It was late in the evening when Nie Mingjue was still out on one side of the house. He was doing his usual evening inspection walk around the neighbourhood when he heard his son call out.
"Dad! ... Dad!" Lan Zhan cried when he was close to the house.
Nie Mingjue immediately rushed to the front of the house, and when he saw Lan Zhan, he ran to him.
"Lan Zhan! God, .. son, what's going on...-" said Nie Mingjue worriedly, but his voice trailed off when he saw that there was someone in Lan Zhan's arms.
"Who is he? What happened to him?" asked Nie Mingjue in shock, but Lan Zhan just looked at him in despair.
"Please just help him now. He's hurt and he's not in good condition." Lan Zhan pleaded with the elderly alpha.
"Take him into the living room immediately." Nie Mingjue ordered, then ran to the door and opened it.
After Lan Zhan went through the door, he walked towards the living room. Nie Mingjue also went inside, then closed and locked the door. He followed Lan Zhan. As soon as he entered the living room, he immediately instructed his son what to do.
"Bring me some wet wipes, and then some bandages and antiseptic."
Lan Zhan hurriedly went to the kitchen. Nie Mingjue stepped over to the sofa where Lan Zhan had laid the unconscious omega and took a closer look at him. Wei Ying's face was pale, there were drops of sweat on his forehead and despite the warmth of the cloak, he was again shivering a little. Nie Mingjue put his hand on Wei Ying's forehead. The feel of the alpha's slightly cold hand elicited a small sigh of relief from the omega. The old alpha was worried about the omega's body heat.
"How can you be so feverish at such a young age? What could have happened to you?" asked Nie Mingjue quietly as he looked at Wei Ying.
The moment Nie Mingjue removed his hand from Wei Ying's forehead, Lan Zhan returned to him, holding several cold water-wetted shawls in his hands. Nie Mingjue took them all out of his hand and placed one of them on the omega's forehead first. Meanwhile, Lan Zhan left the room again, but this time he went to the bathroom for the wound cleanser and disinfectant and bandages.
Nie Mingjue was about to wrap the other two shawls around the omega's wrists, but then stopped as soon as he learned another detail about the omega's condition. When Lan Zhan went back into the living room, Nie Mingjue immediately turned to him questioningly and nervously.
"What's this?" - asked Nie Mingjue, holding one of the omega's bruised and slightly bloody hands in his hands. - "Tell me you didn't cause him, Lan Zhan."
"No, no. I didn't do this to him, the alphas who kidnapped him did. They tied his hands too tightly, from which he was trying to free himself." replied Lan Zhan.
Nie Mingjue said nothing in reply, but turned back to the omega.
"Is he wounded somewhere else?" asked Nie Mingjue, in a slightly tired, slightly sad voice.
"Unfortunately, yes. .. There is also a wound on one of his legs." said Lan Zhan.
Nie Mingjue handed the wet wipes to Lan Zhan and took the wound cleanser and antiseptic from him. He cleaned and bandaged Wei Ying's wrists first, and then his feet. As soon as he was done, he let out a small sigh of relief.
"Dad, .. do you think this will be enough?" asked Lan Zhan doubtfully.
"For now? I'm hoping that these will help his condition a little. But until he wakes up, there's nothing more we can do." said the alpha hopefully as he looked at Wei Ying, then turned to Lan Zhan, who was standing patiently beside him.
"Now take him upstairs, to one of the rooms. He will need peace and quiet to recover and rest." the elderly alpha instructed.
Lan Zhan just nodded, then took the thin omega in his arms again and started up the stairs. He went into one of the empty rooms and laid Wei Ying down on the bed. He did this carefully because he didn't want to wake the omega.
Lan Zhan was covering him up when he heard Nie Mingjue stop at the door.
"When you're done, come out and let him rest." Nie Mingjue instructed, then turned and walked down the stairs.
Lan Zhan stood up wordlessly and spread his cloak down at the end of the bed. As he suspected that his scent had a calming effect on omega, he left it for him. He walked out of the room, but before he closed the door, he took one last look at the omega resting in the bed.
Lan Zhan had just reached the bottom of the stairs when Nie Mingjue grabbed him by the arm. The elderly alpha nervously dragged Lan Zhan along the corridor to the back door. As soon as they stepped out into the courtyard, Nie Mingjue let go of him, closed the door and immediately glared at Lan Zhan.
"Now you can start explaining to me what you have done again? Who is he and what happened to him? Or why did you bring him here and not to the healer? ... What harm have you done?"
"I'll start by saying that this time, for once, I didn't do anything wrong. I was protecting someone who couldn't protect himself. He was alone, weak and vulnerable, against 5 sick-minded, strong alphas. ...I think you can guess what happened to them after I found them, right?" said Lan Zhan honestly.
"Oh, my God ..." said Nie Mingjue, then put his hand to his forehead.
Nie Mingjue knew from this how events had ended for the alphas. That night was not the first time he had learned that Lan Zhan had been involved in a fight with one or more alphas.
Lan Zhan had changed only a few years ago and had become known as a feral alpha or a dark hunter. The packs already knew him well, and most of them were afraid of him. But even so, there were a few exceptions who, despite the rumours, did not back down and were not afraid of him; among them was Jiang Cheng, and one or two exceptional alphas.
"But you did pay attention to which pack those alphas belonged to, .. didn't you?" asked Nie Mingjue after a pause.
Lan Zhan didn't speak this time.
"I asked you a question, ... son! Then answer me!" said the old alpha loudly.
"No. ... I didn't. But to be honest, I don't care. I don't care who they were. They wanted to hurt a defenseless omega... on my territory! And you know what happens to people who go in there without permission. ... They all have to pay."
Nie Mingjue's gaze hardened. He came closer to his son.
"But what about the poor omega you brought here, my son? Because if I think he also entered your territory without permission, .. so now he's going to have to pay you too?" the elderly alpha asked honestly, telling the truth in his son's face.
Nie Mingjue looked nervously at his son. It was easy to read in his eyes that he would not accept a wrong answer or an answer he did not like.
"No. Of course not. ..." - said Lan Zhan. - "He's the exception to that. He will never be my debtor. ... But someone else is still..."
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