Chapter 43. What else can we do but search?

Sun He'an lived in a row of connected residential buildings. The houses there were small and didn't even have partitions inside.

When Ning Yao knocked on the door, the person in the next room opened the window and peeked out. Seeing that it was a little girl, they smiled and then shrank back inside.

The door opened, and the dim light shone on Ning Yao, revealing the vulnerability in her eyes.

Sun He'an glanced at Ning Yao, didn't ask any questions, and simply stepped aside, saying, "Come in."

Ning Yao entered the house and sat on the bench by the door. The tension she had felt for so long finally eased at this moment.

Sun He'an reached out and poured a glass of water on the table, handing it to her: "Did you have a fight with your brother? Girls shouldn't go out so late at night." He had noticed that the atmosphere between the two of them was a bit strange last time.

Ning Yao took the water, smiled, and joked to herself, "So, in your eyes, Brother Sun, am I the kind of person who runs away after an argument?"

Sun He'an looked embarrassed. "Not really."

Ning Yao held her water glass, sipping it slowly, and didn't continue the topic. Instead, she tentatively asked, "Brother Sun, what do you think of the Jianghe Daily?"

Jianghe Daily? A glint of excitement flashed in Sun He'an's eyes: "Then I really like that newspaper. I think the founder must be a patriotic person with progressive ideas." But as he spoke, a hint of disappointment crept in: "Unfortunately, I heard that recently the people at Jianghe Daily haven't been doing so well."

Ning Yao didn't miss the fervor in his eyes, nor the emotion in his words. She listened carefully. "So, if I told you that I know who's behind the Jianghe Daily, would you report them?"

"How could that be?!" Sun He'an frowned. "What kind of person do you take me for! Do you think I'm the kind of person who would do something so unethical for a few bucks?"

“Of course not.” Ning Yao smiled and said calmly, “The founder of Jianghe Daily is my brother Ning. But he has disappeared now.”

Sun He'an: "..." He was stunned. "Then what are you...?"

Thinking about the uproar caused by the siege of Yumin Public School on the street today, I instantly understood the whole story.

“Then you…” Sun He’an’s mouth was dry, and he couldn’t get the words out for a long time. A huge amount of information was churning in his mind.

"Yes, it's just like you imagined." Ning Yao felt much better after revealing the secret, at least someone was sharing the burden with her. "So? Brother Sun, you'll help me, right?"

"Help! Of course I'll help!" Sun He'an never expected that one day he could make a contribution for the ambitious person he admired. He was both excited and flustered. "What do you want me to do? Just do something. Brother Ning is missing. Then, then I'll go find him and we'll go find him together."

In his speech, he changed his way of addressing Ning Yiwen from "your Ning-ge" to directly calling him Ning-ge.

"Hey, don't rush..." Ning Yao looked helplessly at him as he hurriedly picked up his coat and turned to leave, and quickly called out to him, "I'm in a hurry too, but now is not the time."

"What do you mean?" Sun He'an turned to look at her.

Ning Yao pondered for a moment and said, "The situation is like this. First of all, I can't be sure whether Brother Ning has been arrested. So, I need you to come to my house first thing tomorrow morning. If there is someone guarding it, then it means that Brother Ning has not been arrested. If there is no one guarding it, then Brother Ning may have already been arrested, and we will have to think of another way."

"Tomorrow?" Sun He'an was a little impatient. "Let me go and check now."

“I definitely can’t go now,” Ning Yao sighed. “The houses in my area all have yards. They’re big, but there are few people living there and few people coming and going. If you go there late at night, and there are people watching over you, they might keep an eye on you.”

Ning Yao's words calmed Sun He'an down considerably. Watching Ning Yao holding the cup steadily on the stool, he then thought of another question, "What about you? Are you also wanted by the police?"

When Sun He'an brought up this matter, Ning Yao felt somewhat embarrassed.

She only learned about going abroad a few days ago. It was already very rushed, and she also had to say goodbye to her friends at school, drop out of school, and pack her bags. With all these things happening, she even forgot to say goodbye to the people in front of her and her other friends.

"Um, I'm sorry, Brother Sun." Ning Yao stammered a bit, "Three days ago, Brother Ning arranged for me to go abroad, and I... forgot to tell you guys."

"Now?"

“I boarded the ship to England in the morning. When the ship made a temporary stop in Beijing, I heard people in Beijing discussing the Jianghe Daily. I knew that Brother Ning was in trouble, so I got off the ship and returned to Shanghai from Beijing in the afternoon.”

"So that means they all thought you went abroad?" Sun He'an breathed a sigh of relief. "That's good, that's good."

The room quickly fell silent. The awkwardness was palpable for the lone man and woman.

Sun He'an scratched the back of his head. "Um, Ning Yao, how about this? You sleep in my bed, and I'll go next door and find a neighbor to make do." He paused for a moment, then continued, "Then, I'll go to your house as soon as it's light tomorrow, and after that, we'll discuss what to do next."

“No.” Ning Yao refused. “Brother Sun, you have a clean blanket. Give me one. I can sleep on the floor here…” She glanced around and pointed to a small corner on the right.

"That won't do..."

“No, Brother Sun, listen to me,” Ning Yao interrupted him, “I don’t know how long I’ll need your help, so I’m already very grateful that you can give me a place to stay.”

Seeing that Sun He'an still wanted to say something, Ning Yao added, "If you don't agree, Brother Sun, then I'll leave now."

Sun He'an hesitated for a moment, but seeing Ning Yao's resolute attitude, he had no choice but to agree.

She turned around and took a clean quilt out of the closet. "This was just aired out these past two days. You can make do with it for now."

Ning Yao took the blanket, thanked her, and walked to the corner with it. She folded it in half, using one half to cover herself and the other half to cushion herself.

Seeing Ning Yao lie down directly in the corner, Sun He'an hesitated for a moment, but did not blow out the candle. He went straight back to his own bed and lay down.

Inside the quiet room, the candlelight flickered, and only the faint, almost inaudible sound of breathing mingled.

Ning Yao stared blankly at the roof tiles and beams, her mind reminiscing about the moments she had spent with Ning Yiwen.

Brother Ning, where are you?

A lump formed in her throat, and a tear slid down her cheek and into her temple.

*

In an abandoned factory dormitory south of Shanghai, four metal bunk beds were laid out in a small room. At this moment, a person was lying on the innermost metal bunk bed.

His outer robe was removed, and his inner garment was unfastened, revealing his well-defined abdomen. A white cloth was wrapped around his abdomen, with a reddish tinge in the middle, from which a trace of blood was faintly seeping.

A man in a white coat touched his forehead. "The bleeding has stopped. As long as there's no fever, it's not a big problem."

"Thank you, Dr. Chen." A man dressed in black shorts, looking no different from a rickshaw driver, thanked the doctor earnestly, then sat down on the edge of the bed and carefully pulled the clothes of the man on the bed tighter.

The man in the black robe frowned and said, "Lin Wang, don't move around, or you'll bleed again." Seeing the person on the bed moving their mouth, he leaned down and asked, "Why are you talking in your sleep? Perhaps Dr. Chen could take another look?"

Upon hearing this, Dr. Chen stepped forward, pinched open the patient's eyelids with his thumb and forefinger, glanced at him, and replied, "No fever, and the bleeding has stopped, so there's really nothing wrong."

"Then why are you still muttering in your sleep?" Yu Kuo asked impatiently.

"A good night's sleep should do the trick." He just couldn't sleep soundly; perhaps he was having a nightmare. He still didn't think it was a big deal. He walked to a corner, sat down, and hugged his knees. "You guys watch, I'm tired. I'm going to take a nap."

The others had no choice but to take turns looking after the child.

The person on the bed was Ning Yiwen, with a blue robe beside him, stained with blood.

During the day, he was stabbed by Liu Yu with a knife, bleeding profusely. Lin Wang, who happened to have received the news and came to inform him, saw this and immediately carried him away to the factory in the southern suburbs.

This is one of their several communication hubs.

At this moment, Ning Yiwen had a light sheen of sweat on his forehead, his lips were pale, and he was shaking his head slightly, immersed in the scenes of his previous life.

The clinking of glasses at the banquet and the sudden outbreak of war outside the window—two completely opposite scenes flashed through his mind.

Finally, all the scenes disappeared, and a sharp longsword appeared.

Ning Yiwen watched helplessly as the long knife pierced straight into his heart.

Screams and running erupted from the crowd; chaos reigned. Suddenly, a man rushed out, kicking aside the person holding the knife. He turned and pulled a knife from somewhere, plunging it into the man's knee…

The woman had short hair, dressed simply, and her face was blurred...

Who is it?

Ning Yiwen clutched his chest, forcing his eyes open, trying hard to see the person's face...

Almond-shaped eyes and a delicate nose, Ning Yao...

Ning Yiwen suddenly opened his eyes, panting heavily, sweat pouring down his face.

"woke up……"

"She's awake... Doctor..."

The hurried voices and footsteps around him were deaf to Ning Yiwen's eyes, which were staring blankly at the ceiling, where cobwebs still hung from the dilapidated beams.

After a long while, he recovered and asked, "How long was I unconscious? Has Ning Yao arrived in England?"

The group pushed and shoved each other, and no one responded for a long time.

Even though Ning Yiwen's mind wasn't quite sharp at the moment, he could tell that something was wrong. "What's wrong? Just say what you want to say."

Finally, Lin Wang was pushed forward.

He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and said directly, "Boss Wen sent a telegram back from the ship, saying that Miss Ning Yao disembarked in Beijing this morning and her whereabouts are currently unknown."

"What!" Ning Yiwen jumped up, the wound on his abdomen was squeezed, and blood began to seep out again.

But he had no time to worry about that. "What happened? Has anyone gone to Beijing to look for them?"

"The telegram was short and unclear. They're already looking for it in Beijing, but there's no news yet."

Ning Yiwen immediately got up and got out of bed. "No, I'll go to Beijing myself."

"Eh..."

"no!"

His movement to get out of bed was stopped, and Yu Kuo pressed down on his shoulder, "There's a lot of commotion outside right now. If you go out like this, you'll get arrested. How will you find people then?"

Ning Yiwen was pinned to the bed, his mind a jumbled mess.

He clutched his stomach with one hand and pressed his forehead with the other. "No, this won't do. What if Ning Yao gets caught..."

He didn't even dare to think about the consequences.

"Ning Yiwen, calm down!" Dr. Chen frowned as she looked at the bleeding area in his abdomen. "At this rate, you won't get better for ten days or half a month. Forget about finding someone to help you, you'll have difficulty even getting out of bed."

But Ning Yiwen wouldn't listen to a word.

Frustrated, Dr. Chen had no choice but to give him a sedative injection to calm them down.

Lin Wang looked at Yu Kuo and the others, "What should we do?"

Yu Kuo scoffed, "Go ahead and look for him, what else can we do? If we give him a sedative today, are we going to give him a sedative every day of the future?"

Lin Wang nodded, "Alright, let's split up then."