Chapter 69: He's risking his life.
Chen Jiashu couldn't sleep.
My mind is filled with that unfinished meeting.
Since his eye problems started, and he's been unwell every now and then, most of the board members believe he'll eventually break down, and retiring behind the scenes is his only dignified end.
If word gets out that he's missing, it will likely be used to make a big deal out of it, completely confirming the rumors that he was overwhelmed by the pressure.
Faced with a high-level crisis of this magnitude, and considering the stock market volatility and internal stability, Zhu Ao and his team's first reaction would inevitably be to conceal it from the outside world. He should have known this much.
Chen Jiashu sighed inwardly. Without a watch or phone, he had lost all sense of time. How long had he been unconscious? What day was it? What time was it? Had the police tracked their car down using surveillance footage? ...Qiao Qiao must be searching for him frantically right now, right?
Qiaoqiao...
“You always use ‘it’s for my own good’ to control me…”
"Is obeying your arrangements the only way to show love for you?"
"Jiashu, in my heart, you are more important than anything else."
"I remember all the kindness you showed me over the years, every single one of it... If there's anything I can do to help you in the future, I will do my best."
It's been almost seventeen years. Strangely enough, those six years after losing her felt like an eternity, but now, looking back, it all seems like time has flown by.
At that time, a bright girl with a high ponytail and a charming smile entered his gloomy life and brought him a ray of warm light.
Later, they started dating. Many mornings, he would wake up fearing it was all just a fleeting dream. Only after texting or talking on the phone with Qin Qiao, who was abroad, would his anxious heart find peace and settle back into his chest.
She was so wonderful, while he... had no good family, no good health, and an uncertain future. Yet this silly girl followed him regardless of everything.
Even more so, after returning from England, she immediately took him to meet her parents and relatives, and with everyone's blessings, they got engaged early on.
At that time, his aunt and other relatives were impressed by Qiaoqiao's parents' open-mindedness and were happy for him that he had found the best girl and the best parents.
Repaying a debt of gratitude...
Yang Shuhua's act of hiding the letter and blocking him was merely a way of correcting a "mistake" she had made passively in the past.
In this incident, Qiaoqiao risked her life to protect him, even breaking ties with her biological mother. Zhaoye and Xixi were brought to him by Qiaoqiao at great personal risk.
How could he doubt or desecrate Qiaoqiao's feelings for him?
Qiao Qiao, Zhao Ye, Xi Xi...
The tears welling in his eyes turned hot. Chen Jiashu helped himself to sit up and coldly asked the man opposite him who was monitoring him:
"Kidnapping carries a minimum sentence of ten years. Do you know what it's like inside?"
The car went over a deep pit with a loud bang, and the two people inside the car were thrown high into the air. After landing, Chen Jiashu grabbed Lu Jun's shoulder by instinct.
"Five years ago, I was imprisoned. Every day in prison felt like an eternity. Every morning when I woke up, I was faced with walls that made it hard to breathe. The sky I could see was always just a tiny patch the size of a tofu block. I had to get up at five, line up and count off at six, and go into the workshop at seven to sew on buttons... Three thousand buttons a day, not one less... At night, the lights were always on, as bright as an operating room, making it impossible to hide. Even many years after I got out, I still dream about that place."
The man's upper body was pulling backward, which showed that he was afraid.
Chen Jiashu's tone turned serious, and he spoke slowly and deliberately:
Would you like to try it too?
The loss of sight and hearing left him unable to know the full extent of the two men's intentions, forcing him to rely entirely on "guessing" from the details and "gambling" on the edge of a cliff.
Not resisting means an unknown outcome, but it will likely be more dangerous; while resistance offers a breakthrough in this young man who is already trembling.
Chen Jiashu couldn't help but think of Chairman Fu of Shengxi Investment. Three years ago, during that high-risk merger and acquisition negotiation, they were put on the defensive due to insufficient due diligence. But at the subsequent celebration banquet, that man raised his champagne and laughed, "Fortune favors the bold; isn't that what we're playing with?"
The game of capital is essentially a series of "survival against all odds." But their trump card is hundreds of billions, while he... is betting his life, his stake is this young man's fear.
“When I was seventeen, my parents passed away one after the other… At that time, my family was destitute. To survive and pay off debts, I did everything: internet cafe manager, hot pot restaurant employee, car repair shop apprentice. Later, I felt that I should have a skill, so I taught myself how to repair various home appliances…”
Chen Jiashu calmly recounted his twenty years of life, from nothing to something, over a dozen minutes. He couldn't judge the volume of his voice, but could only infer from the opening and closing of his mouth and the force he used in his throat that it was probably similar to his normal speaking volume.
"...Just because I wanted to live and live well, more than ten years later, I became the 'disabled but determined blind entrepreneur' that netizens talked about. People can't choose their birth, but they can choose how to live their lives."
As if stunned by something, Lu Jun listened quietly to the entire story. In the instant he came to his senses, he shoved Chen Jiashu hard.
The man collapsed weakly, but chuckled softly, the last syllable of his voice carrying a hint of mockery, as if he were ridiculing their reckless ignorance and foolishness.
The army clenched its teeth tightly.
Chen Jiashu spoke again, his voice steady and slow: "Now park the car, dump me on the side of the road, and you can leave. I don't know who you are, you won't go to jail, and you won't die."
Suddenly, the car slammed on the brakes, coming to a screeching halt without any cushioning. Then, the car door was flung open with a bang, letting in the cold, thin sunlight that streamed into the car and shone on Chen Jiashu.
Just as Lu Hun was about to call out "Big Brother," Lu Tao leaned in, grabbed Chen Jiashu's shoulder, and roughly pulled him out of the car.
The frozen, muddy ground was strewn with protruding stones. Chen Jiashu's knees slammed heavily against it, and the intense pain made him shudder, a groan escaping from between his teeth.
The rolling loess hills, their slopes and mounds seemingly cleaved by a giant axe, one after another, are dotted with patches of white snow. Sunlight strikes the edges of the snow and earth, sparking golden rays that are almost blinding, creating the spectacular sight of the sun illuminating the mountains like gold.
The wind howled, whipping up sand and gravel that rubbed against faces like sandpaper. Lu Jun hissed as he looked around at the field.
He glanced at Chen Jiashu, who was curled up on the ground, then looked at his older brother and said, trembling:
"Big brother... I'm scared."
Lu Tao glared at Lu Jun, the scar on his eyebrow growing even more sinister: "Come here, take him to kowtow to your second brother."
"I...don't want to be executed, I don't want to...go to jail." Lu Jun shrank back, unwilling to step forward.
All he could think about were the words Chen Jiashu had said. He was only nineteen, hadn't yet seen enough of the big city's glamour, and Xiao Li, his former coworker at the hotpot restaurant, seemed to like him. Maybe his life could end up like Chen Jiashu's...
Lu Tao snapped, "Come here!"
Chen Jiashu was lifted up by the two men and dragged up the hillside. Lu Jun glanced at the man whose lips had turned white.
I'm really afraid he'll stop breathing at any moment.
"I...I can't kill anyone..."
Lu Tao's plan was to wait until Chen Jiashu finished kowtowing, then drive him to a higher mountain and push him off, leaving him with no trace of his body. But they had only ever bullied people; they had never killed anyone.
The more the army thought about it, the more frightened they became.
"Big brother... Father, Mother is still waiting for us to take care of her in her old age."
Lu Jun paused, then said, "Enough talk, let's go."
A few graves are scattered on the hill, with rough stone tablets standing in front of the mounds.
The two let go, and Lu Tao kicked Chen Jiashu in the back of the knee. The man fell to his knees on the cold mud with a thud.
“Chen Jiashu, my brother Lu Ming, you may not know him, but he died because of you.” Lu Tao knelt down, his rough hands gripping the back of Chen Jiashu’s neck like iron clamps. “Kneel three times for him.”
Chen Jiashu was forced to bend down, the blurry outline of the tombstone close at hand. He reached out, touched the tombstone, then moved it to the top of the name, and slowly moved his fingertips down along the grooves of the characters. After touching all the characters, he silently read the name on it.
Who is Lu Ming? He didn't know him.
He lowered his arms, jerked his body backward, and shook his head.
"I don't know him."
For Chen Jiashu, the name "Lu Ming" was indeed like a grain of sand in the desert.
Six months ago, Chen Jiashu personally went to the Dongting factory area and carried out a sweeping overhaul. The entire leadership team was replaced, and fifty or sixty people were dismissed, including Lu Ming, the then head of the finance department.
The sudden unemployment, coupled with some less-than-honorable rumors, caused Lu Ming to repeatedly encounter setbacks in his job search. Three months later, he defaulted on his mortgage payments, creditors came knocking, and his newlywed wife divorced him as a result.
The series of blows destroyed this man. Lu Ming began to indulge in alcohol, and soon became addicted to gambling, eventually accumulating huge debts. Last month, he returned to the remote mountains where he was born and raised, and chose to hang himself in his old house.
Lu Ming had always been the pride of his family. Through diligent study, he became the only college student to leave the mountains. After securing a stable job, Lu Ming didn't forget to help his brothers, arranging positions for them in the factory, making them junior managers in the workshop. The family's hopes rested on him, but he was driven to despair by Chen Jiashu's ruthlessness.
Should they avenge this?
After Lu Tao finished speaking angrily, he waited for Chen Jiashu's response.
The rough clods of earth hurt his knees. The hand on his neck tightened, trying to force him to kowtow. Chen Jiashu resisted, stretching back, unwilling.
He wasn't unaware that the man beside him was speaking to him, but what exactly did he say? Judging from all the signs, this man might have died because of him. Was it a misunderstanding, or something indirectly caused? Was he being bullied? Or was he being targeted by superiors? There were too many possibilities… He couldn't judge.
However, he finally confirmed two things: they were not employees of anyone, it was purely a personal feud; and Lu Ming must be a worker in one of their group's factories.
“I can’t hear you. Which factory area is Lu Ming in? How did he die?” Chen Jiashu stretched out his right hand and said calmly, “Give me the keywords. I need to know.”
Suddenly a gust of wind arose, carrying sand and gravel that blew in his face. Lu Jun stepped forward, bent down, and wrote in his palm: Dongting, suicide.
"Dongting, suicide," Chen Jiashu read aloud in a low voice.
Lu Jun glanced at Lu Tao: "Brother, I don't think he's faking it."
Lu Tao lost his patience and pressed down on Chen Jiashu's neck. The man instinctively tried to lift his head, but was pressed down again until he kowtowed three times. Only then did Lu Tao stop.
Having not had a drop of water for a day and a night, Chen Jiashu collapsed weakly to the ground.
Lu Tao stood up, his leather jacket collar flapping wildly in the wind, slapping against his chin: "We've already committed a crime, kidnapping. If we let him go, we'll both go to jail."
Army: "We can leave him on the road; he can't see or hear, and he doesn't know who we are."
“You underestimate Chen Jiashu,” Lu Tao shook his head in disagreement. “Do you think we’ll be fine just because we left him on the road? He’ll do everything he can to get back, and the police will come to arrest us right away.”
The fact that Lu Jun changed his mind so quickly must be because Chen Jiashu said something to him in the car that made him back down. This man is far more difficult to deal with than they imagined, and he is also much more afraid of death.
"Only by killing him will we be safe." A hint of murderous intent flashed in Lu Tao's eyes.
“Brother…” Lu Jun grabbed Lu Tao’s arm: “If we kill someone, we’re finished. I want to go to work, I want to find a girlfriend… I want to make a lot of money…”
The two argued back and forth on the issue, reaching a stalemate. After a long while, Lu Tao lowered his eyes, and his pupils dilated instantly.
In the short time they were arguing, the person who should have been lying on the ground... disappeared.
The cemetery is not high, and the cemetery is divided into east and west sides by a sandy road that is four or five meters wide. To get down the mountain, you have to go through two steep slopes.
Their car was parked at the bottom of the slope, and just five or six meters away, a heavy truck loaded with stones was slowly driving from east to west.
As the car approached, the ground tremors became stronger.
Lu Jun realized something, suddenly raised his eyes, and locked his gaze on Chen Jiashu, who was stumbling and running down the mountain.
The shouts stopped abruptly as Chen Jiashu tripped over a protruding rock and rolled down the slope like a log.
Lu Jun immediately understood that Chen Jiashu's escape was not aimless; his target was the truck, and he wanted the driver to spot him.
"stop!"
He took off after him, but fortunately his older brother reacted faster. As soon as Chen Jiashu stopped, his older brother pounced on him, pinning him down before he could get up, and quickly covered his mouth and nose.
The truck drove by, its rear end disappearing, leaving only the yellow sand kicked up by its wheels silently drifting down.
The man's struggles and the whimpering cries for help in his throat grew fainter and fainter, like a cat whose neck had been snapped, until finally he fell completely silent.
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