Chapter 5: No Talking While You're Naked

“If I can’t?” Qin Tian sneered. “Then I’ll bash my head against the wall and die right here in this room.”

“Go die somewhere else,” Li Xiang said mockingly. “Don’t do it in our hospital and bring us bad luck.”

Qin Tian’s smile vanished. “Say one more word, and I’ll kill you before you even know what’s happening.”

Li Xiang’s heart lurched, and he instinctively shut his mouth.

Qin Tian turned back to Meng Henian. “Well? Do you dare take the bet?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Meng replied, furious. “I’ll take your wager, young man. Let’s see if you really are Hua Tuo reborn.”

Lin Tong stepped forward, about to intervene, but Wang Guilan stopped him. “Are you going to stop him?”

“Of course! How can we let him do whatever he wants in a situation like this?” He tried to pull his arm free.

Her next words changed his mind. “Don’t be foolish. If even Physician Meng can’t save Lin Mengxi, how could some young stranger do it? He’ll only make her die faster!”

Lin Tong’s eyes lit up. “You’re right.”

Putting on a solemn face, he said, “Young man, we’re counting on you. Please, you must save my niece!”

Qin Tian saw through his insincerity at once, but played along. “Don’t worry. I’ll do everything I can.”

For some reason, the answer left Lin Tong with a vague sense of foreboding.

Su Wanqing wiped away her tears and caught Qin Tian’s hand. “Xiaotian, don’t do this. Physician Meng’s diagnosis can’t be wrong… I was the one who made the mistake. I harmed the patient. Please don’t make a bet with him.”

Almost without thinking, Qin Tian brushed a tear from the corner of her eye. “You did nothing wrong, Sister-in-law. I’ll stand up for you. Trust me.”

Their eyes met. An unfamiliar feeling rippled through Su Wanqing’s heart. “All right. I… trust you.”

Qin Tian gave her a brilliant smile. Her trust lifted his spirits more than he had expected.

“Everyone out,” he said abruptly.

Before anyone could react, Li Xiang, eager to cause him trouble, spoke up. “You want us to leave? What if you’re planning to take advantage of President Lin while she’s helpless?”

The others looked at Qin Tian strangely.

“Shut up.” His eyes flashed coldly, and he swept a hand through the air.

With a dull thud, Li Xiang flew out of the room and slammed against the corridor wall. He spat blood, nearly dying on the spot.

Meng Henian stared in surprise. “You’re a martial artist?”

Qin Tian didn’t answer. He waved a hand again. “Everyone out.”

The others filed out. At the door, Lin Tong paused and looked back at Qin Tian approaching the bed. “Guilan, why do I feel so uneasy?”

“Don’t worry, darling. The Mengxi Group will soon be ours.” Greed gleamed in Wang Guilan’s eyes.

“She’s right, Second Brother,” added Lin Ying, Lin Mengxi’s aunt. “What could some young stranger know about medicine? I think he’s just pretending to be capable to show off.”

The door clicked shut and locked, cutting off the voices outside.

…

Qin Tian looked down at Lin Mengxi and was struck by her beauty. She was even more beautiful than his sister-in-law, and scarcely less so than his master.

Putting the thought aside, he lifted her clothes and removed her undergarment, exposing her breasts. His attention remained fixed on a black mark over the left side of her chest, so faint it was difficult to see.

It was shaped like a crescent moon, its edges glinting faintly with cold. A chill seeped from it into her heart.

“Cold poison in the body. Just as I thought.”

Meng Henian had called it an unusual cold energy, but it was clearly cold poison.

“Lucky for you, you met me. Your time isn’t up yet.”

Qin Tian moved his hands, releasing streams of qi that gathered into needles in the air. It was a feat that defied belief.

The needles shot down into nine vital points around Lin Mengxi’s heart. With each one, a little color returned to her pale face. Together, the nine sent currents of warmth through her meridians and into her heart, where they collided with the cold that had lingered there for years.

Lin Mengxi shuddered and gave a faint moan. Qin Tian remained composed. Holding two fingers together like a sword, he slashed through the air.

“Out!”

The black crescent twisted violently. With a hiss, a jet of inky cold vapor shot from a needle puncture. The temperature in the room plunged. Frost spread across the window, and the screens of the equipment beside the bed crackled and split from the cold.

Ready for it, Qin Tian extended his left hand, fingers spread. The spreading vapor recoiled as if it had met its natural enemy, contracting into a ball that struggled about four inches from his palm.

“Still fighting?”

Dragon breath surged within him as he slowly closed his fingers. The moment the black vapor met the breath of the Ancestral Dragon, it visibly broke apart and vanished, dwindling to a wisp of smoke before disappearing altogether.

At the same moment, Lin Mengxi’s lashes fluttered, and her eyes snapped open.

They were beautiful, cool as stars. Even after waking at the edge of death, she carried an innate air of dignity and distance. But when her vision focused on the man before her, her pupils contracted.

“Qin… Qin Tian?”

Her voice was full of shock. He hadn’t expected her to know him.

“You recognize me?”

She raised a brow, seemingly displeased. “You don’t recognize me?”

Qin Tian frowned. A younger face appeared in his memory, no less astonishingly beautiful. “You’re Lin Mengxi? The ice-cold campus beauty from Jiang University?”

For the first time in her life, a secret delight appeared in her eyes. “Hmph. At least you still remember me.”

Anyone who knew Lin Mengxi would have been stunned. When had the icy CEO ever smiled at someone? She almost sounded as though she were being coquettish with him.

Qin Tian touched his nose awkwardly. “Well… classmate, how about you get dressed first? Let’s not talk while you’re naked.”

“Get dressed? Naked?”

She looked down. Seeing her breasts exposed, she trembled and flushed scarlet. “Do I look good?”

“Yes!” The answer sprang out before he could stop it.

A chill ran through him the next second. Lin Mengxi lifted her head, biting her lip in embarrassment and anger. “You pervert! Stop staring and close your eyes!”

He smiled sheepishly and reluctantly shut them. Clothes rustled, and soon she spoke again, still flustered. “All right, you can open them.”

Qin Tian opened his eyes. Looking at the beautiful, blushing woman before him, he felt his thoughts wander. “You’re awake, and my work is done. I’ll open the door.”

“Wait.”

He stopped. “What’s wrong? Are you still feeling unwell?”

She studied him in silence before speaking. “Those five years you were missing must have been eventful.”

Qin Tian didn’t know why she said that, so he waited for her to continue.

Her face reddened again. “You saved my life… How about I give myself to you in return?”