367: Chapter 365 Departure 367: Chapter 365 Departure Adele stood beside Gao Yang and, looking at Catherine in the hospital ward, covered her mouth with her hand, her shoulders heaving as she cried silently.
Adele was equally frightened and just as severely hypothermic.
Yelena and Catherine now had family by their sides, but Adele had to endure all this alone.
Moreover, she should have been lying in a hospital bed herself, but she had stayed by Yelena and Catherine’s sides the entire time.
Despite the doctors’ repeated advice and urging, Adele consistently refused to return to her own ward.
Adele’s health was going to collapse if she continued like this.
Gao Yang sighed and once again gently embraced her, saying, “You need to rest now, you must rest.
Listen to me, think about how Catherine will feel if she wakes up to find you collapsed.
Go and rest.”
At this moment, Catherine’s mother also turned around and hugged Adele, sobbing, “Dear, Gao is right, you must go and rest now.”
Adele just shook her head, still unwilling to leave.
Catherine’s mother helplessly gave Gao Yang a pleading look, and then, both Gao Yang and Catherine’s mother helped Adele to sit down on a chair.
Because standing at the door would hinder the doctors from entering and exiting the intensive care unit, Gao Yang and the others all sat in the chairs in the hallway, staring at that intensive care unit door, hoping Catherine would wake up.
From the moment Gao Yang saw on television that Yelena was in trouble to the moment he saw Yelena, almost fifty hours had passed.
During these fifty hours, Gao Yang rushed from the northernmost part of Africa in the Gulf of Aden to the southernmost part of South America in Punta Arenas.
In the meantime, he even flew to the southernmost part of Africa to finalize a revenge plan.
Essentially, Gao Yang spent almost the entire fifty hours in the air and had not closed his eyes to sleep, not until now.
Yelena was already out of danger, but Catherine’s life hung in the balance.
Thus, despite extreme fatigue, Gao Yang, who was intensely alert, did not feel sleepy.
In the agonizing wait, time passed little by little.
Glolov was the first to doze off, followed by Natalia, then Catherine’s mother, and then Adele.
The only ones still awake were Catherine’s father and Gao Yang.
Catherine’s father had been staring woodenly at the door of the intensive care unit, but just as everyone was struggling to stay awake and eventually succumbed to sleep, Catherine’s father suddenly turned his head to Gao Yang and said, “Hello, my name is Filmore Taylor, I am Catherine’s father.”
Gao Yang turned his head and looked at Catherine’s father, replying, “Hello, my name is Gao Yang, I am Catherine’s friend.”
Between Filmore and Gao Yang were Catherine’s mother and Adele.
Filmore pointed to his wife and then said to Gao Yang in a serious tone, “Her name is Liv, she’s Catherine’s mother.
Adele, I think you know her.
The hospital has provided us with several wards as accommodations; I think we should take them to their rooms so they can get some proper sleep.”
“Alright.”
Filmore stood up and then lifted his wife, at which point Liv opened her eyes.
Filmore whispered something to Liv and carried her into an open ward, then stood at the doorway, shaking his head at Gao Yang, who had risen to his feet.
Gao Yang bent down and picked up Adele, who also opened her eyes.
Gao Yang softly said, “Don’t move; you need to rest now.”
Adele, exhausted to the extreme and very weak, didn’t speak or move.
Gao Yang carried her into the same ward as Liv and laid her on the hospital bed.
After removing Adele’s shoes and covering her with a blanket, he closed the door of the ward and returned with Filmore to the hallway.
After waking Glolov and Natalia and ushering them to another ward, only Gao Yang and Filmore remained in the hallway.
This time, Gao Yang sat next to Filmore.
The two men continued to stare blankly at the entrance to the intensive care ward.
In the time that followed, the two men sat on the chairs in the hallway, gazing blankly at the door of the intensive care ward.
Gao Yang didn’t realize how much time had passed when he finally fell asleep.
When Gao Yang woke up, he found a blanket draped over him, and the hallway was just as it had been initially, even their positions were the same.
The following afternoon, Yelena also joined those waiting at the door.
Her condition wasn’t good, but she was basically out of danger.
As long as she didn’t sit still continuously, there was no problem, so Yelena spent half of each day holding Gao Yang’s hand and sitting in the chairs in the hallway.
If Catherine woke up within seventy-two hours, she would have pulled through.
If not, it would mean that Catherine had entered eternal sleep.
So within these seventy-two hours, no one chose to leave.
When Gao Yang was sleepy, he would rest in the chair; when he was hungry, he would eat the food others brought him.
Other than going to the bathroom, he would not leave the chairs in the hallway.
The time was approaching the critical seventy-two-hour threshold announced by the doctors, but Catherine showed no signs of waking up.
Her heart had once stopped beating for almost a minute, and the recovery of her failing organs was limited.
During the waiting, the outside world was in an uproar, with many people distressed over Catherine’s fate, but no reporters appeared.
Personnel from the US Embassy in Chile visited once, but after seeing the extremely oppressive atmosphere in the hallway, they just comforted Catherine’s parents for a few words and left.
Now, everyone was waiting for a miracle to happen.
Now, all they could do was hold out hope for that miracle.
With only five hours left before reaching the life-or-death seventy-two-hour mark, there was a deathly silence in the hallway, broken only occasionally by the shouts of medical staff as they rushed into the intensive care ward for emergencies.
The prolonged ordeal had nearly numbed Gao Yang’s heart, and just then, Glolov hurried over with a phone in his hand, whispering to Gao Yang, “Gao, it’s your phone call, you better take it.”
Gao Yang handed the phone to Glolov, knowing that if it wasn’t the call he was waiting for, Glolov wouldn’t have disturbed him.
Gao Yang stood up, taking the phone to a deserted corner before answering in a lifeless tone, “Hello.”
Uriyangko’s voice came through the phone, saying, “In three hours, someone will pick you up and then come to the sea to find us, buddy.
The cargo has arrived, everything is ready.”
Gao Yang glanced at his watch, the timing wasn’t too long or too short; in another three hours, it would be the last minute within the five days Grand Ivan had promised him.
Gao Yang spoke in a deep voice, “Is it possible to delay the time to five hours later, or five and a half hours later, for your people to pick us up?”
After agreeing on a time with Uriyangko, Gao Yang checked his watch again, and at that moment, he realized that the watch he wore was a gift from Catherine.
As Gao Yang walked back to his chair dejectedly, suddenly a doctor burst out of the intensive care unit, then in a voice filled with extreme joy yet desperately suppressed, whispered, “She’s awake, the patient is awake!”
Gao Yang halted, hardly daring to believe his ears, but seeing people leap up from their chairs and crowd the door of the ward, Gao Yang felt certain he hadn’t heard wrong.
Could it be a brief rally before the end?
After the thought appeared in his mind, Gao Yang quickly shook his head vigorously, trying to drive the idea from his thoughts.
Meanwhile, the doctor, pushing people back while wearing a joyful expression, declared, “The patient’s condition is improving; this is not a brief rally.
Her bodily functions are starting to recover; it’s a miracle, but her body is indeed getting better.
You can’t see her now; she cannot be subjected to strong stimulation.
Please wait patiently.”
Gao Yang felt a wave of weakness, thanking every god whose name he knew in his heart, while Yelena rushed over, hugging him before crying and laughing.
Everyone stood up, each minute and second feeling unbearably long.
After an excruciating two hours, another doctor came out, spoke softly, “The patient is very lucid.
She knows you’re here now; you can let her see you from outside the door, but please don’t stay too long and come one at a time.”
After Catherine’s parents, along with Adele and Yelena, had briefly stood outside the small round window, Gao Yang became the fifth person to step up to the porthole; he saw Catherine, and Catherine saw him too.
Gao Yang smiled at Catherine and, giving her a thumbs-up, gazed at her as she turned her head to look at him.
After Catherine smiled back at him, Gao Yang nodded and stepped away from the window.
What remains when despair and sorrow are swept away?
Apart from joy, all that remained was an intense hatred.
Now, all Gao Yang wanted to do was meet with Uriyangko immediately and then find the Nisshin Maru.
With a light and pleasant mood, launch the torpedoes.
After giving Glolov a knowing look, Gao Yang hugged Yelena and said softly, “Baby, rest easy here.
I have some things I need to take care of.
I’ll be back soon, very soon.”
Yelena immediately tensed up, asking, “Where are you going?
What are you going to do?
Darling, please don’t leave me.”
Looking at Yelena’s frightened face, Gao Yang’s heart melted, but he quickly forced himself to harden it because if he didn’t take action quickly, there might not be another chance for revenge.
Gao Yang smiled and said, “Be good, baby.
There are some necessary things I need to handle.
I left in a hurry, and now I need to deal with them immediately.
I’ll be back very soon, okay?”
Glolov, too, with a smile, said, “Yelena, Gao is right.
We left some important matters to come here, and now we have to leave briefly to take care of them.
Wait here with your mother.
We’ll be back soon.
Don’t worry, the affairs we’re dealing with are not dangerous at all.”
Though very reluctant, the typically self-controlled Yelena maintained her composure once more without saying much else.
After telling Catherine’s parents and Adele that they had to leave temporarily, Gao Yang didn’t explain further and then immediately left with Glolov.
Gao Yang and Glolov slipped away unnoticed by everyone, particularly careful not to be captured by reporters, leaving the hospital through a side door.
Gao Yang then immediately called Li Jinfang, who had been waiting desperately in Punta Arenas for several days.
After reuniting with Li Jinfang and contacting the people Uriyangko had sent to meet them, Gao Yang and the six others boarded a fishing boat.
After sailing out about twenty nautical miles, a deep-sea fishing vessel appeared on the horizon.
The vessel bore a Spanish name on its hull that Gao Yang couldn’t understand.
Judging by the displacement, it should be over a thousand tons.
While small for a deep-sea fishing vessel, a thousand-ton displacement could withstand the wind waves of the Antarctic Ocean.
As Gao Yang disembarked from the smaller fishing boat onto the ladder of the larger fishing vessel, Uriyangko appeared at the top of the ladder, arms wide open, looking down at Gao Yang and calling out loudly, “Friends, welcome aboard the Avenger.
Also, be careful stepping on board, the paint is still fresh.”
(To be continued.
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