After Lu Guang Ming returned home, he hugged his pillow and thought for a very long time, truly unable to understand how He Chu San could put on such a pure and innocent face and say something as shameless as, “I’m not pretending. I really am very good.”
If it were Lu Guang Ming wearing that same expression and acting obedient in front of Xie Jia Hua, he would definitely be beaten up, bundled up, carried to the mountains, and buried, never to be seen in the human world again.
Even now, he had already gone many days without seeing Xie Jia Hua. He wondered whether Xie Jia Hua had thought of him.
As a clear-hearted, desireless gentleman of upright character, Inspector Xie definitely had not “played ball” with anyone else during this period either. He wondered whether, when Inspector Xie jerked off at night, he would remember the way Lu Guang Ming had sat on that “airplane” and soared.
The moment of reunion arrived very soon. That evening, He Chu San’s personal assistant Kevin called him and informed him to “proceed according to plan.” The next morning, Lu Guang Ming first went to the ICAC and reported in as usual, then went out under the pretense of investigating a case. On the black market, he anonymously rented a car and drove toward the villa where Hao Cheng Qing had lived back then.
On the way, he encountered a car accident, and the traffic jam delayed him for a long time. He anxiously checked his watch again and again, and only after great difficulty did he squeeze out of the traffic and turn onto the mountain road. It was already nearly noon. Just as he floored the gas and sped forward, he suddenly heard a deafening roar!
He slammed on the brakes and stopped by the mountain road. The ground was still faintly trembling, and the enormous rumbling continued without end. He hurriedly got out of the car, climbed with all his strength onto the roof, and looked toward the villa in the distant mountains—only to see billowing black smoke rising into the sky. That three-story little building had already been razed to the ground.
He was late.
He hurriedly jumped down from the car, got back into the driver’s seat, floored the gas, and sped toward the mountain. Taking a small road to circle around the front entrance of the villa—the officers surrounding that place had already descended into complete chaos, like a pot of boat congee, and stretchers were carrying the injured out—he hastily glanced down from the slope from afar, then quickly drove toward the back mountain.
After parking and burrowing into the dense forest, he found the marked location and forcefully moved away the heavy layers of fake shrubs, stones, and other coverings blocking the secret passage exit. Then, using all the strength he had, he used the shovel he had carried over to pry open the iron valve beneath. Turning on a flashlight and burrowing into the secret passage, he smelled the scorched stench of gunpowder smoke.
He put on a mask. The light of the flashlight swayed faintly ahead as he bent at the waist and walked quickly forward. Before he had gone more than a few steps, he heard Cui Dong Dong’s hoarse, desperate cries from the other end of the passage. “Is anyone there?! Someone come quickly!”
“Coming right now!” he shouted.
Panting, he ran to the end of the secret passage and saw that the entrance at the other end had been completely destroyed by the explosion, mud and chunks of earth covering half the passage wall. Xiao Qi Hall’s general manager, Cui Dong Dong, had both hands covered in blood, her legs pinned beneath a large rock, and she was struggling on the ground. Another petite girl lay quietly beside her, half her dress stained with blood.
Lu Guang Ming rushed over and forcefully moved the rock. “Don’t worry about me! Save her! Save her!!” Cui Dong Dong shrieked as she shoved at him.
Lu Guang Ming withstood several blows from her and stubbornly moved the rock away. Turning, he knelt on the ground and lifted the other girl, only to discover that she seemed to have been shot in the chest, the lung injured. Blood was still pouring out, and her breathing was already extremely difficult. He swiftly took off his shirt and pressed it over the wound, then lifted the girl horizontally and rushed toward the outside of the secret passage. Cui Dong Dong limped and stumbled along behind him.
After arranging Cui Dong Dong and the injured girl in the back seat, he turned the car around and drove down the mountain while quickly dialing his mobile phone.
The person who answered was Kevin. He sounded as though he had carefully walked into a corner, asking in a low voice, “Mr. Lu? How is the situation? Did you get them?”
He Chu San’s loud shout also faintly came from the other end of the receiver. “The company seal is in my hands! Before the Bosses return, no one is allowed to cause trouble! Otherwise, this person will be your example. Did you hear me clearly?!”
“I got them, but someone was shot!” Lu Guang Ming said, gasping hard. “Tell Mr. He that in this situation, we can’t go to the safe house. They have to go to the hospital for treatment immediately!”
“Mr. Lu, don’t panic. Please wait a moment,” Kevin said urgently. There was a rustling sound from the other end, and after a while, He Chu San’s voice came through. “A’Ming, I know the situation. Take them immediately to Kowloon XX Private Hospital at the foot of the mountain. I’ll arrange for people to receive you there…”
“He Chu San, you bastard!! This was all your damn idea!! If something happens to Xiao Luo, I’ll carve you into a thousand pieces!!” Hearing He Chu San’s voice from the back seat, Cui Dong Dong roared.
Lu Guang Ming’s ears rang from her shouting, and he bared his teeth as he moved the brick phone away from his ear. He Chu San’s pained yet steady words came from the other end, resounding through the entire car. “Sister Dong Dong, if something happens to Sister Luo, I’ll pay you back with my life. For now, calm down first and take good care of Sister Luo. I’ll arrange for the doctor to prepare surgery immediately.”
Lu Guang Ming hung up the phone. While driving, he also turned on the eavesdropping radio, wanting to hear the police’s internal report on the situation at the scene. Unexpectedly, that side was also in chaos. “Call an ambulance! An officer is injured!” “Move aside! Move aside! The fire extinguishers are here!” “Huff, huff! Inspector Xie, Inspector Xie is still inside. He’s buried. Hurry and save him…”
Lu Guang Ming slammed on the brakes! Cui Dong Dong in the back seat quickly hugged Xiao Luo tightly and slammed hard into the back of the car!
“What happened?!” Cui Dong Dong asked.
Lu Guang Ming’s hands on the steering wheel trembled slightly. He urgently glanced out the window, then looked back at Xiao Luo, half her body stained with blood! After hesitating for two seconds, he released the brake and continued driving down the mountain…
…
One hour later, after settling Cui Dong Dong and Xiao Luo, he hurriedly drove out and parked the car in the underground parking lot of the public hospital closest to the scene of the incident. With no time to wait for the elevator, he ran wildly up the emergency stairs and rushed into the hospital lobby. As soon as he entered, he saw several uniformed police officers surrounding a blood-soaked stretcher. The person on the stretcher was covered from head to toe by a blood-soaked white cloth, revealing only a pair of shoes stained with blood and mud.
Lu Guang Ming’s legs went weak. He stumbled and lunged over. “Is he dead?! Is he dead?!”
Among the crowd, a handsome young man in plainclothes guardedly stopped him. “What are you doing? Who are you?”
“Let go of me! Xie Jia Hua! Xie Jia Hua, you Big Sweet Potato! You are not allowed to die!” Lu Guang Ming roared as he struggled with red eyes against that handsome young man, desperately trying to pull at the white cloth covering the corpse. Yet that handsome young man’s combat strength was not the slightest bit inferior to Xie Jia Hua’s. With one twist of his hand, he pinned Lu Guang Ming’s arms behind his back and pressed him against the wall. “What are you doing?! Don’t get agitated!”
Another uniformed officer ran out from the crowd, his features somewhat resembling Xie Jia Hua’s—only his aura was much more foolish—and helped that handsome young man stop him. “Hey, hey, the dead one isn’t my cousin. Don’t get agitated. Who are you? My cousin is lying in the ward inside.”
Lu Guang Ming was pressed against the wall by the two of them working together, rubbing wall dust all over his face. He widened his eyes blankly. “It’s not Xie Jia Hua?!”
“It’s not,” Xie Jia Hua’s cousin said.
“Then who is it? Why were you surrounding him? Did another officer die in that explosion on the mountain?”
“What does this have to do with the explosion?” Xie Jia Hua’s cousin said. “This is the deceased from another traffic accident that was just brought in. We suspected earlier that it might be Cui Dong Dong’s injured girlfriend, so we gathered around to take a look.”
The handsome young man in plainclothes released the hand restraining Lu Guang Ming and instead stopped Xie Jia Hua’s foolish cousin from revealing more details of the case. “Sir, who are you? What is your relationship with Inspector Xie Jia Hua?”
Lu Guang Ming blankly wiped a handful of dust from his face. His heart had only just fallen back from his throat, still stuck there pounding wildly. “I, I…”
He finally remembered to search himself and pulled out his ID. “I’m an ICAC investigator. My name is Lu Guang Ming. I’m Xie Jia Hua’s… his… his friend. How badly is he hurt? Is he all right? Is he awake? Can I see him?”
The handsome young man in plainclothes—only later did Lu Guang Ming learn that his name was Qin Hao, and only then did he recall that this was precisely the undercover officer Xie Jia Hua had planted inside Xiao Qi Hall—brought him into the ward to visit Xie Jia Hua. When the explosion happened, Xie Jia Hua had been walking at the very front and was buried under the collapsed brick wall, but his luck was excellent, and adding to that his strong, sturdy body, he had actually only suffered some superficial injuries. After undergoing a large pile of examinations, he had been sent back to the ward, temporarily unconscious because his head had been struck.
Lu Guang Ming crouched down weakly beside Xie Jia Hua’s hospital bed. After all the chaos that morning, he was almost exhausted to death, and almost frightened to death too.
He rested his head against the edge of Xie Jia Hua’s bed and said in a voice only he could hear, “You bastard Big Sweet Potato. At your age, what were you doing running to the very front? If something had happened to you, I could only pay you back with my life too.”
“What kind of damn idea did that brat A’San come up with!” he thought fiercely again in his heart. “Just by looking at the boyfriend he found, I should have known he was unreliable!”