November 14, 2018.
That morning, when the cell phone rang, neither of the two people who had been chatting until late at night and then fell asleep realized that it was the low chant of the god of death.
After curling up on the floor all night, He Jingsheng impatiently turned over and covered his ears, not paying any attention to the source of the disturbing sleep until he vaguely heard Jiang Que's hoarse voice answering the phone and saying "Hello", until the phone "clattered" to the ground from the bay window, until he turned around in surprise and saw Jiang Que jump down from the bay window with an unsteady step, his face pale, and was startled awake in an instant. He rolled over from the cushion and asked: "What's wrong?!"
At that moment, Jiang Que was like a disembodied, shaky paper figure. He hurriedly squatted down to pick up his phone, muttering, "I... I need to go back."
He Jingsheng was almost confused by this sudden situation: "Where to go back to?"
Jiang Que frantically flicked on his phone screen. His trembling fingers made it impossible to figure out which app was the right one for buying plane tickets. "Just now... it was the traffic police. They said my dad... was involved in a pileup on the highway."
He Jingsheng's heart skipped a beat, and he immediately asked, "What's the specific situation?"
Jiang Que shook his head: "He didn't say... He just told me to go back as soon as possible."
That is the usual way to notify family members of a traffic accident. In order to prevent family members from getting into an accident due to excessive panic when rushing to the scene, the caller will only briefly explain that an accident has occurred, but will not directly tell the family members about the casualties.
At that moment, He Jingsheng actually had a very ominous premonition in his heart, but looking at Jiang Que's distraught appearance, he knew that the only thing he could do at this moment was to remain calm. So he made a quick decision and stopped Jiang Que's hand that was still searching for the software. "Don't look anymore. I'll book the plane tickets. You go and see what you need to bring. Grab it and we'll leave right away."
Under normal circumstances, Jiang Que would have said something like, "I can go back by myself," but at that moment, he was completely bewildered. After hearing He Jingsheng's words, he nodded almost in unison, immediately got up and went to the bedroom to find his ID and wallet, then hurried back to the living room: "I've got them."
"Let's go." He Jingsheng immediately stood up and accompanied him out the door.
Throughout the entire day, He Jingsheng could sense that Jiang Que was in a state of confusion, turning a deaf ear to his attempts to comfort him with words like "It'll be alright" and "Don't worry too much." It was as if all his five senses had been disconnected from the outside world, and he was so slow to react to any words or actions around him that it took him several seconds to make the slightest response.
This state lasted from the moment they left the house to the moment they got on the car, and from the moment they boarded the plane to the moment they landed. It then reached its peak when they arrived in Suzhou and took a taxi to the scene of the highway accident.
It was raining heavily in Suzhou that day.
When the taxi entered the highway entrance, the wipers were unable to even maintain a clear view of the windshield.
And just behind the blurry windshield, Jiang Que in the passenger seat kept holding his seat belt and staring at the front, as if he had a strong premonition of some kind, but still kept the last string taut, waiting for the upcoming judgment.
As the wheels moved forward at a constant speed, a large number of flashing red and blue police lights finally appeared faintly in the rain in the distance, and the light was like the devil's eyes, flashing at a daunting frequency under the gloomy sky.
The car stopped outside the cordon blocking the road.
Jiang Que pulled the door handle and pushed open the car door like a puppet, and walked step by step towards the hellish car accident scene in front of him in the pouring rain.
It was really like a hell.
Woo-woo-woo
Beep-beep-beep-beep-
Countless police cars, ambulances, and fire trucks flashed their dome lights. On the road that stretched for hundreds of meters, the twisted and squeezed car bodies were slanted in all directions, and it was almost impossible to tell the end from the beginning. Broken glass was scattered all over the ground, and bright red blood spread wildly under the heavy rain, outlining the hideous patterns like the claws of the god of death.
The noise of the walkie-talkies in the hands of the surrounding police, the noise of the fire chainsaws cutting, accompanied by the sounds of sirens and crackling rain, were drowned out by the heart-wrenching wails of the family members who fell to the ground and cried in agony, one wave higher than the other.
It was extremely tragic.
It was a scene that made even the onlookers tremble with fear and almost suffocate.
And at the end of this scene, under the dark cloud-filled sky in the distance, there was a giant billboard several stories high. Song Yecheng's eyes were shining in the huge poster, forming an extremely sharp contrast with the scene of widespread grief in front of him.
Jiang Que's footsteps obviously paused when he saw the billboard, but then he had no time to care about anything else, because the nearest traffic policeman was striding towards him in rain boots, holding a registration board in his hand.
"Which car's family member are you from?" The man raised his face from beneath his raincoat hood and asked loudly amid the chaotic noise. "Can you tell me the license plate number?"
Hearing this, He Jingsheng, who was walking behind Jiang Que, realized that the final judgment was finally coming. He quickly took two steps to Jiang Que's side and held his shoulders, trying to give him some insignificant support.
However, what he never expected was that after Jiang Que finally clenched his palms and reported Jiang Di's license plate with difficulty, the first thing that came was not the life-or-death judgment of the traffic police, but an unexpected change that no one had expected -
Not far in front and to the side, a woman who was originally accompanied by a female police officer suddenly rushed over like crazy and slapped Jiang Que hard in the face in front of several people's surprised gazes!
——Bang!
The crisp sound stunned the whole audience.
“Are you satisfied—?!”
The woman's eyes, obviously swollen from crying, roared redly. Rain mixed with tears flowed down her messy black hair and cheeks. She glared at Jiang Que as if she wanted to eat him alive: "You finally killed him! Are you satisfied—?!"
"Hey, Ms. Ye!" The policewoman rushed over and grabbed her. "What are you doing?"
Jiang Que had never expected that the final bad news would reach his ears in such a shocking way.
At the same time, He Jingsheng had already realized who the woman in front of him was, and hurriedly took a step forward to stop her: "Auntie, calm down!"
"roll--!"
Ye Ying ruthlessly pushed him and the policewoman away, her force so frantic that neither of them could stand. Then, with a loud slap, she slapped Jiang Que across the face and pounced on him, grabbing his collar tightly with both hands. "How has he wronged you? What has he owed you? You have to kill him to feel satisfied!"
The rain dripped down Jiang Que's messy hair, and a glaring red mark quickly appeared on his cheek that was fanned to the side, and even a trace of blood appeared at the corner of his mouth.
However, his pupils were frozen.
Facing Ye Ying's continued crazy fighting and roaring, he just endured it, not fighting back or retaliating, as if from the moment he first said "kill him", he had already crashed into a bottomless nightmare. All the colors, sounds and even pain around him no longer existed, leaving only an empty and illusory shell in its place.
Ye Ying raised her head and glared at him, panting furiously. "Everything is clearly back on track... You've already gone far enough! Why are you still haunting me?"
Jiang Que stumbled back a step after being pushed by her. The policewoman hurried forward to stop him again. He Jingsheng desperately squeezed in between the two of them and forcibly pulled her hand away: "Auntie! This is not his fault! Can you calm down?!"
This time he used brute force without hesitation and prevented Ye Ying from breaking free. The traffic police and policewoman nearby also quickly cooperated to hold her back, and finally dragged her a few steps away from the frantic struggle.
However, perhaps because the ground was slippery, Ye Ying, who was being dragged away, had not yet gotten far away when she suddenly lost her balance and fell to the ground, splashing water all over the place.
The two policemen next to her tried to help her, but she fiercely pushed their hands away. Then, she sat on the ground with her hair disheveled and tilted, and raised her finger at Jiang Que: "You..."
She gasped heavily with effort, then turned and pointed at the collapsed billboard in the distance: "And him..."
She turned her crimson eyes back, and those sinister glares seemed to be filled with the deadly poison of hatred: "You all shall not die well, you shall not die well—!"
The sharp voice pierced through the rain curtain, and the most vicious curse nailed Jiang Que, who was already covered in wounds, to the spot.
The terrifying echo swirled upwards, like the cruelest blade, cutting through the dark clouded sky in the distance.
Hospital duty office.
The whole room was silent for a moment.
He Jingsheng paused briefly in his narration, taking a deep breath as if feeling somewhat distressed. He then sighed, "Actually, I can sense that the reason he didn't fight back or retaliate that day was because even he himself agreed with the accusations his adoptive mother had leveled against him. He truly felt... that he was the one who killed his father. He felt that if he hadn't bought the house, if his father hadn't come to see him, he wouldn't have gotten into that car accident."
Song Yecheng, who was standing next to him, had already red eyes. His throat rolled with difficulty, and he seemed to have difficulty speaking. He did not say a word for a long time.
Not long ago, when he learned from Jiang Que about Huangmao's fall from the building, he was glad that Jiang Que was finally willing to talk to him about those sad memories, giving him the opportunity to finally remove the barrier between them, share his pain, and accompany him to heal his wounds.
But Song Yecheng never imagined that the story he heard that night was just the tip of the iceberg of Jiang Que's heavy past, an insignificant prelude before the cruel drama began, and the tiny brick that fell at the beginning of the collapse of the building.
Listening to He Jingsheng's memories at this moment, imagining Jiang Que's heartbroken and distraught look in the pouring rain that day, he finally clearly realized what kind of excruciating pain Jiang Que had experienced and what kind of desperate torment he had endured during the years when he was not by his side.
Those slaps on Jiang Que, filled with venting and anger, were like blades piercing through the torrent of time, and also cut deeply into Song Yecheng's heart, making his heart tighten and he felt so distressed that he could hardly breathe.
Seeing that his knuckles were turning white from gripping the edge of the table so tightly, Zuo Jianqing couldn't help but raise his hand to pat him on the back, then he let out a long sigh.
But he still remembered that their original intention of asking He Jingsheng to tell this story was to find the root cause of Jiang Que's abnormal behavior. So even though he felt uncomfortable at the moment, he still maintained his rationality and turned to look at He Jingsheng and said, "What happened next?"
"later……"
He Jingsheng's narration was somewhat labored. He paused for a moment before continuing, "After that incident, his adoptive mother went crazy. Not in the adjective sense of 'crazy', but she really had some mental problems."
At the end of that day, Ye Ying did not leave the scene on her own, but was taken to the hospital by an ambulance. She had hardly suffered any hardship since she was a child. The heavy rain in late autumn that day, coupled with the severe emotional shock, directly caused her to faint at the scene of the accident.
After waking up in the hospital, her emotions were still not calmed down, and she continued to show many obviously abnormal words and deeds.
She refused to handle Jiang Di's funeral and did not allow anyone to make the news of Jiang Di's death public. She even did not attend the cremation and funeral ceremony for Jiang Di.
She stayed in her single ward. When she was quiet, she hugged her knees and stared blankly for a long time. When she was restless, she frantically pulled out the infusion needle from her hand, pushed down the infusion bottle rack with blood on her hands, and roared at everyone who entered the ward to get out.
After a period of observation and diagnosis, the doctor was able to basically classify her symptoms as bipolar disorder, which was manifested as alternating depression, delusions of persecution, and a slight tendency towards violence.
Although the symptoms are obvious, they are not serious, at least not serious enough to require compulsory treatment. The doctor recommends temporary medication accompanied by rest at home. During this period, it is best to have someone to watch over and take care of the patient.
At this point, He Jingsheng felt a little depressed. "Actually, according to my thinking at the time, her parents were still alive, so she could just go back to her parents' home to recuperate. At most, Jiang Que could pay for two professional caregivers to help, which would be considered the most he could do. Anyway, she and Jiang Que didn't have much affection for each other, and she disliked Jiang Que so much, so she probably hoped to just turn a blind eye to him."
He Jingsheng paused, then exhaled all the pent-up emotions in one breath: "But I actually forgot...she's not a normal person at all."
At that time, everything from handling the traffic accident to Jiang Di's funeral and then to Ye Ying's hospitalization was handled by Jiang Que himself. Although He Jingsheng was there to help, Jiang Que still became haggard at a visible speed within just two weeks.
He was like a machine that was still running but lifeless. He handled things in an orderly manner and answered people's questions briefly and clearly, but he almost never ate or slept, as if he would never get tired, and he blocked all emotion-related perceptions.
He Jingsheng watched from the side, feeling worried, but he also tried to think positively.
He thought, no matter how great the difficulties, they would eventually pass. Now that Jiang Di's funeral was complete, as long as Ye Ying was settled, this matter would be over. Once they left Sucheng and returned to the capital, Jiang Que would be far away from this sad place. Over time, sadness would gradually fade.
However, he was still too naive.
What he thought was the "end" was just the beginning of another nightmare -
On the day Ye Ying was allowed to be discharged from the hospital, the attending physician, out of concern for the patient, came to the ward to inquire about their arrangements after discharge, which of course included the question of "whether there is anyone to accompany her to check on her passport while she rests at home."
During that period, every time Ye Ying saw Jiang Que, she would tell him to get out and throw things at him. But that morning, her mood was surprisingly stable. When she heard the doctor's question, she even smiled meaningfully.
Just when He Jingsheng was puzzled by this smile, Ye Ying, who was lying on the hospital bed, turned her head slowly and looked at Jiang Que who was standing by the door. She asked in a nonchalant tone, "Your house over there isn't decorated yet, right?"
To He Jingsheng, these words sounded full of malice.
She knew very well that Jiang Di went out that day to help Jiang Que decorate the new house, and deliberately asking this question at this time was simply tearing open the bloody wound.
Even he could hear the hidden meaning, so how could Jiang Que not hear it? Even though he had been living like a walking corpse during this period, he was still inevitably hurt by these words again. He swallowed hard in his throat and couldn't even utter a "hmm" in response.
Ye Ying didn't seem to care whether he answered or not, nor did she care what his reaction was. She just said casually, "Then don't make any arrangements. Come home and live here."
He Jingsheng was stunned and could hardly believe what he heard.
But Ye Ying was not discussing this with anyone at all.
She looked at Jiang Que coldly, her eyes filled with undisguised mockery and sarcasm: "Aren't you very sensible and filial? I'm sick, and it's time for you to fulfill your filial duties."
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
