Castle of Black Iron

The chirping of birds outside the window woke Zhang Tie up. When he opened his eyes, he saw a cozy beige ceiling. A snow white quilt was covering him. Smelling the familiarly sterile environment, Zhang Tie immediately understood where he was.

He was lying in a hospital!

The moment Zhang Tie wanted to sit up by supporting himself with his hands, the pain on his left shoulder and abdomen made him grit his teeth at once, which reminded him of the two bolts before he fell to the ground at school.

'F*ck!'

Zhang Tie winced as he swore.

The wound on his abdomen was not very painful. In contrast, he was much more pained by the hollow where his chest connected with his shoulder.

Opening his quilt, Zhang Tie took a look at his body. Previously he felt excited about not having to be a mummy anymore, unexpectedly, he was now wrapped in even more gauze than last time.

'Is this the aftermath of the nickname Mummy?'

It was sunny outside the room. Hearing birds twittering and smelling flowers' fragrance, Zhang Tie got off the bed and walked close to the windowsill. Opening the window, he watched the scenery outside and took a deep breath.

Below was the hospital's garden. The scenery there was very good. Standing by the window, Zhang Tie judged the shapes of the buildings outside the garden and immediately knew where he was in—the Holy Brilliance Hospital of Blackhot City.

He had not imagined that he could ever stay in the best hospital of Blackhot City, seemingly placed in the senior individuals' ICU ward.

Zhang Tie mocked himself, 'The treatment of a military officer of the Norman Empire is really not bad.'

Seeing sunshine outside the window, while he was wrapped with gauze and bandages, Zhang Tie stretched out his hand to touch the warm sun's light. Feeling very happy, he closed his eyes.

Not until now when he sensed the warmth of the sunshine outside the window did he get rid of the last remnants of the terrifying poison.

It was a very horrible feeling, being stiff and cold. He had felt his blood and muscles freezing into ice from the toes to his tongue. It felt like his body no longer belonged to him. His physical body seemed to disappear, turning into ashes that scattered away, and left him no feeling anymore.

During that period, Zhang Tie thought that he would definitely die. A poison with such a quick-acting effect was obviously numerous times stronger than the greater rat poison in Donder's grocery store. It had taken less than five seconds for him to lose his senses after being shot by the bolts.

Thinking back to that feeling, Zhang Tie's heart pounded even now.

...

After standing close to the windowsill for less than two minutes, the door of the ward was pushed open, and a nurse entered. She seemed to have come to change fresh dressing for his wounds.

At the sight of Zhang Tie standing close to the window, she was really shocked and screamed out, 'Aaahh!'

The moment the nurse screamed, four soldiers in dark-red military uniforms rushed in.

"You woke up, sir?" a soldier asked with his eyes popping out.

"Did I sleep very long? What's the date today?" Zhang Tie asked.

"Today is August 11th, you've slept for two days, sir!"

...

Only a bit more than ten minutes later, Colonel Leibniz and a large group of military officers from the Iron-Blood Camp got the news. Everybody then hurriedly arrived at the hospital and poured into Zhang Tie's ward.

Seeing Zhang Tie awake, everybody let out a sigh.

By now, Zhang Tie had already learned the name of the poison - blue frost. In addition, he found out about some of the things that had happened in Blackhot City during the past two days.

The Iron-Blood Camp had set out to surround the fortress of Gregorian family because of the assassination. They wanted to take revenge for him, which greatly moved Zhang Tie.

A manager and a guard leader of Gregorian family in Blackhot City were arrested. The manager was responsible for watching the family's arsenal while the guard leader was the superior of Glaze's dad. Glaze's dad had stolen the crossbow and the bolts out of Gregorian family's arsenal to assassinate Zhang Tie, yet, those two people didn't even know about it.

Therefore, the two people were taken as scapegoats so as to relieve the fury of the Iron-Blood Camp.

Sodor was also arrested along with the two people. He had requested a duel with Zhang Tie, who was then assassinated at school. Nobody knew whether Sodor and Glaze's dad were accomplices or not; one in the open, the other hidden. So after Zhang Tie was attacked by Glaze's dad, Sodor was immediately put behind bars. Through interrogations, Sodor 'finally admitted' that he had 'contacted' Glaze's dad after hearing that Glaze had not returned, and they then discussed ways to kill Zhang Tie.

After admitting his conspiracy with Glaze's dad, Sodor died in prison due to severe wounds, and all the details concerning Zhang Tie's assassination were revealed to the public.

After 'admitting' his guilt, Sodor helped Gregorian family out of the name of 'main instigator of the assassination'. Of course, nobody cared whether this small figure was alive or dead at this time.

Zhang Tie sighed inside. No matter whether Sodor was involved in this event or not, it had already came to an end. Since Sodor had died, it wasn't necessary to look further for guilty parties.

In this case, Zhang Tie didn't feel wronged for being shot by the two bolts. Although there was no evidence that he had killed Glaze, Glaze's dad was sure that Zhang Tie had done it. Then how to deal with it?

He could only blame himself for being careless as he had regarded the Glaze thing way too simple. He had thought that nobody would find him trouble if there was no evidence. However, he had not realized that in this world, sometimes, someone would not need any evidence to do something once they had made up their mind.

'Glaze's dad must have thought it would not be a loss for him even if he and me both died in this fight. It's right for him to take revenge for his son.'

Even now, Zhang Tie didn't hate Glaze's dad at all, even if he had killed him. He might have been a good father, but he had brought up a bastard son.

The only ones wronged in this case were Sodor and the Gregorian family. They were the 'two pitiful fish involved after the city gate caught on fire'. But one was a crocodile while the other was not even a tadpole, merely a plankton. Since the crocodile was in trouble, that plankton then became the scapegoat.

This was the game rule of this world. Like Donder had said, there were always similar cases in this world: when the rich were in trouble, the poor would be screwed.

The cause of the entire thing was Glaze, though. Zhang Tie reflected on the innocent method he had used to deal with with Glaze. Only the underprivileged side required evidence to comfort themselves and seek for sympathy and support, while for the privileged it was actually bullsh*t and needless.

What evidence was used for the Norman Empire to incorporate Blackhot City? What evidence was used for a lion to eat a hare? What evidence was used for a dauntless man to seek revenge? What evidence was used for big figures to decide the life and death of tens of millions of people?

The mindset that Zhang Tie had formed as an underprivileged person had almost killed him this time.

What a really powerful man would have done if they had been in the same situation? They would have definitely come back to Blackhot City and sought for a chance to kill Glaze's dad so as to eliminate this threat in its sprouting stage in case of being further screwed.

Naive, naive, too naive! Because of this event, Zhang Tie immediately became more broad-minded, and his mentality greatly improved. He grew up a bit more.

The other benefit of this event was that the others finally believed that he was suffering from Post-Lightning Stroke Savant Syndrome. Previously, they had still doubted whether Zhang Tie was struck by a lighting bolt or not, but now everybody were assured of it as they had all witnessed Zhang Tie surviving the blue frost without receiving any antidote.

If it was revealed to the public, everyone would be very shocked. If it was not for the lightning strike that had changed his physical structure and tapped his mysterious physical potential, how could he have picked his life back up?

The first batch of people who poured in to visit Zhang Tie started to be interested in the lightning bolt around the end of the conversation. They asked questions including when he was struck by that lightning bolt, at which place, the size of the lightning bolt, his physical condition at that moment, which part of him was struck, and all sorts of other weird questions. Everyone was asking it very seriously, and even Colonel Leibniz started to show his interest in it.

Having been well prepared for this, of course Zhang Tie could reply to all of them well. If anybody wanted to verify it, they could definitely find the evidence of a lightning bolt strike beside a big tree on the hillside not too long ago, of which Zhang Tie told them about. Unless someone was able to date back to the previous strike, nobody would find any leakage in Zhang Tie's lies.

...

"You can take a good rest now. The doctor said that you'll need a month to recover. So I'll give you one month's holiday, during which you don't need to go back to the camp. You can return when you completely recover!"

Colonel Leibniz straight away gave Zhang Tie a long holiday.

He had been in a very good mood the last couple of days. After perfectly solving this event, he would even laugh out loudly to himself in the evening whenever he thought of Gregorian family's sincerity. Because of this event, Colonel Leibniz found that Zhang Tie was certainly his lucky angel, and so he started to pay more attention to him. The boy could not only bring him continual good luck in Nordinburg, but also in Blackhot City.

Colonel Leibniz started to feel that it was his wisest decision to recruit Zhang Tie into his division.

Seeing Zhang Tie awake, Colonel Leibniz finally ordered the security guards to leave. After the military officers of No. 39 Division left, those guys who had been waiting outside the ward, forbidden to enter, now started to pour inside.

All of them were waiting outside the ward by turns for news about Zhang Tie.

Zhang Tie noticed that Leit, Doug, his elder brother, Beverly, and Wood all looked a bit fatigued. It seemed that they hadn't rested well the past two days, especially his elder brother. Although he strove to act lively, his fatigue was immediately caught by Zhang Tie's eyes. Though, it was more a spiritual fatigue than a physical one.

After seeing Zhang Yang's red eyes, Zhang Tie asked first, "Does dad and mom know about what happened to me?"

Zhang Tie was most worried about his dad and mom, if they had learned about what had happened to him a couple days ago.

"At the beginning, I didn't dare to tell them. I just said that after you left that man alive, you returned to the military camp. Because of the great amount of people at school, there was turmoil, but you didn't even lose a hair. Later on, when I found out that you had a chance to recover, I didn't dare to tell them either.

"So they still don't know about it. Although dad heard some uncertain gossip outside and asked about you last night out of suspicion, mom also starting to become dubious, I pacified both of them. If you're feeling better, you'd better go back home to comfort them. Even if you don't come inside, it will also work if you just greet mom from outside the door!"

Hearing that his elder brother had lied to their parents for two days, Zhang Tie finally let out a sigh. Since few people had witnessed him getting assassinated, and soon after the school campus had turned into chaos, there were all sorts of gossip flying about. It quickly spread outside the school gate, and because the Gregorian family was involved, it further evolved into more varieties.

Due to his elder brother intentionally hiding it, Zhang Tie hadn't made his parents worry about him. This was the most lucky thing out of the great misfortune.

...

No matter what, as he had a great amount of time left, Zhang Tie first chatted with Leit and Wood and comforted the others. Then he let them go back and have a good rest. He also asked them to tell the other members of the Hit-Plane Brotherhood that he was fine. After that, Zhang Tie cast his eyes onto Alice, who kept watching him without saying anything since she entered the room.

Seeing this, others voluntarily walked out of the ward. At the sight of Alice's red and swollen eyes, Zhang Tie smiled and showed his muscles using his right arm that could still freely move.

Alice's eyes immediately teared up. She walked over and carefully embraced Zhang Tie for two whole minutes, afraid of hurting him. She kept dropping tears on Zhang Tie's undulating chest without saying anything.

Zhang Tie was really scared by this and hurriedly helped Alice to wipe off her tears. "I'm sorry to have frightened you that day. I know it wasn't good to kill a person in front of you. It was a bit bloody..."

Seeing her man still worrying about frightening her that day, Alice just shook her head, tears coming down her cheeks in a greater torrent.

"What are you crying for?" Zhang Tie was pained by her sorrowful visage and started to kiss away her tears. "You must have not slept well these two days!"

"They all say that you had realized it at that time. If you had chosen to avoid the bolts, they would have never hit you. But because we were standing in front of you, you decided to protect us by pushing us away at the cost of your life. You then used your own body to face the bolts, didn't you?" Alice held Zhang Tie's face between her hands, her tearful eyes filled with deep love fixed on him. "Why were you so foolish?"

Zhang Tie giggled, not knowing what to say. It had been just his instinctive response at that moment; he hadn't thought that much about it. He only felt that it was not right for Alice, Beverly, and Pandora to face danger when he was still standing alive. This was especially so now, when he knew that the bolts had been quenched in blue frost.

Zhang Tie started to really feel that he had made the right choice. Thankfully, the two bolts were shot at him...

"To tell the truth, I only feel very happy now; thankfully, the two bolts were shot at me! If they had hit you, I wouldn't know how to face that. I cannot imagine what I would do if you lay there and would never wake up again because of me. I might have been driven mad by it..."

Right now, they actually didn't need to say anything. Alice moved her lips closer to Zhang Tie and started to kiss him. Today, she even wanted to engulf him whole.