Me! A high-ranking official!

"When will Xiao Yan wake up?" He stared at his sister's face, which had regained some color, and asked in a deep voice.

He shook his head: "It's hard to say. The absorption of the medicine takes time; it can take a few hours if it's quick, or a day or two if it's slow."

Hearing this uncertain answer, Zhou Mingyuan's anger, which had just subsided, surged again. He turned his head, stared fiercely at Zhao Jianguo, and said with a hint of malice in his eyes, "If Xiao Yan doesn't wake up, or if he suffers any aftereffects, you just wait!"

Zhao Jianguo was not intimidated at all. Instead, he met his gaze and asked, "Does talking tough do you any good?"

Zhou Mingyuan's breath hitched.

Zhao Jianguo stood up and patted the wrinkles on his clothes: "Zhou Qingyan has just escaped death and will need my resources to protect her. If you provoke me now, it will only give you a momentary verbal satisfaction and will not benefit your Zhou family in the slightest."

These words were like a soft nail, leaving Zhou Mingyuan speechless. How could he, a deputy mayor, have been so utterly rendered powerless by a young man from the lower rungs of society?

Reason told him that Zhao Jianguo was absolutely right, and turning against him now would be the worst possible course of action. But for some reason, whenever he saw this kid's nonchalant and dismissive attitude towards the Zhou family, he couldn't help but feel a surge of anger rising within him.

The next day, Zhou Qingyan still showed no signs of opening her eyes.

In the corridor outside the emergency room, Zhou Mingyuan's eyes were bloodshot. He pushed a new card in front of Zhao Jianguo, his voice filled with deep exhaustion: "Here is one hundred million. I'm still figuring out how to get the rest."

Zhao Jianguo didn't say much, took it and put it away. The two of them stood outside the ward like two guardian deities until the morning of the third day.

Through the glass viewing window, the various indicators on the monitor were as stable as those of a normal person. Even the attending physician exclaimed in disbelief during rounds, but Zhou Qingyan still hadn't woken up.

Zhao Jianguo rubbed his stiff neck, feeling a pang of acid in his stomach. He glanced at Zhou Mingyuan, who was still staring blankly at his sister inside, then turned and left the inpatient department. He went to a breakfast stall outside the hospital and grabbed two fried dough sticks and a bowl of hot soy milk.

When he pushed open the ward door carrying the breakfast he had brought for Zhou Mingyuan, he suddenly stopped in his tracks.

The back of the hospital bed was rocked up slightly, and Zhou Qingyan had opened her eyes at some point. Her eyelids were half closed, and she was talking to Zhou Mingyuan by the bedside in a soft voice.

Hearing the door open, Zhou Mingyuan turned around and saw that it was Zhao Jianguo. His face, which was full of concern, instantly fell. He glanced at Zhao Jianguo with a complicated look in his eyes, but surprisingly, he did not say anything to shoo him away.

Hearing this, Zhou Qingyan turned her head slightly. She had obviously learned about the thrilling events of the past two days from her brother. Her pale face showed little relief at surviving the ordeal, and her gaze calmly fell on Zhao Jianguo.

"Thanks."

Her voice was a little hoarse, her tone still flat, without much emotional fluctuation, but it revealed a weak seriousness.

He walked over, placed the breakfast on the bedside table, and shrugged indifferently: "Don't thank me. You're lucky. I happened to have a family heirloom medicine on hand, which was exactly what you were looking for. That's how I pulled you back from the brink of death."

Zhou Qingyan gave him a deep look, but didn't delve into the truth of his words. She was severely exhausted, so she closed her eyes again. After a short while, she heard soft, even breathing again and fell asleep once more.

Seeing this, Zhao Jianguo turned to Zhou Mingyuan and said, "Now that he's awake, there's no point in me staying. There's a lot of work waiting for me in the village, so I'll be going now."

"No way!" Zhou Mingyuan instinctively refused, his brows furrowing. "Xiao Yan just woke up, her condition is still unstable. What if something goes wrong again..."

"I'm not a doctor." He interrupted him directly, his tone very realistic: "No matter what happens, I can't conjure up a second medicine to save her. Staying here would just be pointless. Anyway, under the noses of you experts, she's been completely brought back to life. The hospital is more professional than me in handling the rest."

Zhou Mingyuan opened his mouth, but found that he couldn't find a reason to refute it, so he could only shut his mouth in frustration.

He walked to the door, placed his hand on the doorknob, paused, and turned back to say, "Zhou Mingyuan, I have to remind you of something. Zhou Qingyan has only been in Linshui County for a little over a month, and her health has been deteriorating one after another. This time, she almost lost her life. If this gets out, it will have a bad political impact, both on the higher-ups and the lower-ups. The county is in a mess right now. With her in a long-term absence as the top leader, it's inevitable that some people will have other ideas. You'd better come up with a plan as soon as possible on how to arrange the work in the city and the county and how to quell the situation."

Zhou Mingyuan's face darkened, and he let out a cold snort from his nose as a response.

He ignored the arrogant deputy mayor and walked away.

He arrived with a police escort and an ambulance speeding along, but going back meant he would have to fend for himself. He took a taxi straight to the train station and bought the earliest ticket to Xinyang City.

The train swayed and rattled all the way, and I fell into a deep sleep leaning back in my seat, catching up on the sleep I'd missed from staying up late the past two days.

After arriving in Xinyang City, he went to the parking lot to retrieve the borrowed car, got into the driver's seat, closed the door, and took out the two anonymous bank cards from his inner pocket.

With a thought, the two cards vanished from his palm instantly. He closed his eyes, his consciousness sank, and he entered the treasure trove deep within his mind.

Opening the space of the Sumeru Mustard Seed, sure enough, the two cards were quietly floating in the storage compartment.

"Two hundred and thirty-six million, plus one hundred million today, that's three hundred and thirty-six million." He calculated the figures in his mind: "Add to that the nearly fifty million I've saved up over this period... it's almost four hundred million in total."

We are just one step away from filling the 500 million hole in the Great Rejuvenating Pill.

He opened his eyes, his fingers lightly tapping the steering wheel. He couldn't help but sigh inwardly. Zhou Mingyuan looked like he had nothing to lose, but he was actually quite wealthy. He could raise more than 200 million yuan in cash in just one hour, and then throw out another 100 million yuan the next day. This was definitely not normal salary income. Who knows how corrupt he was behind the scenes?

Moreover, less than 400 million is definitely not the limit for the Zhou family. Zhou Mingyuan promised that he would find a way to raise the remaining balance in the next few days, and raising 500 million should not be a problem.

Recalling his previous two dealings with Zhou Mingyuan, the other party always acted like a high-and-mighty, aloof, and arrogant official. Even when the incident happened last time, he was quite calm and restrained in the face of Zhou Qingyan's life and death. But this time, when his sister's life was hanging by a thread, he didn't even blink and spent hundreds of millions to save her.

It seems that, under the guise of power and interests, the bond between the siblings is far deeper than it appears on the surface.