As they spoke, Lu Jia had already driven out of the little alley and ducked into another street.—Rapidly developing cities usually all had this problem: in the early stages of construction, no thought had been given to parking spaces, and parking was very tight in many places. If you couldn't find a spot, you'd leave your contact information and park illegally at the side of the road. On nights and holidays, crowded formations often took shape. It was one of Yan City's major distinguishing features.
There was a car quietly bathing in the dreary light of the streetlamps, a thin frost on its roof. It seemed to have been deeply asleep for a long time.
Zhou Huaijin stuck out his head and looked at the scraped-off side mirror. "We've shaken them off?"
Lu Jia didn't answer. Before Zhou Huaijin could relax, something suddenly came over the fat guy; halfway down a perfectly good street, he took another large turn without any warning. The wheels crunched over ice and the car rolled a little. The trunk hit the pole of an old-fashioned streetlamp. Lu Jia didn't even look. He pressed down the gas pedal so it screamed, forcing the car to slim down, scraping off the other side mirror, too!
Zhou Huaijin was choked painfully by his seatbelt. He turned his head to look and saw the sedan that had been parked by the intersection start up like a risen corpse, only a hair slower than Lu Jia. There was also an ambush here!
Zhou Huaijin was overcome. "How did you know?"
"Instinct." Lu Jia very basely flicked his cigarette butt into a snowbank in a corner. "When you've been attacked enough times, you know where these people like to set up shop."
Zhou Huaijin only knew that this was the person Fei Du had sent to look after him. He'd thought he was something of the "assistant" type. Hearing these words, he finally couldn't resist asking, "What do you actually do?"
"Oh, loaf around," Lu Jia said casually at first. Then he felt this answer was losing face for Fei Du and quickly corrected himself: "No…I guess I'm that, that what's-its-name fund's chief administrative officer…"
Staring blankly, Zhou Huaijin asked, "What fund?"
Lu Jia: "…"
He hadn't looked closely at the business card since it was printed. He couldn't remember.
The two of them remained in mutual silence for a moment. Suddenly, Lu Jia's expression changed. "Shit!"
Past the little alley wasn't the light at the end of the tunnel; it was a heap of even more complex, dizzying little streets. Lu Jia got a little mirror out from somewhere, rolled down the window and hand-crafted a replacement side mirror. Behind them, headlights interlaced malevolently as some motorcycles came down an alley on their left.
Zhou Huaijin only now realized that Lu Jia's curse hadn't been because he couldn't remember his own title. He quickly looked out the passenger's side window. "There's some this way, too!"
"It looks like they had a reason for choosing to act here," Lu Jia said heavily. "They expected ahead of time that we'd come to investigate Yang Bo. They specially encircled and intercepted us, forcing us in, cutting us off… What are you doing?"
Zhou Huaijin raised his phone. "Hello, 110, there's a gang of thugs chasing us!"
Lu Jia: "…"
Truly a law-abiding citizen.
Unfortunately, the police didn't have an Anywhere Door. They couldn't immediately answer the call and descend from the heavens. Even Lu Jia's people couldn't come so quickly.
By the time Zhou Huaijin had managed to clearly explain his position to the operator among the ear-splitting engine sounds and crashes, the two of them were entirely walled up in the middle of a little street.
There were no streetlights around, but the interlocking headlights were dazzling.
Zhou Huaijin had never experienced this kind of combat. He looked wildly left and right. "What do we do? Do we fight? Are there weapons?"
"Under the backseat, there's…" Lu Jia spoke a few words, then assessed Young Master Zhou's hardware and software. "Eh, forget about it. Don't hand yourself over to them. Hide."
"H-hide?" Zhou Huaijin's gaze swept over the ferocious ring of encirclement. "No… Can't we negotiate first?"
Before he'd finished speaking, the group of people encircling them, making the most of their time, had come up to ram the car. Lu Jia fished a helmet out from under the car seat and tossed it to Zhou Huaijin. "Put it on yourself. Look for a chance to run."
Amid the noise, Zhou Huaijin couldn't hear anything clearly. He bellowed, "What—did—you—say?"
Lu Jia pulled off his jacket. He turned out to only be wearing a skintight t-shirt under it. Then he opened the indented car door, sending one person flying with the force. Holding a metal stick, he swept horizontally; the stick made a startling sound as it met human flesh.
Zhou Huaijin had wanted to help, but now that the moment had come, he had absolutely no idea where to start. He'd just stuffed his delicate, refined head into the helmet when the car window next to him was smashed to pieces. Shards of glass rained down. Time suddenly seemed endlessly stretched out. Zhou Huaijin saw the person who'd hit the car breathe white steam out of his nose, his expression nearly savage, coming towards him like a wild beast. He moved unconsciously, using his arms and legs to scramble desperately into the backseat.
The cold, howling wind poured in, and two choppers stabbed right towards his back from the disorderly car door. Zhou Huaijin suddenly found that he wasn't afraid—he had no attention to spare for it. He only struggled to curl up, wondering, "Can bulletproof vests block knives? Is it the same principle?"
Next, the car shook tremendously, and even more shards of glass came right at his face. A knife sliced Zhou Huaijin's calf. At the same time, the knife-wielding attackers were taken unawares from behind and slammed against the car. An indescribable sour smell filled the air.
Zhou Huaijin stared, seeing that a big garbage can that had originally been standing peacefully at the side of the road had also entered the battle, wielded by the extraordinarily strong Lu Jia. The inadequately managed metal garbage can had stood with its belly half-full of aged garbage throughout the solitary years, a subtle reaction occurring among its contents; the smell could be compared to a weapon of mass destruction!
In this short span of time, Lu Jia had already gotten covered in blood, whether others' or his own. He grabbed Zhou Huaijin and yanked him out of the car, hooking an arm even sturdier than a leg around his neck. "Run!"
Zhou Huaijin's helmet had been knocked askew, thickly blocking half his field of vision. He felt he'd turned into a heavy-headed mushroom, entirely pulled along by Lu Jia.
Suddenly, something seemed to hit his helmet, like a little stone bouncing off with a bang. The sound was very loud. Zhou Huaijin was totally disoriented. The arm holding his neck suddenly pressed down, forcing him to duck, expelling him into a little alley like an espresso machine.
Zhou Huaijin reached out and felt around randomly, feeling sticky concrete. Lu Jia's breathing was extremely rough. Zhou Huaijin quickly pulled the displaced helmet into its original position, finding that the right side of the helmet was full of prickly cracks, and Lu Jia's arm, laying over his neck, was badly mangled.
Zhou Huaijin suddenly changed color. "How come they have guns?"
Lu Jia didn't answer. There was a painful shaking in his heavy breaths. He reached one hand towards his waist. There was a combat knife hanging from his belt. The cold handle of the knife rubbed against his palm. Blood-scented sweat steamed up from Lu Jia.
But he only touched it. The next instant, he pushed Zhou Huaijin back and once again took up the already bent metal stick—the knife was a good knife, a good weapon; it would be no problem for him to charge out and stab a handful of people with it. He had the skills, and he was enraged enough.
But he couldn't, because he was that…"what's-its-name fund's chief administrative officer."
Though he couldn't remember the name of the fund, he knew what the money in it was used for—it was for buying bread for those battle-scarred people with nowhere to go. Though it couldn't heal the unending trauma, at least it could keep them from coming to the end of the line materially.
Even though there was an eternal sword in his mind, he couldn't cut people down while representing Fei Du; even more, he couldn't cut people down while representing those miserable people, both the ones he knew and the ones he didn't know.
"Run." Lu Jia sucked in a breath and said to Zhou Huaijin, "I'll cover for you. Run away and find the police. Find Luo Wenzhou!"
Wasn't this nonsense? Zhou Huaijin thought. Faced with a gang of knife-holding, gun-toting thugs out for their lives, was this Mr. Lu planning to hold off an army wielding a bent metal stick?
"I'm not…"
Lu Jia pushed him, making him stumble, then his stick flashed out, beating away an approaching thug. At the same time, as soon as he showed his head, there was a patter on the wall next to him, bullets wildly hitting the wall, making dust fly. Lu Jia was forced to recoil behind a low wall. Just then, the sound on an engine flared up, and a motorcycle pushed its way towards the place where he was hiding!
To dodge the bullets, Lu Jia was sticking to the corner. There was no place to hide. He was about to be crushed to death by the motorcycle. Suddenly, in the darkness, something flew across the sky, hitting the motorcycle's front wheel. The motorcycle's wheels instantly lost equilibrium. It somersaulted.
Lu Jia raised his head at once and saw that Zhou Huaijin, who'd just run clear, had returned once more, and he'd gotten some bricks from who knew where. Having thrown one, he was still holding a couple!
Lu Jia said, "Didn't I tell you to…"
"I've already told Fei Du what I know," Zhou Huaijin said loudly, holding two bricks close to himself. "Even if I die, they can still keep investigating, and they can guess why they wanted to kill me! Who am I afraid of?"
Zhou Huaijin, golden on the outside, rotten on the inside.
He was cowardly and powerless. He'd spent the first half of his life shivering indecisively in a state of constant anxiety.
"What a failure," he thought. "Who the fuck am I afraid of!"
The expression on Lu Jia's face was indescribable, but there was no time to say anything. A louder engine sound went up, the other motorcycles imitating the first. Zhou Huaijin tried the same old trick again, but unfortunately he wasn't a professional athlete. Two flying bricks in a row missed their targets. He'd come to the end of his resources.
He instinctively raised a hand to block the blinding headlights. Dizzied by a rush of hot blood, he also felt somewhat sad—Lu Jia had originally wanted him to wait obediently at the hotel; he was the one who had been unable to give up the riddle of Yang Bo and his mother, who had overreached himself going out to investigate.
He'd thought that Huaixin's business had still been unfinished; he still hadn't attained a final accounting.
He'd walked right into the trap himself, and involved someone else.
Was Huaixin still in heaven watching him? Zhou Huaijin thought, "If you're still watching, could you lend your useless big brother a bit of luck?"
He'd never had any other strong points; probably he could only rely on luck to turn the tables.
Just then, the sharp, brief sound of a police siren came out of nowhere. Zhou Huaijin stared blankly, thinking it was a hallucination.
Then, as if it had taken a deep breath, the police siren went on; red and blue lights rose and fell in the night sky, coming right towards their position—
Zhou Huaixin's paintings hung in his restaurant. Zhou Huaixin's name was placed in a shrine in his heart. He'd answered his desperate prayer in this hopeless moment.
For his big brother, the picture-painting little skeleton possessed the qualifications to act as "faith."
But unfortunately, while the police had arrived, police cars couldn't easily squeeze into narrow gaps like Lu Jia. At first they couldn't get into this "precious territory." One of the motorcyclists let out a sharp whistle. His knife fell, quickly dispatching his fallen companions, not leaving a single prisoner to give information. The others fled in disarray down a prearranged alley—their route coming and going had been calculated with great accuracy; if Lu Jia hadn't been unexpectedly difficult to handle and the police hadn't come as fast as if they'd been cheating, it would simply have been a perfect and easy assassination!
Lu Jia wavered. Zhou Huaijin wanted to hold him up, but maybe his arm was too weak, or Mr. Lu too heavy; he couldn't hold him. The two of them, sharing equally in comforts and hardships, sat down on the ground together. Hurried steps came towards them, and a familiar voice asked, "Are you all right? Where are they?"
"I guessed it was you." Lu Jia clutched his arm, from which blood was constantly flowing, forcing a smile towards Luo Wenzhou, who'd rushed up. "By the time the operator had notified and dispatched the police, I figure our two corpses would have been cold."
"Fei Du's phone has your precise position." Luo Wenzhou looked carefully at Lu Jia's wound, frowning. "Enough chatter, go to the hospital."
"Boss." Lang Qiao, followed by a few criminal policemen, had turned over all the bodies on the ground. She said, "The ones left behind are all dead."
"Take them away, check their DNA and fingerprints," Luo Wenzhou said heavily. Then he thought of something and looked deeply at Lu Jia.
"Legitimate self-defense. I didn't even raise a knife." Lu Jia could tell what he was worried about and smiled collectedly. "I was afraid you'd come on your own. I hadn't expected that a big hero like you, apart from being good at sneak attacks, would also not be so into solitary heroics.—What, with President Fei in trouble, haven't you been suspended?"
"I'm not stupid." Luo Wenzhou bent down and picked up Zhou Huaijin. "Suspended is as suspended does, but my people are still my people. My word still holds. Isn't that right, children?"
Lang Qiao, Xiao Haiyang, Xiao Wu, a whole crowd of the Criminal Investigation Team's elite, the ones on duty and the ones on vacation, had all been mobilized by him. And then there was Tao Ran, who couldn't be there in the flesh but was with them over walkie-talkie. Tao Ran said, "After all, we all got this big eating your food."
"After all, I'm a trusted aide," Lang Qiao bragged shamelessly.
Xiao Haiyang pulled a long face. "After all, I don't trust anyone else."
"You're going to make me blush." Luo Wenzhou waved a hand, not batting an eyelash. "First determine the identities of the dead. They may have priors. Then keep chasing. In the City Bureau's name, request urgent assistance from all the sub-bureaus and police stations. Say a gang of armed robbers are on the loose.—Specs and Er-Lang, wait a bit. Come with me to see the wounded to the hospital. The assassination attempt failed, so I'm worried they'll have some other scheme planned. Quick!"
As soon as his orders came down, everyone moved methodically, sealing off the scene, calling for assistance.
Fei Du didn't know about the soul-stirring events outside; he was agreeably "cooperating with the investigation."
"You don't know where your father is?"
"I got a call from the sanatorium right before I came here." Fei Du shrugged carelessly. "I haven't had time to verify. What, it seems it's true?"
The investigator looked closely at this Fei Du—he was young, good-looking, tasteful from his hair down to his fingernails. A scent of mingled false cypress, sweet basil leaves, and cedar wafted from his cuffs. He was a perfect embodiment of a profligate son of the wealthy. The investigator couldn't resist looking down at Fei Du's information. He was a little too young, still a student. "Aren't you worried about him at all?"
"Worried about what? That Fei Chengyu has been kidnapped?" Fei Du smiled, but the smile didn't rise above his cheekbones. "For the last three years and more, he's been reliant on machinery for his basic needs of existence. There's no possibility his brain will recover. You could say he's a person, or you could say he's a heap of dirt without being wrong. These last few years, when the old people at the company refused to obey me, it was nice to have a living dead 'retired emperor' to keep them in their places. Now Fei Chengyu has no more use. He's a burden. Let them kidnap him. It's best if they kill their hostage."
The investigator stared into his eyes. "You say there's no possibility Fei Chengyu's brain will recover. Who told you that?"
Fei Du raised his eyebrows in bewilderment. "The hospital, of course. Could I have made it up? The Second Hospital, the Fifth Hospital, Beiyuan Neurological—and the Binhai Sanatorium. You can ask each of them… Oh, no, you don't think I did something to him for the sake of the family property?"
The investigator's expression was grave.
Fei Du breathed a laugh, looking like an explanation was beneath him.—However you looked at it, when Fei Chengyu had had his car crash, Fei Du had been only eighteen. An eighteen-year-old only child of a wealthy family committing patricide to snatch the family fortune sounded like a bizarre plot in a novel.
The investigator found that Fei Du didn't seem to have noticed at all that if Fei Chengyu really was brain dead, then he himself was a suspect. He didn't even seem to know why he'd been called here.
This bearing of not knowing anything seemed like inadvertently pleading innocence of any relationship. If he was pretending, then this young person was too shrewd.
The investigator cleared his throat. "A few years ago—not long before your father's car crash—a financial leasing company under your company's banner had a business contract. Its partner was Tai Hua Digital Technologies, Ltd. Do you know about this business?"
"I don't," Fei Du said after calmly recollecting for a moment. His expression didn't waver. "Before my dad's car crash, I didn't do anything but spend money. I didn't meddle with his work."
"What about after you took over? This would have happened shortly before."
Fei Du looked at him and suddenly smiled.