bodyguard against fate

Chapter 45 The King Returns

Of course, some doctors from the hospital also entered the live broadcast room and only discovered it after confirming it.

"Hey, isn't this our hospital? When did you start live streaming?"

He Yong arrived at the control room and found that he was greeted by Lao Zheng, but not Dean Gao, which he found strange.

"Where is Dean Gao?"

"Here I am the dean!" Old Zheng closed and locked the door to the control room.

"Old Zheng, what are you doing?"

He Yong finally realized something was wrong, but by then he couldn't get out, and even his phone had been snatched away by Lao Zheng.

"Twenty years! I've been waiting for this day for twenty years!" Old Zheng exclaimed suddenly.

He Yong was startled when he saw the phone that was broadcasting live and the rusty axe under the table.

"Old Zheng, don't be impulsive, let's talk this out—"

"Really? Then why didn't you listen to me back then? Was it because I didn't beg you?" Old Zheng asked.

Back at the mental hospital, Old Zheng suddenly felt much better, his anger subsided, and he realized this was truly his home turf! They say the environment nurtures people, and it turns out the mental hospital really does!

"I apologize for what happened twenty years ago. It was indeed my fault. Xiuli and I have discussed it and will give you five million as compensation for your emotional distress—" He Yong was not lying, but it was He Xiuli who made the suggestion.

Old Zheng chuckled: "Twenty years to earn five million... Do you know how many five million I could have earned if I hadn't come in?"

"What's past is past, it can't be changed, Lao Zheng, we still have to look forward..."

"Is it over?" Old Zheng suddenly stared into He Yong's eyes. "For the past twenty years, your daughter and son-in-law have had a happy family. What about me? What about Xiao Liang? Ask Xiao Liang if he's moved on?"

He Yong remained silent.

People in the live stream were already getting curious, and the chat was constantly refreshing.

"What's going on? A fight?"

What happened twenty years ago?

"So... is this a newly released drama? I'm watching the first episode right now?"

"These TV dramas nowadays are so daring! They're even willing to film these kinds of topics!"

"Would you like to become a member?"

When He Xiuli and Feng Wei arrived, they thought they were seeing things. The "staff" in white coats looked mentally unstable, while the "mentally ill patients" in hospital gowns were feeding the "staff" their medication and instructing them to stand at attention and not make any noise.

He Xiuli wondered if she had gotten up too quickly that morning, until she saw that Feng Weida also looked surprised, and then she realized it wasn't her problem. She quickly called He Yong.

"Hey, Dad, where are you?"

"I'm in the control room..."

He Yong's voice came through the phone, but it was very soft. He hung up after saying only one sentence, and He Xiuli felt increasingly uneasy.

"Ask where the central control room is?" He Xiuli said to Feng Weida.

"I know, Mr. He, come with me!"

Without saying a word, Feng Weida started walking away.

He Xiuli found it strange. Wasn't this his first time here? How did he know where the control room was? But there was no time to worry about that now. The mental hospital seemed a bit off today. It was best if something happened to her father.

Old Zheng explained the grudge from twenty years ago to the netizens, who then realized, "Oh, it's not a TV series!"

Some say Lao Zheng is right; the factory originally belonged to him, but He Yong usurped it and should return it to him, along with compensation for emotional distress. Others say He Yong is right; twenty years ago, real estate companies were everywhere, how many are still alive today? If they had listened to Lao Zheng back then, they wouldn't even have enough to eat now. The garment factory was built step by step by He Yong, and has nothing to do with Lao Zheng anymore.

Old Zheng never expected this outcome. In his memory, everyone's values ​​were basically the same. They sympathized with the weak and criticized evil in one-sided terms. He Yong should have been the target of everyone's condemnation. How could so many people support him?

"Don't you think I've been wronged for the past twenty years?"

Old Zheng asked netizens in the live broadcast room.

"Wronged? Are you as wronged as some celebrities? They invested four or five hundred million yuan in a snow-capped villa, and it just fell apart like that."

"Do you have the same grievance as that boxing gym owner who lost two hundred million in just six months—"

"You should thank others for being alive. My friend lost money in the stock market and jumped off a building last month..."

"I wasn't talking about investments, I was talking about being locked up in a mental hospital—" Old Zheng explained.

"If I didn't have to pay off my mortgage or car loan, or support my family in a mental hospital, I'd want to go there too—"

"I'm currently five million in debt, and I'd like to ask if mental hospitals are still accepting patients..."

Old Zheng felt this generation of netizens was too difficult to manage. He was supposed to be venting his frustrations, but it turned into a rant session. Even though he was in the right, it seemed like nobody cared! "What I want isn't compensation, it's fairness, fairness, damn it, fairness!" he thought. "Why isn't anyone saying a word for me?"

Sure enough, there are still reasonable people among the netizens.

"You say these are only your side of the story; I'd like to hear what your friend has to say."

For a long time, He Yong remained silent. Finally, netizens gave him a chance, and Lao Zheng pointed the camera at him.

"Don't you want to say something?"

He Yong calmed himself down. He knew he had been tricked by Lao Zheng into coming here, but ever since he learned that Lao Zheng had come out, he knew that this day would come sooner or later, so he remained calm.

"Twenty years ago, you drained all the factory's funds, leaving the garment factory in debt. I had to take on orders little by little, working day and night, to pay off your debts. That money was enough to buy your half of the shares. Theoretically, I don't owe you anything, but morally, I feel guilty. Perhaps Meiyun was just saying it in anger. If I had thought it through more, I might not have sent you to this place. I'm sorry about that. For all these years, I've kept a separate account for you, giving you dividends every year, hoping to hand over the money to you personally when you get out. Xiuli also said—"

Old Zheng interrupted him: "Our score can't be settled with just this little bit of money."

While in the mental hospital, Lao Zheng's only source of emotional support was the ten gold bars he had hidden away. He always dreamed of one day making a comeback and proving himself through entrepreneurship. But upon his release, not only were the gold bars gone, but more seriously, he realized he didn't know what to do with himself. Industries that were thriving twenty years ago were now largely in decline. The hottest projects today were high-tech fields like cloud computing, big data, and algorithms, which he couldn't understand at all. The old ways of simply buying and selling were no longer viable. The gurus who talked about making two million in three months were just delusions. Lao Zheng understood that he had been abandoned by the times. What he wanted was never money, but proof of his abilities as a rural boy who had fought his way up from the bottom. He wanted everyone to say "good job," that he was someone special. But in this increasingly surreal world, he had lost that confidence himself. Even if he were given another hundred gold bars, Lao Zheng couldn't think of anything he could do to earn that money back. At that point, money had no meaning for him anymore.

"Then whatever you want, I can give it to you!" He Yong said.

"I want my youth back, can you give it to me?"

He Yong was speechless.

Yes, what Lao Zheng wants to get back is his youth! The self who once walked at the forefront of the times, full of confidence and pointing out the future with unlimited possibilities, is gone forever, all thanks to He Yong!

"Sometimes I wonder, if I locked you up here for twenty years, would I feel better?" Old Zheng seemed to have figured something out, no longer as conflicted as before. "Then I realized I wouldn't, not even if it cost you your life. You stole the best years of my life. Look at you now, rich but old and frail. What difference does it make whether you die a couple of days earlier or a couple of days later?"

"You want to... take revenge on Xiuli?" He Yong suddenly felt that he understood his thoughts.

"Let's play a game," Old Zheng said. "Let your daughter stay here for a day. If she gets out safely after a day, I'll consider it a loss, and we'll call it even for the last twenty years!"

"What did you do to Xiuli?" He Yong immediately became nervous.

"I just sent her a message. Whether she comes or not is up to her."