Just moments ago, only four security guards had surrounded Ye Qiu, but now there were eight or nine of them, each tall and robust, wielding stun batons. A hit from one of those could potentially knock Ye Qiu out cold.
The initially bewildered four guards had embarrassingly fallen, shamed in front of many onlookers; their demeanor had shifted now to one of grim defiance as they glared at Ye Qiu.
"Ye Qiu, let's leave!" Chen Fang said fearfully.
Chen Fang had always been just an ordinary woman. Still, earlier in the premium ward, for her son's sake, she had gathered the courage to exchange several words with Vice President Zhou.
Now, faced with the fierce and menacing stares of the guards, Chen Fang was scared.
"Mom, go sit over there; they can't hurt me," Ye Qiu said.
However, Chen Fang was very worried and stood in front of her son, obviously fearing that Ye Qiu would truly be harmed by the guards. After all, it had been only a month since Ye Qiu's car accident and less than a month since his surgery.
Just as Zhou Peng was losing his patience and about to signal the guards to act, a middle-aged man, dressed just as plainly and even with some grease on his clothes, hastily approached.
He was Ye Qiu's father, Ye Weidong. Half a month earlier, he had mortgaged their house to the bank, but the bank had been assessing it all this time, taking more than half a month to appraise. The result was a loan of one hundred thousand yuan, but it would still take a few more days before the funds were available.
Hence, Weidong had decided to visit the hospital to check on his son's condition and then discuss with the hospital to see if the payment deadline could be extended until the loan came through.
Unexpectedly, just as he entered, he saw his wife, Chen Fang, and his son, Ye Qiu, surrounded by hospital security.
Weidong quickly approached and asked, "What's going on? Why are you surrounding my wife and son?"
Upon seeing her husband arrive, Chen Fang finally breathed a sigh of relief and said, "Weidong, Ye Qiu was upset and misspoke. Now the hospital security wants to assault him."
"What did he say?" Weidong curiously asked.
Weidong had always considered his son timid, weak, and self-deprecating, not much like him except in poor academic performance.
"He was driven out of the premium ward just now by Vice President Zhou, so Ye Qiu was upset, and that's when he said a few words, and then those guards wanted to teach Ye Qiu a lesson."
Chen Fang explained, and Weidong understood.
If Ye Qiu was ejected because of hospital and surgery debts totaling over a hundred thousand, that wasn't much of an issue.
In Weidong's view, it was quite normal.
Moreover, Weidong knew well that he was just an ordinary citizen.
"Ye Qiu, aren't you going to apologize to them quickly?"
Weidong looked at Ye Qiu and said, somewhat fearful, hoping Ye Qiu would apologize and then consider the matter resolved.
However, when Weidong looked at Ye Qiu now, he was different from the Ye Qiu of before.
The old Ye Qiu would have been afraid upon seeing his father, not daring to look him in the eye, only speaking with his head bowed. But now, when he heard Weidong's words, he did not bow his head but continued looking at the guards.
"Why should I apologize?" Ye Qiu said coolly.
"You really want to infuriate me, don't you?" Weidong raised his right hand, about to slap Ye Qiu's right cheek, but Ye Qiu caught his hand.
Weidong hadn't expected his son to defy him.
"I did nothing wrong, you don't need to hit me," Ye Qiu still said.
At this moment, Ye Weidong and Chen Fang just realized that Ye Qiu was somewhat different from the Ye Qiu they knew before.
Ye Weidong could only withdraw his hand, but he felt he had lost face as a father. Of course, he was also afraid of the hospital.
Now Ye Qiu asked Ye Weidong and Chen Fang to sit aside, Ye Weidong no longer paid attention to Ye Qiu but let him give those security guards a lesson to know that trouble comes from careless talk.
As Ye Weidong pulled Chen Fang aside, Ye Qiu stood there, looked at the security guards, and said, "Lackeys, I see that you treat the patients like this all the time."
The hospital had hired these security guards mainly to prevent the patients from causing disturbances at the hospital, so these guards could step in.
These security guards were already very angry, and now they became even angrier upon hearing what Ye Qiu had said.
As they were already encircling Ye Qiu and Zhou Peng was growing impatient, they naturally wanted to lay hands on Ye Qiu.
The onlooking patients and their families felt that Ye Qiu, being so young, did not recognize his limits and would surely be severely disciplined by the security guards.
"Look at that young man, so frail, he will definitely be heavily beaten by those security guards!"
"Exactly, so young, yet he doesn't listen to his parents and talks nonsense."
"I think he will certainly get beaten badly this time."
...
While the patients and their families sitting in the lobby were discussing animatedly, Chen Fang was also very worried.
However, to the surprise of those patients and their families, the seven or eight security guards, who had just approached Ye Qiu and hadn't even touched him yet, all screamed and were flung several meters away.
Zhou Peng was dumbfounded!
Ye Weidong and Chen Fang were dumbfounded as well!
The onlooking patients and their families thought they had seen wrong, rubbed their eyes, and looked again only to see the security guards painfully lying on the ground.
The security guards, not believing what had happened, stood up and tried to run towards Ye Qiu again to gang up on him, but the same thing happened as before.
Zhou Peng felt that the security guards were mocking him!
Zhou Peng, infuriated, looked at the security guards and said, "Are you useless, or are you mocking me?"
The security guards themselves couldn't understand why, just as they approached Ye Qiu, they felt as though they had been fiercely struck in the chest and were painfully thrown away.
The others thought they were acting, but the guards themselves were very clear that they were not performing.
Ye Qiu paid no attention to the security guards but walked up to Zhou Peng. Zhou Peng looked somewhat pale, but his steps were firm, and the way he looked at him was like he was looking at an ant, which made Zhou Peng somewhat afraid of Ye Qiu.
"What do you want to do? What did you do to those security guards?" Zhou Peng asked.
"Vice Director Zhou, I am not playing any games, but I want to tell you that the young lady's condition can only be cured by me. If you do not believe it, the young lady will really be sent to the crematorium tomorrow, and it's not far from here anyway."