if he had time the day after tomorrow, she would drag him to the hospital for a checkup.

Before she could finish planning how to set up a time with him, Han Lie, standing beside her, suddenly said, “He’s sick.”

Qin Ying froze, then whipped her head around to look at him.

Han Lie glanced at Qin Zhiguo’s figure disappearing into the smoke, then said to Qin Ying with complete seriousness, “He has a lung disease.”

“If he doesn’t take medicine soon, he’ll die.”

Han Lie was currently maintaining his human form, but beneath the Chimei Skin trench coat, he was still an altered Qilin covered in scales and horns.

His senses were extraordinarily sharp. Every time Qin Zhiguo coughed, the rancid odor rising from his internal organs was impossible to hide.

Because of his words, Qin Ying’s mind went blank for several seconds.

When she came back to herself, she took a deep breath.

He would die. A lung disease. Lung cancer!

Whatever she was afraid of, that was exactly what came.

She stared intently at Han Lie. “Can Yao Grass and Immortal Grass cure it?”

She still had two stalks each of Yao Grass and Immortal Grass left.

As long as Han Lie said they worked, she would immediately go make pear soup, then deliver it overnight as a get-well gift to the South District and watch Qin Zhiguo drink it down.

Han Lie tilted his head slightly. His mind, sometimes clear and sometimes muddled, was not enough to support quick thinking.

Only after scraping through his thoughts once did he shake his head. “A full cure requires the Xixi Fish from Zhuoguang Mountain.”

Xixi Fish?

Once she heard a definite answer, Qin Ying was not quite so panicked.

She pulled Han Lie quickly back home, then brought the copy of the Classic of Mountains and Seas that Old Miao had given her when she started the job to the dining table.

“I’ll look for it. You eat first.”

After saying that, she lowered her head and began flipping through the Classic of Mountains and Seas.

In the end, her knowledge was not solid enough. She only found the origin of that fish in the Classic of Northern Mountains after searching for a while.

In the Xiao River of Zhuoguang Mountain, there was a fish shaped like a magpie, but it had ten wings, with scales at the tips of its wings.

Eating this fish could cure consumptive illness.

Ancient medicine was not well developed, so coughs and coughing blood were all broadly categorized as consumption.

In other words, this thing known as the Magpie Fish really could be useful.

She had to get Qin Zhiguo to have a checkup first, then search for the Xixi Fish in the World in the Box.

Once her mind was made up, Qin Ying looked up. “Han Lie, thank… you.”

Her words of thanks slowed.

While she had been flipping through the book, Han Lie had opened the takeout, washed his hands, peeled a small bowl of crawfish for her, and pushed it in front of her.

He was strong. With one pinch, the shell cracked open. His fingers moved deftly as he quickly removed the shell and the vein, then placed another piece in Qin Ying’s bowl.

Seeing that Qin Ying was only looking and not eating, he broke into a smile so bright it practically exceeded the limit for sunlight. “I’ll find the Xixi Fish. Please don’t worry.”

Qin Ying silently put down the Classic of Mountains and Seas and pushed the bowl of crawfish between them.

“I bought it for you in the first place. Let’s eat together.”

She taught Han Lie how to snap apart disposable chopsticks, then taught him how to use the gloves.

As his fingers rubbed the thin plastic gloves, Han Lie once again revealed a somewhat dazed smile.

Early the next morning, Qin Ying was woken up by the sound of message notifications.

She squinted and reached for her phone, only then realizing that she had slept in her grandmother’s room the night before.

Yawning, she unlocked her phone and saw that it was a WeChat message from Qin Zhiguo.

Her uncle was very efficient. Early in the morning, he had already sent over the information he had found on Huang Jun.

Back then, Huang Jun’s molestation case had gotten him a ten-year sentence.

On the surface, bullying and beatings were forbidden in prison, but wherever there were people, there were factions.

In the prison hierarchy of contempt, rapists and molesters, especially those who targeted young children, were at the very bottom.

Getting bullied and beaten behind the guards’ backs was nothing out of the ordinary.

In prison, Huang Jun had twice been beaten badly enough to suffer serious injuries.

Later, he learned to keep his head down. Because of good behavior, he was released two years early.

After getting out last September, he went to work at a small motorcycle repair shop.

On paper alone, he had not committed any further offenses.

But the file did not mention his love life or marital status at all.

And it mentioned nothing about the girl who had filed a grievance with the underworld at the City God Temple.

Qin Ying gripped her phone and sat bolt upright with a carp-like kip-up.

It seemed she could only investigate it herself.