"What happened to Old Master Hua?"
Bruce stood by the bed, frowning hard.
The old man lay there asleep, his face pale and drained, white gauze wrapped around his head. He looked weak in a way that made Bruce's voice come out sharper than he intended.
Hua Lei's expression darkened.
"It was those bastards again. They came while I was out looking for work and hurt my father. That's why just now, when the door opened, I grabbed the bat..."
He glanced at Bruce and stopped there.
Bruce understood the rest without needing it said. If it had been those punks at the door instead of him, that bat would have come down full force.
"Why do they keep coming after you?"
Hua Lei looked both angry and regretful.
"A while back, I hit a boss at a construction site."
"Why?"
"He docked my pay and called us yellow pigs. I couldn't swallow it, so I hit him."
Bruce nodded slowly.
That explained enough.
"Do you and your father have permanent residency here?"
Hua Lei blinked.
"What's permanent residency?"
Bruce's mouth twitched.
He had already avoided asking directly about citizenship because he suspected the answer wouldn't be simple.
"Then how did you get here?"
"There was a man from my hometown working in England. Last year, when he came home for the New Year, he told us money was easy to make here, that one year's pay could be several times what we could earn back home. At first I didn't want to come. It was far, and I had family and work already. But then my kid got sick. Needed a lot of money for treatment. I couldn't come up with it. So my old man and I talked it over, and we came by boat together."
That clicked everything into place.
"No wonder. But when the police came to the restaurant that night, didn't you have IDs?"
"I got fake papers from somebody when I first arrived. I don't know what kind they were. He just told me if the police checked, I should show them."
Bruce let out a quiet breath.
That was one hell of a fake.
"So what illness does your child have?"
"Leukemia."
The grief on Hua Lei's face was impossible to miss.
Bruce softened his tone.
"Don't panic too much. Childhood leukemia has a pretty good survival rate if it's caught early and treated properly."
"The doctor said the same thing."
Hua Lei nodded, but the fear in his face didn't ease.
"How much are you still short?"
"Eighteen thousand."
He answered without hesitation.
Bruce gave a small nod, then glanced around the cramped apartment.
"I saw the restaurant on the way here. It's shut down now. What are you planning to do next?"
"My father said we can't stay in London anymore, not with those black punks around. So we've been getting ready to head north, to a place called Man... Man..."
"Manchester."
"Yeah, that's it. Manchester." Hua Lei smacked the back of his head in annoyance. "I can never remember these names."
Bruce looked him over properly then.
The man was over six foot three, broad across the shoulders, built like a wall.
"That night at the restaurant, you were pretty impressive. Did you train seriously?"
Hua Lei's posture changed at once. For the first time, a real trace of pride appeared on his face.
"Yeah. I'm from Cangzhou, back in Hebei. I was sick all the time as a kid, so my father had me apprentice under a village martial arts teacher. I trained for sixteen years and never really stopped."
Cangzhou. One of the most famous martial traditions in China.
Bruce knew the name.
"What style?"
"My teacher said our line comes down from Grandmaster Huo Diange. We practice Huo-style Bajiquan."
Bruce had seen enough novels and stories in his last life that both the name and the style were familiar to him.
"So how many men can you handle?"
Hua Lei scratched his head.
"I don't really know. When I left the school, my teacher told me Bajiquan hurts people badly once it's used for real, so unless there was no choice, I wasn't supposed to fight with it. But that night at the restaurant, when those bastards came in, I happened to get there in time. I dropped more than twenty of them pretty easily."
The pride in his voice wasn't arrogance. It was simple fact, spoken with the straightforwardness of someone who had never learned to brag elegantly.
Bruce looked at him thoughtfully.
Just then, a low groan came from the bed.
Old Master Hua stirred and slowly woke.
"Dad, you're awake? How do you feel?" Hua Lei hurried over at once.
The old man pushed himself up a little, then looked around in alarm.
"Those damned bastards didn't come back, did they?"
His voice held both anger and fear.
"Not this time," Hua Lei said. "Look who's here."
The old man's tired eyes landed on Bruce, and gratitude filled his face immediately.
"It's you, young man. Thank you again for what you did that night."
Bruce stepped closer and smiled.
"You don't need to thank me. We're from the same place. If we don't help each other out over here, who will?"
Then, after a brief pause, he decided to say what had just formed in his mind.
"Old Master Hua, Hua Lei told me why you came to England. I've been thinking about it. I can advance the money for your grandson's treatment."
Father and son both stared at him.
"You... you mean that?"
The old man's voice shook.
Bruce nodded.
"Absolutely."
The old man slapped Hua Lei's arm hard at once.
"Lei, hurry! Kneel and thank him properly!"
Hua Lei really was about to drop to his knees.
Bruce jumped in and caught him before he could.
"No, no, don't do that. Absolutely not."
Good thing he had an athlete's body, because it still took effort to stop a man built like Hua Lei from going down.
Looking at the father and son, Bruce felt more strongly than ever that they were the kind of people he could trust.
So he decided not to hide his real thinking.
"I'm helping you because I have my own reasons too. I grew up in the States. I'm doing all right for myself now, but I need someone dependable around me. I think Hua Lei is a good fit. I want him to stay with me as my bodyguard."
Then he raised a hand before they could react too strongly.
"And don't worry. I'm not trying to split you apart. Once I send the money over, you go back home first and get the child treated properly. After that, I'll arrange to bring your whole family over to America. I'll handle the residency side. As for money, the salary I can pay Hua Lei will be enough to make sure your whole family never has to worry about food or daily expenses."
The idea had only just taken shape in Bruce's mind, but the more he thought about it, the more right it felt.
Now that he had real money from the football bets, he had reached the point where he genuinely needed protection.
And Hua Lei fit the role almost too well.
He had the ability for it.
More importantly, he had the character for it.
The old man looked overwhelmed.
"Young man... I'm not sure I understood all of that. Can you say it again?"
Bruce simplified it.
"I want Hua Lei to work for me as protection."
The old man blinked.
"What's a bodyguard?"
Bruce nearly sighed.
Then he searched for a term they'd understand more easily.
"Like a personal security man. A guard."
That landed.
At once, both father and son looked like they finally understood.
"Then Lei's perfect for it!" the old man said proudly. "With that build and that kung fu, he was born for guard work!"
Matching his father's praise, Hua Lei straightened his chest and stood there trying to look especially imposing, though the hint of embarrassment on his face made it hard to take entirely seriously.
Bruce had to suppress a laugh.
"Old Master Hua, how are you feeling? Can you get up?"
"Yes, yes, I can."
The old man threw back the blanket and climbed off the bed surprisingly neatly. The moment his greatest worry had been lifted, a lot of his spirit had come back.
"Good. Then pack what you need. We'll get lunch somewhere first, and this afternoon I'll wire the money to your account back home. No reason to delay the child's treatment."
The old man's eyes immediately reddened.
"Thank you. My grandson's the only heir our family's got."
He was so emotional he looked ready to kneel too.
Bruce hurriedly caught him by the arm.
"Please don't. You're making me lose years off my life here."
After settling the two of them down and talking them through it, Bruce started helping them pack.
That was when the real trouble began.
Father and son clearly intended to take every usable thing in the apartment with them.
Pots, bowls, clothes, shoes, half-used bottles of soy sauce and vinegar, anything edible, anything functional, all of it.
In the end, Bruce had to spend a good while persuading them that most of it wouldn't make sense to drag along, especially if they'd be flying later. Even then, they still managed to fill two huge woven sacks with belongings.
What really got to him, though, was that after sorting everything, they still didn't waste what was left. Anything usable that they couldn't take, they handed out to neighbors who had helped them before.
Only after that was it finally done.
Luckily, since they had already been planning to leave, the rent was almost up anyway.
At least that saved Bruce one more negotiation.
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