Chapter 7

Everything happened too quickly and ended just as fast.

By the time they came to their senses, the scene was a complete mess. The air was thick with the smell of gasoline and blood, and the traffic at the intersection had been completely thrown into chaos. Cars were haphazardly parked all over the place, with people cautiously peeking out of windows, some even using their phones to call the police.

"Yes, it's right here on the airport road..."

One private car almost collided with them, but it was luckily diverted by a red flag car parked by the side of the road. The driver quickly got out and apologized, explaining that he had swerved to avoid the car in front.

Xie Zhwen and his wife, however, no longer had the heart to blame anyone. They stood frozen, staring at the scene before them.

The screams and cries of the injured filled the air, mingled with the sound of pain, until several minutes later, when the driver reminded them, they finally remembered their daughter was still on the phone, calling out to them.

Xie Zhwen quickly grabbed his wife’s phone.

His daughter’s anxious voice came through: “Mom, Dad, are you okay? What happened?”

Xie Zhwen froze for a moment, “You don’t know what’s going to happen?”

He thought his daughter had called because she had foreseen the accident, but her response made him even more confused.

“I don’t know! An An called me in a panic earlier, saying she couldn’t get through to you and asked me to help contact you, telling you to stay away from any dangerous places. It sounds like she met a master who predicted this!”

She was nearly scared to death.

After all, the moment before receiving the call, she had been talking to her mother, and then the call was suddenly disconnected.

For the time her parents were unreachable, she had nearly blown up her phone!

"Thank goodness, I managed to reach you in time!"

Xie Zhwen and his wife exchanged a confused look, their gaze instinctively falling on the crash site ahead. Suddenly, a thought crossed their minds, and they shuddered.

They realized that if it hadn’t been for their daughter’s call, or if they hadn’t taken her words seriously and continued driving forward, their car would surely have been among the wreckage.

Just by looking at the cars alongside them, it was clear that those vehicles had almost been crushed into flat metal sheets!

The driver also realized this and broke out into a cold sweat, feeling chilled to the bone as the wind blew past.

None of them had fully recovered from the shock of their close call when Xie An’s call came through again.

He had finally gotten through to his parents and was on the verge of tears. When they asked who the master was that had warned him, he hesitated for a moment.

The image of Ke Xingzhou’s striking face, one that looked too unreliable, flashed in his mind. He hesitated, not wanting to tell his parents that he had judged him based on appearance and had even once insulted him.He could only dodge the question, saying that he would definitely bring it to them later. Immediately after, his parents repeatedly reminded him to be sure to thank the person properly, and that the reward must not be less.

Xie An repeatedly agreed; he himself also needed to properly thank Ke Xingzhou.

After all, this time, Ke Xingzhou not only saved his life but also saved his parents' lives.

After hanging up the phone, Xie An hurriedly made his way to the contestant dormitory—since the show had paused its live broadcast, the rehearsal for the group performances had been sealed off, and the contestants had to return to their dorms to rest after finishing their pre-show interviews.

Xie An took out his phone and looked at the one million yuan sent by his parents and the 800,000 yuan sent by his sister. He was pondering how much to give so that Ke Xingzhou would forgive his previous rashness.

Meanwhile, three rays of merit golden light, varying in thickness, floated out from the bodies of Xie An's parents and the driver, crossing a great distance in the blink of an eye and merging into the merit golden light surrounding Ke Xingzhou.

These three rays of merit golden light were much thicker than the ones Ke Xingzhou had previously received from the kitten. Even Lu Li couldn’t help but feel his spirits lift.

He fed these rays of merit golden light into the program he had written and made a complicated calculation. He looked up with pleasant surprise, "These three rays of merit golden light, along with the feedback from Xie An earlier, add up to a total of 1300 merit points. That means you're just a little over a hundred away from being able to raise your price!"

Ke Xingzhou was overjoyed, but before he could fully celebrate, he suddenly felt a chill run down his back, and his body’s merit golden light started to tremble as if it had sensed something.

He couldn’t help but suck in a cold breath, “Why do I feel like I'm about to face some big trouble…”

At the same time, due to the incident involving the program team, all the data on the contestants of All-Round Idol was placed on Nie Chen's desk.

His assistant was reporting the first day of the live broadcast, “...Aside from the stage incident that caused the viewership to surge, a contestant sent over by the Ke family has also sparked quite a bit of discussion. However, his reputation is quite poor, and the subsequent revenue from the show may not be high.”

“Make sure to give the public a reasonable explanation as soon as possible. The rest, you handle it,” Nie Chen briefly glanced at the All-Round Idol folder, stood up, grabbed his coat, and walked out quickly, “Come with me to the hospital, if anyone is looking for me, tell them I’m busy.”

“Understood, Mr. Nie.” The assistant quickly gathered the materials and followed him.

Today was the grand re-opening ribbon-cutting ceremony of a private hospital invested by Nie Chen. After cutting the ribbon in front of the camera, the assistant helped block the aggressive media, but Nie Chen didn’t leave immediately. Instead, he walked through the hospital’s corridor and entered a room at the end.

This room was furnished in an old and worn-out style, with items inside showing signs of wear and tear, completely out of place in the gleaming new hospital. It gave off a sense of dissonance, as if it didn’t belong to the same era.

But once Nie Chen entered, the tense expression on his face suddenly relaxed.

He threw his coat aside and sat with his back to the window, staring blankly at the bed next to him.

He seemed utterly exhausted, his usually straight back bent unconsciously, and his sharp eagle eyes were filled with confusion. His usually meticulously combed hair had fallen loose in several strands.

In this hospital room, the usually imposing Mr. Nie appeared somewhat dejected and lost.

If the people outside saw this scene, they would surely be shocked.

This was Nie Chen, the head of one of the top domestic conglomerates, the heir to the prestigious Nie family, a man who could get anything he wanted in the world.

Now, he sat there, despondent, in an ordinary, run-down hospital room.

Did others even matter to him?

Nie Chen didn’t seem to have that awareness. As time passed, the sunlight slanted westward, his face gradually sinking into shadow, yet he remained completely still.

Until someone passed by the door.

It was a child, probably visiting a patient. Somehow, the child wandered over and curiously looked at him through the open door: “Uncle, are you sick?”

Nie Chen: “…”He couldn’t be bothered to respond, but to his surprise, the child, being quite familiar, continued on their own: “Some illnesses aren't really illnesses, and the hospital can’t cure them. You look like you're in bad luck. I know a very powerful fortune-telling older brother, should I introduce him to you?”

Nie Chen: “..........”

His gaze shifted slightly, and he finally opened his eyes to look at the child. However, what caught his attention first wasn’t the child’s appearance, but the several tiny kittens the child was holding in his arms.

They seemed to still be nursing, with some not even having their eyes open, yet they were squirming around on him.

The child, completely unaware, stared at him with large, grape-like eyes, seriously repeating, “He’s really amazing!”

Nie Chen’s gaze flickered.

He could actually… see these things again.

His expression didn’t show any change, though. He calmly averted his gaze from the child and lowered his eyes to pinch the small paper package made of a talisman hanging from his neck.

The package appeared quite old, with the cinnabar’s color faded and even showing frayed edges.

Clearly, it had lost its effectiveness.

But Nie Chen never took it off. Instead, he gently rubbed its edges with his fingertip, his gaze distant, as if deep in thought.

The child wanted to continue promoting his brother, but just then, the assistant came over and persuaded the child to leave with just a few words.

When the assistant saw Nie Chen resting inside, he didn’t disturb him, but instead shook his head at the director behind him and led the group away.

The director, with a grateful smile on his face, was a bit confused: “Assistant Liu, does this room have any special significance to Mr. Nie? When the hospital was being renovated, they wouldn’t allow us to touch this room, and even now…”

Assistant Liu frowned: “That’s not something you need to ask about.”

The director immediately became a bit nervous, quickly closing his mouth and changing the subject.

However, Assistant Liu glanced back at the room at the end of the corridor, his expression hesitant.

Honestly, he didn’t know why Mr. Nie insisted on leaving one room untouched during the hospital renovation, letting him turn it into his exclusive room, not open to the public, with even cleaning being handled by a special person.

But when the boss made decisions, as an assistant, he really had no room to question, so he just buried the curiosity in his heart.

When he returned after finishing things at the hospital, Nie Chen was already asleep on the hospital bed.

He entered quietly and was about to remind Nie Chen that they had to go back to the Nie family home today, but Nie Chen opened his eyes.

Nie Chen hadn’t actually been asleep. Sensing the unfamiliar presence approach, he immediately woke up and shot a cold glance at his assistant.

At this moment, he no longer had the previous look of despondency. When his eyes swept across, the aura of a top-tier heir to a wealthy family instantly rose, effectively blocking the assistant’s footsteps outside the room.

“Let’s go.” Nie Chen got up, grabbed his coat, and left first.

Sitting in the car, a pile of work that needed his attention filled his inbox, and a folder for All-Round Idol was placed beside him.

When he opened the car door, the wind caused the pages of the folder to flip, quickly landing on the contestant information pages.

Nie Chen only glanced at it, and his back suddenly stiffened.He pulled out the document and flipped through a few pages, quickly fixing his gaze on one of the sheets.

The young man’s indifferent expression was already completely out of place with his memory, but the distinct facial features and sharp eyebrows were unmistakably the image he was most familiar with. Nie Chen’s eyes quickly scanned down, and sure enough, in the emergency contact section, he saw his own name and personal contact information.

[Relationship with emergency contact: Ex-partner.]