Chapter 68 Cemetery "Coming to take you home."
Shen Xiu glanced at Jin Zhao's cold face and felt a little intimidated.
Jin Zhao's angry expression was just like his older brother's, and he was already quite afraid of his brother.
Shen Xiu turned around and saw Jiang Xiliu walking this way. He forced himself to pick up his glasses and said in an innocent tone, "Brother, I'm sorry, your glasses are broken. It seems you can't wear them anymore. I'll buy you a new pair after the event."
Jin Zhao recognized Shen Xiu's voice, took a deep breath, and held out his hand first: "No need, it's still wearable even if it's broken, give it back to me." At this moment, he thought it was just a scratch or a broken lens.
Shen Xiu tossed the glasses, which had broken in two, into his hand like trash.
Jin Zhao touched it and found that not only was the lens broken, but the nose pad was also split in two.
He hung his head, his unkempt hair falling across his forehead, the noisy sounds around him echoing repeatedly in his mind, his head throbbing with pain.
"Excuse me, student, could you please move aside?"
Jin Zhao felt a tap on his shoulder. He looked up blankly and was about to move to the left when someone suddenly grabbed his hand and pulled him to the right.
"Chen Xiu, what are you doing?" Jiang Xiliu's voice rang out beside him.
The noisy sounds in his mind disappeared instantly, leaving only the clear female voice beside him.
Shen Xiu genuinely felt innocent; he had only bumped into Jin Zhao lightly as a greeting, who would have thought he would knock Jin Zhao's glasses off?
Taking advantage of Jiang Xiliu's inattention, he glared at Jin Zhao resentfully, cursing inwardly: "He's really good at pretending, even better than me now."
"I was just passing by and was about to say hello to my brother when he suddenly rushed over and bumped into my shoulder." Shen Xiu twisted the truth, "I didn't know what happened, but my brother fiercely told me to pick it up, and when I turned around, I saw a pair of glasses on the ground."
Seeing that Jin Zhao didn't refute him, he immediately became arrogant and asked, "Sister, does brother want to get new glasses?"
Shen Xiu practically blurted out that Jin Zhao was trying to extort money from him.
Jin Zhao couldn't see, so he couldn't tell whether he had accidentally bumped into Shen Xiu or Shen Xiu had deliberately bumped into him. He could only stand silently next to Jiang Xiliu.
Jiang Xiliu glanced at Chen Xiu with annoyance: "Have you finished the things I asked you to do? You still have time to volunteer?"
Jiang Xiliu was talking about revealing the Shen brothers' true identities.
After Shen Yu finished telling her, she immediately told her temporary teammate Shen Xiu about it. As a result, even though such a big piece of evidence was handed over to Shen Xiu, he couldn't make a move for a long time.
Shen Xiu scratched his head, feeling quite aggrieved: "Sister, I can't produce any evidence. My dad won't see me, my mom is abroad and ignores me, Shen Yu isn't home either, and now the security guards at my house start chasing people away whenever they see me."
To end up like Shen Xiu, a young master, is utterly pathetic.
Jiang Xiliu sneered: "You don't need to wait until you graduate. You can give me everything you have right now. Even if you have another ten years, you still won't be able to beat your brother."
After saying that, Jiang Xiliu took Jin Zhao's hand and left.
She led Jin Zhao to his seat, and seeing that he kept his head down and refused to look up, she felt a little annoyed.
She questioned, "Are you going to keep your head down when you go on stage to receive the award and take photos later?"
Jin Zhao sat listlessly in the chair and asked softly, "Can I not go on stage?"
Does he really have to go on stage and let everyone see him like this?
Jiang Xiliu didn't know what he was being difficult about, and she didn't want to lose her temper with Jin Zhao in public: "Don't argue with me at this time, we're not at home."
She leaned slightly forward, lowered her voice, and emphasized to him, "This is a notification."
Jin Zhao didn't respond further; he didn't know what to say to change Jiang Xiliu's mind.
Jiang Xiliu didn't care about his answer and left after speaking. Jin Zhao sat blankly in his seat, holding the broken glasses.
...
"Outstanding graduate: Jin Zhao—please come up to the stage to receive your award." The host repeated this several times, but no one in the audience stood up.
Jiang Xiliu's gaze fell precisely on the spot where Jin Zhao should have been sitting.
Empty.
The person ran away.
So brave.
After Jiang Xiliu stepped off the stage, she started calling Jin Zhao. When the call connected, the bodyguard on the other end said, "Miss, Mr. Jin didn't bring his phone."
A blind man, without a guide dog, without a cell phone, and with no one by his side, simply vanished before our eyes.
Jiang Xiliu's face was tense, and her tone was not good: "Go check the surveillance footage and find the person."
The school has a wide network of surveillance cameras, but Jin Zhao went out through the south gate.
Outside the south gate, there are only roadside stalls, not even a storefront, let alone any surveillance cameras.
The trail ends here.
Jiang Xiliu repeatedly watched the last surveillance video that captured Jin Zhao's back, and couldn't help but frown.
She had bodyguards guard Grandma Jin's residence, the high-speed rail station, the airport, and anywhere Jin Zhao might appear.
Three days passed, and there was still no news.
Jin Zhao left the school's south gate and vanished completely, as if he had evaporated from the face of the earth.
Jiang Xiliu was so angry that she beat the little hamster every day. This artificial intelligence was so stupid that it didn't even have a location tracking function.
[System 0777 is so pitiful: Miss, this has nothing to do with me! I stayed home obediently and didn't go out with you.]
It climbed onto Xiao Da's head to avoid being hit, and Jiang Xiliu didn't really touch the dog.
Jiang Xiliu mimicked it, coldly distancing herself: "According to you, Jin Zhao left on his own, and if he dies in some accident outside, causing instability in the small world or failure of the mission, it has nothing to do with me, right?"
System 0777 thinks the young lady is right.
In order to maintain the stability of the small world, it had no choice but to humbly request permission from the main system.
On the fourth day after Jin Zhao disappeared, there was a thunderstorm.
Jiang Xiliu was woken up by System 0777.
[System 0777: Miss, the main system has sent me a message. I know where Jin Zhao is!]
Jiang Xiliu, unusually free of morning grumpiness, sat up in bed. She ran her fingers through her hair, quickly securing it at the back of her head with a hair clip, and asked in an unfriendly tone, "Where are you?"
[System 0777: ...To the cemetery, to visit his parents.]
Jin Zhao's family didn't have much money, so they even chose the cheapest cemetery.
Cheap things always have some drawbacks. For example, this cemetery is really far away, almost to the next city.
Jiang Xiliu drove there herself, without even bringing A Biao.
Oh, although I didn't bring Ah Biao, I did bring my little hamster.
System 0777's four little paws clung tightly to the bottom of the seatbelt, occasionally startled by the young lady's driving speed.
It suspected that the young lady brought it along as a form of punishment.
After exiting the overpass, following the navigation, the car drove onto a muddy and rugged path.
The rain was still falling, and every now and then a couple of bolts of lightning would strike.
The car was forced to slow down, and System 0777 climbed to the front of the car and glanced at the somewhat gloomy light outside.
[System 0777 exclaimed: This is perfect for filming ghost movies.]
Jiang Xiliu ignored it, her face stern as she struggled against the muddy road.
[System 0777 seemed a little scared, and asked again: "Miss, if you see Jin Zhao, will you hit him? He runs around."] It even got beaten up a few times because of this.
Jiang Xiliu glanced indifferently at the little hamster playing with the pendant: "I'm not a violent maniac."
That means I won't hit him anymore.
[System 0777 feels wronged: You hit me.]
Following the navigation, Jiang Xiliu finally reached the cement road. She looked at the rickety "Yongle Cemetery" sign in front of her.
She said in a flat tone, "Hitting you is useful, hitting him is useless."
She chuckled softly: "He won't have the chance to go out again."
System 0777 thought about how Jin Zhao had been locked up by the young lady and looked like he was about to die, and felt that this punishment should be even more terrible for him than being beaten.
There were no parking spaces marked here, and it didn't look like anyone would come here, so Jiang Xiliu parked the car directly at the entrance of the cemetery.
An old gatekeeper was sitting at the entrance of the cemetery.
Jiang Xiliu got out of the car holding an umbrella, and the little hamster stood on her shoulder, looking around.
"What are you doing?" The old man, who was rocking back and forth in his chair, opened his eyes as he listened to the sound of rain.
Jiang Xiliu didn't approach; instead, she stood outside and said directly, "Looking for someone."
"Looking for someone at the cemetery?" The old man chuckled. "People come here to find ghosts, not people."
Jiang Xiliu didn't waste any words: "Has a boy wearing a white short-sleeved shirt and khaki pants come by in the last two days?"
"It seems there is such a person." The old man swayed unsteadily, the rain falling even harder. "If you want to go in and look for someone, you have to come and register first."
"Um."
Even the registration process here is done in the most primitive and outdated way.
A paper notebook that had been used for who knows how many years, only had a few pages turned before it reached the blank page.
The old man was slow and moved slowly. He only remembered to take the pen after he had taken the notebook, so he went inside to find it.
Jiang Xiliu flipped through the pages, and Jin Zhao's name occupied eighty percent of them.
Taking the plastic-cased ballpoint pen the old man had found, Jiang Xiliu wrote her own name next to Jin Zhao's in a flourish.
The old gatekeeper sat down and was too lazy to get up. He closed his eyes in the recliner and said, "Just put it on the table when you're done writing."
Jiang Xiliu walked away with her umbrella, and the page with their names on it was blown away by the wind.
Although the cemetery was in a remote location, it covered a large area. Jiang Xiliu wandered around it several times and searched for more than half an hour before finally seeing the man sitting next to the tombstone.
"Is she asleep or has she passed out?" Jiang Xiliu asked the system in her mind.
[System 0777 scan: Not asleep or dizzy, just with eyes closed.]
Opening or closing his eyes should make no difference to him, since he can't see anyway.
[System 0777, who heard the young lady's thoughts: Maybe it's because she was hurt by the heavy raindrops? Even if you're blind, you should still be able to feel something, right?]
So you close your eyes to avoid the rain?
Seeing his miserable state, soaked to the bone, from afar, Jiang Xiliu's anger subsided by half.
Jiang Xiliu was curious about how he found this place.
The journey is nearly 100 kilometers long, and even a normal person would find it difficult to walk it without navigation and a map.
Looking at him, it was clear he had fallen several times; his pants were covered in mud that the rain hadn't been able to wash off.
As Jiang Xiliu approached, she first looked at the tombstone with a photo of the two people on it. Jin Zhao looked a lot like them; his features resembled his mother's, and his face shape resembled his father's.
She bent down and bowed silently.
Jin Zhao noticed someone approaching and looked up, calling out, "Uncle, I'll leave right away."
The black umbrella covered the two of them, and the faint scent of grass was suppressed by another, more domineering aroma.
The familiar female voice became somewhat muffled in the sound of rain: "Where do you want to go?"
For a moment, Jin Zhao wondered if it was all a hallucination, but the rain stopped falling from above, and someone carefully wiped the rain off his face with a handkerchief.
His dull eyes flickered, and his voice trembled slightly: "Why are you here?"
"I'm here to take you home."
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
