Chapter 100 If I become disabled, will you still want me?

The new safe house is located deep in a coconut grove on the outskirts of Bangkok. It is a detached villa with gray walls and red tiles, and the exterior walls are covered with withered vines, making it look like a forgotten corner.

Old Chen's car bumped along the dirt road for two hours before finally arriving.

When Fang Che got out of the car, his face was pale and blood was seeping from the bandage on his waist.

The old wound had not yet healed, and the bumpy ride and stress had caused the wound to become severely inflamed.

"It needs to be stitched up again." Li Hanzhou frowned and half-carried, half-helped the person into the house.

The villa was more secluded than the previous one, but also more basic.

The living room on the first floor had only a few rattan chairs and a dusty coffee table. The mattress in the bedroom on the second floor was laid directly on the floor, and the windows were sealed with iron bars, so the light that came in was fragmented.

Fang Che was placed on the second floor.

Li Hanzhou opened the medical kit and gasped as he removed the bandages. The wound was red, swollen, and festering, with yellow pus oozing from the edges, clearly infected.

"You have a fever." He placed the back of his hand on the other person's forehead; it was burning hot.

Fang Che opened his eyes groggily, his vision unfocused: "Brother Li... have we arrived?"

"We've arrived." Li Hanzhou's voice was low. "The wound is infected and needs to be cleaned. There's no anesthesia, so you'll have to bear it."

"Then be gentle..." Fang Che's voice was weak, "My back is rented... not original... I'll have to pay for it if I damage it..."

Li Hanzhou paused slightly, almost bursting out laughing.

He was so confused that he was speaking a mix of Northeastern Mandarin and Cantonese.

"Understood." He moved gently, cleaning the wound with an alcohol swab. "Rented items need even more care."

When the cotton ball touched the ulcer, Fang Che jumped up, his Cantonese accent trembling with pain: "Be gentle, boss! This is killing me!"

"Bear with it." Li Hanzhou pressed him down, his movements swift and decisive. "If the pus isn't squeezed out completely, you can be sent straight to the crematorium tomorrow."

Clean the wound, apply medication, and suture it again.

Fang Che trembled all over the bed in pain, babbling incoherently: "Brother Li... even slaughtering pigs back home doesn't hurt this much... that butcher's skills are better than yours..."

"If you move it any further, the stitches will be crooked." Li Hanzhou kept working.

“So what if it’s crooked… it’s just rented anyway…” Fang Che’s tears streamed down his face. Suddenly, he grabbed Li Hanzhou’s wrist. “Brother Li, tell me the truth… if I become disabled, will you still want me?”

Li Hanzhou lowered his head and kissed his sweaty forehead.

“I want him,” he said. “Even if he’s crippled, he’ll still be my A-Che.”

Fang Che grinned, then burst into tears, "You fucking...you're all about sweet talk..."

After the stitches were done, the high fever worsened.

The high fever peaked after nightfall.

Li Hanzhou used a wet towel to cool him down physically, changing it every ten minutes.

The boy was drenched in cold sweat, his thin frame clearly visible beneath his clothes.

"Brother Li..." Fang Che's consciousness was hazy, his eyes half-open, "Cold..."

Li Hanzhou covered him with a thin blanket and changed the towel.

The boy curled up to sleep, but his sleep was restless, his brows furrowed, and he occasionally mumbled incoherently in his sleep.

Sometimes it's in Northeastern dialect: "Mom... add more pickled cabbage to the pork stew with vermicelli..."

Sometimes it's in Cantonese: "Brother Li... run... there's a gun..."

Qi was on night watch on the first floor.

His shoulder injury still hurt, but it was nothing compared to the punishments he had endured at the training camp.

He paid closer attention to the sounds upstairs: the soft rustling of dressing changes, Fang Che's suppressed gasps, and Li Hanzhou's low, comforting tones.

At 2 a.m., Qi got up and walked to the stairwell.

The bedroom door on the second floor was ajar, letting in a dim, yellowish light.

He saw Li Hanzhou sitting by the bed, carefully applying medicine to the area around Fang Che's wound on his waist with a cotton swab.

The movements were very gentle, as gentle as if handling fragile porcelain.

Qi's gaze swept over the medicine bottle on the bedside table.

He has an excellent memory, which is a required course at the training camp.

Remember how to use each poison, antidote, and wound medicine.

Li Hanzhou used cephalosporin and mupirocin ointment.

Dosage, frequency... he silently noted them down.

After changing Fang Che's dressing, Li Hanzhou tucked him in and left the bedroom.

Seven retreated back to the living room.

When Li Hanzhou came downstairs, he saw Qi sitting in a rattan chair, looking out at the coconut grove.

"Not asleep?"

"I can't sleep," Qi said. "How is he?"

"The fever has subsided a bit, but the infection is serious, so I need to continue taking medication." Li Hanzhou poured himself a glass of water and sat down. "What about your injury?"

"It's nothing." Qi paused. "How's the medicine you're using...?"

“Cephalexin and mupirocin, standard medications. But his constitution is poor, and his recovery is slow.” Li Hanzhou glanced at him.

He nodded at seven o'clock and didn't say anything more.

In the latter half of the night, Li Hanzhou closed his eyes to rest on another rattan chair.

Qi got up and walked to the bookshelf, where there were several old books, one of which was a Thai version of "Family Medical Handbook".

Seven is turned over by the moonlight.

He found the chapters about external wound infection and fever, and read them carefully page by page, his fingers lightly tracing the words.

Moonlight streamed through the cracks in the iron window, illuminating his profile.

The assassin, whose eyes had once been vacant, now had a slight frown and a focused expression, as if he were studying the most complex mission.

He is studying.

Learn how to take care of someone.

The next morning, Fang Che's fever finally subsided.

When he woke up, Li Hanzhou was asleep by the bedside, with dark circles under his eyes and stubble.

Fang Che tried to move, but the sharp pain in his waist made him gasp.

"Awake?" Li Hanzhou immediately woke up. "Does it still hurt?"

"I'm feeling better..." Fang Che's voice was hoarse. "Brother Li, you didn't sleep all night?"

"He slept for a while." Li Hanzhou got up to take his temperature. It was 37.8 degrees Celsius, a low-grade fever, but much better than at night.

He went downstairs to cook porridge.

Qi was already stretching his shoulders in the living room.

The wound limited his movement, but he still persisted in stretching.

The killer's instinct is to keep the body in peak condition.

Li Hanzhou cooked white porridge and brought it upstairs, feeding Fang Che half a bowl.

"Where's Seventh Brother?" Fang Che asked. "He's so badly injured, he should drink something nutritious..."

"It's downstairs. I'll bring it to him later."

After finishing his porridge, Fang Che drifted off to sleep again.

As Li Hanzhou came downstairs, Qi Zheng lifted his T-shirt to check the injury on his shoulder.

The gauze was half removed, revealing the menacing stitches in the morning light.

Li Hanzhou stopped in his tracks.

This was the first time he had examined the wound closely.

The cut was deep, almost piercing through the shoulder.

The sutures looked like centipedes crawling on the skin, and the surrounding area was still red and swollen.

Beneath this wound lie even more old scars: gunshot wounds, knife wounds, burns... layer upon layer, recording the killer's bloody past.

But this latest dish is for A-Che.

Qi noticed the gaze and put down his clothes.

"When is the dressing change time?"

"Okay." Li Hanzhou brought over the first-aid kit. "I'll help you."

Seven did not refuse.

Li Hanzhou removed the gauze, washed it, applied medicine, and re-bandaged it.

His movements were more practiced than the night before; after all, he had changed Fang Che's dressings several times that night.

"You studied medicine?" Qi suddenly asked.

“No,” Li Hanzhou said. “When I was on the streets, getting injured was common. I learned to take care of it after a while.”

Qi was silent for a moment, then said in a low voice, "He's lucky to have you."

Li Hanzhou paused in bandaging.

As he looked at the gruesome wound, a crack appeared in the wall of "vigilance" in his heart.

This assassin, this tool trained by Jiang Kun, this supposedly cold-blooded assassin... at the most dangerous moment, used his body to block the knife aimed at A Che.

That loyalty has shifted.

The blame shifted from Jiang Kun to A Che.

Moreover, this shift is almost instinctive; it is not a choice made after weighing the options, but rather an action of the body before the brain.