Chapter 1288 — Stepping In to Save a Life

She had thought she could hold out until the end of the concert, yet the headache struck in the middle of it after all. The harder Xu Shilan tried to bring it under control quickly, the more frantic she grew, and the worse it hurt, until her eyes were stinging with tears.

"Xu Shilan?" Wei Zhao recognized her at last. This young woman, splashing her face with cold water and crying out in pain, was none other than the superstar Xu Shilan!

But shouldn't Xu Shilan be on stage right now? What had brought her here?

And by the look of her, something had gone wrong. Right -- Wei Zhao suddenly remembered: outside the restroom door he had heard Su Jiaonang on the phone with Zhao Qibing, and they had seemed to mention that Xu Shilan was suffering from some illness. Could it be this headache?

Thinking it through that way, Wei Zhao found it entirely plausible.

"Ah!" Hearing someone call her name, Xu Shilan started, lifted her head, and stared at Wei Zhao with a flicker of fear. She had bolted into the restroom to splash cold water on her face without ever once considering that someone might already be inside.

This was the restroom on the basement level; apart from the staff, no one else should have been here, and every member of the staff should have been busy seeing to the aftermath -- so how could anyone be in the restroom? Moreover, Xu Shilan had clearly never laid eyes on Wei Zhao before; he was a total stranger.

True, she could not possibly know every last person who worked for the company, but most of them were at least familiar faces, and they all wore matching ID badges. By every measure of dress and bearing, this man was no staff member.

"Who are you?" Xu Shilan asked, eyeing Wei Zhao warily.

"You have a headache?" Wei Zhao frowned. He had no wish to meddle in other people's business -- Wei Zhao was not a busybody. But what weighed on his mind was not whether Xu Shilan had a headache; it was what her headache would bring in its wake.

Since Xu Shilan had turned up here, the concert had certainly been interrupted; and if she did not recover, the show would have no choice but to end early. That was not an outcome Wei Zhao wanted to see.

Wei Zhao was not especially fond of Xu Shilan, and he had no particular stake in whether she went on singing -- but Feng Xiaoxiao cared very much indeed. She had been looking forward to this concert for a long, long time. How could Wei Zhao let her down?

Unlike everyone else, Feng Xiaoxiao now had one day fewer with every day that passed. Others who missed the concert today might feel a little regret; for Feng Xiaoxiao the regret would last forever -- she might never see a Xu Shilan concert again in this lifetime.

So that Feng Xiaoxiao could have one perfect, joyful day, Wei Zhao could not allow the concert to end early. There was no help for it: he would have to lend Xu Shilan a hand.

"What... what are you going to do?" Still wary of a stranger who had appeared in the restroom, she instinctively took two steps back -- but the skull-splitting pain left her legs unsteady, and after only those two steps a wave of dizziness overtook her, and she sank to the floor in a faint.

The only thought in Xu Shilan's mind before she blacked out was the urge to cry for help, but bolting off the stage and dashing down to the restroom had used up every last ounce of strength in her body, leaving her with nothing to spare.

Wei Zhao had not expected Xu Shilan to pass out before he could even open his mouth, and for a moment did not know whether to laugh or cry. Still, a rescue was a rescue; he walked to her side, thought nothing of appearances, caught hold of her wrist, and took her pulse.

"Oh?" Feeling Xu Shilan's pulse, Wei Zhao frowned at once. He reached over and lifted her eyelids, then examined her tongue, yet discovered nothing out of the ordinary -- and that gave him no small start of wonder.

Where, in heaven's name, did Xu Shilan's headache come from? He could indeed feel her pain, but for the moment he could not locate its cause. It was strange.

Nevertheless, Wei Zhao swiftly drew the silver needles he carried from his pocket, sterilized them with his qi, and set about treating Xu Shilan with acupuncture.

With practiced ease he inserted silver needles into the points of her chest, her head, her wrists and elsewhere; then, using hands charged with energy, he began to massage her head and chest.

"Mmnh..." Xu Shilan moaned and at last came to under the combined work of Wei Zhao's needles and his massage -- only to find, the instant her eyes opened, that a man had pinned her to the floor, one of his hands resting squarely on her chest.

"Scoundrel!" She came fully awake in a flash, struggling to shove Wei Zhao off and clamber to her feet.

"Hold still until I've taken the needles out." Wei Zhao frowned, and with rough hands sealed her acupoints so she could neither move nor cry out; then, unhurried and methodical, he began drawing the silver needles from her body one by one.

Xu Shilan's eyes went wide, her heart flooding with horror. She had no idea what Wei Zhao had done to her -- he seemed merely to have touched her here and there, yet now she could not move and could not call out. It was as though she had been given a shot of anesthetic: only her eyes and her thoughts remained under her control, while every other part of her body no longer seemed to be her own.

What in the world is this man trying to do?

The next instant, Xu Shilan watched Wei Zhao draw a bundle of silver needles from her body and stow them away in a small case; only when he had finished all of this did he again tap her here and there, returning her to normal.

"Ah--" The very moment she was restored, she cried out on instinct.

Wei Zhao had no choice but to clamp a hand over her mouth, frowning: "Idiot girl, stop squawking! If it weren't for my girlfriend wanting to see the concert, I couldn't be bothered to save you. Don't go imagining you're some great star -- you're miles short of my girlfriend's looks, and I have no interest in you whatsoever. Save yourself the flattery."

"Mmf -- mmf!" Burning with shame and fury, Xu Shilan tried to argue the instant she heard his words, but with her mouth clamped so brutally shut by Wei Zhao she could not produce a single sound.

"Hear me? If you understand, nod." Wei Zhao asked coldly.

Xu Shilan nodded at once. She was no fool, and by now she had recovered her earlier clarity; the skull-splitting pain had vanished as well -- it seemed her headache really had been cured by the man in front of her.

Still, he had cured her with just a few silver needles? And he had touched her chest. Earlier Xu Shilan had assumed Wei Zhao meant to assault her or take advantage of her, but now it looked as though she had misunderstood.

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