Chapter 26
“I, Bai Sheng, plucked all the wild vegetables in Shenhai!”
“Shen Zhuo?”
“Why is he here? Who let him come?”
“He still has the face to show up?!”
…
On the grass lining both sides of the bluestone path, the evolutionists from the Central Supervision Office began to whisper. The whispers soon grew into louder, more agitated discussions. Someone came forward to block the path: “You, surnamed Shen, what are you doing here?”
Shen Zhuo stopped, his face like frost.
His completely calm reaction was like a spark landing in a field of gasoline. Righteous indignation stirred everyone up: “Does this ungrateful villain even deserve to see Fu-ge?” “Is this man here to show off his power? Get him out!”
The wave of voices from all directions grew louder. Someone reached out to grab Shen Zhuo’s collar: “Didn’t you hear? Scram!”
Some of those present had participated in the private lynching back then. Shen Zhuo sidestepped the grab, then pulled his hand from his pocket. The object glinting between his fingers was a transparent syringe full of serum.
Engraved on the metal cap was a clear letter: S!
It was as if a basin of ice water had been poured over everyone. The air fell abruptly silent.
“Restrain yourselves.” Shen Zhuo’s tone was light and composed, the corner of his mouth hooking into a beautiful arc. “It’s been three years, and you all are still the same. How nostalgic.”
“—You!” “What did you say?!”
If the S-class serum was like a deterrent that momentarily suppressed their anger, then the ensuing mockery was like a floodgate opening, detonating that suppressed anger a hundred, a thousand times over: “Is this guy here to cause trouble?!” “You, surnamed Shen, are you even human!”
A chorus of furious roars erupted. The evolutionists at the front, their eyes red, rushed to snatch the syringe. In the chaos, Shen Zhuo tilted his head to evade the grab. With a flick of his thumb, he popped the metal cap. The needle glinted with a cold light as he moved to jab it into the side of his own neck.
“Stop!”
A sharp reprimand echoed through the cemetery. The voice wasn’t loud, but it was like a clap of thunder in everyone’s ears.
The expressions of the evolutionists froze.
Through the enraged crowd, at the end of the bluestone path, a familiar back was facing a marble tombstone. It was Yue Yang.
“I invited Supervisor Shen here,” Yue Yang’s voice was cold and steady, leaving no room for doubt. “Fu Chen, in the underworld, would want to see him.”
“…” As if suppressed by an invisible force, the tense, confrontational situation was forcibly calmed.
The crowd dispersed unwillingly, glaring resentfully at Shen Zhuo as they backed away.
Shen Zhuo was not surprised at all, not even bothering to show any expression. He snapped the metal cap back on, put away the serum, and strode through the crowd to the front of the tombstone.
On the white stone tablet, the Fu Chen from three years ago was frozen in time. He had a unique temperament that blended handsome sharpness with gentleness, his eyes shining brightly when he smiled.
“If I hadn’t invited you, would you have come?” Yue Yang’s low voice came from his side, at a volume only the two of them could hear.
Shen Zhuo’s gaze was lowered, meeting the eyes of Fu Chen in the memorial photo. He didn’t answer.
Yue Yang sighed silently.
Yue Yang was dressed in plain black, which made his already stern temperament even more solemn.
He was actually still quite young. Back in his school days at the Central Research Institute, he was in the same grade and class as Fu Chen. But unlike the cheerful, outgoing, and popular Fu Chen, who naturally attracted many lower-level peers to support him, Yue Yang had always been the one responsible for ruling, planning, and executing. Thus, he was taciturn and sparing with his words, each sentence carrying a unique weight.
At that time, Fu Chen was the only S-class in the country, nominally the spiritual leader of the evolutionists, but Yue Yang was the one actually in charge of leadership. The two of them were extremely close, and it was no exaggeration to say they were brothers in arms. Because of this, the situation in the central district remained very stable. No one had expected Fu Chen to die unexpectedly three years ago. From then on, everything changed.
Yue Yang was appointed under pressure to become the head of the Central District Supervision Office.
This position of great power and prestige, yet one where he had to tread on thin ice, along with the suffocating weight of responsibility, had changed him a lot in just three short years, giving him a completely different temperament from his peers.
“You asked me something before,” Yue Yang turned his head to look at Shen Zhuo and said, “On the night of May 10th, three years ago, you said that Fu Chen and Su Jiqiao left the central district together and went to the Quanshan County Clinic.”
“…”
“But I checked all the mission records from three years ago. There was no mission report for them during that period, which means that in theory, they should not have left the central district.”
Shen Zhuo’s brow furrowed slightly.
“According to the files, they weren’t assigned any official duties that month. The only thing was on May 11th, when the three of you formed a team to go to the Qinghai Testing Site to recover an evolution source.” Yue Yang paused and asked, “I don’t know what’s up with the scene backtracking you saw at the Quanshan County Clinic. Are you sure the Witch Italdo’s ability doesn’t make mistakes?”
Shen Zhuo was silent for a moment before saying, “There’s another possibility.”
“What?”
Shen Zhuo’s expression seemed a bit strange, but Yue Yang couldn’t tell what it meant. Only after a long moment did he hear him say slowly:
“They took leave separately and then met up privately… That way, no record would be left.”
“What did you say?” Yue Yang’s first reaction was surprise, followed by a shake of his head in denial. “Impossible. Their private relationship wasn’t that good. Although Su Jiqiao liked to stick to Fu Chen, he was young and liked to stick to everyone. And Fu Chen took care of everyone equally. How could I not know?”
“…”
Shen Zhuo stood there, his expression unreadable beneath his lowered lashes.
Yue Yang opened his mouth, wanting to say more, but after a moment, he couldn’t help but turn around. “Shen Zhuo, what exactly happened on the night of the explosion at the Qinghai Testing Site?”
Shen Zhuo remained silent, showing no sign of answering.
“You can just tell me, Shen Zhuo, you—”
“My on-site recording device was handed over to the accident investigation committee three years ago,” Shen Zhuo said coldly. “I don’t know what else you want to ask. There’s nothing more to say.”
Yue Yang frowned tightly. “But the footage from the recorder only goes up to 10 p.m. on May 11th when the three of you separated. Everything was still normal then. The explosion happened suddenly at 10:30, but nothing was recorded in that last half hour…”
“How many more times do I have to repeat it?” Shen Zhuo’s answer was calm. “—’I was asleep at the time. I knew nothing until I was awakened by the alarm from Fu Chen’s operational error at 10:30, and then the explosion happened’.”
“But…”
“Didn’t you repeat that answer many times when you were torturing me with your private court three years ago?”
Yue Yang was momentarily speechless.
“Even if you break another nineteen of my bones, or even all the bones in my body, the answer will still be the same.” Shen Zhuo gave a short laugh, his face pale and calm. “I don’t know what happened before the explosion either.”
Yue Yang looked at him for a long time, like a defeated soldier hopelessly looking up at a cold statue, or a lofty, unreachable city wall.
Shen Zhuo clasped his hands in front of him, his eyelids lowered as he stared at the tombstone, meeting the gaze of the once-familiar face in the photo. The wind rustled through the green branches of the pines and cypresses, and the sound of people’s voices rustled behind him. Rows of white tombstones stood on the lawn. Yet, some strange power seemed to have drained all the light and sound from the surroundings. The light and shadows vanished, darkness surged in, and memories flooded all his senses like a rising tide in the dead of night.
He gently closed his eyes.
The air was filled with the strange, sweet, and fishy smell of rotting apples, and a faint, almost imperceptible scent of blood and rust. In the darkness, there were only his own footsteps moving forward. As he turned a corner, the beam of his flashlight swept over the peeling words on the gray wall: Qinghai Testing Site.
“Su Jiqiao?” he heard his own cold, tense voice, the click of a bullet being chambered echoing in the dead silence.
“Come out, Su Jiqiao!”
The tactical flashlight went out without a sound. A sliver of light leaked from the crack of a partially closed door at the end of the corridor. Shen Zhuo walked forward step by step. Everything that followed was already seared into his mind as an indelible image. He could even hear himself pushing open the ajar door with the muzzle of his gun, the soft creak it made. “Su Jiqiao, you…”
Then his voice cut off abruptly.
He heard his own disbelieving voice: “Fu Chen?”
That was the spell that later began all the tragedy.
Shock, panic, confusion, roaring… All the following details replayed along their predetermined tracks, a bizarre and rapid spinning that finally froze on the intense light of the evolution source’s explosion.
The nuclear blast shook the heavens and the earth. A sea of fire consumed everything. The bunker collapsed in huge chunks amidst the tremors. In the final moments, he saw Fu Chen’s mouth desperately opening and closing, as if trying to use his last strength to say something to him, but nothing could be heard.
Flesh and bone were instantly vaporized. The endless desert was thrown into the sky.
From that moment on, the only truth was wrapped in heavy fog, forever lost in the long river of evolution, leaving no trace to be found.
…
The sky above the cemetery was a vast blue, surrounded by mountains and the sighing of pines. Shen Zhuo opened his eyes and exhaled, the sound disappearing silently into the wind.
“I once wanted to know something too,” he said softly. “But it already blew up… It doesn’t matter anymore.”
He took the white flower from the lapel of his black coat, stepped forward, and gently placed it before the tombstone. His cold fingertips brushed past the black-and-white memorial photo. Then he stood up and walked back the way he came.
Just as they passed each other, driven by some unknown impulse, Yue Yang suddenly blurted out:
“Shen Zhuo!”
A long wind came from the horizon, like a vast rising tide, carrying with it the swirling passage of time as it rushed into the distance. Yue Yang felt a little dazed. Those long-sealed memories seemed to stir like silt at the bottom of the sea. In the blink of an eye, so many years had passed, leaving no trace on the elegant and cold face of the man before him.
The world did not know about the two humiliating knife scars on his left hand, nor did it know about the undercurrents and bloody chaos of those years.
But it really didn’t matter anymore.
“…That time I interrogated you three years ago, I wanted to get you out, but the situation was completely uncontrollable. It was the only way to save your life…”
Yue Yang paused, hearing his own dry voice: “Have you ever hated me?”
Shen Zhuo gave him a flat glance, his eyes devoid of any ripples:
“I’ve never had many thoughts about you.”
He walked down the bluestone steps towards the distant cemetery gate. Behind him, Yue Yang lowered his eyelids, and a soft sigh vanished without a trace into the wind the moment it left his lips. “I see.”
“…I thought as much.”
·
The small, pale white flowers in the grass swayed in the wind. The rows of snow-white tombstones were left behind, gradually receding with each step.
“Senior!”
At the cemetery gate, the private car with a Shenhai license plate was still waiting at the bottom of the steps. Chen Miao hurried forward to meet him. “You’re out? Are you okay? Can we go now?”
Not far away, the evolutionists guarding the perimeter watched with undisguised hostility. Shen Zhuo walked steadily through their resentful gazes, his face expressionless. He nodded his chin, signaling Chen Miao to start the car, then headed straight for the back seat.
But just then, a slight commotion came from outside the cemetery gate in the distance:
“Shen Zhuo?”
“Is that Supervisor Shen Zhuo from Shenhai City?”
A swarm of people carrying cameras and microphones rushed over. They were actually news media reporters!
It was an unprecedented scene. Shen Zhuo’s steps paused, and he was immediately engulfed by the crowd. Several reporters were even eager to pull out their voice recorders: “Excuse me, Supervisor Shen, were you invited to attend the memorial ceremony?” “Will the Shenhai Supervision Office also be holding a memorial event soon?” “Why did you leave early?” “Supervisor Shen, could you talk about the latest progress in security cooperation between the Central Supervision Office and the Shenhai Supervision Office?”
…
Shen Zhuo took a step back and immediately felt pressure from behind. The evolutionists had preemptively blocked his retreat, their faces showing no abnormality, but the air was thick with unmistakable malice.
In that instant, Shen Zhuo understood.
It was impossible for Yue Yang to have notified the media about today’s memorial ceremony in advance, let alone have so many reporters recognize him at the same time and immediately swarm through the gate for an interview.
It was arranged secretly by these people from the Central Supervision Office, deliberately to embarrass him at the cemetery gate.
“What are you doing? Who told you to come here? Move aside!” Chen Miao was both shocked and furious, but B City was not Shenhai’s territory, and the media interview regulations here were completely different from Shenhai’s. He could only wave his hands to disperse the crowd. “Break it up, stop filming!”
“We are a legitimate media outlet from B City!”
“We have regulations; we can exercise our right to interview!”
Shen Zhuo shielded the side of his face with one hand and was about to walk quickly away when a loud and reckless voice came from the crowd: “Supervisor Shen! There have always been rumors that you had an unusual relationship with the late S-class evolutionist, Fu Chen. Is that true? Were you really invited to attend the memorial ceremony?”
The entire scene fell silent in an instant.
Numerous cameras were practically shoved in Shen Zhuo’s face.
“…”
“A media interview?” Yue Yang, by the tombstone, turned his head sensitively. His gaze passed through his subordinates, who were trying to look inconspicuous, and looked towards the distant cemetery gate.
Several high-ranking supervisors tried to cover it up: “It’s nothing, Yue-ge, they’re just propaganda partners we’ve worked with for a long time…” “They’re our own people…”
“Nonsense!” Yue Yang’s face darkened with anger. He turned and strode briskly towards the exit. “What’s Shen Zhuo’s status? His face has to be censored even in international news. How can you just find media to conduct an interview!”
A few of his trusted men were still fruitlessly trying to stop him from behind: “It’s really fine, Yue-ge, we’re just trying to give him a hard time!” “Shoving him a few times isn’t against the rules!” “Yeah, yeah…”
Yue Yang forcibly pushed through the crowd, stepped out of the cemetery gate, and looked up to see the flurry of cameras and microphones at the bottom of the steps. Shen Zhuo was completely surrounded by the media. Chen Miao, standing in front of Shen Zhuo, was clearly provoked, a bright light flashing in his palm as he was about to whip up a cold wind to push all these reporters away—
Before Yue Yang’s roar of “All of you, scatter!” could leave his lips, an invisible and immense force descended from the sky, crashing down like a transparent iron wall and instantly pushing all the reporters back!
“Ah!” “What’s happening?” “Who is that?”
Exclamations rang out from all directions. Shen Zhuo whipped his head around.
“Yo, what are we interviewing about? What unusual relationship?”
Outside the crowd, Bai Sheng strolled over with a smile. Handsome, suave, tall, and long-legged, he had one hand in his pocket and waved at the dumbfounded crowd with the other. He walked the few bluestone steps as if it were the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival. “Are you talking about me?”
The media: “…”
Shen Zhuo: “…”
Bai Sheng, like an A-list actor deigning to descend to the mortal realm, shimmering with golden light and auspicious energy, generously displayed his superior physical condition to the numerous cameras from all angles. He walked closer, slung an arm around Shen Zhuo’s shoulders, and winked at the many blank-faced reporters.
Then he turned to look at Shen Zhuo, a hint of amusement flickering deep in his pupils:
“Darling, didn’t we agree I’d come pick you up after the memorial? Let’s go.”
Shen Zhuo: “……………”
The atmosphere seemed to freeze. Shen Zhuo, who was supposed to play along with his acting, was rendered speechless. He covered his face with his hand for a moment of silence, then suddenly shook his head and smiled.
This was probably the first time the public media had recorded Supervisor Shen’s smile. In that instant, it was like ice and snow melting, or a night-blooming cereus appearing for a brief moment, making people unable to believe their eyes.
On the steps, Yue Yang froze in place, feeling lost and a mix of complicated emotions.
“Let’s go,” Shen Zhuo said lightly, patting Bai Sheng’s back in return.
Chen Miao, as if in a dream, watched dumbfounded as the handsome man surnamed Bai effortlessly led his boss into the car. He suddenly jolted and chased after them. “Hey! Wait for me!”
With a bang, Bai Sheng closed the car door. The bulletproof glass immediately blocked out the numerous prying eyes and cameras from outside.
Shen Zhuo casually loosened his tie. “How did you know I was here?”
Bai Sheng didn’t answer directly. While adjusting the front seat to accommodate his long legs that had nowhere to go, he laughed. “The only deceased S-class in the world. Which evolutionist doesn’t know what day it is today? I waited in prison for half the day, and you still hadn’t come back. I pretty much guessed where you’d snuck off to.”
Then he leaned back comfortably in the back seat and smiled. “Any thoughts on my heroic deed of selling my body to save you, Supervisor Shen?”
Shen Zhuo scoffed. “Isn’t that what you, as my rumored boyfriend, are supposed to do?”
Chen Miao, who had just scrambled into the car as if his butt were on fire, was met with this sentence and almost had a heart attack on the spot.
“Tsk, look at you, so fickle and heartless.” Bai Sheng was itching to misbehave but forced himself to hold back. He leaned back, crossed his long legs, and bounced his foot. “I’m still a chaste young man, you know? I’ve lived a life of purity, upholding male virtue, and came out publicly for the sake of righteousness. Now my pristine reputation is about to be ruined by a heartbreaker like you, yet you won’t even add me on WeChat. Do you know I’ve picked all the wild vegetables in Shenhai…”
Chen Miao almost slammed on the gas instead of the brake. He fumbled to change gears, and with a hasty stomp on the accelerator, the private car, spewing exhaust, quickly disappeared down the mountain road.
I think Yue Yang likes him
poor Chen Miao, always eating dog food. 😭