It was as if that thirteen-year-old boy had once again appeared before his eyes—gazing at him, obstinate and helpless, as he silently restrained his feelings with all his might.
The day Xie Qingcheng left the He family, he felt he saw something precious in that youth's eyes, something that didn't just belong to a patient. But his heart was too hardened, and he wasn't very sensitive to certain emotions in the first place. Besides, he had been caught up in so many other things at the time and hadn't been inclined to consider a child's feelings very carefully. Thus, he had instinctively doubted that those eyes contained emotions that transcended a doctor-patient relationship.
He'd had to leave.
He Yu was indeed someone he had sacrificed—someone he had abandoned.
Amidst the chaotic aftermath of Qin Ciyan's murder, He Yu was the child that Xie Qingcheng had steeled his heart to leave behind…
Once, when that child had been dragged into a whirlpool by the undertow of his illness, he had looked at Xie Qingcheng with that same unwavering gaze. The look in He Yu's eyes was like that of a fledgling dragon who had held out its little claw to humans and trusted them only to end up being deceived. Its wings were broken, its spine torn out, and its talons snapped. Injured, it lay on the rock in a daze, its little wings and claws caked with blood. But it was a dragon; in order not to lose face, it didn't dare to wail too loudly.
He Yu was a prideful person, so he had said with as much self-control as he could muster, "Xie Qingcheng, in these past few years, I've gone through many doctors. They had me take medicine, gave me shots, and looked at me with an expression that said that I was a singular, unique patient. You were the only one who was different. You were the only one who treated me like someone who should integrate into society. You told me that taking medicine and getting shots weren't the most important things, and that the most crucial step was to make connections with others and build up a strong sense of self—that's the only way I can keep holding on. Xie Qingcheng, we're not very close, but I still…"
Xie Qingcheng had said nothing when He Yu trailed off.
"I…I thought you saw me as a normal person with feelings, not just as a patient."
Despite his prideful heart, He Yu had still been forced to say something so childish in the end.
"I have a lot of allowance, I can—"
I can hire you.
I can keep you here.
Could you please not leave?
Could you please stay with me?
At that time, Xie Qingcheng had thought that He Yu's intense unwillingness to let him go was perhaps wholly due to Xie Xue. Perhaps even He Yu himself had thought the same.
But in reality, it wasn't.
When Xie Qingcheng closed his eyes and thought back to that period of time, he remembered how he would sling a much younger He Yu over his shoulder when he refused to receive his shots or take his medicine, how He Yu's scrambling hands would obediently relax, how he could almost feel the weight of the boy calmly going limp against his shoulder.
"Doctor Xie."
"Xie Qingcheng."
That voice had transformed from soft and immature to raspy as He Yu entered adolescence. Even later, it held a sorrow that was forcibly covered up with stubbornness and indifference: "Xie Qingcheng, you might not be mentally ill, but you're even more heartless than me."
You're heartless…
My illness hasn't gotten better yet. It's still severe, so why did you abandon me…?
Bang! That earsplitting gunshot, the blood that spurted out and spilled over his palm, that young man's coldly penetrating almond eyes in the darkness.
Doctor Xie, who would've thought that the truth would be like this…? To pretend for so many years… You've really worked hard.
When an abandoned, injured fledgling dragon gazed at the human who had trodden its innocence and enthusiasm underfoot, would it have an expression like this?
The warm weight on Xie Qingcheng's shoulders seemed to fade away. He closed his eyes. The only heat that remained now was in the place where He Yu's blood had splashed onto his palm.
Suddenly, someone spoke up from behind him. "You must be very tired."
The weight on Xie Qingcheng's shoulders returned as a hand pressed against that exact same spot.
He opened his eyes. He was in the police station. The person pressing a hand against his shoulder was Zheng Jingfeng. Amidst the chaos and hubbub, Xie Qingcheng had been lost in his memories of his past with He Yu.
It was already very late now. Xie Qingcheng was sitting in an interrogation room across from a young policeman who had already spent more than an hour recording his testimony. After greeting Zheng Jingfeng, the junior officer tidied up his files and left.
Xie Qingcheng wasn't Zheng Jingfeng's relative, but Zheng Jingfeng had been especially close to his parents, so he had recused himself from the investigation and only entered the interrogation room now.
"Want a smoke?" Zheng Jingfeng tentatively struck up a conversation with Xie Qingcheng.
"Yes, please," Xie Qingcheng replied wearily.
Zheng Jingfeng passed him a cigarette and sat down opposite him.
After lighting the cigarette, Xie Qingcheng bit down on the filter and slid the lighter back across the table.
As he took a drag, he slowly raised his exhausted eyes. Zheng Jingfeng met them. Even though he knew the man before him quite well, Zheng Jingfeng still found himself slightly unsettled by Xie Qingcheng's gaze at that moment. It was too unyielding, too sharp. Like a dagger or a boulder. Like the eyes of his deceased mother and father.
Or perhaps it was even more unnerving. Because when Zheng Jingfeng looked at Xie Qingcheng now, after everything that happened tonight, those eyes didn't hold much vulnerability at all. He only looked tired.
The hand that Zheng Jingfeng was using to light his cigarette trembled involuntarily.
"Why aren't you saying anything?" Xie Qingcheng's voice was slightly raspy, which at least made him seem a little more like a normal person. "You didn't come in just to sit there."
"Because I don't feel like saying what I ought to say. You knew the risks, yet you still insisted on doing what you did." Zheng Jingfeng heaved a sigh. "Plus, whether you believe it or not, I was thinking about how to comfort you the whole time before I came in. But now that I'm here, I've realized that it's not really necessary." Lao-Zheng looked at Xie Qingcheng's practically expressionless face.
Xie Qingcheng dragged the ashtray toward himself. Then, he plucked the cigarette from his chapped lips and tapped off the ash. "Indeed, it's not necessary."
"But, you know, looking at you right now, there are a few things I can't help thinking about."
"Like what?"
Zheng Jingfeng sighed deeply. "I'm reminded of when you were little…"
Xie Qingcheng said nothing.
"When I first met you, you were still in elementary school. Your mom had caught a cold that day, so you decided to come to the cafeteria all on your own to get her food." Zheng Jingfeng's steely eyes misted over with softness at his reminiscence. "Your mom loved egg drop soup with tomato. You weren't very tall back then, so you couldn't reach the ladle when you stood next to that big pot of soup. When I saw you, I went over to help… When you looked up to thank me, there was no need for an introduction—I knew right away, the moment I saw your eyes, that you were Zhou Muying and Xie Ping's kid. After that, you'd often come to the bureau to do your homework. When you were tired, you'd drape your mom or dad's jacket over your shoulders and take a nap at the table while you waited for them to finish their work. I've met a lot of the kids from our unit, but you were the quietest and most mature of them all."
Zheng Jingfeng exhaled a ring of smoke and tilted his head back, following it with his eyes.
"Later on, I couldn't help but be curious. I asked your dad, 'How did you teach your kid to be so well-behaved?' He laughed and said to me that no one told you what to do. That was just your personality. I didn't believe him, I just thought Lao-Xie was showing off, so I ran over to ask you—I don't know if you still remember, but back then, I asked you how you were so impressive… You showed me your prize from a martial arts competition that you had just won that day," the old captain said. "And then you told me…
"You wanted to be a police officer."
At the same time, Xie Qingcheng said, "I wanted to be a police officer."
The two of them fell into silence.
After a while, Zheng Jingfeng said, "At that age, most children only have vague ideas when you ask them about their dreams for the future. But not you—as soon as I saw the light in your eyes, I knew that you were serious. You were probably sure about it since you were little, so you always lived more solemnly than other kids your age because of that concrete goal."
Xie Qingcheng finished smoking his cigarette and lit another one.
Zheng Jingfeng said, "You shouldn't smoke so much."
"It's fine. You can continue."
Zheng Jingfeng sighed. "But no matter how calm and cool-headed you were back then, you still seemed like a normal person. When I look at you now, really—I'm worried about you. An ordinary person wouldn't be able to bottle up their emotions so tightly. It'd drive them crazy. Xiao-Xie, there's really no need for you to be so tense."
"I don't feel tense, nor do I feel tired," Xie Qingcheng said. "You don't have to come up with weaknesses for me. I'm already very used to my current state. Weakness is for women; it's not a problem I have."
That annoyed Zheng Jingfeng so much his head began to hurt. He pointed at him. "That's such a sexist way of thinking. You really ought to fix that. It's a good thing the female colleagues in our unit aren't here—if they were, no matter how handsome you are, they'd all roll their eyes at you, and I daresay you'd deserve it. More power to them! What kind of outdated nonsense are you spouting?!"
These kinds of things didn't matter to Xie Qingcheng. He fiddled with the cigarette's filter paper. "Enough small talk, Captain Zheng. Let's get to the more important matters at hand."
"What exactly are you saying isn't important?" Zheng Jingfeng glared at him. "Let me ask you this: Is your life unimportant? Are those outrageous videos that were projected onto the broadcasting tower unimportant? You haven't checked your phone—they're having a real field day online. You sure are something, Xie Qingcheng, to have pissed off that criminal organization so badly that they went out of their way to stream your video free of charge. You tell me, does that count as important? Also, you and your little friend were both inside the archives when it was about to explode—yes, I believe that things happened the way you two described, but do you really expect the people further up the chain of command to accept it? Do you really think things work that way? You'll need to be questioned, and so will your little friend. Does that count as important? And another thing, you—"
"How are his injuries?" Xie Qingcheng interrupted Captain Zheng's torrential tirade.
Lao-Zheng started in surprise. Since he'd entered the room, this was the first question Xie Qingcheng had asked that sounded slightly human.
Xie Qingcheng felt guilty about He Yu.
He very rarely entertained feelings of guilt over anyone, much less someone significantly younger than him. To put it harshly, there were times when Xie Qingcheng looked at these youngsters and felt as though they didn't seem all that much like living, breathing creatures.
That wasn't to say that he didn't treat them like human beings. Rather, he simply didn't attach much importance to how they felt about him.
He Yu was no exception.
Even though Xie Qingcheng had interacted with him for so many years—from when He Yu was seven until he turned fourteen, Xie Qingcheng had been the He family's personal physician—he had never placed He Yu on the same level as himself, nor had he ever considered him someone he could speak to casually or treat as an equal.
He had always told He Yu what to do, and apart from unilaterally giving instructions, he had never sought to obtain anything from He Yu. More importantly, he'd never thought that there was anything he could possibly get from such a youth.
Now Xie Qingcheng had realized for the first time that He Yu had already grown up; that he possessed emotions and personal desires that he couldn't disregard.
He thought back to the glacial expression that had filled He Yu's eyes before he left. Then, he looked down at the dried blood on his body once more. For the first time, he clearly felt toward He Yu the stirrings of emotions that exceeded the limits of what he would ordinarily feel for a patient.
He asked again, "Captain Zheng, how is he doing?"
"Your little friend must have taken the wrong medicine today." Zheng Jingfeng shook his head. "He's not even related to you, and he followed you into the archives anyway? And you—how could you allow him to join in on your nonsense and do something so dangerous?"
Xie Qingcheng lowered his eyes in silence.
At the time, his mind really had been muddled, his sense of awareness obliterated and his whole being torn asunder by nineteen years of agony. When he and He Yu had gone to the archives, his only thought had been that perhaps he would be able to finally get some kind of answer about the organization that had killed his parents. He had utterly failed to consider the reality that his actions were far too risky.
It was only when Lu Yuzhu pulled out a gun that he'd abruptly come to his senses. But by then, it was already too late.
"You should be glad that Lu Yuzhu didn't know how to use a gun, or the two of you would have died right there inside that building. And even if you lived, if he died, how could you possibly face his parents?" Zheng Jingfeng raked his fingers through his hair, deeply vexed. "Speaking of which, he's He Jiwei's son! You've got some fucking nerve, using He Jiwei's son for your own purposes. His parents called our higher-ups, asking what in the world was going on. Thank god he only got shot in the arm and didn't manage to break anything. Otherwise, I'd—I'd—" He jabbed his finger at Xie Qingcheng sharply several times. "I'd like to see how you'd deal with the consequences!"
Xie Qingcheng closed his eyes. He Jiwei had called him a number of times, but he hadn't figured out what he could possibly say to the man, so he hadn't answered. Later on, He Jiwei sent him a message asking, "Why did He Yu do something like this with you?"
Xie Qingcheng didn't know either.
Perhaps it was because He Yu really had thought highly of his philosophy once. Perhaps seven years of companionship had led He Yu to think that their relationship amounted to more than the flimsy connection between a doctor and his patient.
But now that those videos had been played…
The original answer no longer mattered.
As he left, He Yu's gaze had been cold. As cold as the first time they'd met, or perhaps even icier, as if he were looking at a fraud. After careful thought, Xie Qingcheng realized that no matter how much He Yu said he disliked him, he had never shown him that sort of expression before. He had never shown anyone that kind of expression before.
Even during the flare-ups of his illness when he was mad and bloodthirsty, vicious and merciless, he had vented all of it onto himself; all the harm he enacted was self-directed. Xie Qingcheng was the first person he had torn into with that frightful gaze.
"Ah, all right, all right. Your little friend isn't in any serious danger now, so don't overthink it." Zheng Jingfeng had misunderstood Xie Qingcheng's silence. He folded his hands on the table and softened his voice a bit. "Just like you, he'll need to undergo all the necessary procedures and investigations. We'll explain everything to his parents, but as for whether you should follow up and offer them your own apologies, you can figure it out yourself."
"Mm." Xie Qingcheng felt agitated; he had already finished his second cigarette.
He reached for a third, but Zheng Jingfeng put a hand over the box.
"Are you trying to destroy your lungs, or what? You smoke and you smoke and you smoke—who smokes like that, huh? I thought you couldn't stand other people smoking when you were younger. What happened to you?"
"I'm irritated."
"Even if you're irritated, you can't smoke like this."
Xie Qingcheng said nothing.
"I know that you're fucking irritated today. My head hurts like hell too. My grandson's in the hospital with a 39-degree fever and I haven't even had time to call him back yet." Zheng Jingfeng rapped his knuckles against the table. "So, deal with it! Wait till I finish talking!"
Xie Qingcheng sighed. "Fine, talk."
"I was listening to your testimony in the surveillance room just now, and I believe everything you said. But I'm telling you…" Here Zheng Jingfeng's gaze became a bit evasive, and for some reason, his forceful voice began to soften. "Don't get your hopes up. My guess is that Lu Yuzhu's death was planned for a long time, and she was the person the organization set up to take the fall. They even left behind a trail of clues that directly implicates her in tonight's murders—all the necessary documentation will line up accordingly, fulfilling the conditions to close the case. This whole thing got too big, and you know that the bigger the incident, the more it demands a quick explanation. The policemen on the ground aren't idiots—they know there are massive gaps in the details, but some of the higher-ups can't handle too much pressure, and they might not look too deeply into whether everything stands up under close scrutiny. They may even be eager to wrap things up immediately."
Barred from smoking, Xie Qingcheng fiddled with the lighter instead, flicking the switch again and again. "And they have protection amongst the higher-ups, don't they?" he said, lifting his blade-like gaze to pierce the man across from him.
"We don't know who it is or how broad their reach is, but seeing as they dared to do something like this, there's no doubt that they have someone backing them," Zheng Jingfeng replied. Then, before Xie Qingcheng could say a word, he added, "Don't ask me, fuck if I know."
"True, I shouldn't ask you." Xie Qingcheng leaned back in his chair. This was the police department—what could Zheng Jingfeng possibly say? And if he knew who the "protection" was, would he really just be sitting here like this?
"Actually, the objectives of their operation tonight are also very clear," said Zheng Jingfeng. "First, to clean up any traces left in the archives. Second, the reason they made such a racket was because they discovered the existence of people like Zhang Yong—people with weak personalities and shaky ties to the organization who might turn to the authorities. Tonight's broadcasting tower death game was a warning for all Zhang Yongs, letting them know that even if they're tailed and protected by the authorities, the organization can still kill them right under the police's noses. They're putting all their collaborators and underlings in their place."
He went on, "Third, they wanted to wrap up the Cheng Kang incident. They sent Lu Yuzhu out on a suicide mission, and they might send other scapegoats out in the future. They're taking advantage of those among us who'd rather minimize the impact of the case and rush to close it as quickly as possible. Even if there are police officers who want to investigate this further in the future, they would be acting alone, with their own meager abilities… And I'm not discounting the possibility that there's a huge mole in the force."
Zheng Jingfeng's eyes fell on Xie Qingcheng. "But what I don't understand is the last part."
Xie Qingcheng already knew what Zheng Jingfeng was talking about, but he still asked, "What do you mean?"
"Why would they play those videos of you at the end?"
It was likely because they had discovered that the people attempting to stop Lu Yuzhu were Xie Qingcheng and He Yu. All they would have had to do to come to this conclusion was steal a portion of the school's security footage. But the fact that they had used this method to stop He Yu from helping Xie Qingcheng meant this organization already knew that He Yu was mentally ill—and that Xie Qingcheng had once been his personal physician.
This information wasn't widely known. Zheng Jingfeng didn't know about it; not even Xie Xue did. In all the years that Xie Qingcheng had been employed by the He family, he had always told others that the work he did was related to a project for He Jiwei's pharmaceutical company. With that in mind, Xie Qingcheng had even suspected He Jiwei for a split second, but it was really a rather absurd idea. He Jiwei was He Yu's father, and he had once helped Xie Qingcheng a great deal—he wouldn't do such a thing.
Besides, he realized, the secret of He Yu's mental illness wasn't ironclad. The He family had plenty of servants who all knew a thing or two; with so many people in their home, something was bound to slip out. That made it extremely difficult to use this fact to narrow down the suspects to a certain group of people—to say nothing of how these criminal masterminds had a hacker who had the ability to go through various online databases as if they were unguarded and treat confidential data like freebies open for the taking.
Zheng Jingfeng scratched his head in irritation as he saw Xie Qingcheng spacing out. "I'm asking you a question, Xiao-Xie."
"I'm not sure." Even now, Xie Qingcheng did not tell Zheng Jingfeng about He Yu's condition. "They probably realized that I was trying to stop Lu Yuzhu and wanted to teach me a lesson."
Zheng Jingfeng stared at him in mild disbelief. Likewise, Xie Qingcheng gazed back at Lao-Zheng without blinking.
At last, Zheng Jingfeng sighed. "That's just great. In that case, they've achieved their goal." He pushed his own phone toward Xie Qingcheng. "Take a look for yourself."
The internet had already exploded with discussion. For one thing, Xie Qingcheng's words were absolutely callous and improper and poked at many people's sore spots, and they'd even involved the esteemed Professor Qin Ciyan.
For another, this criminal organization had gone to the trouble of broadcasting an old video of Xie Qingcheng after completing their "drop the hanky" death game. Although the video had circulated through the internet at one point, not many people had watched it—after all these years, it hadn't even reached a couple hundred views. It was very unlikely that the organization played it just because they thought Xie Qingcheng was handsome. No one could possibly know that this video had been selected specifically to drive a wedge between Xie Qingcheng and He Yu, the hacker who had been with him at the time, so everyone had begun to speculate whether Xie Qingcheng was somehow linked to the mastermind of this terrorist attack.
All sorts of opinions had popped up very quickly. Xie Qingcheng, a plain, ordinary former doctor and current Huzhou Medical School professor, had actually become a trending topic.
"Like what you see?" Zheng Jingfeng felt both helpless and aggrieved that Xie Qingcheng wouldn't listen to his advice. With his emotions in a jumble, Zheng Jingfeng's words sounded a little like a scolding a father would give his child.
At this moment, one of Zheng Jingfeng's subordinates called for him from outside, so he got up, patted Xie Qingcheng's shoulder, and sighed. "How impressive. Even the celebrities aren't as handsome as you. It's just that you have such an unpleasant mouth. Did you take the wrong medicine that day? I can't believe you'd say something like that. What was up with you?"
"Nothing."
"What do you mean, 'nothing'? Was that even you? How could I not fucking know you? If you don't explain everything as soon as possible, just wait and see what happens. The public's opinion has already—"
"Do you think you know me very well, Officer Zheng?" Xie Qingcheng stared at him. "Those were all my true feelings."
"True feelings, my ass. I've known you and your parents for forty years if you add both generations together. How could I not know you…" Zheng Jingfeng's tone softened once more when he met Xie Qingcheng's eyes. "Forget it. If you don't want to talk about it, then just forget it! I won't force you, and in any case, no one can stop you from doing whatever you want, even if you end up beaten to a bloody pulp. I give up, okay?"
Xie Qingcheng remained silent.
"Take care and rest up. Once you've recovered, go see that little friend of yours." It was quite evident that this was something Zheng Jingfeng only chose to tell him at the last minute. "For some reason, he's been burning up with a high fever, even though the wound was treated in time so it wouldn't get infected."
Xie Qingcheng looked up, his hands imperceptibly balling into fists. An unexplainable high fever was one of He Yu's symptoms when his psychological Ebola flared up. Then he…
"But I don't know if he'd want to see you. He seemed to be in a pretty bad mood—he didn't say much beyond answering the necessary questions." Zheng Jingfeng sighed. "He's already gone to the hospital. You can contact him yourself later."