Chapter 154: Chapter 154: No Way Out
*Bael’s POV*
The hours passed without Bael noticing the shift in time at all.
The small plastic clock hanging on the white ICU wall moved from midnight to one, then to two, then to four in the morning, but Bael never looked up to check it. He remained exactly where he was, sitting heavily on the hard chair beside Runze’s bed. His right hand stayed resting lightly over the back of Runze’s cold fingers, his thumb perfectly still to make sure he did not disturb the clear IV line taped down against the pale skin.
The steady beeping of the monitor had become the only sound in the entire world that held any meaning to him.
*Beep.*
Runze was alive.
*Beep.*
Runze was still right here in front of him.
Everything else outside the four corners of this room completely disappeared.
Bael’s chest felt tight, the exhaustion sitting like a physical weight on his shoulders, but his eyes refused to close. Every time his eyelids grew heavy, a sudden wave of terror would hit his stomach, forcing him to snap his eyes back toward his husband’s pale face.
By the third day, Grandmother Wuchen finally lost her patience.
Bael had not gone home once. He had barely eaten, barely spoken, and refused to leave the chair beside Runze’s bed for more than a few minutes at a time. Even the doctors had started looking at him with concern.
Grandmother Wuchen entered the room carrying a neatly folded woolen blanket over her arm and a fresh suit on a hanger.
She walked over to the side of the chair and looked down at him. "You need to eat, Bael," she said softly.
Bael did not answer. He did not even look up to acknowledge her entry.
"You don’t look good. You need to shower too," she tried again, her voice carrying a quiet, rare gentleness.
"You need to sleep, even if it’s just for an hour on the couch."
Bael’s gray eyes never left the thick bandage wrapped around Runze’s forehead. His jaw remained clenched so tight that the muscles in his cheek throbbed.
Finally, Grandmother let out a long sigh. She reached down and touched the fabric of his crumpled suit jacket. "If Runze wakes up right now and sees you looking like this, he won’t be happy."
For the first time in hours, Bael blinked. The image of Runze frowning, unhappy, flashed through his mind. It felt like a sharp needle piercing right through his chest.
After a long moment, Bael slowly stood up from the chair. His knees let out a dull pop, and his entire body felt stiff and heavy, like it was made of stone.
"I will be back," he said, his voice sounding completely wrecked and raw from hours of absolute silence.
He bent down slightly, touching the tip of Runze’s cold thumb one last time before pulling his hand away completely. He hated the space that grew between them the moment his skin left Runze’s.
"I will be back," he repeated, as if it were a vow to the quiet room.
***
The private conference room on the hospital’s secured executive floor had already been prepared by his people. The glass windows were heavily tinted, blocking out any view of the streets below.
Shen Rui stood waiting beside the long mahogany table, three separate laptops open in front of him, their screens glowing with dense financial charts and data logs. Several men in tailored black suits—Bael’s personal security heads and private investigators—stood quietly against the back wall, their hands folded in front of them.
The moment Bael walked through the door, every conversation stopped instantly.
Bael looked exactly like a man who had been dragged through hell.
His dark gray tie was gone, the collar of his white shirt unbuttoned and loose. The sleeves were rolled up unevenly to his elbows, revealing the thick muscles of his forearms. There was dark, dried blood beneath one fingernail where he had unconsciously dug his own nails deep into his palm while waiting in the hallway. He looked wild, exhausted, and incredibly dangerous.
He walked straight to the head of the table and sat down.
"Report," Bael said. The word was cold enough to freeze the room.
Shen Rui did not hesitate. He picked up a thick folder and pushed it across the smooth wood, right into Bael’s space. "The police and our team have confirmed the truck driver’s identity, sir."
Bael flipped the folder open with a single, sharp motion.
The document inside was brief and clinical. Male. Forty-six years, commercial driver, no criminal record. Wife, two children. Large unexplained bank transfer deposited three days before the accident.
Bael continued reading without expression.
"He confessed?" Bael asked, his voice completely level.
"Not to the police," Shen Rui answered, stepping closer to the table. "But he admitted that someone paid him."
Bael looked up from the paper, his gray eyes locking onto his assistant. "Go on."
"He was given specific instructions," Shen Rui said, his voice dropping into a tight, quiet whisper. "He was told to wait at the highway exit ramp until the car passed by. He was told to strike the rear passenger side where the two passengers would be sitting."
The conference room became completely silent, the men against the wall did not even shift their weight.
"He was told," Shen Rui continued carefully, watching Bael’s face for any reaction, "that both of the passengers in the rear seat had to die. That was the condition for the second payment."
Bael didn’t speak, he simply stared at the file. Shen Rui watched the realization settle across his face.
Every afternoon for this week, Bael had personally picked Runze up. It had become a routine.
A predictable one.
Whoever planned the attack hadn’t expected him to be at the office, they expected him to be sitting beside Runze.
They weren’t just targeting Runze, they were trying to kill them both.
Bael’s fingers tightened around the rough edge of the paper file. "He knew he would likely die in a crash that large?"
"Yes."
"And he still accepted it?"
Shen Rui nodded grimly. "His youngest child has a severe medical condition. They promised enough money to support his family for life."
Bael stared at the photograph, then he asked one question.
"Why is he still alive?"
"Our investigators believe he panicked and braked at the last second."
One of the investigators spoke for the first time.
"The accident reconstruction team believes that if he hadn’t braked..."
He stopped.
Nobody needed the rest of the sentence, nobody inside that room wanted to hear it.
Bael closed the folder with a dull thud. "Who contacted him?"
"He never saw a face, sir," Shen Rui said, opening a second laptop screen. "The meeting took place in a dark alley near the docks, and the man wore a black mask and a hat. He spoke through a digital voice changer."
"A name?"
"No name was given."
"The phone?"
"A disposable burner phone. It was found smashed to pieces inside a trash can three blocks away from the crash site. Our tech team is trying to recover the data, but the motherboard is completely ruined."
"The money?"
"The initial deposit was made through a series of offshore cash routing systems," Shen Rui explained, his fingers tapping on the keyboard to bring up a financial map. "It was designed to look like a random corporate dividend payout from a defunct overseas trade company."
Bael leaned back in his leather chair. For several long seconds, he simply stared up at the white ceiling tiles, his chest rising and falling in slow, shallow breaths. The corporate power he possessed felt entirely useless against the cold reality of a masked hitman, but the rage building beneath his skin was beginning to clear his exhausted mind.
Then he spoke, his voice completely cold. "Follow the money. No matter how many layers there are, money always leaves a trail."
"We already did, sir," Shen Rui said. He slid a single glossy photograph across the polished mahogany table. "The first intermediary account led us to a second dummy company registered in Hong Kong. The second company led us directly to a local logistics firm right here in the city. That logistics firm is owned through three different shell corporations."
"And?"
"And the financial records point to someone making the arrangements."
Shen Rui slid one photograph across the table.
Bael looked down.
His eyes narrowed. It was a middle-aged man wearing glasses, ordinary, forgettable, but familiar. Bael knew that face.
Wuchen Ming’s assistant. Liu Wen.
The room felt colder.
One of the investigators spoke carefully.
"If Secretary Liu is taken through normal legal procedures, whoever is behind this will know we’re getting close."
Bael looked at him.
"So do not use normal procedures," Bael said. His voice was completely devoid of any human emotion.
Total silence followed his words.
"I want him taken quietly," Bael commanded, leaning forward and pressing his palms flat against the table. "No police involvement, no publicity in the news, no mistakes."
Everyone inside that room understood exactly what those words meant. Wuchen Bael was no longer operating as a businessman trying to protect an empire, he was a man hunting the people who had tried to destroy his life.
***
When Bael returned to the intensive care unit floor, the hallway was still filled with the low, buzzing hum of the hospital.
Nothing had changed inside the small room.
Runze still lay perfectly still beneath the white blankets, his pale face looking peaceful, as if he were merely sleeping after a long day of work.
Grandmother Wuchen had fallen asleep in the visitor’s chair, exhaustion finally catching up with her.
Bael quietly sat back down on the hard chair right beside the bed, his body immediately sinking back into the same hunched position he had held all night.
He carefully reached out, sliding his hand to gently hold Runze’s freezing fingers, taking care not to pull the medical tape holding the IV in place.
"I am back," Bael whispered softly, his eyes fixing onto the quiet line of Runze’s closed eyelids.
There was no answer.
Bael lowered his head until his forehead was resting right against the cool skin of Runze’s bare forearm. "I found the first one," he muttered into the dark fabric of his own shirt. "I will find the last one, Runze. I will end every single one of them. I promise you."
There was only the quiet, steady sound of the heart monitor, each beep reminding him that both his wife and child were still alive.
*Beep.*
*Beep.*
*Beep.*
Bael refused to move a single inch from his side, waiting in the stillness, afraid to even blink, for any sign that Runze would come back to him.
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