Ji Xun woke from the pitch-black darkness.
He felt as though he had been abruptly startled awake from a brief nap, his entire being muddled and dazed.
He didn’t feel much pain, but a strong sensation of numbness pervaded his body.
Was it anesthesia or painkillers?
He looked up at the ceiling. It was vaulted, featuring a fresco of angels flying toward the Virgin Mary. Around him, he noticed lavish wooden furniture and a massive, arched window. Though the window was obscured by curtains, he could tell the sky outside was pitch black.
It didn’t look like a hospital.
Trying to find something closer to himself… without expending any effort, his head tilted gently to the side, and his gaze landed on the person sitting beside the head of the bed.
Huo Ranyin.
Huo Ranyin was slumped into an armchair. Though exhausted to the absolute limit, he was forcing himself to stay awake, sitting there making a phone call. He seemed so drained he couldn’t even raise both hands; one hand rested on the armrest to prop up his body, while the other covered his mouth. The phone was wedged between his ear and shoulder…
When his eyes met Ji Xun’s, there was no direct change in Huo Ranyin’s expression, but the air in the entire room seemed to loosen significantly in an instant.
Then, Huo Ranyin hung up the phone.
“You’re awake.”
“…Mm,” Ji Xun answered indistinctly.
Slowly, he searched for the sensations in his body—his brain, tongue, hands, feet, torso… Then, more refined and nuanced feelings fed back to him from various parts of his body.
He realized he was lying on a soft, large bed with an IV drip attached to him.
The bed was swaying slightly. Perhaps this swaying wasn’t his hallucination but a genuine motion.
As his consciousness revived, his memories returned with it. The last memory he could recall was unlocking the chains under the sea.
“How long was I out?” Ji Xun asked.
“Two hours,” Huo Ranyin replied. “The doctor and nurse just finished treating your wounds.”
“Where’s the ship?”
“Yuan Yue is at the scene, handling things with the others. But before they arrived, Ben grabbed Mr. Liu and jumped into the flames, perishing together with him,” Huo Ranyin said.
“What about Boss Wu?” Ji Xun asked.
“Boss Wu is still alive.”
“That’s good. At least there’s still someone from back then caught alive on the ship,” Ji Xun gasped through his teeth. “If the person I traded this body full of injuries for ended up dying under Ben’s vigilante justice, I wouldn’t even know whom to cry foul to. By the way, where is this ship heading?”
“To shore,” Huo Ranyin said. “To take you to the hospital. You’re so heavily injured, we didn’t dare transport you by helicopter.”
“What about Meng Fushan?” Ji Xun asked again.
“…” Huo Ranyin, who had answered fluently moments ago, suddenly fell silent.
Ji Xun, who had originally prepared himself for the outcome of Meng Fushan being arrested by the police, looked at Huo Ranyin in confusion.
“Meng Fushan…” Huo Ranyin took a deep breath. “He jumped down to save us, got hit by a bullet, and slid into the sea. The police are doing everything they can to search and rescue, but they haven’t found him.”
He spoke the hardest truth in one breath, looking at Ji Xun, ready at any moment to hold down the patient if he became agitated.
Ji Xun merely froze for a second.
He closed his eyes, opened them again, and was already moving on to other matters: “Lend me your phone.”
Huo Ranyin: “What for?”
Ji Xun: “I have a few calls to make.”
At the same time, guarding his shot with his right arm, he gritted his teeth and shifted his body, sitting up from the bed. But before he could balance himself, his body tilted toward the edge of the bed.
Huo Ranyin was quick to support him.
“You don’t need to get out of bed to make phone calls.”
“Besides making calls, there are other things, of course. I still need to go see the owner of this ship—”
“…Does it have to be right now?” Huo Ranyin whispered, his voice sounding almost soft and vulnerable. “It can wait until you recover from your injuries.”
“That’s too long; now is the best time,” Ji Xun pleaded. “Also, don’t move. Don’t move… I just want to lean on you like this. It hurts less this way.”
They found the owner of the ship on the deck.
It was still raining.
Only, it no longer possessed the momentum of a skyward deluge like two hours ago; it had turned into a pleasant cadence, tinkling down like a descending pearl curtain, scattering lightly into a pool.
Under a massive white parasol sat a man with white hair, fair skin, and white clothes.
He sat on a rattan chair beside a matching rattan table. On the table stood a glass of water, a pair of binoculars, a pair of glasses, and a copy of The Temple of the Golden Pavilion placed face down.
A canvas was set up on an easel in front of him, and he was smearing paint across it. The painting depicted a massive ship burning fiercely; huge swathes of crimson covered two-thirds of the canvas, looking like flames, or perhaps blood scorched out by fire—whichever it was, it seemed ready to pour off the canvas.
He was painting.
Yet, dressed entirely in pristine white amidst the dark, gloomy sky and sea, he was a painting in his own right.
Sitting in a wheelchair, Ji Xun called out a greeting to the ship’s owner: “Nice painting.”
The ship’s owner turned around.
It was Yu Cisheng.
Yu Cisheng: “The doctor told me you could sleep all the way until we reached the shore and were sent to the hospital.”
Ji Xun: “Looks like he miscalculated.”
Yu Cisheng: “Perhaps you could rest in the hospital bed until the ship docks.”
Ji Xun: “That would be far too rude to my savior.”
Yu Cisheng: “It was just pulling you aboard, a mere trivial effort.”
As Yu Cisheng conversed with Ji Xun, he didn’t stop painting.
He was always so eccentric and willful—just like when Ji Xun first met him in Qin City, lying inside a coffin while a funeral procession marched up the mountain with gongs and drums.
“Was it saving Ji Xun? I thought you wanted to save Mr. Liu.”
The speaker was Huo Ranyin, standing behind Ji Xun. After bringing Ji Xun over, he leaned against the doorframe, his gaze casting aimlessly toward the distant sea, at that far-off line where the sea met the sky.
Only now did he suddenly shift his gaze onto Yu Cisheng.
When he spoke, his words were sharp as a blade.
“However, in that desperate situation, seeing a ship appear, Mr. Liu definitely wouldn’t let go of that hope. After all, a person cannot give up hope. Then, Mr. Liu would split his forces. Once he split his forces, wouldn’t you guys have a chance at victory?” Yu Cisheng said.
“This was merely a gamble. I simply helped you add a small variable. A variable biased in your favor—you can’t possibly fail to see this, to the point of accusing me of saving Mr. Liu instead of saving you.”
He flicked his paintbrush, splashing vermilion paint onto the canvas like tiny sparks scorched by a great fire.
“Judging by the outcome, Mr. Liu turned into flames, forever buried on that ship. A very fitting ending, wouldn’t you say?”
“If you truly wanted to save us, why choose this exact moment? You could have done it earlier,” Huo Ranyin continued coldly. His accusations against Yu Cisheng were harsh, but they were by no means without foundation. “The sea is so vast—by what miraculous coincidence of fate did you manage to appear at the most critical moment? The reason you could appear at just the right time is obviously because you were always hovering near Mr. Liu’s ship. Since you were there all along when you found out we were on board and that ship suddenly lost radio contact and came to an eerie standstill, why didn’t you call the police? Calling the police could have easily resolved everything.”
“Also, how did you know it was a desperate situation?
Granted, Mr. Liu only had a few bodyguards by his side at that moment, which was why the ship you sent out could lure Mr. Liu into splitting his forces and give us an opportunity—however, for a superyacht like this, as someone who knew about this ship and knew Mr. Liu, you couldn’t possibly not know that under normal circumstances, it carried a security force of over eighty people. How did you know that at that moment, Mr. Liu was left with only those few bodyguards?
You knew everything.
You didn’t call the police because you were waiting for something to happen on that ship. Because you knew the killer’s entire plan.
In fact, the killer himself, Ben, was put onto this ship by you.
Just like me, just like Ji Xun, just like Meng Fushan.
One by one, in different ways, we were sent onto the ship by you.”
A gust of cold wind blew past, causing Ji Xun to shrink back slightly.
It was only a subtle movement, but Huo Ranyin, who was speaking, immediately turned his gaze toward him.
Frowning, Huo Ranyin looked as though he dearly wanted to put a coat over Ji Xun, but Yu Cisheng stood up from his rattan chair.
“It’s my oversight to keep a patient exposed to the cold wind and rain. It seems you have a lot to say to me. Let’s go upstairs, where we can drink tea, chat, and take our time.”
Yu Cisheng officially received his two guests in the lounge on the topmost deck of the vessel.
Heavy red velvet curtains were gathered up with gold hooks. Beneath the window stood a side table adorned with clusters of blooming flowers, and in front of the side table was a small round table used for tea breaks. In the lower left corner of the small round table lay a chessboard with a game halfway finished; on the upper right stood a glossy white lacquer piano on a stand.
Ji Xun’s gaze swept across the room, lingering extra seconds on the chessboard to take a closer look.
The chess table was square, with a chair on each side for the black and white pieces.
The chair for the white pieces was pulled out, while the one for the black pieces was not.
One chair was arranged, while the other wasn’t?
Or perhaps a game that appeared to require two people was just one person entertaining himself.
Yu Cisheng invited the two to sit by the round table while he walked over to the side table, turning on the speaker before bringing over a few glasses of champagne.
“Narrowly escaping death calls for a little drink to relax. Considering the patient, these are low alcohol.”
“No need.”
“It’s fine.”
Huo Ranyin and Ji Xun spoke at the same time.
Then Ji Xun smiled at Huo Ranyin: “A little drink to refresh ourselves isn’t bad; we still have a long conversation ahead.”
Huo Ranyin didn’t refuse further.
Ji Xun’s words relaxed him somewhat; his tense body gradually softened, sinking back into the chair.
He remained silent, his silence like a cold spear standing guard.
Champagne was placed in front of everyone.
Amidst the rich fragrance of flowers, Ji Xun took a sip of the wine, feeling the liquid leave a slightly astringent aftertaste on the tip of his tongue.
“Then let’s continue the topic from earlier,” Ji Xun said. “Where were we?”
Meng Fushan.
They were talking about Meng Fushan.
“Meng Fushan,” Huo Ranyin said, “is someone I told you about.”
“After I discovered Ji Xun interacting with someone suspicious, I asked you to investigate him. That person was Meng Fushan.”
Huo Ranyin glanced at Ji Xun, but Ji Xun didn’t look back at him.
Ji Xun was intently staring at Yu Cisheng.
Huo Ranyin continued in a flat tone: “When Chen Jiashu sent Meng Fushan to Qin City to kidnap Fu Baoxin, it was very strange when you think carefully about it. Chen Jiashu might indeed have been testing Meng Fushan, but there are many ways to test someone. Why use his own kidney source to test Meng Fushan? Chen Jiashu was merely an ordinary client buying and selling kidneys; why would he directly contact the source himself? And how did he know about the kidney source? I doubt there was any other source besides the boss who sold him the kidneys—Mr. Liu. After you learned about this figure from me, through some unknown means, you got Mr. Liu to pay attention to this person as well.
And for you, that was very simple.
After all, the friendship between your father, Yu Fanhai—Yu Hai—and Mr. Liu—Liu Yan—could be traced back forty years to the Dingbo.
Killing people together and making money together—such a bond was no small matter.
Mr. Liu took the bait quickly. He contacted Chen Jiashu, mentioning that this person, Meng Fushan, might be problematic.
Chen Jiashu had brothers under him and owned a company; as someone who could build such a vast enterprise, he was no push-over. He was extremely displeased with Mr. Liu meddling in his personal staff affairs, nor would he sever his own arm based on a single word from Mr. Liu. But out of caution, he still gave Meng Fushan a test.
That test was Qin City, Fu Baoxin.
But was Chen Jiashu’s kidney source really Fu Baoxin’s sister, Fu Baoling?
Whether she was or wasn’t was just a matter of a single word from Mr. Liu.
What mattered wasn’t Fu Baoxin as a person, but Qin City itself.
You wanted Meng Fushan to go to Qin City.
Because Ji Xun was in Qin City.
As long as Ji Xun was in Qin City, Meng Fushan, upon encountering danger, would definitely contact Ji Xun. Consequently, Ji Xun would very likely direct his attention toward Chen Jiashu and even toward Mr. Liu and his ship.”
“A very brilliant speculation. But it seems your lover holds a different view.” Yu Cisheng met Ji Xun’s gaze. “It appears you also feel Huo Ranyin’s habit of blaming himself for everything isn’t very good.”
“Indeed,” Ji Xun said. “Even without Chen Jiashu’s trap, there was still the card of Hu Yuan to play. When you felt it was time for us to get on the ship, we would get on board. Perhaps the only difference would be whether Meng Fushan brought me aboard or I brought Meng Fushan, or if neither brought the other and we simply met up on the ship.”
“The outcome would be identical, though the process might differ slightly—and could afford to differ. Just like when I write a novel, the first things I think of are the beginning and the ending. As for the process in between, I write a bit and push a bit. Sometimes, the characters under my pen—my string puppets—will suddenly develop their own ideas, acting out even more brilliant plots on their own… But so what? The beginning and the ending are already anchored; they are locked onto their inevitable trajectory, ultimately reaching the final outcome designed long ago.”
“It sounds like I’m writing a book as well,” Yu Cisheng remarked with interest.
“Or rather, creating a form of art,” Ji Xun said. “An art that belongs to you, just like that painting you made on the deck.”
“That’s a bit of an exaggeration,” Yu Cisheng said. “I had no way to infer Mr. Liu’s ending. You two were on the ship the entire time and had contact with the killer—Ben. Could you have inferred that Ben would ultimately drag Mr. Liu into perishing together?”
“If I could, I’d also like to return my old friend’s previous question,” Yu Cisheng added. “Why didn’t you stop it?”
“The ending you gave Mr. Liu was destruction, not perishing together. As for how he met his destruction, when it happened, and in what form, those were all things you could adjust—and look forward to,” Ji Xun said. “Because art is not a formula; it doesn’t have a unique solution. A meticulously carved and strategically arrayed work—what kind of energy will it ultimately condense and thoroughly explode with… Clearly, you are extremely satisfied with this explosive outcome.”
“Just like,” Ji Xun smiled, “you are satisfied with me as a material.”
“Material?”
“Yes. Me, Meng Fushan, Ben—aren’t we all creative materials you discovered, meticulously arranged, and placed on the right tracks, becoming crucial pieces to win the entire game at the critical moment?”
“Why isn’t Huo Ranyin in that sentence?” Yu Cisheng asked. “All four of you were on the ship; you are a whole.”
The smile fell from Ji Xun’s face, his gaze turning icy.
Yu Cisheng nodded: “It seems you don’t want to talk about Huo Ranyin that way—a lover’s affection.”
He raised his glass, gesturing toward Ji Xun.
Ji Xun stared at Yu Cisheng for a moment, then raised his as well.
The two glasses clinked lightly.
“To art.” Yu Cisheng took a sip of his wine. “I really like your interpretation of art just now. An inevitability carrying countless coincidences. A fixed framework carrying boundless surprises. Like sparks of inspiration, striking and shooting countless brilliant stars across a blank canvas.”
“Mainly, art is too refined for me; I feel investment suits me better. It’s just that while some people invest in stocks and others invest in products, I choose to invest in people.
People are the most valuable asset in the world.
Where there are people, there are infinite possibilities.
For different people, if I favor them, I invest in them. Some fail, while others become exceptionally, outstandingly excellent.
That’s probably the joy of investing.”
“…” Ji Xun said, “Are we your investment targets?”
“You are my exceptionally high-quality investment targets.”
“Then let’s talk about how you invested in us.”
Yu Cisheng made a gesture of invitation.
“Where should I start…” Ji Xun pondered for a moment. “Let’s just start with my grandfather. Ji Xingfa, or Chu Xingfa, a seemingly ordinary old man. In all the years I seriously served as a police officer, I never felt anything was off about him. But for him to come off the Dingbo forty years ago… how shocking.”
“Grandfather experienced that horrifying slaughter on the Dingbo… and afterward, they swore a blood covenant. The bone fragments for the blood covenant were distributed to everyone before stepping off the ship, so as a runaway, he had a bone fragment in his possession too.
My mother was a nurse. Ji Yu’s heart was bad, and she needed a heart transplant. Naturally, Mother paid attention to various channels for Ji Yu’s sake. Perhaps one day, just like me, among patients of people similar to Tang Jinglong, she discovered the characters [Smooth sailing, calm winds, and tranquil waves]. And these same characters were carved onto Grandfather’s bone fragment.
She discovered that patients connected to these characters could always receive organs in a timely manner.
And so, through a web of connections, she used that bone fragment to secure a heart transplant for Ji Yu.”
Ji Xun paused for a long while, thinking of his parents, of Ji Yu, and of Meng Fushan.
He thought of Meng Fushan, who had ultimately guessed everything and yet said nothing at all.
The truth they had sacrificed their careers, their futures, and far too much to seek turned out to be this. They had unveiled the truth of a crime, hoping to soothe their past breakdowns and pain.
Yet all they obtained was another breakdown and pain.
So in the end, his sister was so obsessed with innocence; so in the end, his sister preferred death over telling him a single thing.
“Grandfather had a massive fight with my parents over this. He was terrified of being found by the people on the ship; with what he had done back then, if he were found, he would certainly face brutal retaliation.
But I don’t know what method my parents used back then to evade that risk. I think it was because of my father—my father was a man of great capability, and he resolved it.
When I was little, our home was always peaceful.
Until years later, when you appeared.
…You met me on the snow-capped mountain.
You said the world is vast and many things rely on fate.
Our ‘fate’ prompted you to turn your gaze toward me, and through me, you noticed Ji Yu.
Ji Yu’s heart of unknown origin, along with the fact that my grandfather had come off the Dingbo forty years ago, stirred your immense interest.
Or perhaps due to some other idea I can’t comprehend, one day, you decided to invest in my family’s cold case to make it even more dramatic.
You told An Jie about that heart, telling him the order had been swapped and Ji Yu had stolen the life that originally belonged to his family member.
Thus, the flames of hatred burned fiercely in An Jie’s heart.
To avenge Ji Yu, An Jie approached her and psychologically manipulated her.
He severed Ji Yu’s social connections, trapping her on an emotional island of his own creation.
Then, at Ji Yu’s most vulnerable moment while under his control, he told Ji Yu about her parents… about my parents… stealing someone else’s life.
Ji Yu could not accept it… could not accept that the noble, kind parents in her heart had brutally taken someone else’s life just to save her.
After I started working, I was completely absent from her family life—an utter deadbeat of a relative. My parents were her final emotional pillar.
The massive psychological gulf cracked that pillar, and an overwhelming sense of guilt drove her to kill our parents and then commit suicide.
Thus, Meng Fushan had to, and I had to… in the end, we were bound to step onto this ship to try and understand everything, exactly as you desired.”
