Chapter 6: To the Hospital

Sun Jingwei watched, paralysed, as Xue Ning swayed in front of him, her eyes fluttering shut even as she tried to stay awake. There was no denying that she had been drugged, and Jingwei could only hope that she did not ingest anything life-threatening for his sake.

He stretches out his hands to steady her - but it's too late! Xue Ning stumbles and falls backwards with a heavy thud, the spiked drinking glass shattering from the impact.

"Call an ambulance!" Jingwei roars as he leaps over the counter in desperation, pulling her close to check for bleeding wounds.

"Oh god she's bleeding!" Qiu Tong yells. "Xue Ning, hang in there - the ambulance is coming soon!"

At this new development, the crowd predictably panics, screaming louder.

"AHHHHHHH a murder! A murder!"

"Oh my god! She's dead!"

"Daddy! I want to go home!"

Jingwei ignored all the screeching, focused on the unconscious woman in his arms.

"You idiot! Why did you do that!" Sun Jingwei scolds frantically, while brushing away glass shards from her body, uncaring of the way they nicked his bare hands. She was bleeding, but thankfully it wasn't from her head. She only got cuts from the broken glass on her arms.

He marred her smooth skin! He was a monster!

"You'd better not die on me!" He continues, willing her to wake. His hand touches the soft skin of her cheeks. They felt abnormally warm to the touch. What was in that drink?

"Oi! Respond when I'm talking to you!"

Remarkably, that gets a response. Xue Ning strangely, nuzzles closer to him and sniffs at his neck, before mouthing at the patch of exposed skin on his collarbone.

God. This was cruel torture. Why couldn't something like this happen when they were both conscious and willing?

Instead, he gets a handful of squirming Xue Ning who is subconsciously pushing her best assets into his hands. Even if he didn't want to take advantage of her, there was no denying the softness of her breasts and how full they felt.

God, please, I know that I never visited church, but I will now if you save us both!

What he gets is his saviour lifting her arm weakly to his face and patting it. God, he must seem like a wreck if even the drugged bartender is subconsciously feeling sorry for him. Her hand falls, but he manages to hold onto it before it falls.

Why was her skin so hot? He grips it tight, willing his strength to transfer to hers.

After what seemed like forever, the ambulance had arrived to transport her to the hospital.

The medical staff pried Xue Ning's unconscious body from Jingwei's tight hold to transport her to the nearest hospital, only to be surprised when they realised Jingwei squeezed his way into the back of the ambulance and simply refused to be shooed away.

"Drive to Zhongshan hospital ASAP!" He orders. Zhongshan hospital was owned by his father - Xue Ning would have a VIP ward reserved for her upon her arrival, no questions asked.

"Excuse me sir, are you the patient's husband?" One staff member asks cautiously, watching the way he was still clutching her hand. There were no wedding rings on both hands.

"If you're not, I'm going to have to ask you to step aside."

"Yes I am." The words slip out of his mouth before he can stop them. "So drive to Zhongshan hospital before something happens to my wife!"

The paramedics gasped in surprise. Right in front of them was famed bachelor Sun Jingwei, and lying on their stretcher is his wife? They could hardly believe their eyes!

They won't be the only ones.

Unbeknownst to him, this hasty statement was recorded by a bystander and uploaded online. In less than 24 hours, it would be viewed over 100 million times and create a mass of speculation that far exceeded any previous scandal of his.

But for now, Jingwei is blessedly unaware of the chaos brewing in the distance as the ambulance shuts the doors and drives off. Jingwei fishes for his nearly dead phone and makes a call to reserve the VIP ward and have the doctors on standby.

His second call is to his assigned lawyer and possibly his best friend, Liu Shengli, who nearly doesn't pick up.

"Jingwei, you better have a bloody good reason to be calling at this hour." Liu Shengli grumbles near incoherently, voice thick with sleep.

"Someone tried to drug me but Xue Ning drank it instead and now we're both on the way to the hospital." The words escape Jingwei in a rush.

"What the fuck. Who is Xue Ning? Are you alright?" Shengli's voice sounds more awake, more panicked.

"I'm fine! I don't know about my bartender though," he says, desperate. "She's still unconscious and she got cut from the glass shards."

"Oh my god. Okay. Sit tight, let the doctors do their job. And for the love of god don't answer any questions from the police unless I'm there." He can hear Shengli breathe a harried breath. "I'll meet you at the hospital."

"Sorry for the trouble," Jingwei says. "I'll double your bonus. Do you want a new house too?"

"I want you to stay out of trouble for good, but a new house is good too." Shengli replies. "Do you know who did it?"

"...No. But I think she does."

"Great. Just great." Another harried sigh. "I'll send a memo to your father and older brother then."

Jingwei pre-emptively winces at the tongue lashing he'll receive for this.

"Make sure they focus more on the fact that someone tried to drug me," he says. "No one should be so desperate for my virtue."

"No shit, I'm sure your family will know. See you tomorrow. Oh wait, it's today. See you in a few hours - AND DON'T DO ANYTHING STUPID." Shengli all but yells into the phone, sleep gone from his voice, before hanging up on him.

Well. Guess he did deserve that for waking him up at an ungodly timing. He blinks and yawns, feeling more tired now that the adrenaline was wearing off.

The worry was still there though. Xue Ning's vitals were steady enough, but she was dead to the world.

If she wasn't there to stop it, it would have been him. He owes her his life, and he'll be damned if he doesn't pay it back.

After being assigned as Jingwei's personal lawyer for two years, Liu Shengli wasn't new to receiving work calls at odd hours for all sorts of reasons, mostly to clean up Jingwei's messes.

They ranged from making drunk party girls sign NDAs to stop them from blabbing on social media about whatever strange kinks Jingwei may have, to resolving the destruction of public property during those nights where things turned ugly.

An attempted drugging was something new. And to make matters more complicated, someone unrelated to their family or their business took the hit for Jingwei. Who knows what that woman would ask in return for such an act?

Not to mention the perpetrators were still at large. If Shengli's thoughts were correct, then this drugging was premeditated - and the culprits would definitely have fled the moment the bartender got drugged instead.

What a mess. He hastily drafts a memo to his real boss, Jingwei's father, and makes sure to loop his poor older brother into the loop too.

Hopefully they would have more ideas about the culprits. The Sun family had made many enemies over the years - perhaps one of them had just decided to strike at the lowest hanging fruit.

Just as he was about to make his way to the hospital, his phone beeped with a notification.

[1 New Message] from Unknown Number

'Have you seen this yet?'

He frowns. If this was another person sending him Sun Jingwei's doctored sex tapes for him to verify and sue, he is going to be very pissed.

He clicks on the link, and his mouth drops.