nyslfriends Chapter 1 A Blood-Soaked Agreement for Reconciliation
Chapter 1 A Blood-Soaked Agreement for Reconciliation
The corridor outside the morgue on the third basement floor of Jiangzhou First People's Hospital.
The stark white of the incandescent light shone on the terrazzo floor. The exhaust fan emitted a muffled hum. The air was thick with the stench of highly concentrated disinfectant and the lingering smell of formaldehyde.
A stainless steel cart was parked in the middle of the corridor. A white sheet covered the cart. A hand dangled from the edge of the sheet, its fingernails filled with dried grime and dark red blood clots. A faded red string was tied around its wrist.
Next to the cart, two burly men in black suits were pinning a girl in a blue and white school uniform against the wall.
The girl looked about seventeen or eighteen years old. Her hair was disheveled, her left cheek was swollen, and blood trickled from the corner of her mouth. Her hands were twisted behind her back, and her wrists were bluish-purple bruises. She bit her lip hard, and tears mixed with blood splattered onto the zipper of her school uniform.
"Lu Qingxue, my patience is running out."
A young man in a bespoke burgundy suit stood before the girl. He toyed with a solid gold-cased Parker pen in his hand, the nib twirling between his knuckles. On his feet were a pair of spotless Italian handmade leather shoes, the toes of which rested on a medical bill bearing a red handprint.
The man's name was Chu Tiankuo. He was the second young master of the Chu family, one of the four major families in Jiangzhou.
Chu Tiankuo slammed an A4 sheet of paper onto the wall in front of Lu Qingxue. At the top of the paper were five bold, black characters: Traffic Accident Settlement Agreement.
"Sign it. There's 500,000 in this card." Chu Tiankuo took a bank card from his suit pocket, slipped it into Lu Qingxue's collar, and patted her cheek. "Use this to buy your mother a nicer urn. The rest of the money is enough for you to finish university."
Lu Qingxue shook her head frantically. She opened her mouth, her voice hoarse and barely audible: "You ran a red light...you raced your sports car in front of the school...you hit my mother...you didn't even step on the brakes..."
"Yes, I didn't step on the brakes." Chu Tiankuo leaned closer and lowered his voice. "That old woman was pushing a beat-up tricycle and blocking the road. My Ferrari has a low chassis. If I scratched the paint, could she afford to pay for it? If I ran her over, she'd still leave you 500,000. Can you poor bastards earn 500,000 in your whole life? I'm doing charity."
"I'll kill you!" Lu Qingxue struggled violently, spitting a mouthful of bloody saliva onto Chu Tiankuo's suit lapel.
Chu Tiankuo looked down at the bloodstains on his suit. He didn't wipe them away. He raised his hand and slapped Lu Qingxue across the other side of her face.
"Smack."
The crisp sound of a slap echoed in the empty corridor. Lu Qingxue's head slammed heavily against the tiles behind her, making a dull thud. A trickle of blood flowed down her forehead, blurring her left eye.
"If she won't listen to reason, she'll have to suffer the consequences." Chu Tiankuo pulled out a handkerchief to wipe his hands, then threw it on the white cloth of the cart. "Ah Long, hold her hand down. If she won't sign, make her put her fingerprint on it. If she dares to pull her hand away, break her fingers one by one."
The bodyguard in the black suit on the left responded and freed one hand to grab Lu Qingxue's right hand.
Lu Qingxue clenched her fists tightly. The bodyguard sneered and pressed his thumb hard against the knuckles of her hand. The bones made a teeth-grinding grinding sound. Lu Qingxue convulsed in pain and let out a piercing scream.
Just as the bodyguard was about to forcibly pry her fingers open...
The air at the end of the corridor began to distort without warning.
There was no sound. No warning. The exhaust fan blades stopped spinning. The light from the incandescent bulbs was pulled and swallowed by some unseen force, and the entire corridor instantly went dark.
At the center of the distorted air, a pitch-black crack appeared.
A foot wearing tattered blue cloth shoes stepped out. Next came a faded, coarse cloth long gown. Long hair was casually tied back with a dry straw.
Lu Yuan stepped out of the void rift.
Nine thousand years. He fought his way to the peak of the Mahayana stage amidst mountains of corpses and seas of blood in the cultivation world, endured the Nine Heavens Tribulation, and forcefully tore apart the void barrier, returning to Earth with the lingering aura of tribulation lightning still clinging to his body. The time anchor point was the summer after his college entrance examination.
He raised his head.
His gaze traveled down the dimly lit corridor and landed on the stainless steel cart. It fell on the hand hanging outside the white cloth, adorned with a red string. It was his mother's hand. That red string was something his mother had prayed for by kneeling on ninety-nine steps at the City God Temple the year he took his middle school entrance exam.
His gaze shifted, landing on Lu Qingxue, who was pinned against the wall, her face covered in blood. It then fell upon the A4 sheet of paper bearing the title "Settlement Agreement."
Lu Yuan, the Immortal Venerable who reigned supreme throughout the ages and was revered by all races in the cultivation world, felt his heart skip a beat at this moment.
He didn't exert any pressure. He just stood there.
The temperature in the corridor began to drop precipitously. White frost condensed on the wall tiles. The stainless steel handrail of the trolley made a faint metallic contraction sound.
Chu Tiankuo shivered. He rubbed his arms and turned to look at the end of the corridor.
"Who is that?" Chu Tiankuo frowned.
Both bodyguards turned around at the same time. One of them released Lu Qingxue and strode towards Lu Yuan.
"This is a restricted hospital area. Unauthorized personnel, get out!" The bodyguard reached out and pushed Lu Yuan's shoulder.
Lu Yuan didn't look at him. Lu Yuan's gaze remained fixed on the white cloth on the cart. He started walking forward.
The moment the bodyguard's hand touched Lu Yuan's shoulder.
There was no blast wave. There was no loud noise.
The bodyguard's entire right arm, starting from the finger bones, shattered inch by inch. Flesh and skin exploded in a fraction of a second, turning into a cloud of blood mist. The shattered bone fragments flew into his chest cavity, piercing his heart and lungs.
The bodyguard didn't even have time to scream before he was sent flying backward, crashing into the concrete load-bearing wall at the end of the corridor. A human-shaped dent appeared in the wall. His mushy body slid to the ground.
The corridor was deathly silent.
The other bodyguard holding Lu Qingxue froze. He stared at the mangled flesh in the corner, his mind unable to process the scene before him.
Chu Tiankuo's impatience froze. He subconsciously took a step back, his leather shoe stepping on the handkerchief he had thrown down, almost causing him to slip.
Lu Yuan walked forward step by step. His cloth shoes made no sound as they stepped on the terrazzo floor.
He walked up to the cart.
Reach out and lift the white cloth.
The mother's face was disfigured from the impact. Her skull was caved in, and her body was covered in tire marks. The fatal wound was in her chest; all her ribs were broken and had pierced her internal organs.
Lu Yuan watched quietly. He watched for a long time.
"elder brother……"
A faint voice came from beside her. Lu Qingxue leaned against the wall, her only intact eye looking at Lu Yuan. She couldn't recognize him. The man in front of her, dressed in ancient costume with long, flowing hair, had the exact same face as her brother, but the icy coldness that made it hard to breathe was completely unfamiliar.
Lu Yuan turned his head.
He looked at his sister's swollen cheeks, the bruises on her wrists, and the blood under her fingernails.
He raised his hand and gently pressed it against Lu Qingxue's forehead. A warm current flowed into her body through his fingertips. Lu Qingxue felt the pain in her body miraculously disappear, her tense nerves relaxed, her legs went weak, and she fell forward.
Lu Yuan helped her up and gently leaned her against the wall.
Then, he turned around and looked at Chu Tiankuo.
The moment Chu Tiankuo was stared at by those eyes, his bladder went out of control. Warm liquid flowed down the legs of his custom-made suit trousers and dripped onto his Italian handmade leather shoes.
"You...who are you..." Chu Tiankuo's voice trembled so much that he couldn't form coherent sentences. He wanted to run, but his legs felt like they were nailed to the ground, and he couldn't move an inch.
Lu Yuan walked up to him.
"You made her sign this paper," Lu Yuan said softly, without any emotional fluctuation.
He picked up the settlement agreement on the wall.
"I...I'm Chu Wanshan! Chairman of the Chu Group! My second uncle is the vice president of the Jiangzhou Martial Arts Association!" Chu Tiankuo finally found his voice and roared desperately, "If you dare touch me, the Chu family will kill your entire family!"
Lu Yuan ignored his roar.
He rolled the A4 paper into a cylinder.
"Hit her. Forced her to sign. Beat her."
Lu Yuan read out six words.
He raised his hand and pressed one end of the paper tube against Chu Tiankuo's left eye.
"No!" Chu Tiankuo screamed.
Lu Yuan exerted force with his wrist.
The soft paper tube was harder than steel at that moment. It pierced Chu Tiankuo's eyeball, went through the eye socket, and embedded itself deep into his brain nerves.