Chapter 64: Relying Solely on Its Own Might, the Little System Defeats Three Armies Single-Handedly

Startled by the nurse's shriek, Xia Lin trembled so violently that his knees gave out before he could steady himself, causing him to drop directly to his knees right in front of Jiang Xiaxia.

Looking down at Xia Lin kneeling before her, Jiang Xiaxia tilted her head. "Are your kidneys weak?"

She had heard the Old Master say before that men with weak kidneys would have soft legs.

Boys must be the same way, right?

Xia Lin’s face flushed crimson. "N, no!"

With that, he snatched Lin Shengwen right out of Jiang Xiaxia’s hands. "Let’s go!"

Not far outside the hospital:

When Xia Ming quickly caught up to Jiang Jing and Wang Lianjun, the two men were discussing whether Jiang Xiaxia would manage to hitch a ride with some child in tow.

"Old Jiang, my brother told me that Jiang Xiaxia and Lin Shengwen left through the back door of the hospital!"

Suddenly given a direction, the two men immediately turned around and hurried back toward the hospital.

However, when the three of them rushed back inside, the entire ground floor of the hospital was in a state of chaos.

Remembering the Japanese brat who was still staying here for treatment, Xia Ming felt his heart skip a beat. He immediately grabbed a passing nurse and asked, "What happened?"

The nurse was panicked. Seeing a soldier in green uniform, she gave a little shudder and stammered, "N, nothing at all!"

She certainly couldn't tell a revolutionary soldier that their head nurse had just seen a ghost and scared herself right into a dead faint, could she?

Just as Xia Ming was about to press further, the public security officer who had been anxiously looking for them a moment earlier reappeared. He grabbed Xia Ming by the arm, panic written all over his face. "Comrade Xia, it's terrible! Your younger brother jumped from the building! But we can't find him anywhere!"

Wang Lianjun saw Xia Ming sway on his feet and, without a second thought, barked out, "What kind of nonsense are you spouting? This is the ground floor, what is there to jump from!"

Realizing the ambiguity in his own words, the officer hurriedly corrected himself, "Sorry, sorry! The head nurse just saw your brother climb out the window, but when they went to look, there was nothing there—except for a piece of candy!"

Jiang Jing looked at the candy, which clearly carried the faint medicinal smell of sedatives, and his eyelids twitched. This familiar feeling of a rascal kid stirring up trouble...

He had a premonition that a massive scapegoat was about to come crashing down upon his head.

"Take us to see!"

Wang Lianjun also found the candy looking somewhat familiar, but with one niece on the loose and a younger brother vanished out a window, he acted as the only level-headed one who hadn't lost his temper and took the lead.

The police officer led the three men to the lounge.

As soon as Jiang Jing stepped inside, he pulled open the locker door and took a sniff. There was still the lingering scent of sleeping potion—it must have been left behind by the child Lin Shengwen.

Immediately afterward, all three men stuck their heads out the window, sweeping the ground with a flashlight. Two pairs of distinct, tiny black footprints were illuminated like a spark of fire that instantly burned through the last remaining thread of calmness in the minds of Jiang Jing and Xia Ming.

How could Xia Ming not understand? His brother had deliberately kept him here to stall for time; while Xia Ming went to find Jiang Jing about the back door, the brat had used that time difference to slip away from the hospital.

Filled with guilt, Xia Ming looked over at Jiang Jing. "I'm sorry, this must have been my brother's idea!"

Jiang Jing felt as though he had completely lost control of his facial muscles. "If it weren't for that wretched little girl..."

No, just thinking about Jiang Xiaxia right now gave Jiang Jing a sense of chest tightness.

He only hoped the shrapnel lodged near his heart wouldn't be angered right out of his chest because of this.

At the thought of the shrapnel, a sudden flash of insight crossed Jiang Jing's mind, but before he could dwell on it, Wang Lianjun urged from the side, "Hurry up and let's go look for them! This isn't the time to figure out whose fault it is!"

As he spoke, Wang Lianjun took the lead and strode toward the exit, muttering under his breath, "Don't blame me for running my mouth, but if you two showed a little more patience with the kids and actually taught them properly, would these two run off the moment something happened? When all is said and done, a rascal child is the fault of you adults!"

"And another thing, when they make a mistake, you need to guide them properly instead of flying into a rage at the drop of a hat. Those two are just little kids, the motherland's future flowers, not the soldiers under your command—how can you be so fierce with them? Look at your faces right now. What, are you planning to give those two kids a beating the moment you find them?"

Just as his voice trailed off, he looked up and saw Regiment Commander Lin walking toward him with a face as dark as ink.

All three men halted in their tracks and raised their hands in a simultaneous, crisp salute.

"Regiment Commander!"

Regiment Commander Lin waved a hand, smiling with exceptional gentleness. "I hear that you all were too fierce with the children, driving them to run away from home, and now you plan to go look for them?"

"Yes, Commander. I was just lecturing these two rasclets myself; just look at the kind of trouble they pull..."

Before Wang Lianjun could finish, Regiment Commander Lin produced an intact slip of paper and handed it to him, smiling even more gently than before. "Don't rush, you're involved in this too!"

Jiang Jing's eyelids twitched the moment he saw the paper. But when he watched Wang Lianjun read it and then turn to look at him with a completely expressionless face, Jiang Jing felt a buzzing in his skull.

Reaching into his pocket to touch the candy that was on the verge of melting, Wang Lianjun recalled how he had accepted Jiang Xiaxia's candy during the day in the courtyard yet failed to pass any along to the little rascal. Regret washed over him with the force of a tidal wave.

Looking at Jiang Jing with utmost sincerity, Wang Lianjun offered a suggestion, "Old Jiang, once you find the child, you really should give him a good thrashing! A child won't amount to anything without discipline!"

With a tight expression, Jiang Jing took the slip of paper. Written upon it was: "Sorry, I broke the car. Please ask Uncle Military to pay for it; he owes me a piece of candy!"

The tone sounded like Jiang Xiaxia's, but the handwriting...

Jiang Jing had reached the point where he had so many debts he no longer cared about them. He sluggishly handed the paper over to Xia Ming. "This handwriting belongs to your brother, right?"

His own Xiaxia wasn't capable of writing yet.

Xia Ming took a glance, closed his eyes in a headache-induced agony, and when he opened them again, he looked apologetically at Regiment Commander Lin. "I'm sorry, Commander, it's my fault for failing to discipline my brother properly. Where is the car broken? I'll pay for the damages!"

Jiang Jing opened his mouth to speak as well, but Regiment Commander Lin waved a hand to stop him. "Find the children first! Get going, both of you!"

The two men shouted a simultaneous assent and turned to stride out of the hospital.

Wang Lianjun followed a few steps behind, but suddenly remembering Regiment Commander Lin's expression from a moment earlier, he halted and scurried back to the commander's side to ask in a hushed voice, "Regiment Commander, just how badly is the car damaged?"

Maintaining a polite yet desperately restrained smile of suppressed rage, Regiment Commander Lin replied through gritted teeth, "The jeep's door handles are gone, and the chassis of the military truck has been completely dismantled!"

Recalling how the entire military district knew that afternoon about the little girl who lost control of her immense strength whenever she got hungry, Wang Lianjun silently saluted the commander and sprinted off in the direction Jiang Jing had taken.

Old Jiang, he thought, you really cannot afford to delay educating Xiaxia anymore!

Watching them leave, the guard couldn't help but ask, "Regiment Commander, are we really going to make them pay for it?"

"Pay my foot! What could they possibly afford to compensate?" Regiment Commander Lin let out a cold scoff. "Go back and make a phone call to that fellow Bai; the debts incurred by the soldiers under his command should naturally be paid by him!"

Over at a certain military district command post, Bai Chu—who had just received the good news that the children were safe and was happily preparing to report the joyous tidings to the old leader—suddenly sneezed violently.

"Why do I suddenly feel a chill down my spine?"