Chapter 78 - II
Jiang Xiaochuan’s hand was slowly dropped. Yue Qingci shouldn’t have fallen to the ground; he should have stood forever.
Did he forget that he was a soldier?
In the meantime, who was wrong?
Was the person behind the scenes Yue Qingci?
Jiang Xiaochuan was still looking at Yue Qingci. He had fallen down. His heart was penetrated by a bullet, but it could still beat.
He was watching him, spending the last seconds of his life.
Qiao Yusheng was extremely indifferent.
“Rong Shaobai wanted to clear his name. If he got close to Jiang Xiaochuan, it might have been revealed that you were the one behind those sinful transactions. So, before he said anything, you killed him. Although it might not have been you personally who did it, Rong Shaobai’s death has something to do with you.”
Maybe he didn’t do the shooting himself, but he was planning and giving orders behind the scenes.
That night, Rong Shaobai indeed planning to show Jiang Xiaochuan something. He even received a text message from Rong Shaobai. However, less than two minutes after the text message was sent, the murder occurred.
Xue Yan also knew the secrets, but it was a pity that he didn’t have time to tell all the secrets.
Qiao Yusheng couldn’t trust the people in the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, let alone Yue Qingci.
He deliberately said that Xue Yan would wake up just to make Yue Qingci appear.
Unfortunately, what Qiao Yusheng thought was different from what Yue Qingci thought.
The floor was cold, with the chill of autumn.
Jiang Xiaochuan was thinly dressed and looked like he didn’t know how to take care of himself.
In the last life, if it wasn’t for Xue Yan and Rong Shaobai, who was reported and dragged him down, how could Jiang Xiaochuan have ended up in such a miserable state? So, he always felt murderous toward Xue Yan and Rong Shaobai. But unfortunately, after the theater was ended, he realized that he was wrong.
He should have figured out at that time that this Jiang Xiaochuan was the Jiang Xiaochuan he liked.
He looked at him silently, leaning on the ground with the back of his hand, losing the warmth brought by the blood, and his fingers became pale and white.
Qiao Yusheng said lightly, “Sorry.”
Never had he imagined that Qiao Yusheng and Xue Yan would have such a deep connection.
Maybe it was that distance, but it was an insurmountable gap between him and Jiang Xiaochuan.
What stood in the middle was not Qiao Yusheng, but the past and present life, fear and retreat, their vulgarity and sophistication.
From Jiang Xiaochuan’s understanding, Yue Fan seemed to be controlling a series of underground transactions of prohibited items in Chengzhou, and Rong Shaobai was also a collaborator, but that happened later. It was too late when he learned the inside story of this matter. In fact, Yue Qingci was the instigator. However, when Yue Qingci came back after being reborn, he quickly cleared away all these connections and let Yue Fan take over these things without anyone noticing.
It was abnormal for Yue Fan to ride over Yue Qingci’s head at that time. Unless Yue Qingci had done this deliberately, then all suspicious eyes fell on Yue Fan. Greedy people would not have realized that this was a trap. Even if they had, people like Yue Fan would have been willing to let it continue. Yue Qingci understood human nature very well but was obsessed with the authorities.
With Yue Fan as the scapegoat, Yue Qingci could stand up cleanly on the surface and then push the matter to Jiang Xiaochuan to investigate. If Rong Shaobai wanted to clear his name, he would have been happy to see it done. In this way, the whole matter would not only have been revealed as a deal between Yue Qingci and Rong Shaobai but would have become a deal between Yue Fan and Rong Shaobai. It could have been presented as a deal between Qingtuan and Yue Fan. Yue Qingci could exit cleanly and better protect Jiang Xiaochuan.
However, when Rong Shaobai decided to clear his name, he doubted whether Rong Shaobai would say something he shouldn’t have if he wanted to clear his name. In Yue Qingci’s memory, Rong Shaobai had always been a stain on Jiang Xiaochuan, and the stain should have been erased.
“When you pointed your gun at Rong Shaobai and Xue Yan, did you ever think that one day, someone else’s gun would be pointed at you?”
Things in the world had always been tit for tat.
But why was a good person like Xue Yan ended up like this?
He couldn’t hear; Yue Qingci couldn’t hear anything.
He moved his lips hard, but there was nothing.
—In sight, he stood there, tall and imposing. Why hadn’t he noticed that he was so tall in the previous life? Maybe it was because they were always stood side by side and hadn’t see the other fall…
Jiang Xiaochuan…
It was the ashes in his eyes that would never go out.
But it was not being extinguished yet; it was burned out.
If asked how long it took for a pair of eyes to be closed, Jiang Xiaochuan would have said, a lifetime.
Qiao Yusheng walked over as if nothing had happened and pushed Xue Yan’s hospital bed away. His expression remained calm and unfazed, as if he were not the murderer but Dr. Qiao in a white coat treating illnesses and saving people.
He didn’t want Xue Yan to stay in such a place, the scene of a murder.
Here, only Jiang Xiaochuan was left—a living person.
Jiang Xiaochuan didn’t remember how he walked over. He only knew that when he realized it, he was already beside him, squatting down, reaching out, and picking up the gun that had fallen on the ground.
Yue Qingci seemed to have fallen asleep. Maybe he was too tired from the long journey back? He didn’t have time to have a good rest yet. It seemed that he had seen him sleeping like this before, with an unconcealable exhaustion between his brows.
In his hand was a loaded gun.
He begun to think again, could he really distinguish between right and wrong in this world? If he thought about party discipline and state law, could he understand the sorrow of ordinary people like them, think about the revenge that couldn’t be avenged, and think about those things that party discipline and state law couldn’t punish?
The word he couldn’t say, the sound he couldn’t pronounce, jumped out and bloomed naturally. For the first and last time in this life: “Qingci…”
.
When Qiao Yusheng came back, he only saw an empty scene and the cold Yue Qingci.
Jiang Xiaochuan disappeared, and so did the gun.