The next morning, he woke up quite early and performed the daily exercise in the walking track before returning to have his breakfast that another nurse delivered. After having his meal, he pressed a button to his bedside and the same nurse returned.
They exchanged small greetings, and he explained to her that he would be leaving after getting dressed. To that, she smiled and instructed him to leave his hospital clothes on the bed and lock the door from the front as he left.
As soon as she left, he leapt out of bed and headed to the cabinet that contained his clothes, which were hanging by a pair of clothes hangers. He quickly changed into them and checked the time on his phone, which read as ten-past-nine in the morning.
“I hope I’m not going to make her wait too long,” he muttered as he packed his things hurriedly.
He thoroughly checked the room for anything of his that he might have placed and forgotten. Once he was confident that he had gotten all of his things, he walked out of the room and closed the door before turning the knob to lock inside of the room lock the door.
Walking at a brisk pace, he hurried to the elevator and pressed the button to make it come up. A few seconds later, it arrived, and he stepped into it and pressed the letter “G” on the panel inside the elevator. Once the elevator doors closed, he felt himself descending rapidly to ground level.
Asura was amazed by the level of technology and thought, “If I had not gained the memories and the common sense of this world, I might’ve jumped off the roof to fly down.”
That thought made him suddenly realise something and made him ponder, “Wait. Fly? Can I actually fly with this feeble body?”
It was a thought that concerned him as it was one of the means of transport he had always relied upon. He felt like he was in a dilemma if he could not fly because he remembered Zayden’s bank balance to be quite lot and this meant he would not be able to casually afford a public transportation.
“That’s another thing I need to work on,” he muttered to himself with a serious look, setting his next goal to financially stabilise himself while training his body to become stronger.
“You’ve arrived at ground floor,” announced a voice, and the doors opened.
As the doors opened, he was startled to see a lot of people waiting on the other side. They began shuffling themselves into the elevator, and he was almost pushed back by the oncoming tide. Luckily, he forcefully pushed himself past them and got out of the elevator before the doors closed.
“What a rush?” He remarked in amazement as he watched the number on the panel to the side of the elevator incrementing rapidly. “Anyway…”
Taking his mind off of the elevator, he turned around and was flabbergasted by the massive rush he was witnessing at the hospital. People were rushing back and forth, some were shouting, some were arguing, some were talking wildly into their phones while others sat in chairs with glum looks on their faces.
“Wow…!” He remarked in amazement at the heavy rush the hospital was at ground level.
He remained like that for a few seconds before someone bumped into him and scornfully told him, “Get out of the way, man! Stop blocking the way!”
“S-Sorry!” Zayden reacted in surprise and apologised automatically. Then he muttered, “No point standing around and staring at this mess. I’ve got to head out and make that call to Lina.”
So, he made his way towards the counter to inform them of his departure. He was shocked to find a long que with several people waiting to go to the counter. Asura was appalled by this, but with no other choice, he got in line and moved ever so slowly as the que slowly shuffled forward.
It took him nearly half-an-hour before he was able to finally reach the counter. In that time, he had witnessed multiple things; people breaking down and crying about their loved ones passing away, people rushing in through the entrance while pushing along a wheeled stretcher with a badly injured man on it, and several people trying to skip the que before it resulted in a verbal bout between them and the people queuing.
He did not have anything to say but be silently appalled by the mess he was witnessing before it was his time to reach the counter. Once at the front, he informed the attendant about his discharge and suppling his name to the receptionist.
“Alright. You’re all good now. Take care!” The lady at the front told him with a smile before her smile faded, and she called, “Next!”
Zayden made to move away to the entrance, but he suddenly got shoved away as the person waiting behind him approached the counter quickly. He glanced at the lady that shoved him aside, but she took no notice of him and began speaking rapidly to the lady behind the counter.
Sighing wearily, he made his way out of the hospital and felt the rush completely diminish as things were more peaceful outside than inside. He wanted to look up at the sky to check what the weather was like, but the sun was bright and made it difficult to see, even when he tried to shake the sun’s light with a hand.
“Right. Let’s find a good spot first and then make the call,” he muttered to himself and nodded in agreement.
He began glancing around at the place he was in, which looked like any other ordinary street and was not sure where to get his bearings. Just then, he saw a large size that read, “Mango Parklands,” and decided to use that as his location to inform Lina.
As he arrived at the large sign, he saw that the entrance to the parklands was just a few meters away. Ignoring that, he pulled out his phone and opened the contacts app on it. There were only a few contacts that had been stored on his phone, and one of them was Lina. As he was about to click on her profile, he suddenly saw the name beneath her on the list and scowled.
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“Serena…!” He muttered with a dark look.
He still remembered their previous encounter vividly like it only happened yesterday, her shameless behaviour in announcing their breakup and the arrogance in which her new boyfriend by the name Markus, spoke to him.
“Stupid dirtbag!” Asura muttered and went into her profile, fuming with anger.
He clicked the edit button, where the option to edit her details had appeared and, as he scrolled down, the delete button appeared. In that moment, Zayden’s memories of all the time that they spent together, the happy memories and the promises that they made together appeared in his mind. They were suddenly overshadowed by her betrayal and the near-death situation he was put under by that Markus brute of a person.
Asura raised his finger and brought his finger down, ready to delete the contact. However, he paused and as his anger boiled, so did his feelings of frustration and humiliation from their previous encounter.
“Blood for blood, tooth for tooth, head for head…” he muttered, remembering the promise he made after their departure in his hospital room.
With a heavy breath, he withdrew is hand and looked irritably at her name. At that moment, he suddenly got a bright idea when he saw that he could edit the name that her contact was saved under in his phone. With a sinister smile, he began editing her name and changed it something he felt was appropriate.
“There. Much better,” he remarked with a satisfied and clicked save.
A small pop-up appeared that read, “Contact ‘Deceiving Cow’ has successfully saved!”
Grinning, he scrolled back up and went into Lina’s profile before hitting the call button. Then he held it up to his ear and heard the ringing tone for a few seconds before it got answered.
“Hello. Zayden? Is that you?” Asked Lina’s voice from the device.
“Yeah., Lina. I just came out of the hospital,” he informed her.
“That’s great. So, where are you right now?”
“I’m standing under the Mango Parklands sign.”
“Ah. I know where that is. That’s fine. I’m in traffic, but I think I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
“Sure. I’ll wait right here.”
“Great. See you then!”
With that, she hung up the phone, and he heard the beeping sound as the call got disengaged. He withdrew the phone from his ear and marvelled at the amazing technology that was held in that small piece of object in his hand.
“This is quite convenient,” he muttered to himself as he turned the phone all around to examine it. “Could this be why I don’t sense much of an energy use from anyone around me? It makes sense when you advance the things around you instead of advancing yourself to new heights.”
He sighed dejectedly and began glancing around to see where Lina would be coming from. Soon, ten minutes went by and there were no signs of her appearing, but he did see a lot of cars coming in and out of the Mango Parklands.
“Seems like that place is pretty popular,” he thought to himself with amazement.
Just then, he heard the sound of horn of a car from behind, and he turned around to see a very luxurious car slowly driving up to him. It was one of those super fancy super cars that cost well over a million dollars.
Normally, anyone would be gawking at the sign of it, maybe even taking photos of it, but for Asura, it was just another vehicle on the road. Its value had no real impact on him as he thought it was just a fancier looking car compared to the regular cars he had seen up until then.
As the car pulled up to him and came to a stop, the driver’s side of the door opened, and Lina stopped out to his amazement.
“Lina?!” Zayden exclaimed with a look of shock on his face. “What’re you doing in that car?!”
“It’s my car,” she told him nonchalantly, and her smile widened seeing the bewildered look on his face. “What? Did you think I stole it?”
“No! That’s not what I meant!” He stammered back, looking very worried.
She continued to give stare at him shrewdly before bursting into a hearty laughter much to his surprise.
“Calm down, Zayden. Take it easy,” she said after calming down and wiping the tears of laughter away. “I’m only joking with you.”
“I… I see,” he stammered nervously, looking at her, then at the car and back. Then he hesitantly asked for confirmation, “This is your car, right?”
“It is,” she replied with a confident smile. “It even has my name in the license plate number.”
“It does?” Zayden asked, looking confused.
He walked to the front of the car to check the license plate and was surprised to find the license registration number starting with her name “LINA” followed by the car’s registration code.
“A customised license plate…!” He muttered in awe.
She watched his reaction and seemed to be enjoying every bit of it. At that moment, he looked at her and realised she was wearing quite a fancy dress as if she was going out for a party. Even the handbag she was carrying looked like a costly item.
“You look really beautiful!” He complemented her on her attractive looks the dress gave off.
This made her raise an eyebrow sceptically and asked, “Is that complement because of the car, or do you genuinely mean it?”
“No, no, no!” He rejected her notion firmly three times while shaking his head. “I really mean it! Really! I’m not the kind who sucks up to people with money! Please believe me!”
“Well, thank you,” she said and smiled with an appreciative look on her face. Then she eyed him up and down before saying, “But I don’t like your attire.”
“Huh? You don’t?” He asked her, looking at himself up and down to check that he had properly dressed himself.
“They’re shabby, worn out and look like they could tear away at any second,” she explained, detailing the imperfections she saw with his clothes.
He chuckled at her explanation and replied with a sad smile, “Well, this is the kind of clothes I can afford to buy with my financial situation.”
She saw him make that sad smile on his face before shaking her head to reject it.
“Alright. I guess it’s full of shopping then,” she announced suddenly.
“What?” He asked her, looking confused.
“Here I thought you only needed a new phone, but your entire wardrobe needs to be overhauled,” she stated and waved her hand up and down at him. “Hurry now. We got a long day ahead.”
“Huh? What?!” He exclaimed, looking shocked. “You’re going to buy me new clothes as well?”
“Yes, not get in!” She told him with a grin and walked around the car to the driver side.
“W-Wait, Lina!” He called after her, which made her pause in opening the driver’s door and look at him. “You’re already doing a lot by buying me a phone in exchange for me treating you to a meal, but buying clothes is just—!”
Suddenly, he was cut off by her raised her forefinger and placing it on her lips in a shushing motion.
“Think of it as my treat in helping a good man that’s in dire financial need,” she told him with a smile. “Now, get in, otherwise I’ll go buy whatever clothes I find for you!”
With such an alarming threat and imagining himself having to wear random clothes that he would hate to wear, he obediently opened the passenger door to get in. Just then, he realised he was about to get into a luxury car for the first time in his life and became quite nervous.
“What’s wrong?” Lina asked him with concern after seeing him frozen in getting into the car.
“Um… Is it alright for me to get in?”
“Yes, it is, silly,” she said cheerily and leaned forward to tug at his shirt sleeve.
Zayden was startled by her action and fell forward before sitting softly in the passenger seat of the luxury car. He remained frozen for a second before realising he was finally sitting in the luxury car, and so began to relax his tense muscles before closing the door shut and strapping the safety belt into its slot.
“Alright. Here we go!” Lina remarked, and she turned the car on, which revved quite loudly, making her passenger wear a nervous look.
She checked that he had his seatbelt on and made sure there was no traffic coming from behind using her rear-view mirror. Then, with a grin on her face, she switched the car into gear and pressed down on the accelerator, causing the car to launch forward at a remarkable speed. Within seconds, the car went from standstill to full speed before turning a bend and disappearing while the onlookers watched it go with perplexed looks on their faces.