Chapter 37
Zhou Yue walked up the dark and damp stairs. The rotten and greasy smell seemed to emanate from the cracks in the wood. She climbed step by step, but finally reached the end. The brightly lit hall was still brightly lit, but the dozens of tables of guests were gone, leaving it empty. Only at the largest round table in the center of the hall sat a man with his back to her. His white shirt highlighted his handsome figure, and his hair was neatly combed back, shiny black under the brilliant ceiling light.
It was Jiang Huai, and the man who had been sitting at the head seat at the round table when he had led her to toast was now kneeling on the ground.
The person who brought Zhou Yue in called out "Mr. Jiang". He didn't turn around, didn't say anything, and didn't show any expression. His reaction was not as big as the man kneeling on the ground. When the man heard the word "Mr. Jiang", he shuddered violently and became limp. A pool of bright yellow liquid overflowed from under his knees, and the stench could be smelled from a long distance away.
Jiang Huai laughed and changed his sitting position. Then someone took a cell phone and walked up to the kneeling man, turned on the speakerphone and played it for him.
The voice on the other side was old and exhausted. It was hard to tell whether it was an old lady or an old man. The words were incoherent and trembling: "Son, there are so many people at home. The children are so fierce now..." After a while, he smiled again, his voice kind: "It's okay, I don't feel any pain anymore..."
Jiang Huai stood up, walked over slowly, leaned over to him, and whispered softly: "Uncle Jiu, don't lower your head, don't you like looking at my wife? Take a few more glances?"
After saying that, she slapped his wrinkled head, neither too hard nor too light, and then again, making his face crack and his fat flesh tremble. "Don't even think about it in your next life, you fat bastard."
"Your mother is still harder, harder than you."
Jiang Huai had finished fighting and sat back, resting one arm on the back of the chair and stroking his hair. "Your wife and son are both dead, and you old jerk can still yell."
The man on the ground trembled violently, raised his head tremblingly, his eyes wide open, and cursed like a mantra: "You little bastard, your whole family will die. I will kill your whole family, and even if I become a ghost, I will not let you go..."
"Ha! Whose whole family is dead?" Jiang Huai laughed out loud when he heard it. He threw his head back and laughed. The huge crystal chandelier made his pupils sparkle. "My wife came back to me unharmed."
Having said this, he turned around to look at Zhou Yue for the first time with a playful smile, but he only glanced at her briefly before lowering his eyes and turning away.
Perhaps it was because Zhou Yue's face was too messy with gauze and bandages, and this glance seemed to spoil his mood. He only said, "Uncle Jiu, you have to accept the loss." He said nothing more, crossed his legs, lowered his head and wiped his hands with a warm towel.
But the people around would naturally guess what the master meant. Zhou Yue only blinked an eye, and the man's bald head full of wrinkles of flesh was broken. This time his brain was really out of control. He fell in a pile of flesh and blood, kicked his legs a few times, and was completely motionless.
In the past, Zhou Yue would have screamed until her throat was torn apart, but now she couldn't scream. She felt nothing but her stomach cramping.
Everyone had left, and the dead bodies on the ground and the few corpses in the corner were all carried away quietly. The hall that was bustling with noise before now only had her and Jiang Huai.
He still had his back to her, head lowered. From her angle, she could see his eyelashes, as dense as a black feather fan, drooping down, and it took him a long time to blink.
"Is he seriously injured?"
Zhou Yue took the cotton out of her ear and rubbed it in her hand. The dried blood stains were dark red under the light.
“Not heavy.”
"Well, that's good."
Actually, the story was simple. In the past few years in Shenzhen, Jiang Huai, the chairman of the Huainan Group, who had been known to flirt with women without getting a single leaf on his body, had fallen under the spell of a vixen. He hid her away in a corner, unknown to anyone, and enjoyed her all by himself. At first, he did it once every few weeks, then several times a week. He became addicted to her and couldn't stop. He took her everywhere, to Shanghai and Hong Kong, and even to second-rate nightclubs like Blue Ocean to listen to her crappy Cantonese songs. He would wait for her in a stinking, windowless dressing room until the early hours of the morning...
All of this is preparation for a "weak point" today.
Uncle Jiu was willing to accept the loss. His bet was that Jiang Huai was really as he said, treating her like the apple of his eye, eating and sleeping with her, never leaving her side. Wherever Zhou Yue was, Jiang Huai was there, not to mention his car and his people were there, so they came out in full force, but they didn't expect that their nest would be destroyed.
"Boss Jiang," Zhou Yue held the cotton in her palm, took a step forward and said calmly, "Boss Jiang, I know my role has come to an end. Can I..."
"Let's go home." He looked up at the blood-spattered wall and sighed, seemingly exhausted. He folded the already dry wet wipes on his knees and smoothed them out. "We'll talk about it when we get home."
"good."
Parked downstairs of the restaurant was a Bentley I had never seen before, with a convoy of cars following far behind it. Several of the cars had their windows rolled down, and the people in the cars didn't look Chinese, but had typical Southeast Asian looks.
Zhou Yue opened the passenger door and got in. Before she sat down, she saw the driver's terrified expression as if he had seen a ghost. His eyes kept darting towards the back seat. Only after receiving a silent command did he regain his composure and start the engine.
It was late at night when the car drove into the secluded forest of Big Wave Bay. The convoy stopped at the intersection of the tree-lined road, and the remaining two cars followed.
The tree-lined road twists and turns like a water snake, the bluestone slabs make a slight sound when rolled over by the wheels, and there is a black carved antique garden lamp every meter or so, and the fragrance of leaves and flowers is faintly wafting in the air.
Finally, the two cars also stopped in front of the endless iron gate of the villa. Only their Bentley drove in and stopped in front of the villa.
Zhou Yue followed Jiang Huai in. A floor lamp was on in the living room on the first floor. Jiang Huai walked up the ladder to the second floor without saying a word and went to his own bedroom.
Zhou Yue stopped in front of the bedroom door. The hallway light was too dim to make out the person sitting on the bed in the dark bedroom. It wasn't until he clicked on the desk lamp that she could barely make out his face in the hazy light. His shirt buttons were unbuttoned, and he looked like he'd been drained of all his strength, unable to even straighten his back. He slumped down on the bed, threw away his glasses, wiped his face, glanced down at his knees, and chuckled, "My legs hurt every time I get back to Hong Kong. What a damn bad luck."
"But there's no way," he turned his head and looked at the lamp absentmindedly, his eyelashes half-closed, "I want it back."
"Things lost should be found there. What I lost was my dignity, my backbone, and the lives of my mother and my sister. They say that even a lame person can ascend to heaven. I like this saying. I am determined to ascend to heaven, and no one can step on my head."
He looked down at the carpet, pressing his knees with his palms. Outside the floor-to-ceiling window behind him was a dazzling sea of neon lights, dimly lit in the night. The two of them sat there in silence.
"Boss Jiang, I..."
"I said my legs hurt," he paused pressing his knees, his eyes drooping, the shadows of his eyelashes obscuring his eye sockets in the dim light, and he murmured softly, "Aren't you coming over?"
Zhou Yue tilted her head and looked at him for a long time, then walked over and knelt on the ground, raising her hands to gently massage his legs.
He put his hands on his legs and let her beat him, looking at her from the side, as if he was very satisfied, with a smile on the corner of his lips, but his pair of dark and enchanting long eyes were like a well in a deep courtyard, filled with sinister and vicious hatred. He suddenly grabbed her hair and forced her to look up, almost lifting her whole body up, with her knees off the ground.
"You want to leave? Where do you want to go? Tell me."
Zhou Yue screamed in fright and covered the roots of her hair that he was holding in his palms with both hands. The more she struggled, the tighter he held her hair, and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't pull it free. She gasped in pain.
At this moment, all the gratitude, admiration, and affection they had felt for each other day and night were gone, and the suppressed emotions that had been difficult for her to understand suddenly rushed up from the bottom of her heart like a gushing oil.
It was disgust, and now there was also hatred, burning like a raging fire.
"Let me go! Let me go!" She screamed heartbreakingly, digging her nails into his flesh. He subconsciously loosened his grip and swung his arm to slap her.
The wind blew past her eyes. She looked up and stared at him without blinking. The bandages and gauze were all torn off, the wound burst open, tears and blood soaked her face. She whimpered in her throat like a beast, her teeth clattering. "Go ahead and kill me."
The wind stagnated in the humid and hot air, and his hand was raised in mid-air and couldn't be lowered.
Perhaps even a tiger would shrink back when hearing a donkey's bray for the first time. This was the first time Zhou Yue saw panic and cowardice in Jiang Huai's eyes.
She sat on the ground with her neck tilted back, looking at his enchanting puppet face, which was twisted and crazy as if possessed by an evil spirit.
She didn't want to look anymore, so she lowered her eyes with all her strength, tore off the gauze hanging on her face, and looked out the window in a daze.
Hong Kong is so beautiful. The extreme material desires bring extreme luxury and splendor. The gentleman in a suit and the lady wearing a cashmere sapphire are holding their glasses and chatting and laughing. The banquet hall is brightly lit, but he is the only one in the dark sewer, in the shadows, like a mouse.
He was in pain, but his howls were drowned out by the jubilant laughter. No one heard him, and no one felt sorry for him.
"Mr. Jiang, are you still hitting me?" She looked up at him. "If not, I want to go take a shower. I'm very tired today and want to sleep. I might sleep a little later tomorrow. Mr. Jiang, please call me if you need anything."
After saying that, she stood up and stopped at the bedroom door, turning her back to him:
"Mr. Jiang, you don't need to explain anything to me, because I am willing. Even if I die today, I will still be willing. My father was also a businessman. When he was alive, he traveled all over the country. What he taught me the most is that when you are away from home, others have no obligation to be nice to you, and they have no obligation to choose you when faced with a choice. If someone treats you well, remember to repay them."
"I have saved all the money you gave me, and I can return all the useless things, but I will remember the kindness you showed me, and my mother..." She raised her head and sighed at the wall that extended into the darkness.
"I will never forget your kindness. I want to repay you, but I'm afraid of pain. If they catch me today, they will torture me. If Mr. Jiang uses my words again in the future, can you find a way to help me? I saw those people on TV put potassium cyanide in their mouths. You are so powerful, you can definitely get it."
After she finished speaking, she turned around and saw Jiang Huai sitting on the edge of the bed, his elbows propped up on his knees, looking up at her. His sleek, combed hair had long since become a mess, with strands hanging down. The gray spots beneath his black hair could no longer be hidden, and together with the shadow of his eyelashes, they covered most of his face. As he looked at her, he chuckled, "I noticed you have a pretty sharp tongue."
This smile had no energy and no temper, like the silent fireworks on a rainy day. He must be too tired and too lazy to argue with her. There was helpless retreat in his eyes when he looked at her.
"Okay, you're awesome, you're ruthless." He casually ruffled his hair, his hands drooping limply. The metal watch strap made a crisp clang against his leg. He lowered his head and remained silent for a while before saying, "Xiao Yuan is here. Nothing will happen to you. I know what I'm doing."
“But it’s not worth it.”
Jiang Huai looked up suddenly, and she held the door handle and looked at him calmly.
"There are many women like me. Mr. Jiang will live a long life and will have all kinds of women in the future. But there is only one Xiao Yuan. He is really amazing. He brought me out alone. Mr. Jiang should know what is more important."
After saying that, she turned around and went downstairs.
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