NR | Chapter 43

Chapter 42: Waiting

I dragged him onto one of those old, beat-up cars, and the two of us jolted our way back. Back then, public infrastructure still wasn’t all that developed. The car was already slow to begin with, and halfway there the driver even detoured to a gas station to fill up. It took more than half an hour before we finally reached the county town.

Luckily, just before I got off, I called one of the shop assistants at Fourth Brother’s store. They sent over a young guy in a minivan to pick me up. He looked pretty young, and his name was Xiao Wu. His eyes were clear and bright, so he probably worked the front as a runner.

When he saw me, he jogged down from the car to open the door for me.

“Young Master, a customer came to the shop just now, right on your heels. He said he was your relative and had come specially to visit family.” Xiao Wu said to me while buckling his seat belt.

A relative? What relative?

Hearing that, I sat in the back seat, a little baffled. I turned to look at Lu Ayao beside me. He still looked perfectly calm, so I asked him, “You didn’t sneak over from Nanjing, did you? Ran away from home?”

At once, my mind conjured up a whole grand drama of some rich young master defying fate, running away from home, and heading out into the jianghu to make his name. But before the scene even finished playing out in my head, Lu Ayao picked up the little pillow by his side and hurled it at me.

“No one from the Lu family branch would come looking for me. You’re thinking too much. Besides, I’m older than you. You’re the one who followed someone to Gansu so casually before. That should count as running away from home.” He cut off my imagination.

I hugged the pillow to my chest and complained that he was no fun at all. Arguing with He Yu in the car was still more entertaining. I was still wildly guessing which side this mysterious relative might be from when my phone pinged.

I picked it up and checked. It was a text message, from my mom. My mom rarely ever texted me. Unless she was so broke she absolutely couldn’t function and I had gone to ask for living expenses, we basically didn’t contact each other at any other time.

My mom’s message was blunt and easy to understand: Your Uncle Han Jian just came back from Gansu after finishing his service. He wants to settle down in Henan and may stop by to see you while passing through. Don’t be rude.

Well, that settled it. No need to think anymore.

The moment I finished reading, my head started pounding. Han Jian was my mom’s boyfriend Han Cheng’s younger brother. Their family seemed to be in the antique business, but I’d never had any contact with them and wasn’t close to them at all. I was the least suited for this kind of socializing.

Honestly, I wanted to slip away.

I shifted around and was just about to discuss a plan with Lu Ayao, but when I turned my head and saw him, he had already gone all deflated. I didn’t even feel like organizing my words anymore. He looked exactly like the type who didn’t have much family and wasn’t good at dealing with people. It was already enough if he didn’t laugh at me about this. How could I expect him to cover for me?

“Forget it, let’s see when the time comes.” I flopped back in my seat and stared up at the ceiling.

The minivan soon pulled over by the roadside. I got out with my suitcase, reluctant as hell. The moment I stepped into the shop, I smelled a light, clean fragrance. In the distance, I saw someone standing in the foyer, lighting a short stick of incense with a lighter. From the back, he looked a little familiar.

I stopped at the door and looked for a moment, then suddenly realized, wasn’t this the soldier I’d met on the train before?!

After lighting the incense, he deftly planted it into an incense burner. Then he turned around, saw me, and waved. “You got off the car and disappeared in a flash. I looked everywhere for you and couldn’t find you. Your mom said you usually stay at your Fourth Brother’s shop, so I came straight here to wait.”

Thinking of all the things I’d chatted about with Hou Jinshan on the train before, I felt dizzy for a while. I had no idea whether Han Jian had picked up on anything. His older brother was in the antique trade, so I didn’t know whether he had any involvement in that line of work.

And then I thought, Han Jian only looked to be in his early thirties at most. Having me call him Uncle made this so awkward.

I gave a strained laugh, and a shop assistant came over to take my luggage upstairs. I forced myself forward and exchanged a few polite words with Han Jian, then introduced Lu Ayao to him. Unexpectedly, the moment he heard the Lu family’s name, his expression changed all at once.

The atmosphere in the foyer instantly turned strange. Han Jian was clearly wary of Lu Ayao and kept his distance from him the whole time. Lu Ayao didn’t show much reaction, but he also didn’t take the initiative to shake hands or greet him warmly. Watching them like that, I almost thought the two of them had some old score settled in private before.

I was just about to say something to ease the tension when my phone started ringing again. This time it was a call, from an unknown number. I told them both to sit down, then took the phone and went through the back door, telling the shop assistants to pour tea for the two of them first.

When I answered, it was unexpectedly Tian Yuqing’s voice.

“Have you arrived?”

The noise on his end was extremely loud, and there were occasional bursts of heavy water sounds. I froze for a second, then replied, “I just got to the shop. What’s going on? Whose number is this? Has your inspection trip ended? When is my Fourth Brother coming back?”

“Not yet. It’ll probably be a while longer before Chen Si returns. There’s something important. Did you receive anything strange on the train?” Tian Yuqing asked.

I immediately questioned him, “Was it you who had the jade box sent to me? Didn’t you say that after I went to Gansu with you, everything would have nothing to do with me anymore? What do you mean by sending the box to me again now?”

Tian Yuqing was rarely silent for so long. After a while, he said, “Since you’ve received the box, then try to crack it if you can. Someone should be coming to find you very soon. That mobile number I left you before, you deleted it, right? You probably won’t get any more calls from me after this either.”

“Why?”

Before I could even finish asking, the line went dead. He actually hung up on me!

I held the phone and quickly replayed what he’d just said in my head. Tian Yuqing always liked to speak only halfway. He said someone would be coming to find me very soon? Who would come looking for me? To take the box? That didn’t make sense. His first sentence said for me to crack the box. If someone else was coming to take the box, wouldn’t that be a contradiction?

The more I thought about it, the more my head felt like it was going to explode. In the end, I simply sat on the stone threshold by the back door, leaning my head against the wooden doorframe, miserable as hell. Before long, I heard footsteps. I thought it was one of the shop assistants, so I scooted over to make room.

“Han Jian left. He said to send his regards to Chen Si.”

Leaning against the doorframe, I tilted my head to look at Lu Ayao. This time I was truly out of options. My mind was a complete mess, and I couldn’t sort out a single thing. So I said to him, “I’m out of ideas. Can I ask for help? Does your Lu family’s copper coin come with a free help package?”

Lu Ayao drew in a deep breath, seeming at a loss for words over what I’d just said. Then he stepped over the threshold and leaned against the other doorframe just like I was. He asked, “Whose call was it just now?”

Oh, this free copper-coin help package was actually pretty well stocked. Looks like I could ask about it later too.

I immediately sat up straight and leaned in, telling him everything about what I’d encountered on the train, along with the content of Tian Yuqing’s call just now. I didn’t leave out a single detail, and I even included a lot of the guesses I’d been making at the time.

After I finished, I folded my arms and looked at him. “I really have no idea what to do now. It’s a complete mess.”

Lu Ayao thought for a few seconds. I thought he was going to analyze it for me, but instead he just gave me one word: “Wait.”

If I’d been drinking water, I would have spat it right in his face. “Your family’s bonus service is a little skimpy, isn’t it? Can I just wait? I don’t even know who’s coming. What if it’s some kind of gangster? What if I can’t beat them? Shouldn’t I pack up and run right now?”

Lu Ayao was just about to explain when I grabbed him and held him in place, looking at him very seriously. “I get it. You stay here and wait. I’ll hand the box over to you. If anyone comes looking later, you can just give them the box. You’ve got skills of your own, so they probably won’t dare mess with you.”

“You can’t run.” Lu Ayao cut me off. His gaze was serious. “That’s not what Tian Yuqing meant. He said someone would come looking for you, not for me, and not for the box. Do you understand?”

The way he put it, I suddenly understood.

Right. I’d assumed from the start that the target was the Nine-Ring Jade Box, but in fact, the subject of Tian Yuqing’s words was me. Someone was coming to look for me, to look for me personally, not to take the box.

“Since you can’t get away, then just wait quietly and see who comes looking for you, and what for.”