Chapter 265: SHEN ZIHAO ITS OVER
The ambulance doors slammed shut and the sirens screamed as the vehicle pulled away from the warehouse. Gu Yanchen climbed into the back and pressed one hand firmly against Ren Hao’s chest, feeling the faint, thready beat beneath his palm.
"Stay with me," he muttered. "Come on, Ren Hao. You’re not done yet."
The monitor flatlined without warning, the steady beep dissolving into a single, piercing tone that cut through the ambulance like a knife.
"He’s crashing!" The paramedic’s voice cut through the chaos. "Paddles! Now!"
Yanchen stepped back, his heart pounding against his ribs, as the paramedic pressed the pads to Ren Hao’s bare chest.
His body arched off the gurney and then dropped back down, limp and unresponsive.
A second shock produced the same result. Still nothing.
The paramedic fired a third charge, and the monitor finally beeped back to life.
Weak. Irregular. But steady.
"He’s back." The paramedic exhaled, wiping sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. "We’re two minutes out. Hold on, kid."
Ren Hao’s eyes fluttered open, barely, his cracked lips moving around something that might have been words. Yanchen leaned closer, bringing his ear almost to Ren Hao’s mouth.
"...tell Guiying..." The whisper was barely audible above the siren’s wail. "...I’m sorry..."
"You tell him yourself." Yanchen gripped his hand as hard as he dared. "You hold on, and you tell him yourself when you see him."
The ambulance screeched to a halt and the rear doors flew open. Yanchen ran alongside the gurney as they burst through the ER entrance, shouting out Ren Hao’s vitals to the waiting medical team.
"Crash cart, now! Male, early twenties, severe dehydration, possible internal bleeding, vitals unstable!"
The ER team swarmed Ren Hao like a tide, swallowing him into the chaos of fluorescent lights and urgent shouts.
Yanchen stopped at the double doors, watching them disappear through the swinging panels, his hands still trembling from the adrenaline that coursed through his veins.
He pulled out his phone and dialed Liuxian with shaking fingers.
"He’s alive, but barely." Yanchen’s voice came out rougher than he intended, gravelly with exhaustion and fear. "They just brought him in. I’ll update you the second I know anything concrete about his condition."
"Stay with him." Liuxian’s voice carried a tightness he didn’t bother hiding, a strain that cut through his usual composure. "Call Guiying yourself. He deserves to hear this from someone who was actually there, not secondhand from me."
"I already texted him on the way out." Yanchen pressed his palm against the cold hospital wall, trying to ground himself in something solid. "I’ll call once I have real news."
---
Across the city, inside his corner office at the headquarters of his own company, Liuxian ended the call and immediately dialed Zhang Wei. He crossed toward the window that overlooked the sprawling skyline below as he waited for his subordinate to answer.
"Ren Hao’s been recovered and he’s alive." Liuxian’s voice hardened to steel, leaving no room for argument. "Now we move on Ruijie Corporation. I want every share we’ve accumulated liquidated within the next forty-five minutes, before the market closes for lunch. I want their stock in freefall before their board even understands what hit them."
"Forty-five minutes?" Zhang Wei’s voice cracked with barely contained panic. "That’s almost no time to prepare properly, sir. We haven’t fully positioned—"
"That’s what we have," Liuxian cut him off, his tone brooking no further hesitation. "Make it work."
Across the city, high in his corner office at Ruijie Corporation, Shen Zihao watched the numbers on his screen plummet in real time. His phone buzzed with his father’s lawyer calling. He ignored it. Then the board chairman appeared on the screen. He ignored that call as well. Then a number he didn’t recognize flashed across the display, and something in his gut told him to answer.
"I told you I’d come for everything you love," Liuxian’s voice said on the other end, calm and almost pleasant, as if he were discussing the weather. "I meant every word of it."
The line went dead after.
Shen Zihao stared at the phone for a long moment, his breathing quick and shallow, his pupils dilating as the first wave of panic crashed over him.
He looked back at the screen, and the numbers were still falling, the red bleeding across his monitor like a wound that wouldn’t stop hemorrhaging.
"No," he whispered, his voice cracking. "No, no, no, no, no."
He tried his mother.
No answer.
His father.
No answer.
His father’s lawyer again, and the call went straight to voicemail. He tried three more numbers, people who had sworn loyalty to his family for decades, people who had taken his money and promised to protect him no matter what.
Every single call went unanswered.
"They’re all dead," he muttered, his voice climbing in pitch, his hands shaking violently as he gripped the edge of his desk. "They’re all dead. They killed them all. They killed everyone. They’re coming for me next."
His eyes darted around the office, searching the corners, the shadows, the dark spaces beneath his desk.
He could feel them watching him.
He could feel their eyes on his skin, crawling, burrowing.
Liuxian was everywhere.
Liuxian was in the walls.
Liuxian was in the ceiling.
Liuxian was in his head.
He was halfway to the service elevator when the building’s fire alarm blared through every corridor, a deafening shriek that drowned out all other sound.
Emergency doors slammed shut across every exit and passageway, sealing him inside.
"THEY’RE HERE!" he screamed, his voice echoing off the walls. "THEY’RE IN THE BUILDING! THEY’RE IN THE WALLS! GET THEM OUT! GET THEM OUT!"
He spun and bolted toward the stairwell, only to find two armed officers already waiting at the bottom of the steps. He turned and ran the other way, but another pair of officers blocked the main hallway.
They were everywhere, converging on him from every direction, their faces blurring together in his fractured vision.
"Shen Zihao." A calm voice came from behind him. "It’s over."