Murong Yu walked over to Han Ye and stood right in front of him, nose to nose, as he snarled, "If Xiao Yunjie is not here, if I'm not about to die soon, she would have been mine! Zhihao would be calling me 'Dad' instead of 'Mr. Murong'! Who are you to try and take her away from me?"
Facing Murong Yu's somewhat deranged expression, Han Ye did not back down. He merely replied calmly, "She's not anyone's property. She has a right to choose who she wants to be with."
"Who the f*ck gives a cr*p about right?!" Murong Yu snapped and punched Han Ye in the face. It was so unexpected that Han Ye did not manage to dodge it in time, and he stumbled to the side. "There's no such thing as 'a right'. If I say that she's mine, then she's mine!"
Murong Yu then took a step backward and started throwing things around. "She should have been mine right from the beginning! I'm the one she's supposed to be married to! Without you guys, she would have been mine by now! Why do people keep getting in my way!"
Han Ye's lips were bleeding, and he wanted to hit Murong Yu back, but watching Murong Yu throw a temper made Han Ye wonder if there was something wrong with the man. For some reason, Murong Yu did not seem to be all there... There was a look of confusion in his eyes. His eyes seemed to be getting in and out of focus as he continued his rampage.
Murong Yu's sniper/bodyguard went in and stopped him before he hurt himself.
"LET ME GO! LET ME GO!" Murong Yu yelled as he tried to throw the sniper away from him, but he couldn't. At his current strength level, he could barely throw a teenager over his shoulder much less a muscular man, even if said muscular man was already in his sixties.
The sniper then took something from his pocket and forced it into Murong Yu's mouth.
"What are you doing?"
Han Ye was about to stop him when the sniper said, "It's his medicine."
After a minute of thrashing about, Murong Yu slowly calmed down before falling limply into the sniper's arm.
BAM!
The sniper quickly took out his gun and pointed it at Han Ye when a bunch of people dressed fully in black rushed in with their guns at the ready.
"You!" The sniper narrowed his eyes at Han Ye and warned in a low, guttural voice, "Call them off or I WILL shoot you. Even if I die, I won't let you take my boss."
Han Ye slowly raised a hand, and using the back of it, he wiped the blood off his lips before signaling for his men to lower their guns. "Don't worry. They are just here as a precaution. You can't expect me to come here alone, can you?"
The sniper still had his gun leveled at Han Ye. "You can leave now. My boss can't talk to you at the moment."
"What is wrong with him?" Han Ye asked as he stared at Murong Yu, who was now lying on the floor with his head cradled in the sniper's head.
The sniper replied curtly, "He's dying, that's all you need to know. Now, leave. Or I won't hesitate to open fire."
Han Ye thought for a moment before saying, "When he's awake, tell him - there's no way he could escape from my people, so if I were him, I'd stay put here. And if he ever tried to get near Zhihao or Xiao Lei again, I would make sure that The Lion's Herd gets wiped out of existence and that I know who is trying to protect. If he doesn't want to drag that person and his family down with him, he would best listen to my warning."
Han Ye then turned to leave. He had only taken one step when he said, "Also, tell him that the person who would be Xiao Lei's husband is me, and unlike him, I'd make sure that Xiao Lei choose me out of her own accord."
...
A few hours later, Murong Yu woke up from his medically induced slumber and saw his sniper/bodyguard stand by his side.
"He left?" Murong Yu asked.
"Yeah."
"That man... How the heck did he find me?"
"Probably cause you kept stalking that boy," said the bodyguard. "I've warned you against going out, but you kept sneaking out. Now you've exposed yourself."
Murong Yu waved his hand nonchalantly. "I'm about to die anyway..."
The bodyguard shook his head. He had been Murong Yu's bodyguard ever since the latter fully took control over the Lion's Herd. "The group doesn't know about the extent of your sickness yet, but they have been in a state of unrest. With your prolonged absence, some of them are causing trouble. You need to designate an heir now."
Murong Yu groaned, "When I'm dead, you'd know. Anyway, did that infuriating man say anything else?"
The bodyguard told him what Han Ye said, as well as what Murong Yu did earlier, and he ended it with, "Give her up. For her sake. For yours. That man is not just a simple secretary... Going up against him wouldn't do us much good."
The bodyguard knew who Han Ye was. If one wanted to survive in the underworld, especially in Imperial City, one had to know who's who, and Han Ye, despite the fact that he was only President Du's secretary, was known in the underworld as someone who had the power to move the Shenlong Family.
The Lion's Herd might be big, but it was a baby compared to a group like the Shenlong Family.
"I've given up too much..." Murong Yu replied as he looked up at the ceiling. "My mother, my life, my identity... She's the only one that I want to have..."
"You're no longer Xuefeng. You're Murong Yu. Don't ever forget that."
Murong Yu looked at his bodyguard. That day, when he was buried and thought that he would die a horrible death, this man dug him out from within the ground, and he had been helping Murong Yu to assimilate into his new identity the whole time, cleaning out those who attempted to hurt Murong Yu in any way. "When can I be Xuefeng again?"
The man did not reply.
He did not need to; both of them knew the answer to that.
In order to let the real "Murong Yu" live without any burden, the fake "Murong Yu" had to die as Murong Yu and be buried as Murong Yu. There would never be a Zheng Xuefeng.
"Don't ask this question anymore. Rest well," the bodyguard said as he tucked Murong Yu in.
"I'd rest well when I'm dead. Where's Li Li?" Murong Yu asked before yawning.
"She went out. She said she had something to do and that she wouldn't be back for a couple of days."
"Mmm... If she's back early, tell her to leave."
"You've been telling her that, but you know that she would never leave. She loves you... She would be better for you than that woman."
"Probably... but I can't love her back..." Murong Yu mumbled before closing his eyes.
....