Chapter 329 - Whose guardian are you?

Inside a car parked by a curb somewhere in Imperial City,

Han Ye looked at his phone for a second before putting it back into his phone. He glanced at the sleeping teenager sitting in the passenger seat. When the teenager reached up with a bandaged hand and tried to scratch the patch on his right eye, Han Ye immediately reached over to stop him. 

Xiao Zhihao did not protest. He merely mumbled something in his sleep before putting his arm down. It had been a long day for both of them, Xiao Zhihao especially, and he did not even have the energy to act like a child around Han Ye. 

Looking at the sleeping wounded teenager, Han Ye wondered how to break this to Xiao Lei later. 

When he found out that Xiao Lei was going for a dinner with President Wei, despite knowing that President Wei was a gentleman and that he wouldn't do anything to his actress, he still wanted to rush over and "join" them for the dinner. However, with Xiao Zhihao in this state, he couldn't just appear in front of her, at least not until he figured out a way to tell Xiao Lei. 

He did not actually take Xiao Zhihao out earlier. Well, unless one counted going to the hospital as an outing. 

...

About 5 hours earlier, Han Ye was in a board of directors' meeting with DX and the rest of the directors when he received a message from an unknown number. 

[Mr. Han, please come to Imperial High as soon as possible. This is with regard to student Xiao Zhihao.

[Regards, Principal of Imperial High.]

"Why would the principal text me?" Han Ye muttered to himself. 

Cough!

Han Ye looked up from his phone and saw that everyone was staring at him. That was when he realized that he was in the middle of a presentation and that he was the presenter. 

"I'm sorry..." he murmured. He thought about it for a while before asking, "This is kind of urgent. Excuse me..." 

He looked at DX, who raised a brow at him. However, in the end, DX nodded and said, "Might as well. I need to make a call. We will continue in 10 minutes." 

Once DX said so, Han Ye went out of the meeting room and went into his own office. He immediately gave the principal of Imperial High a call. The reason why he thought this to be weird was that he wasn't listed as Xiao Zhihao's primary emergency contact numbers. By protocol, the school should only call him if they couldn't get Xiao Lei and Lu Ziyan. 

He placed Lu Ziyan as the second after Xiao Lei because Han Ye figured that it would be best as the man worked from home most of the time, unlike him who had to attend multiple meetings every day. If there was an emergency, at the very least Lu Ziyan could help him handle it until he or Xiao Lei was free. 

When the call was connected, Han Ye immediately said, "Hello, this is Han Ye. Can you please transfer me to the principal's line?" 

"I'm sorry, sir, but whose guardian are you?" asked the principal's secretary. 

"Xiao Zhihao." 

There was a moment of silence before the secretary replied, "A moment please, Mr. Han." 

A few seconds later, Han Ye could hear a click, followed by an old man's voice, "Hello, Mr. Han."

"Principal."

"I'm sorry to bother you, but there's been trouble at Imperial High. Normally, we would call the guardians whose names were listed, but the boy insisted on calling you. And since student Tian Le said that it's alright, hence..."

"Why? Is something wrong? Is everything fine? Is Zhihao fine?" Han Ye asked with a worried expression as he stood up at his desk. 

"Erm, yes... No. Student Xiao Zhihao was involved in a fight, and it's a very serious fight." 

"I'll be right over!" Han Ye said and immediately hung up the call. He then picked up his stuff and went over to DX's room. 

Knock! Knock!

"Come in," DX said. 

When Han Ye walked in, he immediately said, "I need to take half a day off." 

DX, who was sitting at his desk and reading some work doc.u.ments, looked up at him, and with an eyebrow raised, he asked, "Did something happen to Xiao Lei, Zhihao, or Tian Le?" 

He did not ask about Han Ye because he trusted Han Ye to be responsible enough to deal with his own problems properly. And based on Han Ye's professionalism, he wouldn't ask for a sudden half-day off for himself. 

"Zhihao is involved in a fight. I'm going to take a look." 

DX leaned back in his chair, and after a moment of thought, he nodded. "Go on. I can take over the presentation from here."

"Thank you, Mr. President." Han Ye nodded back before leaving the room. He immediately left the office and drove to Imperial High. 

When he got to Imperial High, he was fast-tracked through security before arriving outside the principal's office. 

The moment he got there, he heard someone shouting, and from the voices, it sounded like there were a few people inside the principal's office.

The principal's secretary was about to open the door when Han Ye raised a hand to signal her to stop. 

"That little b*stard beat the shit out of my son! Look at the injury my poor son is in?!" yelled a woman.

A man's voice was heard saying angrily, "Who are his parents?! I'm telling you, I want them to be here right now!" 

Someone else was saying something, but it was inaudible, but not long after, there was something that sounded like things being toppled over, and Han Ye could hear the principal shouting worriedly, "Sir! Please calm down. His guardian is coming soon! Please let the student go!"

At this point, Han Ye immediately turned the knob and walked in. When he saw a man with one arm raised and another arm on Xiao Zhihao's collar as he lifted him up, Han Ye's expression immediately darkened, and he said in a low voice, "Let him go."

"Who the f*ck are you?!" the man hissed before throwing Xiao Zhihao aside. The man was extremely big in size, like a wrestler, and he was easily three times Xiao Zhihao's size, making it easy for him to throw the teenager aside. 

Thankfully, the principal caught Xiao Zhihao before he fell to the ground, or Han Ye was going to kill that man right there, right then. 

Ignoring the man, Han Ye walked past him to look at Xiao Zhihao. He placed a hand on Xiao Zhihao's chin and lifted it. The teenager's right eye was bruised, to the point that it appeared to Han Ye that Xiao Zhihao could not really see out of that eye. There was a handprint on his face, and there were dried blood at the corners of his lips.

Han Ye glanced down and noticed that Xiao Zhihao's left and right hands were wrapped in bandages. 

"Who did this?" Han Ye asked as he looked at Xiao Zhihao. There were angry, and tears that refused to fall from Xiao Zhihao's eyes. "I asked you, who did this?" 

The defiant teenager merely looked away as he mumbled angrily, "They deserved it!" 

Upon hearing him, Han Ye released Xiao Zhihao's chin and looked at the principal. "What happened here?" he asked in a low, threatening voice as he stood up straight.

He then glared at the burly man and snapped, "Did that man hit him?"