Chapter 849 — Yu Xiaoke, Melancholy Ke?

The minds of Zhong Yongliang and Gao Xiaofu had both grown deep and brooding. They were no longer the reckless hotheads who wore their grudges on their faces and charged head-on at their enemies. They had learned to use intrigue and stratagem...

An Jianwen had assumed that a common private clinic would find a kidney transplant quite difficult, but once he saw the scale of this clinic, he set that worry aside. The place was really not small at all; it could even perform ordinary appendectomies and gallbladder removals, so swapping out a kidney should be nothing to it.

Zhong Yongliang put on a show of sighing and groaning as he exchanged pleasantries with An Jianwen, then, propped up by Gao Xiaofu, walked into the operating room and lay down on the bed.

The doctor first injected An Jianwen with anesthetic. Then, so that An Jianwen would not grow suspicious, he made a show of giving Zhong Yongliang a shot of "anesthetic" as well. In truth, An Jianwen really was being extremely careful this time. They had cut out the wrong kidney last time, so naturally he would be more attentive now.

It was not that he thought Zhong Yongliang might cheat him, because he had never doubted Zhong Yongliang at all. What use would Zhong Yongliang have for a rejecting kidney? So since Zhong Yongliang had promised to give him his kidney back, An Jianwen did not overthink the matter. He was merely a little uneasy about the doctor's technique.

After a while drowsiness stole over him, and An Jianwen drifted hazily into sleep. Meanwhile Zhong Yongliang, who ought likewise to have been asleep, suddenly sat bolt upright on the bed, climbed down, glanced at the sleeping An Jianwen, spat a thick glob of phlegm onto the floor in hatred, and then shouted toward the operating prep room: "Xiaofu, open the door and let the dog in!"

"You got it, Brother Liang!" Gao Xiaofu wheeled over an operating cart, and on that cart lay a big black dog, already anesthetized.

"Doctor Zhang, I'll leave this to you, then!" Gao Xiaofu said with a smile to the chief surgeon.

"Don't worry, no problem! A human kidney, I wouldn't dare transplant, but a dog kidney is no trouble at all. If it goes wrong, no harm done anyway, right?" Doctor Zhang asked with a nod.

"No harm at all. If it kills him, so much the better," Zhong Yongliang said carelessly.

The rest was left to Doctor Zhang, while Zhong Yongliang and Gao Xiaofu took their leave first.

Yu Xiaoke had been quite gloomy these days, almost ready to change her name to Melancholy Ke. Qibing Real Estate Company wanted to demolish the orphanage, and she had yet to think of any good countermeasure—while her source of income had been cut off first. The city's special campaign against theft and criminal offenses was in full swing, and when Yu Xiaoke took a turn outside she found plainclothes police patrolling every few steps, leaving her no chance to make a move at all.

And to commit a crime in the teeth of such a crackdown was no different from courting death. Though what she had done was not enough for Qiu Lingshan to issue a wanted notice for her, who could say whether Qiu Lingshan had described her looks to her subordinates? If she were skulking about and got recognized, what then?

Still, she could not simply stop going out to earn money. The orphanage's daily expenses were visibly mounting, and at this rate they would be eating into their savings. Melancholy Ke saw it with her own eyes and fretted in her heart.

"Xiaoke, what are you doing? Pacing back and forth in the room until your master's eyes are dazzled and her head spins." Seeing Yu Xiaoke darting about like a headless fly, the old director could not help asking.

"Master, the police have begun their crackdown, so I can't go out to work..." Yu Xiaoke said with a sigh. "I have to think of something. It looks like I'll have to put out word and take on a few big jobs..."

"Ah, Xiaoke, you've truly had it hard..." The old director looked at Yu Xiaoke with a pained heart. "If it were not that your master cannot show her face in public, I would truly want to share some of your burden... You are only eighteen, just the age to enjoy your youth free of care, yet such a heavy load presses on you every day..."

"Master, saying that is treating me like an outsider. You treat me as you would a daughter—isn't it only right that I share your worries?" Yu Xiaoke did not feel she had it so hard. After all these years she had long since grown used to it, and now she was single-minded about earning a bit of money so that the orphanage children could all live well.

"Xiaoke, you're not so young anymore, are you? One of the greatest wishes of your master's life is to see you marry into a good family, to leave this bitter life behind for good and live out your own happy days..." the old director said suddenly, looking at Yu Xiaoke.

"Me? Marry? Ha, Master, don't joke..." Yu Xiaoke shook her head. "Who would dare have me? I'm a female thief—what decent man would dare marry me?"

"That hardly matters. If you don't tell anyone yourself, who else would know?" the old director said without concern. "Move somewhere else, live under a hidden name, and it's done..."

"Move somewhere else and hide my name? That won't do! Then what about the orphanage children? How could I just abandon them?" Yu Xiaoke shook her head vigorously. "So you see, whoever marries me has to shoulder the whole orphanage along with me... Ha, that being so, who would dare marry me? Even if I were as lovely as a fairy, it couldn't be, could it? And I'm no fairy..."

The old director sighed and said no more on the subject. Exactly what was in Yu Xiaoke's heart, the old director knew perfectly well: with the orphanage's troubles unresolved, how could she possibly be thinking about marriage? And if it were truly as Yu Xiaoke said—that marrying her meant supporting the orphanage as well—then it really did seem unlikely that anyone would dare marry Yu Xiaoke.

Yu Xiaoke was beautiful, but she had always run wild outside, swinging blades and brandishing spears, and she was a female flying thief besides. Which great household would want a girl like that? And if it were some small family instead, who could bear the burden of so vast an orphanage?

Then again, even if those great households were willing to take Yu Xiaoke, how could they possibly help her shoulder the dead weight of an orphanage? Rich as they were, they could not withstand such spending. The orphanage's expenses ran to over a million a year—and these days, how expensive everything was!

The old director shook her head and changed the subject: "You want to take jobs on the outside? Xiaoke, that will be dangerous. Jobs outside aren't so easy to come by. Although our Feiyan Sect also belongs to the world of thieves, compared with those people we are only petty pilferers..."