I Became a Rich Heir in a Novel and Saved the Female Lead - Chapter 5:

Chapter 5: The Culprits

Aside from a few abrasions and burns she had suffered in the warehouse, Lin Wansu’s arms were covered with bruises of varying severity. Several older injuries had already begun turning yellow, making it obvious that they hadn’t been inflicted tonight.

Dr. Zhou’s brows visibly furrowed when she saw them.

Dr. Zhou asked, “Did you get these injuries in the fire too?”

Lin Wansu instinctively pulled her arm back.

Lin Wansu replied softly, “I accidentally fell.”

Standing nearby, Chen Xu’s gaze gradually turned cold.

That excuse could only fool Lin Wansu herself. Anyone who wasn’t an idiot could tell those injuries couldn’t possibly have come from a fall.

‘How long have those bullies been tormenting her?’

Chen Xu didn’t question her about it now, but he firmly committed the matter to memory.

Another doctor finally couldn’t hold back any longer. He walked over to Chen Xu, pointed at his charred back, and said with a grave expression, “Young Master, your injuries aren’t minor either. They need to be treated immediately!”

Chen Xu waved his hand.

Chen Xu replied, “Wait until she’s finished with her examination.”

Dr. Zhou turned toward him and firmly said, “It can’t wait. You have burns on your back, and the wounds are contaminated with wood fragments and ash. The longer we delay treatment, the greater the risk of infection.”

Chen Xu said, “I don’t really feel anything.”

Dr. Zhou replied, “That’s because the adrenaline hasn’t completely worn off yet.”

She gestured toward a treatment chair nearby.

Dr. Zhou ordered, “Sit down.”

Chen Xu suddenly realized something.

Although his previous life hadn’t been nearly as miserable as the lives of Lin Wansu and her sister, he had still been nothing more than an ordinary worker struggling at the bottom of society.

In a way, his mentality had been similar to Lin Wansu’s. Even when his own life was difficult, he instinctively considered everyone else before himself. He was always afraid of inconveniencing others, and whenever he suffered, he simply swallowed the pain and kept it to himself.

But his identity was different now.

He was an extremely wealthy second-generation heir and the successor to a fortune worth billions. With his current status, refusing to trouble others would only end up causing them even more trouble.

Realizing this, Chen Xu obediently sat in the treatment chair.

Another female nurse took a pair of medical scissors and cut open his charred, damaged shirt from behind.

When the fabric separated from his skin, it lightly tugged at the areas where it had stuck to the wounds.

Chen Xu sharply inhaled from the pain.

Chen Xu hissed, “Hiss…”

Lin Wansu immediately looked over.

Through her oxygen mask, she saw the large patches of reddened skin across Chen Xu’s back, as well as the dark bruising left behind by the falling doorframe.

Her eyes instantly turned red again.

Chen Xu noticed her staring and said irritably, “Don’t look. Staring at it won’t let you take the pain for me.”

Lin Wansu didn’t look away.

She watched as the nurse rinsed Chen Xu’s wounds with saline solution, slowly washing away the gray-black grime embedded in them.

Her heart felt as though countless needles were piercing it.

Those injuries should have been hers.

Chen Xu had held her tightly in his arms and shielded her with his own body.

If he hadn’t been there, she might already be dead.

As Lin Wansu thought about it, tears once again slipped uncontrollably from the corners of her eyes.

A thin layer of mist soon formed inside her oxygen mask.

Chen Xu happened to turn his head and saw her crying again.

Chen Xu asked, “Why are you crying again?”

Lin Wansu shook her head.

Lin Wansu whispered, “I just… feel like it hurts.”

Chen Xu immediately asked, “Where does it hurt?”

Lin Wansu replied, “It doesn’t hurt anywhere.”

She looked at the exposed wounds on Chen Xu’s back, her voice trembling.

Lin Wansu continued, “I mean… it hurts seeing you in pain.”

Chen Xu froze.

Even the nurse’s hands paused slightly. Then, as though she hadn’t heard anything, she lowered her head and continued cleaning his wounds.

For some inexplicable reason, Chen Xu felt the tips of his ears growing warm.

Throughout his entire life, no girl had ever cried because she couldn’t bear to see him injured.

It was a strange feeling.

His back was still burning with pain, yet somehow, the frustration in his heart seemed to fade.

Chen Xu deliberately hardened his expression and said, “They’re only superficial injuries. They’ll heal in a few days. If you keep crying and your blood oxygen level drops again, the doctor will have to examine you all over again.”

Lin Wansu had no idea whether he was telling the truth, but she immediately tried her hardest to hold back her tears.

However, her moist eyes remained fixed on him.

Her gaze made Chen Xu uncomfortable all over, so he could only turn toward Dr. Zhou and ask, “There’s nothing seriously wrong with her, right?”

Dr. Zhou answered, “We can’t be certain until the examination results come back, but judging from her current condition, she probably hasn’t suffered any severe burns to her airway.”

As she spoke, Dr. Zhou instructed a nurse to bring over a mobile examination bed.

Dr. Zhou continued, “Take Miss Lin for a more detailed full-body examination first.”

As Lin Wansu was wheeled into the adjacent room, her gaze remained fixed on Chen Xu.

Only when the automatic doors slowly closed and completely separated them did she finally look away.

Meanwhile, less than 1 kilometer from Linjiang No. 1 High School, several girls were crowded together in an alley behind a convenience store.

Several garbage bins were piled along the alley, filling the air with the sour stench of rotting food waste.

However, none of them had the slightest desire to complain about the smell.

He Man clutched her phone tightly, her expression so ugly that it looked as though she had just swallowed several flies.

She was wearing a white Chanel tweed jacket, but it was now covered in patches of dust, with a black stain smeared across the hem. Her carefully styled long hair had also become a complete mess.

Normally, she loved strutting around with several followers behind her, acting as though no one dared challenge her.

Now, however, her entire body was trembling uncontrollably.

He Man asked anxiously, “What are we supposed to do now?”

A short-haired girl in a skirt leaned against the wall, her voice already close to tears.

The short-haired girl asked, “Do you think Lin Wansu has already burned to death?”

He Man suddenly glared at her.

He Man snapped, “Shut up. Keep your voice down. Do you want everyone to hear you?”

The short-haired girl cried, “But if someone really died, we’ll go to prison!”

He Man retorted, “We didn’t start the fire!”

Her voice suddenly rose before she realized what she was doing and immediately lowered it again.

He Man continued, “We only locked her inside for a while as a joke. Who could’ve known the warehouse would suddenly catch fire?”

A curly-haired girl beside them had gone deathly pale.

The curly-haired girl said, “You’re the one who told someone to buy the lock, and you’re also the one who said we should keep her locked inside until morning.”

He Man turned and stared fiercely at her.

He Man demanded, “Li Li, what are you trying to say? Are you trying to push all the blame onto me now?”

Li Li hurriedly replied, “I’m not. I was just…”

The short-haired girl suddenly shouted, “Stop arguing!”

She crouched beside the garbage bins with both hands wrapped around her head, her entire body trembling.

The short-haired girl continued, “When I went back to check just now, I think someone was smashing the door. I also heard someone shouting Lin Wansu’s name. The door seemed to open afterward. Could someone have already rescued her?”

Li Li suddenly looked at the short-haired girl as though she had grasped her last hope.

Li Li asked urgently, “She was rescued? Are you sure the door was open? Did someone take Lin Wansu away?”

The short-haired girl shook her head frantically.

The short-haired girl replied, “I don’t know. He Man and I went there together. There was too much smoke, so we didn’t dare get close. We only saw that the door was open. Then there was an explosion inside the warehouse. It scared us, so we left.”

He Man immediately seized on those words, seemingly trying to convince both the others and herself.

He Man insisted, “She definitely isn’t dead. As long as she’s alive, this isn’t a big deal. At worst, they’ll say some classmates had a disagreement or played a prank. We didn’t start the fire anyway.”

Li Li said uneasily, “But we locked her inside.”

He Man countered, “So what if the door was locked? Who can prove that we’re the ones who put the lock there?”

Forcing herself to calm down, He Man took out her phone and checked the time.

He Man instructed, “Starting now, none of you are allowed to contact Lin Wansu. Don’t mention this in the group chat either. If anyone asks tomorrow, say we spent the entire night outside having fun and never went to the school.”

Li Li’s lips had turned pale.

Li Li quietly asked, “Then what about our previous chat history?”

He Man snapped, “Do you even need to ask? Delete it!”

Li Li hesitated, “But deleted chat records can still be recovered…”

He Man abruptly turned toward her.

He Man demanded, “Then what do you want us to do? Go turn ourselves in right now? Tell the police that we locked Lin Wansu inside the warehouse and burned her to death?”

Li Li was frightened into silence.

The girls fell quiet.

Only the steady hum of the convenience store’s outdoor air-conditioning unit remained in the back alley.

The short-haired girl kept her head lowered, her hands still tightly clutching her head.

Her name was Zhang Xiaoyu.

She had never been particularly brave, and her family background was fairly ordinary. She couldn’t compare to a wealthy young lady like He Man.

In the past, she had followed He Man in bullying Lin Wansu simply because she was afraid of not fitting in. She feared that if she didn’t join them, the others would exclude her instead.

This wasn’t the first time Zhang Xiaoyu had participated in bullying Lin Wansu alongside He Man and the others.

But tonight was different.

For the first time, not only Zhang Xiaoyu but everyone present truly felt afraid.

They had locked a living person inside a burning warehouse.

‘What if no one went inside to save Lin Wansu?’

‘What if Lin Wansu had already burned to death before the door was opened?’

They didn’t even dare consider the worst possibility.

‘What if someone really did rush inside to save Lin Wansu, but neither of them managed to come back out?’

None of them wanted to admit it, but objectively speaking, even the least severe possibility could leave them facing criminal responsibility for someone’s death.

They had already graduated from high school.

They were adults, not minors.

If something truly happened, they could really go to prison.

Images of the flames inside the warehouse kept flashing through Zhang Xiaoyu’s mind. She could almost still smell the acrid smoke.

Suddenly, she remembered Lin Wansu’s helpless pleas while they beat her and tore at her clothes inside the warehouse.

She remembered how they had laughed and joked while locking the warehouse door, even as Lin Wansu cried and desperately pounded against it from inside.

At the time, none of them had cared.

Instead, her desperate cries had only made them more excited.

The college entrance examination was already over.

Soon, everyone would go their separate ways.

Everything had been about to end.

‘Then why?’

‘Why did I have to cause such a terrible disaster at the very last moment?’