PL | Chapter 11

Spring Has Come

Reluctant. Would you be reluctant to part with me?

Gu Zhong looked at Qi Yue. This was the second time Qi Yue had asked, “What if the Paolou is gone,” but what he was asking now had changed.

Would you still remember me?

Of course I would.

Then would you be reluctant to part with me?

Gu Zhong frowned.

“I would. But why are you asking that?”

“Is the Paolou going to shut down?” Gu Zhong asked.

“Maybe.” Qi Yue let out a soft sigh.

“Because of that cripple?” Gu Zhong immediately asked. “Is your relationship with him even worse than with those ‘ordinary common folks’?”

Qi Yue smiled. “Yeah.”

Gu Zhong fell silent. A relationship that clearly was not between enemies, yet somehow worse than enemies.

Qi Yue did not put on a movie today. He lay on the corn husk mat with one arm under his head.

Gu Zhong could tell he was not asleep, and probably could not fall asleep either. He himself could not sleep anyway.

“Then…” He turned over, facing Qi Yue. “When are you planning to… close down… the Paolou?”

“I don’t know,” Qi Yue said. “I’m going out tomorrow. You go back to school. Don’t come over for now. I’ll tell Xiao Zhang to hold things together first.”

“I just got promoted to the bar and now I’m getting put on leave?” Gu Zhong said. “Or am I just getting fired again right away?”

Qi Yue laughed and said nothing.

“This is outrageous. The boss would rather fire an employee than let a promoted worker make more money.”

“You’ve always been getting the same pay as bar staff.” Qi Yue turned his head to look at him. “Does that make sense or not?”

“Oh.” Gu Zhong froze for a second. “Seems like it does.”

“Not ‘seems like.’ It does.” Qi Yue clicked his tongue. “Where are you going to find a boss this good?”

“Yeah.” Gu Zhong sighed. “Such a good boss, such a good…”

“Such a good what?” Qi Yue asked with a smile.

“I don’t know.” Gu Zhong looked at him. “I don’t know.”

“Go to sleep.” Qi Yue reached out and turned off the light.

Gu Zhong did not move in the dark. He was still facing Qi Yue. He listened for a while and guessed Qi Yue still had his eyes open too, so he asked quietly, “You’re going to find that cripple tomorrow, right?”

“Yeah,” Qi Yue said. “I’m going to settle things with him.”

“Oh.” Gu Zhong was not especially worried about that. The cripple looked pretty miserable, not like the kind of person who had accomplices, and his fighting ability was probably not even a tenth of Qi Yue’s.

Compared to that, what upset him more was that Qi Yue might shut down the Paolou.

It was just one cripple, yet he could make Qi Yue decide to leave? Thinking about it that way, Gu Zhong suddenly felt like maybe he had been seeing things too simply.

“Chuan’er,” Qi Yue called to him. “Actually, I never planned to keep this shop going forever.”

“Yeah, that was obvious.” Gu Zhong said it with the feeling that Qi Yue could see through what he was thinking. “A boss this absent-minded and this sloppy, one look and you can tell he’s just messing around.”

Qi Yue gave a very light laugh in the dark. “But I never thought about it specifically either, what things would be like in the future.”

“Then you’re pretty free and easy,” Gu Zhong said.

“There’ve been quite a few people from your crappy school working here. The one before you only just left,” Qi Yue said. “But you’re different from all of them.”

“That part is true.” Gu Zhong immediately took that and ran with it. “I am different from them.”

“Yeah.” Qi Yue turned over too, facing him. “From the start, I could tell you were spending all day trying to develop in the direction of becoming some kind of prickly troublemaker, like an idiot…”

Gu Zhong could only stay silent in the face of that kind of evaluation, though he also kind of wanted to laugh.

“Just like I used to be,” Qi Yue said slowly. “Though I wasn’t as dumb as you.”

“You only need to say that kind of thing once,” Gu Zhong said. “I’ve already humbly accepted it.”

“You know the rest too.” Qi Yue reached a hand over, pinched a small tuft of his hair, and gently rubbed it. “I wanted to pull you back. After trying a few times, I felt like the two of us still aren’t the same. You’re just a dumb kid. You probably won’t end up like me, doing something you’ll regret.”

Gu Zhong said nothing. The light itch from the hair Qi Yue was rubbing made him a little sleepy, and he closed his eyes.

“Later on, I started feeling like you were pretty interesting,” Qi Yue said. “You’re not afraid of the boss, not afraid of me, and sometimes you even look like you’re always trying to lecture me…”

“I’m not.” Gu Zhong laughed. “Boss, that really is a misunderstanding.”

“You worry about me all day too, whether I’ll go under, whether I’ll lose money.” Qi Yue said. “It’s been a long time since I had this kind of feeling.”

“What kind of feeling?” Gu Zhong asked.

“Spring has come, and radish tops are growing out in the field,” Qi Yue said. “That kind of feeling.”

“Oh.” Gu Zhong did not really understand that feeling. “So I’m just a big radish.”

“The best-looking big radish when all the parts are put together,” Qi Yue said.

Qi Yue had not had insomnia in a long time. He only fell asleep around daybreak, and when the sky got light, he woke up again.

The big radish looked like he was still asleep, but when Qi Yue sat up, the big radish turned his head. The room light was off, so it was hard to tell if his eyes were open, but from the sound of his breathing it was obvious he was awake.

“What do you want for breakfast?” Qi Yue asked.

“Anything.” Gu Zhong hugged the pillow, and his voice sounded unexpectedly clear-headed.

“You were up all night?” Qi Yue paused.

“No.” Gu Zhong sighed. “I had a dream. It scared me awake, and I didn’t have time to fall back asleep.”

“What did you dream about?” Qi Yue lowered his head and looked at him.

“I’d better not say…” Gu Zhong buried half his face in the pillow, frowning a little.

“Did you dream I died?” Qi Yue asked.

Gu Zhong’s half-squinted eyes snapped fully open. He knitted his brows and said nothing.

“I used to dream about people dying all the time too,” Qi Yue said.

“Who?” Gu Zhong asked.

“Qi Maomao’s dad.” Qi Yue laughed. “What’s there to feel bad about?”

Gu Zhong shot upright and pointed at him without saying anything.

“Ah.” Qi Yue reacted.

Qi Maomao’s dad really was dead. He truly had no talent whatsoever for comforting people.

“Want instant noodles?” That was all he could do to change the subject.

“Mm.” Gu Zhong nodded.

Gu Zhong was not demanding about food, and he did not have any particular favorites, but the instant noodles Qi Yue cooked, after eating them once, he could remember the taste clearly, and he liked them a lot.

“What exactly do you add to it?” he asked while eating. He was eating pretty fast.

He was afraid Xiao Zhang might come early again after taking his grandma to the hospital. Every time he came early, he would see Gu Zhong here eating the boss’s special treatment. It really was too provoking.

“Trade secret,” Qi Yue said. “This can’t be passed on to outsiders. It can only be passed on internally.”

Gu Zhong looked up at him. “What the hell does passed on internally even mean?”

Gu Zhong lowered his head and kept eating the noodles.

Qi Yue had not cooked any for himself. After watching him eat for a while, he got up and went to the back door.

He was probably going to contact that cripple. Gu Zhong bit down on a mouthful of noodles and suddenly lost his appetite. He had never run into this kind of underworld business before. Two people who had once belonged to the same side, but had always been at odds, how exactly were they supposed to talk, and how were they supposed to settle things?

Actually, Qi Yue had a lot of trouble around him. He just always treated everything lightly, making it all fade out of the memories of the people around him as quickly as possible.

Only now, when Gu Zhong thought back carefully, did he start remembering.

After he finished the remaining half bowl of noodles without any taste to them, Qi Yue came back into the shop through the rear door. He flicked him on the head with a finger and said, “Once you’re done eating, go back to school. I’ll contact you after I finish dealing with things.”

“Will you get hurt?” Gu Zhong looked up.

“No,” Qi Yue said. “Do you think I’d get hurt going to see one cripple?”

“Does the cripple have help?” Gu Zhong asked.

“No,” Qi Yue said. “In his whole life, other than his boss, he hasn’t had a single other friend.”

Gu Zhong said nothing. Qi Yue seemed like he did not know what to say either, so he ruffled Gu Zhong’s hair twice and walked behind the bar. “I’ve already told Xiao Zhang. He’ll hold things together today.”

“Mm.” Gu Zhong answered, taking his bowl over to the sink by the bar to wash it. “Then I’ll go back to school first… call me.”

“Should be around noon,” Qi Yue said.

“Okay,” Gu Zhong said.

Maybe it was because of that dream, but he could not quite describe what he was feeling right now. A grown man like him had actually been so shaken by some weird dream that he could not get it out of his head.

Back when he dreamed he got smashed to death and buried, he had not reacted this strongly.

Gu Zhong washed the bowl clean, put on his jacket, and went out the door. He had only just taken one step when he noticed Qi Yue had followed him over to the doorway and was peering out through the gap between the offset glass doors.

“No.” Gu Zhong stopped walking. “Boss, I have something to say, and I don’t know whether I should say it.”

“You should,” Qi Yue said with a smile.

“The way you’re acting is making me very uneasy. If you keep this up, I’m going with you,” Gu Zhong said.

“I came out to see if the cripple was outside,” Qi Yue said.

“You arranged to meet him here?” Gu Zhong froze.

“How is that possible?” Qi Yue said. “But he’s a little strange. It wouldn’t be impossible for him to come here on his own.”

Gu Zhong looked around. There were not many people on the sidewalk, only a few students in school uniforms hurrying past.

“There’s no cripple,” Gu Zhong said.

“Good.” Qi Yue said. When Gu Zhong turned to leave, Qi Yue started singing again, “The sun shines high in the sky, the flowers smile at me…”

Gu Zhong turned his head back and pointed at him. “Shut up. You’re such a grown man, acting this childish, and you still have the nerve to call me dumb.”

“I’ll treat you to a big meal at noon,” Qi Yue said.

“Pork bone hotpot,” Gu Zhong said.

“Fine.” Qi Yue smiled.

After Gu Zhong left, Qi Yue walked around the shop twice and then sat down in the corner he usually used.

He had arranged to meet Lao Si at a teahouse an hour and a half later.

The teahouse was not close to here, but Qi Yue was very familiar with it, in a distant kind of way.

Da Qi used to like sitting there whenever he had nothing to do. He would order a pot of tea and drink it all morning, like some idle old man. Whenever anyone needed to find him, they only had to go to the teahouse and they would definitely see him there.

Qi Yue had gone there countless times in the past. The only reason Lao Si picked that place to meet was to make him think of Da Qi.

Qi Yue closed his eyes and sighed. He did not know what it would take for Lao Si to understand that he could never forget what happened to Da Qi the way Lao Si imagined. The torment of regret had not lessened by even a fraction over all these years.

Lao Si probably did not want to understand either. After clinging to an obsession for so long, maybe by now it was not even really about Da Qi anymore.

Qi Yue had experienced that kind of chaotic anger before. By the time the fury burned itself out, he no longer even remembered what it had started over in the first place.

That was why in the end he chose to leave, even though he had no idea where the road ahead was or how he was supposed to walk it.

After Xiao Zhang arrived, Qi Yue gave him some instructions, told him the day would count as overtime, then put on his coat and went out.

Even though going over now would be a little early, he still decided to go.

It was an old habit. Whenever he arranged to meet someone somewhere, he would always arrive early, to guard against the other side making the first move, or to set up an ambush himself.

To meet Lao Si, he probably did not need that habit. But after all, he and Lao Si had both once been exactly that kind of person.

He simply wanted to get there early and sit by himself for a while.

He had not gone to that teahouse in a very long time. After Da Qi’s accident, he never went back again. More precisely, after Da Qi’s accident, he had hardly even left this area at all.

Come to think of it, the farthest place he had gone was actually Gu Zhong’s grandma’s house.

He smiled. Gu Zhong really was the big radish Heaven had sent to break the deadlock in his life.

“There’s only this one class this morning. I thought you were going to the coffee shop.” The dorm leader sat down beside Gu Zhong.

“I got special approval for a day off,” Gu Zhong said. “Paid leave.”

“I always thought a boss with a gang background would be hard to deal with. Looks like he’s actually pretty nice?” the dorm leader said.

“He’s not mixed up in that anymore.” Gu Zhong could not help explaining things for Qi Yue. “He’s just an ordinary coffee shop owner now, the kind that’s easier to get along with than other bosses.”

“That’s good,” the dorm leader said. “When your place hires again, maybe I’ll go try it?”

Gu Zhong nodded.

He had almost blurted out, “We’re hiring right now,” but the instant he was about to say it, he remembered what Qi Yue had said. The shop might not even keep running. Hiring somebody would probably be pointless too.

Bring someone in, close the place three days later, and you would not even know how to pay them.

“When class ends later, want to play basketball?” someone behind them asked.

“Yeah,” the dorm leader turned around and answered, then looked at Gu Zhong. “You coming too?”

“Yeah, I’ll play,” Gu Zhong said.

He felt vaguely uneasy and unsettled inside. At a time like this, playing ball, running around, jumping, and banging into people a few times could ease it a little.

After class, he followed a bunch of people to the court. At this hour they would not run into the little brats from the vocational section. Those guys had classes all day, so this time slot belonged entirely to the junior college section.

Gu Zhong sighed. The way that sounded was awkward no matter how he thought about it.

Before going onto the court, he took out his phone and checked it. There was still no message from Qi Yue. He had not asked Qi Yue what time he was meeting the guy, but probably they were seeing each other around now.

How exactly was he going to handle it? A fight? Negotiation? Stand back to back, walk ten paces, then turn and shoot?

If it was like that, would one step from a cripple be the same as one step from a normal person…

“Gu Zhong!” the dorm leader shouted.

“Coming!” Gu Zhong answered, pulling off his coat and running onto the court.

There was still no word from Qi Yue, and Gu Zhong played absent-mindedly too. Twice, balls passed to him smacked him right in the head. A couple more times and he was going to end up with a concussion.

“Gu Zhong’s off today,” someone said with a laugh.

“Yeah.” Gu Zhong sighed. “Somebody sub me out. I’m not in it.”

Just as the people on the sidelines were discussing who should go in, a boy from the neighboring class walked to the edge of the court and called out, “Gu Zhong, someone’s looking for you at the back gate.”

“The back gate?” Gu Zhong froze. “What kind of person?”

“A guy,” the boy said.

“A guy?” Gu Zhong was still bewildered. He might be local, but there was no way anyone who knew him would come all the way to school to find him at a time like this. Even if they did want to find him, would calling not be easier?

He frowned and followed up with another question. “Is he a middle-aged cripple? Does he look kind of… you know, like he hasn’t been doing too well?”

“A middle-aged cripple?” The boy looked blank. “No. When I saw him walking over, he wasn’t limping. Maybe in his twenties.”

Not him. Gu Zhong let out a breath of relief. He did not know why he had thought the cripple might come looking for him, but hearing it was not the cripple calmed him immediately.

“I’ll go take a look.” Gu Zhong pulled his coat back on. “Thanks.”

Because the school was so tiny, the back gate was only around thirty meters from the court. It only took a few steps to get there, and there was not even a guard room.

Sometimes Gu Zhong really did not understand the point of the school having a back gate. Outside it was an unnamed little street. Across the street was an old open residential neighborhood, and this side faced the “back end” of it. Other than a few breakfast stalls in the mornings, there were usually not many pedestrians around here.

Even though he knew the person looking for him was not the cripple, because of Qi Yue’s special situation today, he was worried it might be one of Qi Yue’s people… Whoever it was, if they were coming to find him like this, he had to stay sharp, especially with the back gate opening onto an environment like this.

As he got near the gate, Gu Zhong looked outside. Apart from an uncle riding past on a bicycle, he did not see anyone else. He walked over and still did not see anyone. He stepped a little farther outside, planning to look left and right, when the corner of his eye suddenly caught sight of a figure darting out from beside the wall on the left.

Gu Zhong did not even turn his head to look that way. He first took a step back toward the school gate. In this kind of situation, he did not need to look to know there was trouble. He wanted to get back inside the school first.

But the person rushed at him fast and swung an arm straight at his back.

If he moved backward, he would run directly into whatever the person was holding. Even if it was only a wooden club, one hit would be enough to break a bone.

He had no choice but to dodge to the right. In maybe one or two seconds, the man was already in front of him, face covered by a mask, but what he had in his hand was actually a large cleaver-like knife.

A chill ran straight down Gu Zhong’s back. He spun around and bolted. The way back to school had been cut off, so he turned and sprinted to the right along the road.

What the hell was going on?

Were they after him, or had something happened on Qi Yue’s side?

He had only run about ten meters, just past the edge of the school wall, and before he could open any distance between himself and the person chasing him, another shadow charged out of a narrow alley formed by two facing walls.

That person held some kind of object and slammed it hard right into Gu Zhong’s chest. Because of his momentum, he had no chance to dodge.

A dull pain burst through his chest, and in an instant he could not get any air in. Right after that, the person smashed him in the stomach again.

Gu Zhong felt his vision whirl, and then it all went black, like a curtain dropping.

But he clearly saw one thing, when that person swung the second blow, his body tilted noticeably.

It was a cripple. Hadn’t Qi Yue said this cripple had no friends?

Qi Yue sat by the window near the entrance of the teahouse. Outside there was a small parking lot, and beyond it a road leading into the residential area.

From where he sat, he could see cars and pedestrians coming and going. But he had been sitting here for half an hour now, and he had not seen anything unusual. He had not seen Lao Si either. Of course, the agreed time had not arrived yet. But… Qi Yue kept feeling that something was wrong.

Exactly what was wrong, he could not think of all at once.

He took out his phone and called Xiao Zhang. “How’s the situation at the shop? Can you handle it?”

“Same as always, three tables this morning,” Xiao Zhang said. “Not busy. I’m fine by myself.”

“Mm.” Qi Yue frowned, thoughts racing through his head. “Have you seen that cripple at all today?”

“No,” Xiao Zhang answered.

“Okay.” Qi Yue hung up.

And at the exact moment he ended the call, he suddenly knew what was wrong.

It was the state Lao Si had been in on the phone. When he called Lao Si to set a place to meet, Lao Si had not spoken in that sneering, taunting way. He had not cursed at him either. He had just calmly agreed on the time and place.

Qi Yue shot to his feet, threw money onto the table, and ran out of the teahouse toward the parking lot.

Lao Si had practically been waiting for him to bring up a time, then quickly settled the meeting. Qi Yue, after all these years in this world, and you still failed to notice something that obvious?

Lao Si had never intended to talk. What Lao Si wanted was for him to leave, to get Gu Zhong outside his reach.

When Qi Yue yanked open the car door and was about to jump in, he almost missed his footing and fell. His mind felt completely chaotic.

After he started the car, he took out his phone. His fingers were shaking badly when they touched the screen. He dialed Gu Zhong’s number.

The call went through. One ring, two rings. Qi Yue tapped lightly against the steering wheel with his fingers, frantic inside.

After the third ring, the call was hung up. Qi Yue froze. If Gu Zhong were in trouble, he should not have been hanging up. But if he were not in trouble, he should have even less reason to hang up.

Qi Yue did not pause. He immediately dialed Lao Si’s number. The call connected, but no one answered.

Qi Yue could not describe what he was feeling at that moment. He slammed the phone hard onto the passenger seat.

When Qi Yue’s call came in a second time, the cripple took the phone and walked over to Gu Zhong. “I’m giving you one more chance. Are you answering it or not?”

Gu Zhong’s head hurt so badly it felt like it was about to split open. Chaotic spots of light flickered in front of his eyes, and his ears were filled with ringing. The cripple’s voice, as clogged and wet as if he had a mouthful of phlegm in it, sounded to Gu Zhong as though it were coming through seventy-eight layers of old cotton quilts.

“Or I can answer for you,” the cripple said. “If I pick it up, you can say whatever you want.”

Gu Zhong did not make a sound.

“Did you hear me or not?!” the cripple roared and smashed a fist into his brow bone.

It hurt terribly, and it made him so dizzy he almost threw up.

He knew what the cripple wanted. He also knew that whether he answered this call or not, Qi Yue would still come.

But after being blindsided, knocked unconscious, waking up tied to a chair, and then getting beaten again and again, if they expected him to obediently listen, that was impossible.

To hell with that.

Who doesn’t have a temper?

Gu Zhong still did not make a sound. He closed his eyes and breathed hard. Actually, it did not make much difference whether his eyes were open or closed at this point. He could feel that they were swollen to the point where they were probably reduced to slits.

The cripple hit hard, but from the bottom of his heart Gu Zhong looked down on him a little. Everything he did was dirty.

Gu Zhong had already been beaten into this state, and his ribs were probably broken in several places, but the guy still did not dare loosen the rope around his hands. Useless trash.

The cripple held Gu Zhong’s phone, picked up Qi Yue’s call, turned on speaker, and held it to his ear.

“Gu Zhong?” Qi Yue’s voice came through.

Gu Zhong almost reflexively opened his mouth to answer.

“Gu Zhong!” Qi Yue shouted, urgency showing in his voice, and his throat even sounded a little hoarse.

Gu Zhong ground his teeth together. To be honest, he did not dare make a sound right now either. He was afraid that if he opened his mouth, the pain would make it impossible to get a full sentence out.

Qi Yue called his name twice, then stopped. Two seconds later, he spoke again. “Lao Si.”

The cripple laughed in delight. “Everybody says you’re smart, but I don’t think you’re anything special. Your brain hasn’t done much turning these past few years, has it? Gone stiff, has it?”

“Where are you?” Qi Yue asked.

“Pretty concerned about your employee, huh?” the cripple said. “You in a hurry to see him?”

“Where are you?” Qi Yue repeated. There was no emotion left in his voice now.

“This isn’t just some ordinary employee, is it?” the cripple cackled. “Didn’t I find the right…”

“When you remember where you are, call me.” Qi Yue did not wait for him to finish. He hung up.

Nice. Gu Zhong lowered his head and tugged the corner of his mouth into a smile.

The cripple froze, then roared, smashed the phone to the ground, and stomped on it twice, crushing it to pieces.

Qi Yue pressed his forehead against the steering wheel, his mind spinning rapidly.

He had not heard Gu Zhong’s voice. Though Lao Si had been in this world half his life, murder was still beyond him. Gu Zhong would not be in mortal danger.

But he had definitely been beaten badly. Still, if Lao Si wanted Gu Zhong to answer the phone, then he definitely would not beat him to the point of being unable to speak.

In that situation, there was only one reason Gu Zhong had not said anything. The kid was being stubborn and refusing to make a sound.

If he could still be that stubborn, then at least he had some strength left. Qi Yue felt a little of the pressure ease inside him.

Hanging up on Lao Si had been unavoidable. Even if he had stayed on the call and humbly listened to Lao Si throw every insult he had at him, Lao Si would not tell him where they were until he had had his fill of tormenting him.

Lao Si was not trying to lure Qi Yue over by using Gu Zhong. He was using Gu Zhong to torment Qi Yue. Giving him the location would be the last step.

He could not let Lao Si lead him by the nose. He had to take the initiative.

Actually, it was not hard to guess what kind of places Lao Si could go. Over the years, the time he had spent outside had not been long. Go in, come out and get into trouble again, then go back in. The places where he could stay without being disturbed were probably still those old places from back when they all ran together.

Several years had passed. Some of those places had been demolished, some had been repurposed, and there were not many still left abandoned.

And they could not be too far from Gu Zhong’s school.

Gu Zhong was not some skinny little beanpole. The kid was one meter eighty. Even with help, it would not be easy for Lao Si to move him too far. It had to be nearby.

What Qi Yue had underestimated was that Lao Si actually had help. He slammed a hand against the steering wheel. He had probably been living a peaceful life for too long. He had looked down on Lao Si too much, to the point that he had been so sure before that Lao Si could not possibly have accomplices.

“Never been beaten like this before, have you?” The cripple was holding the phone, apparently shooting video, circling Gu Zhong slowly with the camera trained on him the whole time.

Gu Zhong kept his eyes shut and did not speak.

“Say something!” The cripple suddenly stepped forward and kicked him hard in the chest.

That kick sent Gu Zhong and the chair flying backward together, crashing down onto the ground. At the instant the chair hit, Gu Zhong jerked his head forward a little so that the back of his skull would not smash into the ground too.

“Say it! Let him see!” The cripple came over and kicked him again. “Like this, do you think he’ll feel bad for you?”

“No idea. Ask him yourself.” Gu Zhong finally chose to speak. He forced his swollen eyes open and looked at the cripple. He even smiled. “Oh. Are you scared to?”

“I’m scared? I’m scared?” the cripple roared, kicking him again. “I’m scared? I’m scared?”

Qi Yue stared fixedly at his phone screen. Lao Si had sent several video clips over. After a string of broken-record insults from him, the clips stopped. No new ones came.

Qi Yue forced himself to ignore Gu Zhong in the video, bruised and swollen, knocked from the chair onto the ground. He focused on the surroundings in the frame.

He watched the videos twice. The cracked cement floor, the walls covered in dried moss, the dead grass piled in the corner, and the faint hollow echo behind Lao Si’s voice in the earlier phone call, with those details added together, he had basically confirmed where they were.

Back then, they had a place they sometimes used for one-on-one fights. They did not go often, because it was too far from the teahouse Da Qi liked to go to, and Da Qi hated making the trip.

It was an abandoned old warehouse with half the roof already caved in.

Some things about Lao Si had changed from before, but plenty of habits were still the same.

Qi Yue lit a cigarette, took a hard pull, and drove out of the parking lot.

Although he had never really regarded Lao Si as a threat, he still had to admit Lao Si was not stupid. He had picked the teahouse as the meeting place because, with Da Qi involved, Qi Yue would not immediately grow suspicious, and the distance was far enough.

From there to the warehouse, even with no traffic, and even if he ignored every traffic rule, it would still take close to an hour. During that hour, he did not dare think too carefully about what Lao Si might do to Gu Zhong.

A little regret suddenly rose in him. Maybe he really had been living too peaceful a life for too long. He had clearly acted like some old senior before, afraid Gu Zhong would go down the wrong road.

He had clearly told Gu Zhong there were some things you regretted for life. And yet in the end, he still failed to keep the proper distance, failed to keep the proper bounds, and got this close to Gu Zhong without any restraint.

He did not know whether he had been possessed or poisoned. If Gu Zhong suffered some kind of irreversible injury… He frowned and forcibly cut off that thought.

He could not think about it. He did not dare to.

Gu Zhong felt like a turtle with a chair strapped to its shell, getting kicked around by the cripple and rolling at least four times across the ground. His face had been stomped into a mess. The injury to the tip of his nose had to be serious. His whole head was numb. Only the tip of his nose still gave him a clear sense of pain.

They had actually beaten up the face that had looked so pleasing when assembled together like this.

After sending the last video to Qi Yue, the cripple finally stopped. He squatted beside Gu Zhong, breathing heavily. His stamina was lousy. Just that much movement had already tired him out.

“He’s definitely losing his mind right now,” the cripple said. “Too bad I can’t watch it with my own eyes.”

Gu Zhong ignored him. Then again, the cripple did not need anyone to answer him. He was talking very happily all by himself.

“He’ll be here soon.” The cripple looked at his phone, seemingly dialing. “He’ll definitely be able to guess I’m here. Do you think he’ll call the cops?”

“He won’t dare.” The cripple laughed. After laughing a few times, he continued, “People like us, the ones who’ve run in this world, the thing we least want to deal with is the police. Did he ever tell you that? Don’t let how respectable he looks now fool you. I dare say he’s never once broken a traffic rule while driving, because he’s scared of cops. He’s even scared of traffic police… Looking all respectable. Looking all respectable. He’s the one acting all respectable. Da Qi died because of him. And he got to walk away just fine.”

The cripple was yelling so hard his emotions ran high. After pausing for a bit, he calmed back down and said, “Guess one more thing. Do you think he’ll bring people with him?”

“Definitely not.” The cripple lifted the phone to his ear. “He’s always been so arrogant… Pah, arrogant my ass. Just because Da Qi thought highly of him, he thought everyone should submit to him? Today I’m going to let him taste what it feels like to watch someone close to him suffer. But don’t worry, I’m not going to kill you. If I’d been willing to kill people, he would’ve been dead a long time ago.”

Gu Zhong barely listened to what he was saying. Lying crookedly on the floor, he carefully tested his fingers, wrists, arms, feet, and legs a little at a time. Other than the unbroken pain in his ribs, the other parts were not too bad. Nothing else seemed broken. He just felt cold.

The cripple mainly wanted Qi Yue to see. He wanted to provoke Qi Yue, anger Qi Yue, make Qi Yue anxious. When he was not recording videos, he did not really have the strength left to keep beating people.

The only thing Gu Zhong was worried about now was what would happen once Qi Yue really arrived.

After sending the last video to Qi Yue, the cripple made two more calls, but Qi Yue never answered. The cripple was furious. He yelled so much while cursing that his voice started to crack.

Gu Zhong found it deeply satisfying. For no clear reason, he also thought Qi Yue’s calmness was incredibly cool.

The cripple saw tormenting him as part of tormenting Qi Yue. But Qi Yue had not reacted with the pain the cripple wanted from him, and that left the cripple looking oddly disappointed.

Really, Gu Zhong had just been too careless. Or rather, whenever something involved Qi Yue, he lost his judgment. If he had not gone alone to the back gate today, then everything that happened afterward would never have happened.

He would not have ended up getting beaten like a sandbag by a cripple. He would not have put Qi Yue in a passive position.

Gu Zhong sighed inwardly, then used the narrow slit left in one eye to take another look around him.

It was probably some warehouse, one room of a warehouse, but it was badly run-down. So much of the roof had collapsed that he could see big patches of sky. The weather was good today. The sky was a bright, clean blue.

There was a layer of packaging bags on the floor, either rotted naturally or trampled to pieces. They were shredded and filthy, and cigarette butts were scattered everywhere on top of them.

Once he got back, he was probably going to have to bathe ten times before he could wash off the sheer disgust he felt right now.

After standing by the window and watching for a while, the cripple flicked away the cigarette butt in his hand and limped over to him. “Your boss has come to save you. Faster than I imagined.”

Gu Zhong did not move. He had been gathering his strength ever since earlier. He felt that when Qi Yue came in, he should probably already be on guard, but Gu Zhong still wanted to be able to shout a warning if something sudden happened.

But the cripple was obviously experienced. While Gu Zhong was keeping silent, the cripple suddenly kicked him in the stomach, then limped out through the warehouse’s half-broken door.

After going out, he even carefully closed the door behind him.

That kick landed squarely in Gu Zhong’s stomach. The instant surge of pain and violent nausea made even breathing difficult. It took him a long time just to drag up half a breath, let alone make a sound.

He had no choice but to breathe in small, quick gasps, forcing himself to adjust his breathing.

Qi Yue did not park the car at a distance. He drove it straight up outside the warehouse.

Lao Si had gotten there before him. If Lao Si was hiding anywhere around here, he would be able to see Qi Yue, so there was no way to conceal himself.

After getting out of the car, Qi Yue looked around. No one. The row of little warehouses looked even more broken-down than they had in his memory.

He took a few steps toward the only warehouse that still had a door. On the pile of broken bricks beside it, he saw fresh cigarette butts. This was the place.

To reach the warehouse door, he first had to pass through a small open patch piled with broken tables and chairs. The moment he stepped into it, the sunlight around him dimmed, most of it blocked by the roofing overhead.

“Lao Si!” he shouted.

No one answered from inside, but he heard the sound of wood scraping against the ground.

“Gu Zhong!” That sound made him panic immediately, and he strode forward.

At the instant he pushed the door open, Gu Zhong’s roar came from inside. It was obvious he had used every bit of strength he had to force it out. “He’s outside!”

Qi Yue did not hesitate, and he did not look back. He dropped into a hard bend immediately.

If Lao Si was attacking him from behind, this was the only posture that gave him any chance of avoiding the blow.

But Qi Yue had to admit that over these years, the occasional minor disturbances in his calm life were no longer enough to keep him as fully alert to danger as he had been back then.

Unlike him, Lao Si, after all these years, was still the same Lao Si as before. Careful, and vicious.

Lao Si really was attacking from behind. And the only place he could have hidden was the pile of junk off to the side.

From that direction, an ambush should only have come as a horizontal swing aimed at the head or shoulders.

But after ducking, Qi Yue realized Lao Si’s target was not his head, and not his shoulders either, but his back.

And it was not a horizontal swing. It was a downward smash from above.

After all these years, Lao Si had improved quite a bit.