Qiming Chapter 40

Chapter 40

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Again, it was that car.

"How long has it been following you?" Gu Yunfeng asked anxiously. Two similar incidents had occurred in just over a week, rampant to the point of lawlessness.

"Since I left the house, forty-five minutes," Accompanied by a burst of harsh brakes, he heard Professor Xu take a deep breath before sighing. "I just barely made it through a red light and lost it for a moment. Now it's pushed me onto another lane and I need to find a chance to turn around and get to the hospital."

"Where are you now?"

"About ten kilometres from you," Xu Chengyue said, glancing at the Lexus in the rearview mirror and slamming the accelerator, turning onto another main road.

"I'm heading towards the hospital now, but it feels like my car is dying," he said, eyes fixed on the flickering navigation. "On second thought, meet me at the intersection of Huanan Road and Dongchuan Road, five kilometres away, there's a charging station there."

"Alright." Gu Yunfeng hurried downstairs, ran to the road, and hailed a taxi.

"I don't have a car, do you have a plan for when we meet? We can't just run for our lives on foot. We're on two legs, but our pursuers have four wheels."

"No plan." Xu Chengyue paused, his tone flat and direct. "I don't know how to shake it off, so I just wanted to drag you into this. When we're both in the same predicament, you'll surely come up with a solution."

Gu Yunfeng: "You..."

If he hadn't already hailed a taxi and was genuinely concerned for Xu Chengyue's safety, he would have hung up and turned back.

Such a pair of brothers in hardship. After arriving at the charging station, he waited by the roadside in sorrow, thinking that Xu Chengyue just wanted to die alongside him, right?

—————

The speeding car stopped in front of him. Xu Chengyue pushed open the door and pointed to the vehicle following behind.

As the door opened, Gu Yunfeng quickly got in. The SUV was only about a hundred metres away, barrelling down the road. If it weren't for the fact that they were in sparsely populated suburbs, they might have had a convoy of police cars following them.

"Aren't you going to charge your electric car?" he pointed to the charging station ahead.

"Seems like it's too late." Xu Chengyue handed him a bottle of mineral water, opened another for himself, and took several large gulps. He felt extremely thirsty due to anxiety and tension.

"The car behind, I observed it just now. It's like you said last time, there's no driver." He took a breath, pressing the accelerator. "There's a Hello Kitty doll in the driver's seat, and it hasn't been more than five hundred metres away from me."

"I need to focus on driving manually, I can't use autopilot. Machines work on similar principles, if I use autopilot, it will easily predict my movements, and we won't be able to maintain even this one or two-hundred-metre gap."

Gu Yunfeng, sitting in the passenger seat, glanced back at the approaching car. Sure enough, there was a big-faced Hello Kitty doll in the driver's seat, not as terrifying as the doll last time.

The wind rushed against the windows, hissing through the cracks.

"What happened to your arm? Is it injured?" Gu Yunfeng noticed a large abrasion on his right arm, with a bruise, soft tissue damage and a bit of bleeding. He felt a pang of distress for some reason, rummaged through the car for a first aid kit, and used an alcohol swab to clean Xu Chengyue's wound.

"I got hit halfway here." Xu Chengyue twisted his head to glance at his bruised arm, explaining that he used his right arm to shield his face during the collision, which hit the steering wheel.

"Look, last time it was following my car, and this time it's yours," Gu Yunfeng said, lowering his head to block the glaring sunlight from the window. "So, it's targeting you. Who have you offended?"

"I'd also really like to know."

The wind howled past, there were no trees on either side of the highway, only vast fields and grasslands.

They circled endlessly with the SUV that carried a death threat, unable to find a way to shake it off, they could only keep accelerating.

Gu Yunfeng closed the window, analysing, "This car can follow us without a driver, is it hooked up to some positioning system?" 

He looked up at the sky, pointing with his right hand.

"Satellites can't be that precise."

Xu Chengyue's nerves were tense, he adjusted his glasses, a few beads of sweat rolling down from his temple, soaking the deep blue linen shirt around his neck. "Unless there's a tracker on me."

Tracking directly on him? Hearing this, Gu Yunfeng turned sharply, scrutinising Xu Chengyue from head to toe. "That's it, you've been fitted with a GPS, otherwise, how could it always follow you?"

"On me?"

"Yes. Let me check." He turned sideways, propping his head with one arm, and carefully inspecting Xu Chengyue.

Where could it be mounted? Earrings? Xu Chengyue never wore them. Clothes? They were changed and washed daily. Shirt buttons? Belt buckle?

His gaze moved from the other's reddened earlobe to the tied tie. He reached out and unbuttoned one of the shirt buttons, his eyes sweeping over the exposed collarbone before focusing on the button.

Xu Chengyue felt uncomfortable under his scrutiny.

"What are you looking at..." he asked softly, coughing a few times in distraction. Usually, he didn't feel anything when being stared at by others, but under Gu Yunfeng's gaze, his heart was weak to the point of incomparable panic.

"Don't talk, just drive properly." Gu Yunfeng frowned, giving his arm a light slap. He placed his left hand on the back of the driver's seat and leaned his body to the left. His right hand grabbed Xu Chengyue's shirt, carefully examining each pocket and even the threads of the shirt, before finally shifting his focus to the metal buckle of his belt.

His fingertips traced across the skin through the thin linen, causing an inexplicable tingling sensation. Xu Chengyue drove awkwardly, subconsciously slowing down.

The speed instantly dropped by fifty kilometres per hour.

"Hey..." Before he could finish speaking, the SUV following them crashed into them.

With the sound of screeching brakes, Gu Yunfeng leaned forward and stomped hard on the accelerator. With the veins bulging on the back of his hand, his hand pressed against the left window to brace himself, and he stretched out his arm to protect the person next to him.

"Why are you slowing down?" he shouted into Xu Chengyue's ear.

"You're too close to me."

"Damn it, we're both men, it's not like I'm taking advantage of you." He almost exploded with anger. This was a life-or-death situation, there was no time for being pretentious.

In the next second, Xu Chengyue's less-than-a-year-old Mercedes lost control, swerving towards the railing of the overpass. The guardrail was less than two metres high, and below the bridge was a grassy area, suspended over ten metres in the air.

This meant that in a few seconds, with no time for emergency measures, they would plummet with the car into the grassland below. Not to mention a torn body and crushed bones, they wouldn't survive.

With a bang, Gu Yunfeng suddenly pressed the autopilot switch. The red light flashed continuously, emitting a warning, and a series of emergency measures appeared on the navigation screen. The Mercedes tilted about ten degrees to the left, scraping against the guardrail before returning to the normal route.

It was too late for human reaction, but the machine reacted just in time.

Gu Yunfeng stomped on the accelerator, his mind blank. After about half a minute, he gradually came to his senses, coughing violently and loosened his tight grip on Xu Chengyue's wrist.

What was the feeling at that moment? The joy of surviving a disaster? Or the impulse to kneel and thank the heavens?

He looked at the other with red eyes, unsure whether he should punch him or hug him.

"Gu Yunfeng, are you okay?" Hearing the harsh coughing, Xu Chengyue finally snapped out of his shock. He was also relatively lucky, having not been injured in the collision.

In the rearview mirror, he saw the vehicle behind them only a few metres away, almost touching them. If their speed decreased, danger would ensue. Xu Chengyue hesitated but didn't speak, watching Gu Yunfeng bury his head in his arm, gently leaning against his leg.

His heart was pounding, and he could feel the heat from Gu Yunfeng's face through the fabric, raising the temperature of the entire space.

After a while, the violent coughing stopped, and the hand gripping his wrist suddenly released. Gu Yunfeng raised his head and pointed to the rose gold watch on his wrist, asking, "Do you wear this watch every day?"

"Yes." His heart skipped a beat.

This was a relatively affordable diamond-studded watch from Van Cleef & Arpels, a relic left by his parents when they passed away, their token of love. He was also wearing it when he accidentally fell from the building, and the movement was damaged in the fall. Professor Lu had it repaired for him.

"Well, not every day, I take it off when I shower." Seemingly sensing what was about to happen, he quickly changed his words, trying to prevent what was about to unfold.

But it was too late. Gu Yunfeng couldn't care less about the story behind the watch, he was convinced it contained a GPS tracker.

The button was too small to fit anything, and the metal buckle of the belt was open, lacking security. The only possibility was the watch.

He grabbed Xu Chengyue's wrist and removed the highly sentimental diamond-studded watch without a word. As they reached a fork in the road, he opened the window, stood up slightly, and threw it with all his strength towards the other road. The rose gold watch rolled a few times before landing in the grass, reflecting dazzling light under the sun, and gradually receding into the distance.

The car continued smoothly towards Jinping Hospital, with no sign of the vehicle attempting to harm them. Looking back, there was only an endless road and grassland.

The resolved crisis allowed the two to suddenly relax. The tension finally eased, and Xu Chengyue leaned against the window, unwilling to move until they arrived at the hospital entrance.

In many moments just now, he thought they would be horribly crushed, bones shattered. At that time, he deeply regretted it. If he had to die, he should have gone alone, why did he drag Captain Gu along?

But if it happened again, he would do the same. It felt as though as long as Gu Yunfeng was around, everything would turn out fine, and even death wouldn't be so frightening.

"That watch, it was my father's wedding gift to my mother." He looked at the bustling traffic outside the window and turned to Gu Yunfeng with a faint smile. It was lost, so be it. His parents were long gone, there's nothing wrong with letting their belongings go with them.

He didn't have any particular sentiment towards the watch, wearing it was just a habit. He moved his now bare wrist, noticing a faint mark that would gradually fade over time.

But hearing Xu Chengyue's words, Gu Yunfeng sat up with a start, looking terrified. "Does that make me a sinner?"

"It doesn't matter much to me." Xu Chengyue opened the car door, ready to get out. Seeing Gu Yunfeng's panicked expression, he quickly patted his shoulder to comfort him, "It's just a bit of a pity to think about the cost."

"Was it very expensive?"

"Not really," he replied seriously, nodding, "Just slightly more than your annual salary, it's okay."

Gu Yunfeng's mouth twitched stiffly hearing this. He sat silently in the car for half a minute before reluctantly getting out.

—————

At ten o'clock, the hospital was even more crowded than before. They waded through the sea of people from the outpatient department to the inpatient department and queued for several minutes before finally reaching the fifteenth floor.

As they stepped out of the elevator, they saw a woman dragging a heavy suitcase ahead of them, slowly pushing open the door to room 1512. Even from a distance, they could sense her gentle and graceful demeanour. She had long, curled hair, wore well-tailored pants and shirt, and a pair of well-fitted black flats.

Gu Yunfeng had seen this woman before, at the Jinping District police station years ago, amidst the media frenzy over the Jiang family gossip.

Lin Xiangrong, Jiang Yang's wife.

Usually, Jiang Hai's ward had a caregiver present, but with the recent turmoil, no one had visited except for the daily rounds by the doctors.

They watched Lin Xiangrong push open the door to the ward. She held a bouquet of lilies and placed her suitcase in the corner. It was a single ward, with only one bed where Jiang Hai lay silently, as he had for five years.

Lin Xiangrong threw the withered flowers from the vase into the trash, refilled it with water, added a preservative, and arranged the new flowers she had brought, trimming the uneven stems with scissors before placing them one by one into the vase.

Half of the flowers had bloomed, while others were still half-open. She sat in a chair, squinting slightly in the sunlight, admiring the blooming flowers.

Hearing the door gently open, she turned to see two unfamiliar faces standing not far away. She deliberately looked at Xu Chengyue's face and then smiled slightly, lowering her head.

Gu Yunfeng: "Ms. Lin?"

She nodded. Her soft eyebrows and eyes were accentuated with just foundation and cherry red lip gloss, giving her full lips a unique sensuality amidst her gentle and graceful appearance.

Gu Yunfeng gave a polite smile and walked towards her. This woman, who had just lost her family, did not show particular sadness. Dragging her suitcase, it seemed she had just returned from the airport, not having even gone home.

But did she still have a home to return to? That blood-stained villa? She surely didn't want to go there. However, Lin Xiangrong was not a native of Nanpu, and apart from the Jiang family, she had nowhere else to go.

The electroencephalogram next to the bed displayed regular lines. Jiang Hai lay there, eyes closed, unconscious. His face showed little sign of ageing, not much different from five years ago. His stubble was meticulously shaved and his hair recently trimmed, but his complexion was pale from years without sunlight.

Lin Xiangrong sat beside the bed, browsing recent news on her phone. After reading a few articles, she looked up at the two approaching her, her gaze finally settling on Xu Chengyue.

"I'm sorry for your loss."

"Mhmm" She put down her phone and shook her head apologetically. "Sorry for troubling you." Her gaze remained on Xu Chengyue, smiling softly to reveal a dimple.

Under the natural light, the scars on her arms were clearly visible, with fresh wounds on top of the old scabs, looking raw and alarming.

"You must be the police, right, here to investigate the Jiang family's case?" She gently lowered her head and took some snacks from her suitcase, handing them to the two. "You look familiar to me."

Gu Yunfeng: "Have we met before?"

She nodded. "Maybe I've seen you at the police station, I often went there to file reports. Unfortunately, nothing ever came of them."

Though it sounded like a complaint, when she looked up, she couldn't hide her excitement, her eyes shining brightly as she looked into the distance.

At that moment, a strong wind blew, scattering the freshly bloomed flowers in the nearby yard. The flower petals fell one by one, piling up layer after layer.

Xu Chengyue was slightly surprised by this woman who smiled gently. Her face showed no sadness or anger, and her smile gradually faded.

Finally, she said in a cold tone, "It seems heaven has eyes, dragging the Jiang family down and giving them an early burial."

‿︵‿︵ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ・❉・ ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ‿︵‿︵

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Translator Notes

Please feel free to comment any mistakes I made so I can improve and do better as I go through the book.

Translated: July 16, 2024 by Angel

Edited: September 5, 2024 by Angel