Chapter 219 - Red Button (Don't Skip)

Qing Zihao already felt the bad news before the doctor even told him. If he was going to be honest with himself, he paid no mind to his health. He was a strong man and he had lived a full life. If it was his time to die then it was his time to die. Still, his doctor tried to ease the news to him, beating around the bush until he finally had enough of it.

"Just say it," he said kindly.

The doctor was one of the people he had put under his wing. He had once been a homeless boy until Qing Zihao picked him up from the side of the street and brought him to the orphanage that he was sponsoring. The boy showed promise of intelligence despite everything and Qing Zihao put the boy in school until he finished.

Funny how life plays out, Qing Zihao thought. He had once saved this boy from poverty and starvation and the same boy might be the one who would be able to prolong his life.

It was as if his ears tuned out everything else after he heard what was it that was eating away his health. The doctor was listing all the possible treatments for him but for a few moments he already felt like the life left his body.

When he got out of the hospital, he went home and told his mother. Xie Changying dropped to her knees sobbing. She could not accept the fact that her son might die before she would. 

"It's not a competition," Qing Zihao said, helping his mother to a seat. After just a few seconds, she suddenly looked older—or maybe just in his eyes. Knowing that he would go first to hell (he was sure it would be hell) strangely made his mother age.

"I can't do this. I can't accept this," said his mother, trying to catch her breath in between her cries. Later when she finally calmed down, she did what the doctor did—promised that they would do everything in their power to cure him.

Just as his son promised him just a few minutes ago…

Honestly, Qing Zihao did not want to escape the inevitable. He did not mind dying at his age. But how do you give up when the people around you keep on wanting to extend your life?

That was one of the reasons why he didn't want to tell his other sons. He didn't want to add more people on the list that would go against his will with his own life.

There was little time left in him. He was not going to spend his last moments trying to cure the incurable. Instead of spending weeks or months in hospitals, he would rather live his life instead.

"How did he take it?" asked his mother when he came back to the car.

"Better than I thought," Qing Zihao said. He actually thought Qing Chen would cry. He saw tears brimming his son's eyes—for the first time in years, he was about to cry… but his tears never fell.

When he saw Qing Chen looking sad earlier, it was as if he died again on the inside. It ripped his heart to see his son that way—trying to keep himself strong as he took the news.

Thinking about seeing two more of his sons on the brink of tears and sadness, Qing Zihao might as well just die on the spot. 

"Your son would never tell his brothers," said Xie Changying, silently crying from her seat. "It's not fair that you told him… that you're putting everything on his plate—the company, the mafia, and now this… how do you expect him to live through this? Do you really want to push him to depression?"

Qing Zihao tapped the screen on the limousine and they started moving. He answered his mother, "Chen is the softest of my sons but he's stronger than he looks. He'll be able to pull himself from this. I believe in him." He started to chuckle. "Hell, the boy thought about killing me. Me! His own father." 

His chuckle turned to laughter. "Do you really think he's that weak? The boy was willing to severe my head from my neck just to get his way. That only proves one thing… if he can stomach just the thought of killing his father with his own hands, then he would be able to kill anybody."

He looked out the window. "He's going to win this war he wants to start."

**

Da Xia's mother just got off the phone. She was just talking with the person who was going to help her execute the plan. He had been really helpful in the past. Very clean operations. Sure, it costed her a lot of money but what she received from her husband's untimely death was more money that she could spend in her lifetime.

She swiped the curtain from her window and watched the fountain in their garden while she sipped her wine.

She had caught his husband cheating. She had confronted him about it of course, cried buckets of tears, waiting for him to love her back. They even went to couple's therapy but… he no longer loved her.

He preferred the dumb bimbos he always took sailing on their yacht. It was not that hard to kill him to be honest. She had set up his trip and the crew that would bring her husband through a stormy part of the sea—he would be clueless as he would be busy with his woman.

Then someone would push them overboard to disappear from the world. Then the yacht would come back and report a story about a storm and how the waves swallowed them or capsized the yacht.

That was the plan. But she killed the crew anyway. She set up a small bomb on the yacht, making them unable to go home.

Now, there was another red button in her hands.