The thick smell of blood assaulted his senses. Fei Du choked, unable to catch his breath. For someone who got sick at blood, this impact was too strong. He nearly blacked out.
Then, the corpse pressing on him was kicked aside, and the person holding his neck forced Fei Du into the car. His back bumped into the ice-cold car door.
The hand was cold and solid, almost smelling of metal. Fei Du nearly had the illusion that the smell of blood was accompanied by the dampness of the basement, pressing on his windpipe, for a moment even overcoming his revulsion at the blood and making him struggle fiercely.
The person impatiently rammed a fist into his unprotected belly. Fei Du's breath caught; for a few minutes he was in so much pain he had no awareness. He was completely tied up and thrown into the backseat.
There were two people in each of the cars Zhang Chunling had sent, one to drive and one to search him. This car's driver, however, had exchanged a few words with him, then without any warning had risen in revolt, slaughtering his unwary companion.
The driver pulled open the car door and looked loftily down at Fei Du, who was covered in blood, then suddenly sneered and reached towards Fei Du's bloodlessly pale face and pulled his glasses from his nose. The exquisite frames cracked, breaking in two pieces in the man's hands, revealing the tracking device hidden in the earpiece—
Fei Du had expected Zhang Chunling to be uncertain of him; it was unavoidable that he would be searched. At the same time, Zhang Donglai was in his hands, and he was perhaps their future bankroller and meal ticket. Therefore, even if he was searched, Zhang Chunling would still have some scruples and not rudely touch his head, and naturally he would overlook the glasses he always wore.
The driver expressionlessly crushed Fei Du's glasses on the ground with his foot. "Trash."
Then he turned and got in the car, stepped on the gas pedal, and sped off in another direction.
At the same time, Zhang Chunling, waiting for Fei Du, realized that things had changed. The last car he'd sent after Fei Du had fallen out of contact!
Zhang Chunling's first thought was that Fei Du was playing tricks. But then he thought that, after making such a fuss, Fei hadn't even reached his temporary hiding place; would he need to play tricks out of nowhere now?
What would be the use of coercing a driver and a lackey? The police weren't so short on testimony.
Zhang Chunling suddenly stood up, cold sweat coming up on his spine.
Just then, a call came from the phone in that mysteriously vanished car. Zhang Chunling pushed aside his subordinates and personally picked up. "Hello!"
No one spoke over the phone. Faint white noise crackled. Then, someone played a recording—
"…if I'm out of contact too long, the people looking after Young Master Zhang may become uneasy…"
"Then it seems there isn't much time left."
"…At most, I'll put up with your boss's ridiculous suspicions for another hour…"
Cold sweat vied to pour out of Zhang Chunling's pores. "Who are you?"
The rustle of the playback filled his eardrums. The other side said nothing.
"Fan, you fucking…"
Click. The phone was hung up, leaving behind a busy signal. Zhang Chungling punched the tabletop.
Near the park, Lu Youliang had arrived in person at the scene but was sitting in the car, not showing his face.
A plainclothes officer pretending to be Fei Du's subordinate had searched Fei Du's car and picked up the phone and wallet Fei Du had left behind. "Director Lu, he didn't leave anything but these two things. The phone is locked, and I've gone through the wallet. There's nothing but cash and cards."
Lu Youliang frowned, looking helplessly at Fei Du's lockscreen. He touched something, and a fingerprint prompt suddenly jumped up.
Lu Youliang stared. "What is this?"
"Apart from codes, the phone user's fingerprints can also unlock it," the plainclothes officer patiently explained to the old fogey who couldn't keep up with the times. "It needs Fei Du himself to press…"
Before he'd finished speaking, he saw Lu Youliang fish around in his pocket, fishing out a fingerprint film. Then, under the plainclothesman's dumbfounded gaze, Lu Youliang pressed the fingerprint film to the fingerprint pad. "Like this?"
The screen unlocked, and a draft opened.
The first line of this draft file was: "If the tracking signal on me has disappeared, then I'm already in the hands of The Reciter…"
Lu Youliang was horrified. Before he could react to the enormous volume of information contained in these words, someone next to him called out, "A problem, Director Lu! The signal from the tracking device on Fei Du suddenly disappeared!"
Fei Du's draft continued: "If I've guessed correctly, the financial backer behind The Louvre that Gu Zhao investigated was Fei Chengyu. The Reciter believes that a person who has committed a crime must receive retribution in the same form. This is their faith and their ceremony. Therefore, Zhang Chunjiu, who made Gu Zhao bear a stigma, has to be publicly arrested, lose his reputation, and restore Gu Zhao's good name. The instigators behind The Louvre also have to accept their fate—Zhang Chunling is one, and 'the heir to Fei Chengyu's legacy' is another. So if I've guessed right, the place where this started is the place where it will end.
"If I've guessed wrong…"
The contents came to an abrupt halt. Lu Youliang nearly had a heart attack at his pause.
"The place where this started is the place where it will end." Perhaps for some people, life was like an all-encompassing circle, from one end to the other; they were trapped inside it all their lives, never able to escape.
Zhang Chunjiu's five cars were herded by the special police from the Yan Sea Highway exit to the sports park.
The sports park's footprint was very large. When the weather was good, there were often amateur athletes training for marathons here. The initial concept had been for a "city oxygen bar," so every kind of vegetation had been piled up in it, so concentrated it seemed like virgin forest. The five cars entered the "man-made virgin forest" just like mice getting into an antiques storehouse, scattering all over, hard to find.—The air was dry and the plants were parched; if they dropped bombs at random in the forest, it wouldn't be any fun.
The whole area was cordoned off. The police gathered more reinforcements, surrounding the sports park in layer after layer. A crowd of firetrucks stood at the ready. The search for Zhang Chunjiu would soon have been going on for over two hours.
Wanted criminals could also exhaust their supplies. Of the five cars, three had already gotten into trouble. All the broadcasting devices in the park were urging them in unison to give up resisting and prepare to be arrested. Zhang Chunjiu turned a deaf ear to them. "Stop here. There's a lake up ahead. Drive the cars into the water. Let the police go search for them."
The place he mentioned was next to a little hill in the depths of the sports park—it seemed that the hill had been there already before the park had been built. It hadn't been fully developed yet and seemed to be under construction just now, blocked by "Out of Bounds" signs and chains.
Zhang Chunjiu, accompanied by a fat man pretending to be Zhang Chunling and a few subordinates, passed through the fence and familiarly walked up the desolate hill.
The gang of wanted criminals had been brought to an impasse by the police. Seeing his confident bearing, as if he had a countermove in mind, they hurriedly followed. They traveled through the thick forest with no traces of human work for about ten minutes, all entirely at sea, then found unexpectedly that they'd somehow come out of the sports park, secretly leaving the police encirclement!
"Director Zhang," the fat man dressed up as Zhang Chunling said fawningly, "you're pretty familiar with this place."
Zhang Chunjiu didn't answer.
The trees had grown tall and the path had narrowed. The once unpeopled place had become a scenic spot. Looking down from on high at where the light of morning had yet to reach, there were tens of thousands of lights, a field of prosperity where everything had changed.
Once he had run up this hill countless times, had even passed nights shivering here on black nights like this and been captured and brought back.
Zhang Chunjiu swiftly raised his head and looked at the shadowy slope, thinking he could hear footsteps drawing close.
He subconsciously gripped the handgun in his pocket—the once weak and helpless boy had become an all-conquering man, but the terror he had felt then seemed to be carved into his bones…even though he had stabbed that person three times with his own hands.
"Director Zhang, the East Forest Ski Run is there!"
Zhang Chunjiu came back to himself and silently walked towards the ski run—the wide, smooth road, the distinctively-styled ski run, everything about the surroundings…in his eyes, all of it twisted and changed shape, restored to its "original form" of forty years ago.
The high-end, extravagant sports park and the buildings crumbled one by one, changing back into the barren hill and Heng'an Orphanage. The highway disintegrated before his eyes, falling into a wasteland of thickly-growing reeds and sorghum.
This wasteland was extremely frightening. Walking through it, you couldn't show your head. If you carelessly walked two steps you would step in mud. After it had rained, small lizards and toads would shuttle back and forth. Someone's miserable shrieks went through it, accompanied by the barking of the orphanage's vicious dogs…
Zhang Chunjiu gave a fierce start. In the biting cold winter wind, his forehead was covered in thin sweat.
He remembered there had been a heart logo at the orphanage's gates. Over the years, a corner had fallen off, suspended high in front of the ruined courtyard with cage-like metal railings on both sides. There were always children leaning on the railings, looking out.
"Su Hui! Su Hui, run! Run!"
Su Hui had been only seven, like a poorly growing little flower, but those people had already been impatient to "harvest" her. Zhou Yahou didn't like this sort of pre-adolescent chick, but she really looked too conspicuous. The higher-ups had seen her photograph and wanted to take her away ahead of time, even if they sent her as a present.
He remembered that it had been Christmas Day. Heng'an Orphanage, with its connection to the West, had been hung full of bright red ornaments for the season, and faint Christmas music had been playing over the loudspeakers. Sometimes it was off-key, giving it a strange, gloomy atmosphere.
The girl's hair was messy, her face dirty. She was covered in mud. The young boy was too small. Not knowing his own limitations, he was pulling his small big sister by the hand. They were rushing in terror towards the big wilderness. The dogs bared their fangs and howled. One of them hadn't been tied up. When the two children were about to reach the big iron gate, it swiftly leapt out and bit the girl's calf.
"Where are the little whelps?!"
The little boy climbing the metal railing was so scared he nearly passed out. Huge despair rose up. He watched as the beast tore at the girl's body, the people drawn by the crowd of dogs constantly drawing near…
Just then, a human figure rushed over and took the boy from the railing.
This was his big brother. He didn't know who his parents were or what his own name was. From the beginning of his memories, it was his big brother who had taken care of him, his big brother who had given him a name.
His brother stuffed him into a bamboo basket for storing coal, firmly covering him up. He picked up a wooden stick and tried to drive away the big dog biting the girl. The beast was salivating. Releasing the bloody girl, it fixed its ghastly gaze on the teenager.
The little boy in the basket watched as the big dog was pushed aside by the thin, frail teenager. Then those people came over. Cursing, they took away the girl, who had fainted. They thought it was his big brother who had tried to take Su Hui away. In a towering rage, they ordered the big dog to bite him, used a lash to whip him. On this day in the dead of winter, they poured freezing water with shards of ice in it over him. They even ripped open his clothes and stamped him down to the ground. The men's filthy bodies were exposed…
The basket was full of soot. In Zhang Chunjiu's memories, that Christmas Day also seemed soot-colored. He had cowered feebly in the bamboo basket, watching from among the ashes.
Always watching.
"The cars are there!" A subordinate's excited shout wiped away the soot in front of Zhang Chunjiu's eyes. The wretched old orphanage vanished like smoke.
A row of three cars that had been prepared ahead of time was lined up, respectfully waiting there. There were even weapons prepared inside. The drivers had waited for a long time, trembling with fear. "Director Zhang, everything is ready."
"Director Zhang, all the police are in the sports park now, let's hurry…"
Just then, lights suddenly went up above the stadium, dazzling, and sharp police sirens rose. Gun barrels aimed at Zhang Chunjiu and the others. Next, five or six police cars surrounded them from all directions.
Luo Wenzhou silently got out of his car and stood a few steps away, looking at his former superior with a complicated expression—