Chapter 244: Twenty Years Ago and Seven Years Ago

2022-05-20

There really are two kinds of people who live in the dark. The difference is, some people truly enjoy the darkness, while others just pretend they do.

Background, friends, even family—everything has to be abandoned. Absolutely no contact with home, that’s the rule. Orders are orders. If you show weakness, you give others leverage. If they have leverage, you lose your way forward. And after the sacrifice, your name vanishes, your achievements forgotten.

If my parents abandoned me to keep me safe, even going so far as to create a fake father just to derail anyone looking for me, it’s not out of the question. That would explain why there’s no trace of my real father at all.

But if that’s true, what’s become of my parents after all these years? The thought hit me hard. If they’d returned to their real lives, they’d have come to find me by now.

But it’s been twenty years, and I haven’t heard a single thing from them. That can only mean one thing—things didn’t end well.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I never expected the truth I dug up would be this—that my parents probably gave their lives for me. And if they really did die to protect us, there wouldn’t have been a memorial. No one would have gathered for a service.

When I was abandoned in that emergency, no one even knew whose child I was. The only way to really learn what happened is to ask someone even higher up. Fate has a twisted sense of humor. If I were still on the Special Investigation Team, I’d ask Team Leader Shao to reach out to Old Bai for me. But now…

“So do you know what happened to my parents? Do you have any leads about what went down back then?” I looked straight at Zhao Mingkun, hoping she’d tell me more.

Zhao Mingkun shook her head and spoke quietly. “That’s as much as I know. But we’re both still alive, aren’t we? Maybe we’ll get to the bottom of it. You know what I do for a living, and I’ve seen that the organization your parents worked for grew smaller over the years—smaller, but more hidden than ever.”

“But!” Zhao Mingkun suddenly changed her tone. “They’ve become more careful—more cunning too. And you know some of them yourself.”

My eyes lit up. I said, “You mean Lai San!”

Zhao Mingkun paced the room, glancing out the window, as if working something out in her mind. After a moment, she said, “That’s right.”

I nodded. The very first case Team Leader Shao took me out on involved Lai San, and I never imagined he’d also be connected to what happened twenty years ago. Maybe he knows what happened to my parents.

Right then, everything Zhao Mingkun said started to line up with what Lin Shu had told me before. I spoke up. “That operation back then didn’t capture them all. A few slipped through the net. They found my parents, so they went after them. With no other choice, my parents left me behind.”

I ran my fingers through my hair. The sharper pain snapped me back into focus. “After that, Lai San managed to slip the hunt in the most dangerous, yet safest way you could imagine. Once he got out, all the higher-ups got taken out, so Lai San started working for himself.”

“Until! We found them again!” I exclaimed. “Lai San, Old Zhang, all of them—they’re part of this. If we find Lai San, we find the truth about what happened back then. Round and round, and it all leads back to him!”

Zhao Mingkun looked at me and said, “But after you guys caught wind, Lai San took his people and joined up with Wu Zui.”

I frowned. “But who is Wu Zui anyway? Always hidden behind a mask, never showing his real face. Doesn’t look that old—so why do so many follow him? What do you know about Wu Zui?”

Zhao Mingkun turned to look at me. “It’s better you stay out of anything that involves Wu Zui. Haven’t you realized—every time, he’s come after you. You could’ve walked away from all this. Led a normal life. Run a small business, do something simple. I have more money than I need, I could give it all to you. Go to a new city where no one knows you, forget all this, okay?”

There was a desperate edge to Zhao Mingkun’s words.

I didn’t understand. Why did Zhao Mingkun care so much? She always tried to protect me, looking out for me in ways I couldn’t explain. It wasn’t romance—Zhao Mingkun’s feelings for me were definitely something else. She was hiding something. I could feel it.

Puzzled, I stared at Zhao Mingkun. “But why? Why don’t you want me anywhere near this mess?”

“You could die any time, do you get that?” Zhao Mingkun lowered her voice, but her words hit hard. “I don’t want you to end up dead in your twenties.”

“But you’re in this, too,” I argued. “You’re thirty now. Seven years ago, you were the same age as me. It’s been seven years and you’re still here, right?”

Zhao Mingkun gave a cold snort. “We’re not the same. I’ve killed people—my hands are stained with blood. Lots of people and you know what, they were innocent. They never did any harm to anyone, just lived their lives. But I killed them. Killed them with my own two hands. No hesitation. No mercy.”

“And you?” Zhao Mingkun practically shouted, “You’re different. You’ve never killed anyone. Once Shao Shilin gets serious, he’ll prove your innocence easily. Ever since Yang Xiaojun ended up in a coma, he’s never been the same—always lost in a fog. If not for that, he wouldn’t have let someone else handle this case. You’re his only hope, so he’ll clear your name.”

I was left speechless, watching Zhao Mingkun tremble with emotion.

After a long while, I finally spoke. “The only reason the Special Investigation Team was created was to catch you, you know?”

Zhao Mingkun replied, “No one knows what happened back then better than I do. Shi Huacheng attacked Yang Xiaojun. Shao Shilin stabbed Shi Huacheng in the throat. The lucky part is, neither of them died. The tragedy is that one became a vegetable, the other can’t talk anymore.”

She paused, then added, “Unless every single one of those people is caught, Shi Huacheng would never be sentenced. Shao Shilin is determined to find me because he wants to solve Shi Huacheng’s case for good. He was his master, my foster father.”

I said, “What happened to Yang Xiaojun… Is that any way for a master to treat his own disciple?”

Zhao Mingkun shook her head. “Shi Huacheng was rotten to the core, but also good to the core. Back then, Shi Huacheng was actually aiming for Shao Shilin’s shoulder. But Yang Xiaojun got in the way, and it hit right in her chest. Do you really think he’s cold-hearted? He was hurting too.”

“If it wasn’t to save his daughter, Little Stone, he wouldn’t have done any of this!” Tears welled up in Zhao Mingkun’s eyes. “And if it wasn’t for saving Little Stone, why would I end up like this? I gave up my own life and stepped onto a road I can never come back from. The night we chose this, the story was already set. For us, there’s only one way forward—no turning back.”

Zhao Mingkun fell to her knees, silent tears streaming down her face.

She looked up at me. “But you’re different, don’t you see? Don’t end up like me, please. I don’t have any options left, but you—you still have a choice. Don’t throw your life away going down this path. Even if I have to beg you… please.”

Somewhere along the way, darkness and silence became the constant in my life. I got used to it, and the kind of people it brought into my world. Just like a woman kneeling and crying quietly in a pitch-black room—I’ve seen that scene before, somewhere deep in my memories. Somehow, it echoed what I was seeing now.

Ordinary people crave chaos, and the mad crave peace.

But in the end, none of them ever really get what they want.