The Second Hospital, half an hour earlier—
Tao Ran was all wrapped up in splints and bandages, lying on his back and fixed in bed, a tuft of hair still obstinately sticking up on his head; the image was somewhat funny. When Xiao Haiyang came over to see him, the hospital room was very lively. Yang Zhengfeng's little daughter Yang Xin and Chang Ning were both there.
Tao Ran had been in the hospital for a few days and could already manage to speak a few words, but he stuttered—at first the doctor in charge had been very nervous, suspecting that this was a symptom of an injury to his brain, and had sent him for a round of examination. Later he'd found that the problem wasn't with his brain, it was with the young lady. If Chang Ning wasn't there, he could speak pretty fluently.
With Chang Ning there, even Xiao Haiyang somehow felt it wouldn't be appropriate to stay long. He sat for a few minutes, determined that Tao Ran wasn't in any danger, then left along with Yang Xin.
"Xiao dage," Yang Xin called to him. Because of Yang Zhengfeng, Yang Xin automatically felt familiar with anyone wearing a uniform; they were all big brothers.
Xiao Haiyang, who wasn't used to this, responded somewhat uncomfortably.
Yang Xin shook her phone. "I ordered a few boxes of fruit and drinks to be delivered to the hospital door. Can you help me move them? I want to deliver them to the nurses' stations, here where Tao-dage is, and over there where my mom is."
While Xiao Haiyang was rather weak and unaccustomed to manual labor, he couldn't easily refuse a little girl's request. He could only silently follow Yang Xin to act as porter.
Drinks and fruit were both weighty things. After the few steps it took to get from the hospital's front door to the inpatient department, Xiao Haiyang felt that his pitifully scant muscles were about to snap. All the veins in his neck stood out as he gasped for breath; on this midwinter day, he was covered in hot sweat.
Watching this display, Yang Xin truly felt apologetic and helped him relieve some of the weight. "Let's cheat and take a shortcut.—Ah, Xiao dage, how can you catch bad guys like this?"
Xiao Haiyang couldn't spare attention to answer; he was so exhausted he couldn't catch his breath.
Yang Xin familiarly led Xiao Haiyang through turn after turn of the inpatient department. Hearing him nearly breathe out a mushroom cloud midway, she found somewhere that wasn't in the way and indicated for Xiao Haiyang to put the stuff down and rest a while. "It's right up ahead. Past this door, turn once, and you'll be there. Go to my mom's floor and say, 'This was sent by Fu Jiahui's relatives.' Go to Tao-dage's floor and say, 'This was sent by Tao Ran's relatives.' People keep track of which patient's relatives send things, and they'll be even more devoted to taking care of them.—That's what the elders taught me when my mom first got into the hospital."
The girl was just over twenty, and her father had already passed away. She and her mother depended on each other for survival, and her mother was also not long for the world.
While attending school, Yang Xin also had to come to the hospital and learn to handle everything. Xiao Haiyang had heard of her father Yang Zhengfeng. Looking at her now, he felt somewhat saddened. He searched his guts and belly for a while, then very stiffly said, "I know about your father. He was a hero."
"Whether he was a hero or not, he doesn't know about it himself, anyway." Yang Xin lowered her head, then displayed a somewhat bitter smile. "Thinking about it, heroes and villains sometimes come to the same end. They both die, and when they're dead they're both piles of rotting bones. Comparatively speaking, when they're alive, villains have it a little better, living in defiance of the laws."
Xiao Haiyang didn't know how he should respond. Her few words had stirred up his emotions. The two of them fell into awkward silence.
There was a stairwell door behind them, but very few people used it normally, and it was locked. As Xiao Haiyang exercised his stiff wrists, he zoned out staring at the glass on the stairwell door. Suddenly, he saw a person wearing the uniform of a nurse's aide hurry past.
The stairwells on this floor were locked; Xiao Haiyang hadn't expected someone would come up that way, and he couldn't resist taking another look—when he looked, he noticed that the nurse's aide was a man even taller than he was. There were very few men among the nurses and nurse's aides; when you occasionally met one or two, most of them were elderly men; you almost never saw one in his prime.
But this man had wide shoulders and a strong build. His steps were quick and he seemed to walk with the wind at his heels. From his physique, he certainly wasn't over forty.
He wore the standard uniform of a nurse's aide at the Second Hospital, and his face was firmly covered up with a mask, leaving only his eyes visible. He briefly met Xiao Haiyang's eyes, then quickly averted his gaze, nodded slightly, and hurried away.
Xiao Haiyang frowned. It may have been his mistake, but he thought that this person's gaze had been somewhat shifty.
Before Xiao Haiyang could think carefully about it, Yang Xin suddenly tugged gently at his clothes.
Xiao Haiyang gave a start. "…Yes? What did you say?"
"I was just asking," Yang Xin said, raising her chin, "isn't that suspect who hurt Tao-dage and is in the hospital now going to get out of the ICU soon? How long are you going to keep him in the hospital? Hospital fees aren't cheap."
Xiao Haiyang's expression was blank for a moment. "Yin Ping is getting out of the ICU soon? Who did you hear that from?"
Luo Wenzhou and the others had just gotten word that Yin Ping's surgery hadn't gone well and he may lose his reason…
"I heard someone commenting on it when I went to the dining hall to order food for my mom this afternoon… Hey, wait a minute!" Yang Xin was sitting on a box of beverages. She seemed to realize something. Suddenly somewhat nervous, she lowered her voice and asked, "Xiao dage, you aren't keeping it a secret, are you?"
Xiao Haiyang stared at her for two seconds, then suddenly took to his heels and ran.
Yang Xin leapt up. "Xiao dage!"
Xiao Haiyang turned his head and yelled to her, "Wait here, don't run around!"
Where had the news that Yin Ping was going to get out of the ICU come from?
Who was spreading rumors?
Why?
There were plainclothes officers patrolling around outside the ICU, and further away Fei Du's people were hanging around. Because of Yin Ping's special position, the hospital had arranged for a criminal policeman to be on duty watching in the hospital room where non-medical personnel weren't normally permitted outside of visiting hours; they wore protective clothing and took shifts around the clock.
There was still another half hour to go until the shift changed. The criminal policeman watching inside had already been on his own for three and a half hours; he couldn't avoid feeling somewhat demoralized.
This was very painful work; there was absolutely no chance of chatting or playing on your phone. You wore protective clothing and a face mask; never mind not being able to catch your breath, you also had to make sure you were quiet, pretending as much as possible that you were a wallflower, not hindering the work of the medical personnel. The third time the criminal police officer looked at his watch, he was very short on oxygen. It was inconvenient to yawn while wearing a face mask. He felt his eyelids could hardly withstand the force of gravity, nearly falling to the ground.
Someone walked in. The policeman who could hardly keep his eyes open looked up, then lowered his head in disappointment—the person who'd come in was a nurse's aide, not his colleague coming to change shifts.
The nurses on duty in the ICU came over every fifteen minutes or so to check on the patient's condition. A little nurse had recently left after making an inspection. Perhaps this nurse's aide who'd just come in hadn't seen her; he walked right over to the policeman.
When he approached, the policeman discovered that this nurse's aide was male. His face was under a mask; his eyes were curved into two ingratiating smiles.
He came over and patted the policeman's shoulder. It seemed that since the nurse wasn't there, he needed his help with something. He reached out to point behind himself.
The policeman on duty subconsciously looked the way he was pointing, and suddenly felt a chill at the bit of skin on his neck left exposed by the protective clothing. This person had stuck a syringe into him! He was horrified, but there was no time to struggle. This person was very strong; he covered his mouth with one hand and firmly held his arms. The liquid in the syringe quickly got into his veins, and the policeman's struggles became weaker and weaker. After a moment, he fell silently.
The male "nurse's aide" expressionlessly helped him into a chair he'd pulled over, then turned to Yin Ping's hospital bed.
Just then, the nurse who'd wandered away came back. Seeing a nurse's aide standing by the head of the hospital bed, she stared, looking suspicious—the work schedules of the nurse's aides were fixed; they had to be arranged together by the nurses on duty. This clearly wasn't the time for him to be here.
The nurse's steps paused slightly. Amid the din of medical equipment, she said, "Hey, you…"
The male nurse's aide ignored her sudden cry, pressing another syringe to the neck of the unconscious Yin Ping.
The nurse on duty had already instinctively felt that something was wrong. She rushed a few steps forward, saw what he was doing, and gave a start. She had no time to call anyone; her first reaction was to throw herself forward. "What are you doing!"
Xiao Haiyang's useless legs were purely for keeping his balance when he sat, but now he brought them into play, surpassing their usual level, running in a gale to the ICU.
He startled a whole circle of stalking plainclothesmen. Xiao Haiyang had run so hard his vision was going dark; he leaned against the wall, gasping for breath. "Has, has any outsider gone in?"
"You have to swipe a card to go inside. Aside from our people, only the hospital's have been in." Lang Qiao still felt somewhat angry at the sight of him, and her tone was very stiff. Then she remembered something, and her tone changed. "Right, there was just a nurse's aide…"
Xiao Haiyang's pupils contracted instantly, remembering the strange male nurse's aide who'd come up by the locked stairwell.
A doctor making the rounds was passing by. Xiao Haiyang rushed at him, grabbing the doctor's card.
"Hey, what are you doing!" The patrolling doctor stared blankly. "You can't go in there! Wait a minute!"
Brooking no argument, Xiao Haiyang charged into the ICU room.
The sound of the door bursting open mixed with the little nurse's scream.
The nurse had thrown herself at the man's hand holding the syringe; he roughly threw her off. She stumbled, her hands still uncompromisingly pulling at the man's arm. Seeing someone had come, she hurriedly shouted, "Help! He doesn't work here…"
Before the nurse could finish, she was pulled over, an arm hooking tightly around her neck, a small knife pressing against her artery. "Don't move!"
Xiao Haiyang's steps stopped instantly. For a time the two sides were deadlocked.
When Fei Du received Luo Wenzhou's call, he raised a hand to interrupt Zhou Huaijin. Zhou Huaijin watched in bewilderment as his expression became graver and graver and couldn't resist asking, "What's happened?"
"A bit of a mishap," said Fei Du.
Zhou Huaijin raised a hand at him. "I've just about finished telling you the important things. If you have something pressing to do, then go ahead, we'll meet another…"
"Zhou-xiong," Fei Du interrupted him suddenly, "are you willing to come with us as a witness?"
Zhou Huaijin paused.
"I know that the Zhou Clan has a small number of shareholders apart from you, and there's also your whole family," Fei Du said slowly. "It was already hard for you to privately investigate up to this step and to share the information with me. I understand that you don't want to get more deeply involved."
Zhou Huaijin's lips moved, uneasily meeting his gaze in the clean, narrow private room.
"You're very innocent, and Huaixin was also very innocent," Fei Du said grimly. "But your surname is Zhou. Starting from when Zhou Junmao and Zheng Kaifeng hired an assassin—starting from when they murdered Zhou Yahou, you were automatically involved. Zhou-xiong, at this stage, it's impossible to think only of yourself."
The corners of Zhou Huaijin's eyes trembled nervily. After a good while, he whispered, "You're right. Some things are predestined."
Such as him coming into the world at a very delicate moment, so even the person who bore him couldn't clearly say who his flesh and blood belonged to.
Fei Du said, "I have an intuition that the question of Yang Bo is very important."
Zhou Huaijin sucked in a breath, his fingers nearly pressing into his teacup.
Under the guise of "tourism," he'd gone alone, following the barcode Mrs. Zhou had left behind to the Philippines, then quietly returning to the country. He hadn't wanted to alert anyone. What he'd found was horrifying, the origins of a whole series of scandals about the Zhou Clan, but it had still only been to give himself an accounting; it had no other value—everyone in the story, whether pitiful or hateful, was dead.—Zhou Huaijin had sought out Fei Du rather intending to pour out his heart, so he'd arranged to meet him alone. He'd even booked a ticket to leave, planning to go to the place where Zhou Huaixin had learned to paint and live in seclusion.
"You already know the previous generation's secrets, but there's still a question that hasn't been thoroughly answered," Fei Du said. "Zheng Kaifeng arranged for Dong Qian to kill Zhou Junmao, so why did Dong Xiaoqing ignore Zheng Kaifeng at his hotel and go to the hospital to stab you?"
Zhou Huaijin stared. "Didn't you say that when Zheng Kaifeng hired him, he did it under my name to deceive…"
"The killers Zheng Kaifeng worked with have a strictly controlled membership. Not just anyone can order them around.—Zhou-xiong, are you a member of the murder club?"
"What?" Zhou Huaijin cried automatically.
"If you aren't, it's impossible for Zheng Kaifeng to have used your name," Fei Du said a word at a time. "Especially since Zheng Kaifeng's original plan was for Zhou Junmao to die in a car crash without anyone being the wiser, making everything seem like an accident. This wasn't his first time doing this kind of shady business. He'd never slipped up before, so why would he have prepared for his assassination to be discovered this time?"
Zhou Huaijin's head was full of paste. His train of thought simply couldn't follow Fei Du's words. He felt that the things he'd thought he'd understood after running around all these months had once again become so confusing he couldn't make heads or tails of them.
Fei Du looked deeply at him, then got up to go.
"Wait!"
Two minutes later, Zhou Huaijin had canceled his trip and was sitting in a car speeding towards the Second Hospital.
"I…I looked into Yang Bo's father's death thirteen years ago," Zhou Huaijin said. "He hit a seven-seat business car. Riding in the car was a certain company's work team heading to compete for a land bid. They'd had it in the bag originally."
"And it was treated as an accident?" Luo Wenzhou asked him as he drove rapidly. "It's not easy to kill everyone in a car with one hit, and for it to happen at just that time—weren't there any conspiracy theorists who thought it wasn't natural?"
"No," Zhou Huaijin said. "In fact, when this business was being dealt with, they knew it was murder. But the media wasn't well-developed then, and it was covered up. I was only able to get to the bottom of it by going through a few business partners. Yang Bo's father was called Yang Zhi. When he hit the car, there was a protest slogan against forced evictions written in red on his clothes—the target land was suspected of having been subject to forced eviction, and the Yang family were among the victims. The company bidding on the land had sent a car to inspect it more than once before this. Common people don't have any idea that tearing down and resettlement aren't the same thing as development. Yang Zhi must have mistaken the developer's car for that of the chief culprit of the forced eviction. This was later resolved by private indemnification, and it was announced as an accident."
Luo Wenzhou frowned.
"But the delicate part is that after Yang Bo's father died, his mother took the compensation money and moved away to Yan City. She lived in a high-quality estate with very high rent that reasonably speaking surpassed her spending capacity. And then she sent Yang Bo abroad to enter an education program sponsored by the Zhou Clan."
Luo Wenzhou said, "Yang Zhi's car crash wasn't in service to the Zhou Clan. Zhou Junmao and the others didn't need to pay additional compensation. Why?"
"A hostage," Fei Du said gently.
Luo Wenzhou said, "Used to threaten who?"
"A young man of ordinary abilities could probably only be used to threaten his parents." Fei Du whispered, "She moved to Yan City… What could Zheng Kaifeng use her for? Thirteen years ago…"
Suddenly Fei Du thought of something, and his eyes, always half-opened, suddenly opened wide.