Chapter Seventy-Nine: Mad Meg (1)

At first glance, Xia Tianci returned to the temporary operations room with perfect composure, staring at the data, yet inwardly he could not help feeling a surge of satisfaction.

Damn, this feels amazing.

He had never dreamed that one day he would be able to make the President of the United States swallow his pride like this. If Fatso knew about it, he would probably be thrilled out of his mind; that guy had always been the sort of hot-blooded idealist who loved nothing more than seeing America humiliated and Japan crushed.

Thinking of Fatso filled Xia Tianci’s mind with warm, happy memories. Back in college, the man had been an unshakable champion of anti-Japanese and anti-American fervor.

He wondered what expression the President was wearing now. It had to be priceless. This was probably his first taste of being ignored. Let him learn, then, that there were people in this world who would not bow to him.

And there was something else: he had said he was very much like his father. Moreover, according to the Chief Steward, back when his father was trying to sell cutting-edge high technology to developing nations, he too had suffered joint suppression from several countries.

Still, a president could be replaced; the one back then had certainly not been this man. Now, however, the situation was different.

Everyone knew that the forces behind Will were the American government. Damn it, not only Will himself, but even that government was a bunch of spineless cowards obsessed with saving face. By toppling the world’s richest man that they had propped up, Xia Tianci had already made them lose enough face. Now, with the shield project, something they would rather die than abandon, he was refusing to cooperate and refusing to give them any face at all. They would surely help Will deal with him and seize the shield.

Even the Chief Steward did not know, but Xia Tianci had long suspected that the reason his father had entirely withdrawn from the management of the Amer-China Group, keeping only his shares and a few unchangeable arrangements, was probably connected to certain agreements reached at the time. Yet even the Chief Steward, who knew the Xia family’s affairs better than anyone, had no idea what had happened in that stretch of time, because neither his father nor the records contained any trace of it.

“Boss...”

Lin Jian’s voice pulled Xia Tianci from his thoughts. Seeing that Xia Tianci had come back to himself, the Chief Steward said, “Boss, the other side suddenly launched a heavy strike just now and began competing with us on price. They’ve already pushed past us. And because we’ve kept forcing the price so high, quite a few people have already started unloading their goods.”

Xia Tianci knew that once word spread that the shield had been successfully developed, it would sweep across the world. By then, the people coming after him would not be limited to the President of the United States. Before that happened, he had to build his momentum.

“Keep pushing it up. No matter how high they bid, we go higher. Drive the price up for me.”

After issuing the order, Xia Tianci immediately called Zhou Ao. Just as he had expected, Zhou Ao was enjoying the spectacle from the sidelines. Xia Tianci instructed him to announce the desert villa plan. Zhou Ao did not know why Xia Tianci had suddenly made this decision, but he did not need to know. Xia Tianci had only given him an order.

Will was in an excellent mood now, because both the President and that mysterious man had personally called him to express their support. With their backing, he could use it to pressure the other cooperative parties. In that way, the board would come alive again.

Then, combining all these forces, he could acquire Amer-China. Although the Xia family’s assets were vast, he had already run countless calculations. The problem should not be too serious.

Now that the Xia family was using the stupidest possible method, lifting every Amer-China-related stock across the board, did they think that would stump him? Hmph. Without the support of those two powers, he truly would have been unable to do it, but now things were different.

Filled with confidence, Will immediately began planning a full-scale offensive.

Another afternoon passed in the same way. Both sides kept throwing money at the market, as if they were simply competing to see who was richer. But in truth, it was not nearly so simple.

In the stock market, if you throw money around carelessly, the other side can take your ten dollars and turn it into their one.

Though Xia Tianci was not a master in that field, the Xia family had a whole team of professionals. Even if his orders contained a few small errors, their execution would more than make up for it. What was more, these people kept presenting analyses, suggestions, and the like before Xia Tianci’s eyes.

Perhaps because he was in the hospital, whenever things eased up even a little, Xia Tianci would always want to go see little Meg. The doctor had said that she should wake up very soon.

Standing by the bedside, Xia Tianci looked at Meg. She still had not woken. Perhaps sleeping like this was happiness for her. After all, she was so young—how could she bear the shock of losing her father and then seeing her mother shot dead before her own eyes?

There was a tiny black speck on Meg’s lips, not large at all. Xia Tianci carefully reached out with a finger to rub it away. The instant his fingertip touched little Meg’s lips, her eyes suddenly snapped open. Xia Tianci froze.

“Aah!”

He had never expected the little girl, waking so abruptly, to open her mouth and clamp down hard on his finger. Human teeth could generate a force far greater than a person’s own strength. Xia Tianci could feel skin and flesh split open at once, and when her two rows of tiny teeth came together, his bone met resistance.

He raised his fist in a reflexive strike, but he could not bring it down. Little Meg’s eyes were blazing with hatred. The giant hand of the burly guardian shot down faster than lightning to the back of her head. With a gentle press of two fingers, little Meg fainted, yet her teeth still clenched deathly tight around Xia Tianci’s finger.

Pain broke out in beads of sweat across Xia Tianci’s forehead, while blood kept flowing from the finger. From little Meg’s mouth came a muffled cry: “Get her off him, quickly!”

The guardian pressed beneath her jaw, and only then did she loosen her bite. Xia Tianci hurriedly pulled his finger free, blood still streaming. The Chief Steward had already sent for the doctor.

Because Xia Tianci had been standing at the bedside watching little Meg, the two of them had been at some distance. No one had imagined that the unconscious child would suddenly wake and bite him like that.

Even the burly guardian had not reacted in time. Xia Tianci clutched his own finger with his hand, and the doctor soon rushed over.

Fortunately, by a stroke of luck within misfortune, the bone and tendon had not been injured. After the wound was bandaged, they moved to another room nearby.

The dean and the other doctors responsible for little Meg’s treatment stood there one by one.

At first they had not known what sort of extraordinary figure had come, because Xia Tianci had not shown himself much at the beginning, and the one doctor who had met him had been too dull to realize he was Xia Tianci, the man everyone in the media had been arguing about lately.

Later, even the mayor and the federal liaison office had called ahead to tell them to receive him with the utmost care. Then, when they saw him visiting Meg, they finally understood that this man was the newly emerged Xia Tianci, the one who had inherited the fortune and become the world’s richest man, the man now in charge of Amer-China.

Looking at his freshly bandaged finger, Xia Tianci said darkly, “Explain. What exactly is going on? Why has she become like this?”

In order not to hurt Meg, the guardian had used only a very light force, so she should have recovered quickly. Yet when she woke up, Xia Tianci was in another small operating room having his wound bandaged. Then little Meg woke again and behaved like a tiny madwoman.

She smashed the doctor who had been examining her with anything she could find, and one nurse even had the needle removed from her own body stabbed into her full chest. By the time Xia Tianci and the others rushed over, Meg had already been knocked unconscious again.

It had been one of the guards posted outside who knocked her out, though one of them had also been bitten on the neck, leaving two neat rows of little teeth marks.

The ward was in complete chaos and had to be changed. By the time Xia Tianci and the others arrived, that nurse was standing outside and crying as she threatened to resign on the spot. After hearing this, Xia Tianci felt a chill of sweat run through him and had someone give the nurse ten thousand yuan. After all, being pierced in that kind of place was deeply damaging both physically and mentally.

To keep her from causing trouble again, they had the doctor give her an injection first, just to make her obediently sleep for a while.

The attending specialist, seeing the dean and the others all looking at him, could only say cautiously, “The brain is the most mysterious organ in the human body. Disorders of the brain can leave lifelong consequences in a very short time. The simplest example is a patient with cerebral hemorrhage leading to brain herniation: if surgery cannot be performed in time, even if the patient’s life is saved, the brain function may be lost forever. Her condition is relatively good, because the bullet did not cause severe damage to the brain. That is why she could wake up so quickly...”

Could it be that the shock had been too great? In other words, her mind was still trapped in that moment, in the scene where her mother was killed, so she no longer recognized anyone.

But no, it was also normal for her not to recognize them. After all, they had only met once that day, and she was just a child who had been through so much—how could she possibly remember?

“What exactly is wrong with her now? Can she be cured?”

“From the looks of it, this young la... lady...” He had meant to say little girl, but seeing how Xia Tianci and the others had remained so concerned, he hurriedly changed it. “Most likely it is caused by excessive shock. We will perform a comprehensive scan of her brain to ensure there are no problems. If we confirm that there is nothing physically wrong, then we will need to find a psychiatrist.”

Xia Tianci nodded. It was roughly what he had thought.

Seeing Xia Tianci’s approving nod, the doctor let out a long breath of relief at last. So long as they did not come after him, that was all that mattered.

This was someone they could not afford to offend; better to keep as far away as possible. Really now, he would have to stay at the hospital for days. If he had only known, he would never have traded shifts just to go on a date with his girlfriend. And now? Even if he wanted to leave, he could not. Heaven above—my darling, I truly did not mean to.

They sent the others off to continue the examinations and brought the psychiatrist as well.

That night, Xia Tianci was on the phone with Tian Ni. Every day, he timed his call carefully so that it would be morning in China. Just so happened, Tian Ni was on her way from home to the company by car. The two of them were like lovers in the earliest days of courtship, always finding themselves with too much to say.

The entire building had already been sealed off. Outside, guards patrolled the area; some were visible, others hidden, and there were even snipers. Night had fallen deep, and the lights of the city shone even more brilliantly, yet the hospital side remained relatively quiet.

“Aah... aah...”

Suddenly, a shrill, miserable scream rang out from the psychiatric treatment room. In the stillness of the night, it sounded eerily terrifying.