My Healing Games

Chapter 442 A Thousand Good Deeds
"Didn't you see him? He must still be in this mall!" Security guard Li Daxing lost control of his emotions. He grabbed a flashlight and moved his body toward Han Fei and Li Long.

"When we got to the fifth floor, I kept talking to him, but he didn't respond. I could clearly hear footsteps behind me, so he should have been following me the whole time!"

Why did it disappear?

"The footsteps were still there when I turned around, but he could no longer see them."

More blood seeped from the corner of Li Daxing's mouth; his lips had been bitten raw, and his face was frighteningly white.

"We've been on the third floor the whole time, we've never been to the fifth floor..." Li Long said with a cold face. He tried to talk to Li Daxing, but Han Fei interrupted him.

"Don't go over there. Didn't you hear what he just said? The footsteps were still there when he turned around, but his companion was nowhere to be seen. He was sure he could no longer see his companion, which means his companion had been hidden away, hidden in a place where no one could find him." Han Fei stared at Li Daxing's stomach. He didn't want to think about it, but Li Daxing's behavior was just too strange.

Hearing Han Fei's advice, Li Long followed Han Fei's gaze to Li Daxing's stomach and instantly understood what Han Fei meant.

"You think he ate the other security guard?" Scarface Li Long froze on the spot, then subconsciously began to move away from Han Fei.

Security guard Li Daxing is very abnormal, but Han Fei's thoughts are also extremely terrifying; this is definitely not how ordinary people think.

Caught between Han Fei and Li Daxing, the scar on Li Long's face twitched slightly. Only now did he understand why the senior figures in the underworld had forbidden them from causing trouble for this shopping mall.

"I need to find him! You saw him, didn't you? Tell me where he is! Tell me! I really need to see him!" Li Daxing's mouth was open, full of wounds and blood. He waved his flashlight and rushed towards Han Fei. Just as he was about to reach Han Fei and Li Long, he seemed to suddenly see something, and his expression changed instantly.

"Why are you all here again? Why are you all back!" Muttering words no one could understand, Li Daxing turned and ran into the depths of the mall.

It was a false alarm. Li Long wiped the cold sweat from his brow with his last remaining finger. Tonight's ordeal was far too heavy for a street thug: "Are there no normal people in this mall?"

He had barely finished speaking when he turned around and saw a family of three standing at the mall entrance. It seemed that Li Daxing had run away after seeing this family of three: "When did these three arrive?"

The ding-dong sound rang out, and the family of three, seemingly unaware of the unusual situation in the mall, went straight into the secondhand store.

"You stay outside, I'll go in and greet the customers!" Han Fei quickly left, leaving Li Long alone.

The thug stared blankly at the shoe prints on the ground, which were covered in water and mud. The family of three were soaking wet, as if they had just been pulled out of the river. Their skin was pale from being soaked, and their eyes were swollen like goldfish.

"Little friend, we meet again." Han Fei stared at the little boy in front of him, then slowly moved his gaze behind him.

Beside the boy stood a couple, deeply in love, their bodies seemingly intertwined.

"Uncle, I want to redeem my toy."

"I've been keeping this for you, just waiting for you to come back." Han Fei took out a cardboard box hidden under the counter, inside which were all the boy's toys.

"Thank you, Uncle!" The boy took several soaking wet hundred-yuan bills from his father's pocket, and then pulled a small wooden puppet from his own pocket: "Uncle, this is for you!"

Han Fei left the soaked money to dry on the counter, but he was more interested in the little wooden puppet.

"Okay, now we're even." The boy smiled happily, jumping and skipping with the box of toys in his arms, while his parents followed silently behind him.

The family of three left "happily," and Han Fei had successfully completed his first business deal since arriving here.

After recording the transaction, Han Fei stuffed the little wooden puppet left behind by the boy into his pocket.

Money is proof of a transaction and should be given to the boss; the puppet is proof of friendship and should be kept by oneself. This is called keeping public and private matters separate.

"What did the boy mean when he said we were even? Does it mean that once the old goods are sold, the old obsessions can no longer be rekindled?"

Ding dong, ding dong...

The shop door opened again, and an elderly man with a full head of white hair appeared at the door.

Han Fei had met the old woman last night. She wanted to donate the red sweater she had knitted, but the package containing the sweater contained a large amount of blood-stained feathers and animal skins.

"Grandma?"

Just like last night, the old man placed the package at the shop entrance, then wandered around inside before finally walking shakily to the shrine.

"Why do you always come so late? Can you walk home by yourself at night?" Han Fei felt that something had happened to the old woman, so he carefully stayed by her side: "Grandma, the staff here cleaned the package you brought last time."

The old woman turned around blankly, stared at Han Fei's face for a long time, and then suddenly raised her arm.

A faint musty smell wafted into Han Fei's nostrils. As the old man's hand drew closer, Han Fei did not flinch.

The calloused hands finally stopped beside Han Fei's face. The old woman's cloudy eyes filled with tears, and she opened her mouth as if to say a name.

"Grandma? What do you want to say?"

Before Han Fei could react, the old woman suddenly rammed into the shrine, trying with all her might to knock it over.

"Don't be impulsive!" Han Fei quickly stopped the old man. He was much stronger than the old man, but he didn't dare to use force, afraid of hurting him.

The old woman didn't say a word; she scratched at the nailed-together door of the shrine, her face covered in tears.

She kept making strange noises in her throat, and didn't even care that her fingers were bleeding from being cut.

It took Han Fei a great deal of effort to subdue the old man.

He picked up the fallen black cloth and covered the shrine again, at which point the old man slowly calmed down.

“There’s really no normal person in your shop, from the staff to the customers.” Li Long stood at the shop entrance, staring at the old woman, not daring to enter the shop casually: “I have a vague impression of this crazy old woman. Her son used to work in a department store.”

"His son works here? That's not right. I remember Huang Li saying that this old man has no children."

"I heard it from the past. The old woman's son was one of the earliest employees of the secondhand store. He died in an accident, and the old woman went crazy. She always felt that her son was locked in a shrine, and it seemed that she could save her son by doing a thousand good deeds." Li Long had been on the streets for many years and knew a lot about these strange things.

"Do a thousand good deeds? Where did you find out that?" Seeing that the old man had quieted down, Han Fei let go of his hand and prepared to pour him a cup of hot water.

"The senior in the underworld, we call him Brother Snake. He's the one who told us not to mess with your department store. In this city, you can offend anyone but the owner of the department store." Li Long initially had no good feelings towards Han Fei, but judging from Han Fei's attitude towards the elderly and some small incidents that had happened before, Han Fei seemed to be a decent person.

When he borrowed money, his statement, "I am a good person," was truly from the bottom of his heart.

While Li Long and Han Fei were talking, the old lady, who had regained her composure, walked shakily out of the shop.

The old man, who was practically on his deathbed, still insisted on doing a good deed every day. At this moment, the outside world was completely shrouded in darkness, but the old man didn't care at all. Leaning on his cane, he slowly disappeared into the night.

"She can move freely in the dark?" Han Fei frowned slightly, recalling Li Long's words: "Is the old man's son really locked in the shrine?"

Han Fei was filled with doubts. If Li Long hadn't lied, why was the old woman's son locked in the shrine? And how did she know that doing a thousand good deeds would release her child?
"When I lifted the black cloth covering the shrine underground, I heard several voices behind me, men, women, young and old. Were the old people's children among them? They all died because of the shrine, or rather, they all made some kind of deal with the shrine, and their souls have been priced!"

The shrine in the secondhand shop was just for show; the real shrine was underground. After carefully covering it with a black cloth, Han Fei carried a chair and sat down at the shop entrance.

"The outside of the mall is fraught with danger, and the inside is a living hell. Where does the answer to this world lie?"

With his hands clasped together, Han Fei tried his best to calm himself down, regulate his emotions, and quickly restore his mood.

Seeing that Han Fei was gradually returning to normal, Li Long relaxed a little.

With great effort, Li Long, dressed in a suit, spread out the newspaper and sat down again at the store entrance. The two of them stood guard at the store entrance without disturbing each other.

Do you eat sunflower seeds?

"no thank you."

At 3:50 a.m., Han Fei's mood score finally recovered to 50 points.

He glanced outside; it was almost dawn.

"Li Long, I need to go to the hospital. Are you going to stay here and mind the shop, or are you coming with me?"

“I’m here to collect a debt, and your asking for my opinion makes me feel very passive.”

"Then come with me, it's too dangerous here." Han Fei helped Li Long up. Such an excellent "partner" couldn't be abandoned so easily; good steel should be used where it's needed most.

After closing the shop door, Han Fei ran towards the hospital, guided by Li Long.

The Third People's Hospital wasn't too far from here, and whether it was because it was almost dawn or because of the little boy doll, Han Fei didn't encounter anything too terrifying.

As soon as he and Li Long entered the hospital, they saw Li Hu, a large, fat man in a suit with both hands in casts. He looked fierce yet pitiful and helpless, and he was the only one in the entire lobby.

How is the oriole doing?

"I don't know, I don't quite understand what the doctor is saying." Li Hu took Han Fei to find the doctor, but they were stopped by a nurse before they even entered the room.

"Which of you is the patient's friend?" The nurse looked at Li Hu, who had a tiger tattoo, and Li Long, who had a scar on his face, and felt that they were not good people. She dared not let such people into the ward.

None of the three men answered. Finally, Han Fei stepped forward: "I'm Huang Li's colleague. How is she?"

"She's basically out of danger, but it seems she suffered a severe shock to her brain, causing her to fall into a deep coma. We can't guarantee when she'll wake up. It could be tomorrow morning, or it could be a few weeks later." Seeing that Han Fei looked refined, the nurse was happy to chat with him: "Who can pay the medical bills, the ambulance fee, the emergency room fee, the hospitalization fee, and the expenses for follow-up treatment?"

Upon hearing that money was required, Han Fei stopped in his tracks: "Can't you contact her family?"

“We notified the mall manager, but they haven’t arrived yet. According to the manager, Huang Li’s mother died early, her father suffers from Alzheimer’s disease, and she recently got divorced due to domestic violence. If her ex-husband knew she was in a coma, he would be lucky if he didn’t try to take everything off her, let alone take care of her.”

The nurse's words reminded Han Fei of something: when he borrowed Huang Li's phone to call his deliveryman father, he secretly looked at Huang Li's chat history.

In Huang Li's contact list, there was a person whose nickname was "worse than pigs and dogs." That person kept threatening her, saying he would kill her whole family.

"Then her situation should be considered a work-related injury, right?" Han Fei asked in a low voice.

“We asked Zhu Wei, the mall manager, and he showed us the contract, saying that Huang Li had already resigned three days ago. She didn’t leave the mall because she was training new staff.” The nurse was getting impatient: “She might wake up tomorrow morning. Could you prepay the medical expenses so we can start the follow-up treatment as soon as possible?”

Normally, you pay first and then receive treatment. Emergency rooms are an exception, but even after your condition improves, the hospital will still charge you.

The two thugs instinctively took a step back. Han Fei clutched the 20,000 yuan he had just borrowed in his pocket and licked his dry lips: "About how much?"

"The initial treatment costs 3,000. Turn left on the first floor to pay."

"This is just the initial cost?" Han Fei shifted his feet, feeling that everything was too coincidental.

He had just borrowed money from loan sharks when Huang Li got into trouble; he hadn't even had a chance to enjoy the money he borrowed.

"Is this the random quest selection? The shrine master also made his own choice?"

The original owner of the shrine was forced to sign the IOU, and under those circumstances, he probably wouldn't have used his own money to help Huang Li.

"Could it be that the shrine owner's failure to help the oriole led to its death? If so, then the correct choice should have been to save the oriole."

Han Fei strode forward and decisively paid the money, but he did not receive a system notification.

Dawn was approaching, but the mission had made no progress whatsoever.

"Money can save a life. This is a hospital, and the mission is called 'Choice.' Besides whether or not to save Huang Li, are there any other choices in this hospital? Could it be related to the shrine owner's mother?"

Han Fei frowned, carefully recalling the mission prompts.

Seeing Han Fei's immense pain and discomfort, the two thugs unusually refrained from disturbing him. They assumed Han Fei was distressed about paying the money, since they knew his own mother was sick in bed and urgently needed funds.

"That guy is such a stubborn fool. If he didn't owe us money, we might have become brothers." The resentment in Li Hu's eyes had dissipated a lot. Getting beaten up in a street fight just meant he was outmatched, and there was no need to hold a grudge. Of course, the main reason was that he was afraid of being beaten.

"He was a good man, but all he had left was kindness."

The three stood at the payment counter. Not long after, the hospital elevator doors slowly opened, and a man dressed as a caregiver with a face tattoo on his neck slowly walked out.

(End of this chapter)