2. The City's Top Scholar and the Murderer
The negotiations came to a temporary end. Tang Sizhuo didn't want to stay any longer. She picked up her bag and left the meeting room. When she walked to the parking lot, she heard someone calling her, "Lawyer Tang, please stay!"
It was the man himself. Tang Sizhuo winked at Wang Yue, and she immediately understood, taking his car keys and getting behind the wheel. Some of the man's assets were ill-gotten, and her partner had warned her to be mindful of her personal safety.
The man came over and said with a smile, "I have something I want to discuss with you. Can I have a moment to talk?"
Tang Sizhuo smiled politely and said, "I have other work to do later. Sorry."
The man leaned in closer, his voice lowered. "How much did you charge for this case? I can give you double it."
Tang Sizhuo understood. "Thank you for your appreciation, but I only earn what I deserve. I will pretend I didn't hear that, and please don't mention it again."
After that, she ignored the man, turned around, opened the door and got into the car.
Wang Yue's professional skills were limited, but she was quite clever. She immediately stepped on the accelerator and drove out. After leaving the underground parking lot, she circled around the office building several times. After confirming that the man hadn't caught up, she turned around and asked her, "Where are you going?"
"Let's drive to your house first. I need to go somewhere else."
"Okay!"
Perhaps due to her well-off family background, Wang Yue lacked the usual formality of a newbie around her superiors. While driving, she chatted with Tang Sizhuo, "Did Zhang Qiuran give you evidence again? Did she discover an affair?" Tang Sizhuo leaned back in his chair, his eyes closed, and shook his head. No, he was just guessing. The young assistant exclaimed in awe. "That's a guess?" Tang Sizhuo patted her shoulder and smiled, "A bit naive." After some fawning compliments on her instructor's accurate judgment, Wang Yue lamented that it was no wonder her uncle had told her to observe Lawyer Tang more often; one must learn how to behave. Their conversation rambling on, from the seven-year itch to parents who treat their children as a burden, Wang Yue furious, Tang Sizhuo calm.
During her childhood, Xiao Tong and Tang Jiahua often quarreled like this. However, they didn't have a lawyer, and they didn't avoid their children. They could quarrel from noon to dusk. At the end of the quarrel, Xiao Tong would push the door into Tang Sizhuo's bedroom and hug her tightly, trembling with fear. Xiao Tong would cry and ask her, "Why can't you be as smart as those kids on TV and ease the conflict between your parents?" Or, "Mom has nothing but you. But you don't live up to your expectations. Why can't you keep Dad?"
Even after so many years, this scene still reappears in her countless nightmares.
It was time for a midnight snack, and the alleys were full of vendors. Tang Sizhuo found a spot to park near the auxiliary road, thinking about what excuse to make to avoid being sent away by Zeng Xiasheng. She searched for repair shops on the map, and there seemed to be only one in this alley, called "Tianhao Repair Shop", which mainly repairs digital products, such as mobile phones and computers, which seems to be the direction that the prison encourages prisoners to start their own businesses. Tang Sizhuo thought for a moment, and slammed the phone in her hand against the seat belt buckle, but after a few clangs, only a slight scratch was left. She suddenly remembered that there was a safety hammer in the car to prevent falling into the water, which she had never used since she bought it.
It was impossible not to feel bad for a new phone costing seven or eight thousand yuan, but she couldn't let go of the child. With a determined heart, she brought the tip of a safety hammer down on the phone screen, creating a small hole and cracking it into a spiderweb-like pattern. To avoid being too deliberate, she cracked the surrounding area a bit more. After looking around for a long time, confirming it looked like an accident, she grabbed her phone, got out of the car, and walked into the alley. Her outfit and demeanor were out of place here, and her passing earned her a lot of gossipy looks.
Tang Sizhuo parked in front of Tianhao Repair Shop.
This is a very small storefront, only about ten square meters. From the ceiling to the floor, it is filled with shelves filled with various mobile phone parts and other electronic accessories. There are two narrow workstations in total. There is no one on the left, and the person on the right should be the "friend" Zeng Xiasheng mentioned.
Zeng Xiasheng was not there, which made Tang Sizhu a little disappointed.
She knocked politely on the door and asked softly, "My phone screen is broken. Can you fix it?"
The person in the room was busy with the work at hand and didn't even raise his head. "Okay, okay, come in first, I'll finish it and show you right away."
"Your name is Tianhao, right?"
"Yes, Chen Tianhao. You can call me Tianhao or Haozi."
Tang Sizhuo nodded and deliberately asked him, "Are you the only one in the store?"
"There's also a good friend of mine who just came here yesterday, but he's very skilled. Let him fix it for you later. He can fix anything."
After Chen Tianhao finished his work, he looked up at her and was stunned for a moment, not understanding why the woman in front of him would come here to repair her phone.
Tang Sizhuo handed him the phone and said, "The screen is broken."
Seeing the hole on the phone, Chen Tianhao was even more surprised. It was just a few days old, so even if he didn't take good care of it, it wouldn't have been dropped like this.
"What happened? Did you break the inner screen?"
Tang Sizhu was about to speak when she suddenly noticed someone approaching from behind. She turned around and happened to meet Zeng Xiasheng's eyes.
Zeng Xiasheng looked like he'd been doing some manual labor. Wearing only a short-sleeved shirt in the late autumn, his face drenched in sweat, his tanned skin appearing even more fortified. His gaze lingered on Tang Sizhuo's face for a second, and then, as if he didn't recognize her at all, he grabbed his coat from the rack and put it on.
It was the same one from yesterday, but the sleeves were a little too short, and the shoulders were covered in dust from somewhere.
Chen Tianhao called him, "Come, I'll fix your new phone. The screen is broken beyond recognition. I need to replace the whole thing—"
Zeng Xiasheng didn't even look up. "It's not even under warranty yet. Let's go to a specialty store to get it fixed. Apple won't handle after-sales service after we've turned it on."
Tang Sizhuo hadn't expected him to refuse to earn the money that came to her door. She didn't say anything, and she didn't leave. She just stared at Zeng Xiasheng, her eyes gradually turning red. Chen Tianhao was sensitive enough to sense that there was something unusual between the two. He remembered the car that had brought Zeng Xiasheng home last night. Although he'd been told it was a classmate, he hadn't even told her the date of his release, so how could any of his old classmates know enough to pick him up?
He coughed twice and smoothed things over, "The store must be closed right now. You need it urgently, right?"
Tang Sizhu sniffed, took the phone and placed it on Zeng Xiasheng's operating table.
"I need it tomorrow, could you please fix it for me?"
"Don't you have another backup?"
"No."
Zeng Xiasheng picked it up, took a look at it, and put it down again. "I don't have experience with new models, so I may not be able to fix it for you."
Tang Sizhuo pointed at Chen Tianhao and said, "He just said you can repair it."
Zeng Xiasheng looked up at her, his eyes full of annoyance and resistance, and his furrowed brows even made her feel afraid unconsciously.
This wasn't the way Zeng Xiasheng should have looked at her. She opened her mouth, but no words came out.
For a moment, she even thought Zeng Xiasheng would pull her arm and throw her out of the store roughly.
There are indeed many such past events in my memory. Zeng Xiasheng has no father or mother and doesn't know how to interact with others. He can only grow sharp thorns to protect himself. Therefore, he has been a bad boy known to the neighbors since he was a child, and he would fight if he disagreed with them.
She would always hide behind a window or in the woods, waiting for him to finish a fight before quietly approaching him, bandaging his wounds with the anti-inflammatory drugs and gauze she had saved up for, unsure how to persuade him. Occasionally, tears would fall on her face, and Zeng Xiasheng would hug her in a dark corner and point out the blue sky peeking through the cracks in the house.
He said, "You will fly out, don't be stuck here."
Tang Sizhuo shook his head, "I want to go with you."
Zeng Xiasheng laughed self-deprecatingly, "I can't get into university. The best I can do is go to a vocational school." He pinched Tang Sizhuo's nose and laughed at her exasperated look. "You'll regret it then. You won't want to tell anyone that you have a friend in a vocational school."
Now that the embrace is gone, the warmth is gone, Tang Sizhuo was frightened by Zeng Xiasheng's fierce eyes and could not move. However, Zeng Xiasheng lowered his eyes and lowered his head.
"Come and pick it up tomorrow morning."
He took out Tang Sizhuo's card, put it into the phone she gave him yesterday, and handed it back to her, "Your backup phone."
Tang Sizhuo said "Oh" and took the phone, but stood there without moving. Zeng Xiasheng had already lowered his head and started to take the phone apart for her.
"Let's go back," he said. "I can't finish this in a while, and it's not safe here at night."
Then can't you just take me there? Tang Sizhuo had the words on the tip of her tongue but didn't say them. She whispered a thank you and turned away.
Chen Tianhao stretched his neck and confirmed that Tang Sizhuo had disappeared at the end of the alley. Then he immediately rushed out from his workstation and ran to Zeng Xiasheng's side.
"What's going on?" He twisted Zeng Xiasheng's neck and forced him to turn his head. "Tell me the truth, is it the one who always came to see you but you didn't see him?"
Zeng Xiasheng slapped his hand away, "It's none of your business."
Chen Tianhao tutted his words, "Why is it none of my business? Your sister-in-law has been waiting for me for several years. I tell you that if you make a mistake, just correct it. It's not inferior to others. It's rare to find such an infatuated woman nowadays——"
"Are you done yet?" Zeng Xiasheng looked up at him. "If this phone is broken, you'll have to pay for it."
"If destroying a cell phone can bring my buddy lifelong happiness, then I don't care! She still has you in her heart even after you've been in prison for ten years, what are you hesitating about?"
Zeng Xiasheng's patience had clearly reached its limit. Veins bulged in his chest, and he slammed the tools down on the table, growling through gritted teeth, "Stop talking!"
Chen Tianhao was stunned. The two of them met in prison and had been friends for six or seven years, but he had rarely seen him look so fierce.
Zeng Xiasheng took a deep breath, clenched his fists, and then picked up the disassembly tools again.
Chen Tianhao was looking for trouble, so he patted him on the shoulder and turned to walk back, but he heard Zeng Xiasheng say behind him:
"She is the top student in our city. Is the relationship between her and me the same as your relationship with my sister-in-law?"
His voice was hoarse and low, as if every word was as sharp as a blade, and every word he uttered was filled with bloody pain.
City No. 1?
Chen Tianhao frowned.
Zeng Xiasheng's murder case caused a sensation. Although the media deliberately blurred some of the facts in its coverage, the news spread like wildfire. Chen Tianhao, who ran a grocery store in a remote township under the jurisdiction of Jiangming City at the time, heard from casual conversations that the victim's child was about the same age as the criminal, but had withstood the pressure without any impact and had even won the city's top scorer in the college entrance examination.
His heart was in turmoil, and all kinds of confusions swept through his mind, but he finally suppressed them all.
Whether to brag or to express regret, those who have committed serious crimes will inevitably mention their past when they are relaxed, but Zeng Xiasheng is the only one who remains completely secretive. The only time he was put in solitary confinement was when a cellmate asked him about the case, and he beat him up without warning, leaving him with a black eye and a swollen face.
After a long silence, Chen Tianhao patted his arm and said, "I understand, I won't mention it again."
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
