Ti Shen-Chapter 24

Thinking back to the events of two years ago, An Mu and An Chen both retreated back into silence.

After a few moments, An Mu recollected himself and placed a gentle hand over An Chen's shoulder, saying with a soft voice: "It's all old history now. All I had was a physical wound; the real victim here was Ran Feng Ge. Everything I've done and am doing has been to try and prevent him from going through yet more mental torture. Being a body double doesn't mean he had to go through what he did. A body double must risk himself in order to protect his charge; if I have the means to protect him back, then I should. Be careful what you say, don't let anything slip up now. Remember, this is what the An family owes him."

An Chen nodded obediently in response to what his elder brother said. "Okay, I understand."

But what the mouth says may not necessarily be what the heart wants.

After all, that man was a body double; so what if he had to go through that? There was a very high fee attached to the job—why should the employer care about the employee after everything has been said and done? If Ran Feng Ge didn't have the means to protect himself, then don't expect a salary from a job gone wrong! Getting the benefits even though he was the one who chose to take the risk…

If Lan Kuang refused to leave his brother alone, then An Chen cannot promise that he will be able to keep this little secret to himself.

Of course, the first thing he was going to do was find Ran Feng Ge and see if he was willing to take on the persona of An Mu once again to go and meet with Lan Kuang to get him off his brother's back…but if Ran Feng Ge doesn't do what An Chen wants…

Then it isn't An Chen's fault should anything happen to Ran Feng Ge.

Cooperating with Lan Kuang wasn't off the board—telling him the entire truth could be an alternative! Let Lan Kuang go and bother Ran Feng Ge instead! Elder brother belonged only to him. Who cares if it was Lan Kuang—he can forget about sullying An Mu!

An Mu didn't see through An Chen; he only understood that An Chen had promised to keep his secret. Feeling relieved, the hand that had been on An Chen's shoulder moved to tousle the hair on An Chen's head, messing it up. "Let's go home!" An Mu said cheerily as he made his way to his own car.

An Chen moved to soothe out his messed up hair, grumpily saying: "Why do you always treat me like a kid!"

Once An Chen lowered his arms, his expression had morphed into something dangerous - An Mu, you will never be able to escape from me!

♦

It was the second morning when Ran Feng Ge finally woke up.

The sunlight streaming in from the glass window was extremely piercing; having been out cold for so long, the sudden brightness was overwhelming. Ran Feng Ge closed his eyes and slowly reopened them to get used to the light.

The smell of disinfectant and the IV that had been inserted through his skin on the back of his hand informed him that he was currently in the hospital.

Although there was still a dull throbbing, his abdomen was no longer hurting as badly as before. Ran Feng Ge allowed a small, pained smile to spread across his lips.

He never thought the day would come where he would break down and wind up in a hospital bed. He always thought he would be taken down by a horrible environment, or killed during a fight, perhaps shot down during a fiery gun fight - who knew that he would actually be taken down by an illness and end up in the hospital.

The saying that health is more important than wealth made a lot of sense now.

Looking at the side of the bed, Ran Feng Ge saw a crown of messy black hair and guessed that it must be Chen Xi Ran who had been keeping him company, but this man was useless, Having fallen asleep whilst keeping watch.

His sight went up to the ceiling as he thought back to the events that had transpired in the last few days.

Was this considered as his first failure?

The plan to go with the flow has been interrupted by Lan Kuang, and instead, Su Yi Mo was forced to act because of him. Now, even the plan to rescue Jing Qiu Lan was thwarted as well.

Lan Kuang was virtually impregnable, there were no flaws or weaknesses to this man—how were they going to rescue Jing Qiu Lan without him noticing anything?

Su Yi Mo had utilized his resources in order to save Ran Feng Ge; was it possible that this may have alerted Lan Kuang? Would that innocent little girl have to suffer because of it?

Sigh. Forget it! It isn't even affiliated with me anyways! Why should I even put my foot into this mess? Anything that cannot be settled, the boss can just deal with it!

While Ran Feng Ge was ruminating on his own thoughts, the person that had been asleep on the side of the bed woke up. The moment he sat up, he noticed Ran Feng Ge staring up at the ceiling, deep in thought. He stood up and slowly made his way to Ran Feng Ge's side, lowered his voice to a whisper and said: "You're awake?"

Seeing that the man was Su Yi Mo made Ran Feng Ge go through a flurry of emotions - all of which were plain to see on his face: shock, suspicion, and finally, surprise! Wasn't it supposed to be Ah Xi? When on earth did it become Su Yi Mo?!

After a moment of hesitation, Ran Feng Ge realized that Su Yi Mo was still dressed in his Taekwondo uniform, the white of the gi [TN: v neck style jacket] aided Su Yi Mo in exuding a sense of youthful handsomeness. If someone was to look at him, they would have believed that he was just a teenage boy, especially the image of him laying on his arms asleep. He must not have gotten much sleep the night before as Su Yi Mo was unable to stifle the yawn. Seeing him squeeze his eyes tight as his lips opened involuntarily made Ran Feng Ge feel a sense of familiarity to the man before him.

All this time Su Yi Mo had only shown the iceberg side of himself to Ran Feng Ge, this was the first time Ran Feng Ge saw Su Yi Mo as the young man that he was.

As soon as he got through the yawn, Su Yi Mo reached over and placed his hand over Ran Feng Ge's forehead. The abrupt movement caused Ran Feng Ge to instinctively close his eyes as soon as the hand came close to him. When he opened his eyes, he watched as Su Yi Mo breathed a sigh of relief: "Good, there's no fever."

The doctor had informed him the night of the surgery that surgeries often incited high fevers afterwards. He warned Su Yi Mo that he would have to quickly seek medical attention for Ran Feng Ge if a fever occurred. Should the patient make it to the next day without a fever, then that was a good sign that the patient was recovering well. A few days of hospitalization and adequate rest would be all that was required. Of course, strict rest was still needed even after being discharged.

Seeing Ran Feng Ge go all quiet and looking at him with suspicion in his eyes, he thought, was he still angry?

Su Yi Mo was unsure of what Ran Feng Ge was thinking but remembering the last thing they did was fight made Su Yi Mo feel a little awkward and so he decided he was never going to bring up anything that had transpired that night. "Are you hungry? What do you feel like eating? I will go buy it for you, however, the doctor did say that you can only have fluids for now… Hmm, how about porridge? What kind of porridge do you feel like having?" Su Yi Mo asked, changing the topic and, hopefully, the atmosphere between them.

Ran Feng Ge continued to stare blankly at Su Yi Mo without a single word in reply.

Even the great and powerful Su Yi Mo was starting to get uncomfortable under the constant gaze of Ran Feng Ge. "What is it?"

Finally, after another moment of pause, Ran Feng Ge replied, "Nothing much. Just wondering if you are truly Su Yi Mo or if someone else has taken your place. This is the first time you have ever said so much in a sentence."

Hearing this, Su Yi Mo felt his stoic composure slide back onto his face, an icy glare entering his eyes. Seeing this, Ran Feng Ge quickly replied: "I'm just joking! I want Eight Treasure porridge and seaweed soup. Boss, if it isn't too much trouble, can you please go buy some for me?"

'For me', these two words were emphasized by Ran Feng Ge with a look of mischief directed towards Su Yi Mo.

Knowing him, Ran Feng Ge guessed that he wasn't one to obediently do what was asked.

Su Yi Mo took one look at the mischievous face before him and knew immediately what the man before him was plotting, however, he was the one who offered to take care of Ran Feng Ge, therefore he was not going to reject his requests.

"Then just rest for a bit, I will go down and buy some for you."

"Hospital food is well-known to be horrible! If it isn't too much trouble for you boss, could you go out and get some for me? Since I am already hungry, it wouldn't hurt me to wait a little longer," Ran Feng Ge reasoned cheekily.

Since the opportunity came so readily to him, it would be bad if Ran Feng Ge allowed it to slip right past him.

The little gears he had in his head were click-clacking loudly, grinding away as he recalled the argument he had with Su Yi Mo before he collapsed. He was still feeling annoyed with Su Yi Mo for dragging Chen Xi Ran and Mi Le into the situation. He was an immature person and so, whatever he could do to cause trouble and get back at Su Yi Mo was a little win for him.

At the end of the day, Su Yi Mo was still his employer and the person who was paying his salary; he could not do anything huge to get his revenge on the guy, but petty little troubles shouldn't affect Su Yi Mo too much!

Stretching his back, Su Yi Mo turned and made his way to the door. Once there, he turned back towards Ran Feng Ge's direction and asked, "Is there anything else you want to eat? I will be going out anyways, might as well buy everything you want now."

Ran Feng Ge thought about it. There were a lot of things he wanted but couldn't not eat right now. However, since he was going through all the trouble to make it difficult for Su Yi Mo, he might as well go as far as he could: "Hmm, I still feel like having chicken soup, chicken porridge or maybe some fried dough sticks and soya milk or some red bean soup would be good too…"

Su Yi Mo's eyebrows came together as he memorized Ran Feng Ge's order. "Then, I'll be on my way. Rest well, and should you need anything, just press the button for the nurses," Su Yi Mo said as he closed the hospital room door gently.

"Okays!" Ran Feng Ge replied happily with a big, cheeky smile on his face.

Su Yi Mo made his way down to the first floor and walked out the hospital entrance.

This was a rural hospital therefore there was not going to be any five-star hotels nearby. All that was available were small pushcart stalls with homemade signboards - green bean white lily porridge, snow fungus and lotus seed soup, eight treasure porridge, corn and winter melon soup, broken rice porridge; there were a lot of choices to choose from. The next store was one that had teppanyaki which currently had egg patties cooking on top; the bottles that held the oil used to fry the foods were plastic soda bottles with a hole drilled into the bottle cap to allow ease of access.

Even from afar, Su Yi Mo was able to smell the sweet fragrance of good food. It was no wonder there was a long queue lining up before the stalls.

But. . .was it sanitary?

Even though there were lots of blue-collared workers buying packets of porridge on their way to work, Su Yi Mo could not help but take in the environment; each of these pushcarts were just a small stone-throw away from the main road, and there were cars driving up and down the road right before the stalls.

The pots that held the various porridges were uncovered and allowed to sit there in the open, inviting all sorts of dust particles to settle in each time a car drove past. Even if it cannot be seen by the naked eye, who knows how much grime and dirt has already been added into the mixture…

Ah… It would be better if I did not buy it from there! Ran Feng Ge's stomach is already compromised, what if. . . What if he gets an infection from eating these?

Spotting a small family diner in the distance, Su Yi Mo quickly made his way across the road, thinking that it would be better to buy food from there - however, the moment he saw the inside of the diner, Su Yi Mo furrowed his brows even deeper than before…

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Translator: Jypoonie

Proofreaders: Charlotte Grey, Lyrick

[Lyick: AWWW! He wuvs him, so cute!]