The early morning light spread across the clean white sheets. Outside the bright window, a brown branch adorned with the tender leaves of early spring reached out, its specks of green quietly budding with life.
On the bed below the window lay a tired-looking middle-aged man.
He was of average build, his hair still dark and glossy, and his face didn’t show much sign of aging. He wasn’t very old—42, it was written on the medical card at the foot of the bed, along with the patient’s name.
Chen Jiashu.
An unfamiliar name.
But if one were to look at the video call in the room and see the young man with a swollen, red face, crying and sobbing, with a head of yellow hair and a mole on his chin, the name might not seem so unfamiliar after all.
The person in the video was Huangmao (Yellow Hair).
The same arrogant, domineering Huangmao who had previously conspired with Sisi to kidnap Ji Xun, threatening to kill people and chop off arms at the drop of a hat.
If the Huangmao from before was a rabid wild dog, then the Huangmao at this moment was an utterly docile house pet.
“Bro, bro…”
He called out to the man on the bed in a fawning manner.
Huangmao’s name was Chen Jiahe.
Chen Jiahe, Chen Jiashu, a pair of blood brothers. The elder was fifteen or sixteen years older than the younger. They were brothers, but at times more like father and son, and at other times, they could even be described as master and pet.
The man on the bed opened his eyes. He coughed twice, phlegm blocking his throat, making his voice extremely hoarse. He tried to get up, and immediately someone came to his side.
It turned out there was a third person in the hospital room.
He was a wooden, tall man dressed like a bodyguard. He helped Chen Jiashu sit up from the bed, propping him up.
Chen Jiashu sat up straight and looked at his younger brother.
The blanket slipped to his waist. The buttons on his blue and white hospital gown were undone, the lapels falling open to reveal his still-sturdy body. On his waist and abdomen, there were two scars.
One was an old wound, brown, like a centipede crawling on his waist.
One was a new wound, still fresh and red—the surgical scar from a kidney transplant.
“Why did you have to provoke the police?”
He didn’t speak harshly, and his voice was still gentle, but his throat was not clear. When he spoke, it always made the listener feel as if the sticky phlegm was not only stuck in Chen Jiashu’s throat, but in their own as well.
And when he spoke, the muscles in his waist and abdomen moved, causing the scars there to tremble slightly. The centipede on his body seemed to come alive, its limbs flailing.
Every time he saw this scar, Chen Jiahe would shiver slightly.
Chen Jiahe knew the origin of this scar.
It was a wound his brother had taken voluntarily in his youth to protect one of his underlings.
It was a badge of honor. A magical medal that earned his brother the respect and loyalty of all his followers.
That stab had ruined one of his brother’s kidneys. Since then, his brother had been relying on the other kidney, holding on until now, when he could no longer hold on and needed a transplant.
Fortunately, the kidney transplant went smoothly.
It just added a new scar next to the badge of honor, roughly overlapping the original wound. It was bright red, at once blurring the deep, cold badge of honor, making its meaning unclear…
“No, it wasn’t me who provoked the police,” Chen Jiahe said hastily. “It was the police who provoked me…”
He recounted all his interactions with Ji Xun, from when Ji Xun first cornered him at the Liangjingjing KTV, forcing him to jump from a second-story window, to when Ji Xun chased him down in an alley, and then how Ji Xun used Sisi to investigate him, and how he had the bad luck of running into a situation at the KTV where a client had overdosed on drugs…
He recounted each incident carefully, not daring to add any embellishments. At the end, he even gave his brother a fawning smile, truly like a pet trying to please its master.
The master gently pointed out his mistake.
“You put pictures of these two people on the black market…”
“The pictures are gone now,” Chen Jiahe said in a panic.
“Did you take them down?”
“No… I didn’t.”
“Then why did the pictures disappear?” Chen Jiashu asked, then answered himself, “Because someone is protecting him from behind. Because the person protecting him knows that uploading the pictures to the black market would cause him some trouble… On the black market, there are people who want to cause him trouble.”
“He…” Chen Jiahe was cautious. It was clearly he who had been looking for trouble with Ji Xun and Huo Ranyin, but now he acted as if he understood nothing, completely befuddled. “Who is he? Ji Xun?”
“Whoever doesn’t want their picture spread everywhere, ‘he’ is that person.”
A newspaper was unfolded by the bodyguard in front of the camera for Chen Jiahe to see.
It was a local paper from Ning City from a few days ago. The report said that a fugitive had entered Ning City, and the police were searching the mountains in the rain. A black and white photo was attached.
Chen Jiahe looked at the report over and over, then suddenly said:
“H Huo Ranyin isn’t in it.”
The person leading the mountain search that day was Huo Ranyin.
Why wasn’t Huo Ranyin in the newspaper photo?
He looked up at his brother.
Chen Jiashu took a sip of water: “You still haven’t grown up. This is an era of peace; getting your own hands dirty with fighting is outdated. To eliminate an enemy, you must first find their weakness. For example… whoever values their privacy the most, whoever wants their picture spread the least, we do the opposite and make their image known to everyone.”
“And then…”
The phlegm in Chen Jiashu’s throat was finally swallowed.
He looked at his younger brother, the coldness in his eyes, like a snake’s tongue, quietly flicking out.
“Someone will take care of him for us.”
“Knock, knock.” A gentle knock on the hospital room door interrupted the brothers’ conversation.
The tall bodyguard went to the door, looked, and came back, “It’s Brother Meng.”
Chen Jiashu nodded, signaling the bodyguard to hang up the call: “Now that you’re out, stay abroad peacefully. I’ll send you some money. Enjoy your life, and don’t cause any more trouble…”
Chen Jiahe nodded meekly. In the final moment before the video was cut off, he saw a person wearing a baseball cap and a dark windbreaker walk in.
The person nudged the brim of his cap with his thumb, as if about to take it off, but perhaps he was mistaken, for Chen Jiahe seemed to see the person glance sideways at him from under the shadow of the cap’s brim…
Qin City, Aiqin Convention Hall.
Without any incident, the lecture began on time at 2:30 in the afternoon.
Ji Xun and Ein arrived about 20 minutes early. The venue was still undergoing its final preparations, with staff placing baskets of fresh flowers.
As Ji Xun swept his gaze over them, he noticed that the flowers were all predominantly white and green. Fresh enough, and indeed a color scheme he liked…
“Did the publishing house order the flowers?” Ji Xun asked Ein.
“It wasn’t in the plan, so probably not,” Ein said, scratching his head. “Maybe the foundation ordered them, or one of Teacher’s friends sent them. Check the names on the cards on the flowers, there should be some, right?”
There weren’t.
Ji Xun had noticed when he glanced over earlier that the vast majority of the flower baskets being brought in had no cards.
It wasn’t strange for the foundation to order flowers, but it seemed unlikely they would so accurately guess his color preference, which he had never publicly stated. Plus, to send flowers and write a card but deliberately not sign it… thinking about it…
Ji Xun walked around the venue and found the only five flower arrangements that had cards.
These flower baskets were placed closest to the stage, and each card was hidden deep within the flowers, requiring one to part the branches to see it.
Ein followed beside him, looking at them with confusion: “Why are they hidden so deep? There’s nothing written on them either.”
There really wasn’t much written on the cards.
Only the title and publication date of each of his books, and a single sentence from that book.
“Are they from a reader?” Ein looked at them over and over. “They even quoted your good words and sentences… It must be a reader, right?”
“Mm,” Ji Xun said. “A reader who won’t admit he’s a reader.”
He pulled the card hidden in the center of the flowers up a little higher, pulling out the card’s stand.
A small, pink, heart-shaped plastic holder.
“A…” Ji Xun picked up the heart-shaped plastic clip, waved it like a magic wand, his lips curling into a happy smile, “sullen reader.”
There were quite a few readers at the venue today.
Looking out at the hall, which could hold five hundred people, it was seven or eight-tenths full.
Ji Xun’s lecture wasn’t long, an hour and a half. To be honest, Ji Xun was a bit nervous about public speaking. Under the gaze of so many pairs of eyes, no matter what he did, he would be baptized by their stares. In such a situation, it seemed even drinking water or sneezing would attract strange looks.
Fortunately, during that hour and a half, Ji Xun, who didn’t have much experience with public speaking, managed to muddle through the situation more or less. He didn’t sneeze, didn’t stumble, the microphone didn’t suddenly go mute, and the wires didn’t trip him.
Throughout the whole thing, he even received seven or eight rounds of applause from the entire audience, which should be considered pretty good.
But what was more noteworthy was a gaze he felt during the lecture.
A clear, slightly cool, yet focused gaze, like a needle landing on the skin.
Huo Ranyin’s gaze.
However, when he chased after the gaze, he couldn’t see Huo Ranyin among the sea of heads.
Only that slightly cool gaze lingered on his skin.
When the crowd in the hall had dispersed, Ji Xun collapsed onto a chair backstage, fanning himself with a magazine while pulling at his collar.
“Today’s lecture was great!” Ein gave him a thumbs-up and handed him a glass of water with a smile. “Are you hot? The heating in the venue was indeed turned up too high.”
With two important tasks completed in two days, Ein no longer had to constantly keep an eye on his teacher, worrying if he would run off mid-way. He was so happy he felt like he could float:
“Teacher, let me treat you to dinner tonight! Don’t be polite, eat whatever you want, the publishing house can reimburse it. Qin City is by the sea, the seafood should be good. How about we go for seafood?”
Qin City was by the sea, a port city, and so was Ning City.
Growing up, Ji Xun had eaten more seafood than anything else; he didn’t have a particular interest in it.
However, Mingxing Publishing was inland, so Ein probably didn’t get to eat seafood often—
“Sure,” Ji Xun said. “My spirit will go with you tonight.”
“?” Ein.
“Just tell the publishing house that I went out for seafood with you,” Ji Xun instructed him. “In reality, you go by yourself, order whatever you want to eat, and as for me—”
He looked up and smiled at his editor.
“I’m going on a date, understand?”
“!” What was there for Ein not to understand? “Teacher, please go ahead, don’t worry about me at all!”
Ji Xun was satisfied with Ein’s perceptiveness.
He took out his phone, intending to see if Huo Ranyin had contacted him. If not, he could just contact Huo Ranyin directly. But before he unlocked his phone, a Weibo ad popped up on the screen.
<<Most Handsome Police Officer’s Split-Second Rescue of Elderly Pedestrian on Aiqin Road, Click to Watch>>
Most handsome police officer…
Aiqin Road… Aiqin Road, isn’t that the road right outside the Aiqin Convention Hall where I am now?
Ji Xun swiped the screen, opened Weibo, and found the trending video.
In the video, at a busy intersection, a silver car suddenly sped towards an old lady hobbling across the road with a cane!
In that thrilling moment, someone flew out from the corner of the screen, shielding the old lady as they brushed past the silver car.
The first moment he saw this person, Ji Xun recognized him.
Who else could it be in the video but Huo Ranyin?
In the short hour and a half of his lecture, Huo Ranyin had already completed a heroic rescue outside, been filmed by a passerby, shot to the top of the trending list, and gone viral.
As expected of the person he had taken a liking to at first sight!
Ji Xun marveled.
