"Noah, I am your uncle. It is completely out of line for you to block my way like this, isn't it?"
Reggie Darwin absolutely loathed his nephew.
This boy was not his older brother's child, but the offspring of some countryside bastard.
To think the son of a nobody dared to speak to him this way-Reggie glared at Noah with sheer disgust.
"That is the General's order," Noah replied coolly. "I would never dare defy him."
"If you have a problem with it, Reggie, go take it up with him yourself." Noah was not afraid of Reggie in the slightest.
It was not as if the two of them had never come to blows before.
They had brawled the moment Reggie dared to insult his grandmother.
Noah fought with a wild, reckless abandon.
Faced with someone who fought like he had nothing to lose, Reggie naturally stood no chance.
Of course, Noah had not walked away unscathed either.
Reggie had his buddies jump in to help him.
It had turned into a brutal, pyrrhic victory for the lone teenager.
But ever since that day, Reggie never dared to lay a hand on Noah again.
He was genuinely terrified that if no one held the kid back, Noah would actually kill him.
The boy was like a feral wolf.
"How am I supposed to talk to him if you will not let me inside?" Reggie wanted to
scream.
Noah kept his face perfectly straight. "Then that just means the General does not want to see you."
With that, he shoved Reggie's hand away and slammed the door shut.
Inside the ward, Claire had already taken General Harrison Darwin's pulse and gained a clear understanding of his condition.
It made sense that standard sedatives no longer worked on the General; his body had simply built an extreme tolerance over the years.
Besides, during his active military years, he had carried out countless grueling special operations.
A lot of modern anesthetics were virtually useless on him by default.
"With this level of agony, most men would have collapsed by now. The General's willpower is nothing short of extraordinary."
Claire noticed the severe bloodshot veins in the elderly man's eyes, a clear sign that he was enduring an excruciating torment most people could never fathom.
She deeply admired men like him; hearing Dr. Sterling Senior detail the Darwin family's internal mess only made her heart ache more for the old soldier.
The Darwin family was a disaster, leaving behind a lineage of useless heirs who could not stand on their own two feet.
It was tragically unfair that this proud veteran had to suffer for their incompetence.
"So what if his willpower is incredible? He is running on fumes," Dr. Sterling Senior remarked bluntly.
Dr. Sterling was boldly unapologetic, casually dropping terms like "running on fumes" right in front of the patient.
Not only did the General hear it, but his great-grandson heard it too.
The old doctor was clearly relying on his senior status to avoid getting punched in the face.
Hearing Dr. Sterling state that the General was fading fast came as no surprise to Noah.
In fact, the boy secretly blamed himself for being a burden on the old man.
Had Noah not been so young, the
General would have likely let go lang ago instead of sticking around to protect him from the family vultures.
Why else would a man cling so stubbornly to life just to endure this much agony?
Tears welled up in Noah's eyes. "Dr. Sterling, can't we just let him go in peace?"
"I am not afraid of them bullying me. I just cannot stand seeing him suffer like this anymore."
So what if they bullied him? He was already used to it.
One day, he would be strong enough to crush them himself.
Truth be told, Noah was far from being the son of some random bastard.
His grandmother had actually been his grandfather's first wife.
They had married in the countryside, but once his grandfather returned to the city, the man abandoned her and never looked back.
Noah carried a deep-seated hatred for his grandfather.
If it were not for that man, his grandmother would never have endured years of
malicious gossip in their rural town.
His father would never have been forced to enlist in the military as a starving teenager just to survive ultimately sacrificing his life on the battlefield.
Driven to absolute desperation, his grandmother had finally written a letter to the Darwin family.
But the one who showed up was not his grandfather-it was his great-grandfather, General Harrison Darwin.
The General provided the financial support that allowed his grandmother to raise
him.
They were the only two people in the world Noah owed his loyalty to.
As for the General's dying wish that Noah might one day rise to power and look after
the Darwin family that was a pipe dream.
The rest of the Darwins were too busy lusting after the assets the General had entrusted to him.
They were especially greedy for the token of love his grandfather had originally given his grandmother back in the countryside.
It was a priceless heirloom, after all.