“Then, you, are you going to deduct my salary?” Zhao Muqing instinctively clenched his fists in anxiety. What else could Shen Guanzhi possibly punish him with? Surely he wouldn’t make him wrap Song Lijun up in a blanket right now and deliver him straight to Shen Guanzhi’s house.
“Do I look like I care about your salary?” Shen Guanzhi’s fingers slowly drifted to the back of Zhao Muqing’s neck, kneading with moderate pressure. “Guess again.”
Cold sweat was practically about to break out on Zhao Muqing’s temples. “If all else fails, just fire me.”
“It seems I still have to make the decision for you.” The hand resting on Zhao Muqing’s skin suddenly grew heavy, and he unclipped the gold-rimmed glasses from his bridge, slipping them into his jacket pocket.
Sensing the other man’s palm slide inside the hem of his shirt, Zhao Muqing felt a scorching heat plastering against his skin. He had had a bad premonition since a moment ago; when Shen Guanzhi had touched his neck earlier, he had half-suspected the man was about to snap his windpipe the next second, and now what was he trying to pull?
Could it be that he was hiding some kind of hidden weapon in his palm? In original novels, even rings could be laced with poison, so Zhao Muqing couldn’t help but imagine the worst.
Terrified, his entire body gave a violent start. “Wait, wait a minute, Shen Guanzhi, let’s talk this out rationally. This is a photo studio! There are people everywhere outside, and plenty of folks definitely saw me come in here with you. If anything happens to me, you won’t be able to wash your hands of it!”
“They can’t control me.” The hand gripping Zhao Muqing’s waist suddenly tightened with raw force, making him instantly suspect that this guy intended to snap him in half with his bare hands. He was startled all over again. “Wait! Even if they don’t dare control you, the police certainly can!”
Shen Guanzhi let out a cold scoff. “Zhao Muqing, when did you get so stupid?”
Seeing that Shen Guanzhi wasn’t the least bit shaken, Zhao Muqing mustered all his strength and began to struggle. Outwardly, his physical build didn’t differ much from Shen Guanzhi’s, yet somehow Zhao Muqing couldn’t break free no matter what.
He was thoroughly baffled. Could it be that stripping off those clothes revealed muscles ten times more developed than his own?
Just as Shen Guanzhi looked ready to make his next move, Zhao Muqing panicked completely. Right at that moment, an assistant knocked on the door from outside: “Mr. Zhao, the shoot is about to start.”
“I’ll be right there!” Zhao Muqing immediately cranked up his volume to reply. Shen Guanzhi’s attention was momentarily derailed, and Zhao Muqing seized the opening to shove the man away with all his might, bolting out of the fitting room door.
That knock couldn’t have come at a better time; otherwise, a gruesome homicide would have unfolded right inside the dressing room.
When Zhao Muqing returned to the photo studio, Song Lijun was already in position. Zhao Muqing instinctively drifted over toward him. Compared to earlier, Song Lijun was now sporting a large, dazzling diamond ring on his hand. “I was just looking for you.”
“Sorry about that,” Zhao Muqing gave an awkward, forced smile. “Are we changing accessories for this set?”
“Yeah, I brought a diamond ring of my own. I happened to leave it in Mr. Shen’s office a while ago, and thankfully he found it and sent it back to me.”
Zhao Muqing froze. A memory suddenly flashed in his mind: some time ago, he had witnessed with his own eyes Shen Guanzhi handing a delicate little box to Song Lijun right outside the office door. That box probably contained this very ring that Song Lijun had lost and recovered.
“Thank goodness. If I had lost something so valuable, it would have broken my heart.”
“Yeah,” Song Lijun smiled with practiced formality. “Alright, let’s take our positions.”
Zhao Muqing struck his pose as instructed, his line of sight catching Shen Guanzhi standing off to the side. The gold-rimmed glasses were back on the man’s face, and it was obvious he was taking in every single detail of their photoshoot.
Only one word echoed in Zhao Muqing’s head: Done for.
He didn’t even need to care whether Shen Guanzhi had actually fallen for Song Lijun at this point. Just judging by the way the man had acted in the dressing room earlier, practically ready to consume him on the spot, Zhao Muqing already knew what was coming.
During the second half of the shoot, Zhao Muqing’s state was far from ideal, requiring several retakes before they finally secured a satisfactory photo.
Even Song Lijun seemed to notice that something was off with him, specifically asking if something was the matter, but Zhao Muqing hastily waved it off.
He was planning to give Shen Guanzhi the slip and sneak out of the photo studio with a group of staffers, but his cell phone ringtone instantly betrayed him.
Zhao Muqing had no choice but to halt his steps, seeking out an empty, deserted corner to take the call.
The caller was Jian Shigu. Zhao Muqing had tried contacting him a few times before the shoot, but the other end hadn’t picked up.
A terrible premonition instantly crystallized in his brain.
“Zhao Muqing, I, I don’t know who else to turn to right now,” Jian Shigu’s voice sounded as though it might shatter any second. “My older sister… there’s no saving her.”
Zhao Muqing’s breathing nearly stalled. It felt as though terminal illnesses only ever existed on television screens; he had never imagined he would actually encounter the death of a cancer patient in reality.
“My mom is completely breaking down, and I’m also…” Jian Shigu couldn’t even string a coherent sentence together. “The doctor said we can check my sister out of the hospital and take her wherever she wants to go.”
“I am coming over right now. Do I need to handle the paperwork?” Zhao Muqing hurried toward the elevator lobby.
“Yeah, I… um, thanks.”
Zhao Muqing hung up the phone, lacking the heart to make Jian Shigu say another word.
He managed to flag down a cab right as he stepped out of the studio, headed straight for the hospital, and located Jian Shixia’s ward from memory.
A middle-aged woman was slumped over the bedside weeping, while Jian Shigu sat nearby with an expression of pure agony.
In contrast, a smile graced Jian Shixia’s face as she lifted a frail hand to gently pat the other two people beside her. “I get to be discharged, so you guys should be happy, right? I’ve been hospitalized for so long I don’t even know what the outside world looks like anymore, and now I finally get to see it with my own eyes.”
“Xia…” The woman slowly raised her head from the bedside, her face streaked with tears as she clutched Jian Shixia’s hand.
Only then did Zhao Muqing clearly see the woman’s face. He would later learn that she was the mother of the Jian siblings. Despite being middle-aged, her features remained striking and refined, giving Zhao Muqing a glimpse of what her youthful beauty must have looked like.
Jian Shixia continued comforting the two of them. After some time, she finally noticed Zhao Muqing’s arrival: “I remember you. You’re Muqing, right? You came to visit me again.”
“Sister Shixia,” Zhao Muqing greeted her.
“Why are you making that face too?” Jian Shixia let out a soft laugh. “Come on, I’m being discharged, nobody is allowed to be sad.”
Jian Shigu locked eyes with Zhao Muqing, and the latter picked up the relevant documents and bills from the table, heading downstairs to process the discharge paperwork.
When Zhao Muqing returned, he found that Mother Jian had already left. Jian Shigu sat alone by the bedside, while the person on the bed had already drifted into a deep sleep.
“Let’s go outside to talk,” Jian Shigu stood up and pushed open the ward door.
Jian Shigu led Zhao Muqing away from the hospital and into the same restaurant where they had bought food previously. A waiter stepped up to fill two glasses with plain white water before Jian Shigu waved a hand to signal him away.
“The doctor said there’s genuinely nothing more they can do,” Jian Shigu gripped the water glass tighter and tighter, as if trying to crush it into powder. “From here on out, it’s just a matter of how much longer my sister can hold on.”
“What are you planning to do?”
“I want to take my sister around Dongyuan City for a bit first, and then my mom and I will take her back to our small county town to live a quiet life. Maybe that’ll be good for her,” Jian Shigu sighed imperceptibly. “My mom doesn’t really want to go back, but for my sister’s sake, it doesn’t matter anymore.”
Zhao Muqing opened his mouth, wondering if he should give in to curiosity. Jian Shigu seemed to read his inner thoughts and continued: “There’s something you probably don’t know, right? Mr. Shen’s father isn’t dead.”
“Actually, he had known for a while, though probably not quite as early as Jian Shigu.”
“Back then, his dad smuggled a batch of jewelry and had a falling out with his accomplices. He actually grabbed the most valuable gemstone and jumped into the sea himself,” Jian Shigu paused. “Everyone thought he was dead, but in reality, he intentionally held his breath underwater for a good while and swam like crazy to another spot while the rescue teams weren’t looking.”
Zhao Muqing couldn’t help blinking in surprise. A plot twist straight out of a TV drama, and someone actually went and put it into practice?
He suddenly remembered this was a novel, which instantly made it make sense again.
“Actually, people weren’t entirely without suspicions at the time, because there was another boat out on the sea that might have been there to pick him up. But even if they suspected, what could they do? They searched high and low and still came up empty-handed.”
What followed was a middle-aged romance story as narrated by Jian Shigu. After coming ashore, Father Shen ended up in the small county town where their family lived at the time. Back then, Jian Shixia hadn’t been diagnosed with cancer yet, and the family ran a small supermarket.
Father Shen accidentally ran into Mother Jian while she was working the cash register at the supermarket. One thing led to another, and the two of them actually started dating.
Jian Shigu hadn’t thought much of it at the time; his own father had passed away years ago, and seeing his mother find someone to accompany her through the second half of her life made him genuinely happy for her.
It wasn’t until someone came looking for them that Mother Jian discovered Father Shen had used a completely fake identity while dating her. He wasn’t some newcomer businessman starting out locally, but a bona fide jewelry smuggler.
Mother Jian immediately cut off all contact with Father Shen, and once his identity was exposed, Father Shen resumed his life on the run from the law. Years later, Mother Jian caught wind of Father Shen’s death, and for reasons unknown, someone had actually tracked her down to contact her about it.
After taking the call, she set off for the address provided by the other party. It wasn’t out of any lingering affection; she simply wanted to see how ugly his death looked.
Only upon arriving did Mother Jian learn that Father Shen had no living relatives left, as his only biological son refused to have anything to do with him and had merely dispatched people to handle the necessary paperwork.
Unexpectedly, before dying, Father Shen had left behind a will. Seemingly struck by a sudden wave of conscience, he left a portion of compensation to Mother Jian, which included a greenish-blue gemstone. The rest was left to his biological son, though he had probably guessed his son wouldn’t consent to keeping anything of his.
Mother Jian hadn’t known the true value of the gemstone back then and simply tucked it away for safekeeping. With the story at an end, Zhao Muqing finally understood the reason behind Mother Jian’s reluctance to return. Even though she had made a clean break back then, saying it didn’t hurt at all would be a lie.
“I probably won’t be coming back to the studio after this, but the two of us will definitely cross paths again. Let’s hang out then,” Jian Shigu forced a smile onto his face.
Just as Zhao Muqing gave a faint nod, the phone in his pocket abruptly vibrated. Instinctively pulling it out to check, he found a message from Shen Guanzhi: Where are you.
Office, twenty minutes. I want to see you.
Ten minutes.
Zhao Muqing’s breathing nearly stopped. Unless he took a rocket ship right now, there was zero chance he could make it to Shen Guanzhi’s office in ten minutes.
He was gripped by a profoundly terrible premonition. The plot was completely beyond saving, and he couldn’t even begin to imagine his fate. His brain started replaying that agonizing, graphic description from the original novel where the original Zhao Muqing died of poison.
Zhao Muqing took a deep breath. Right at that exact moment, he made a bold decision.
“Jian Shigu, even though I know this isn’t the best time to bring this up,” Zhao Muqing twisted his fingers together nervously, “can you do me a favor? I might be in huge trouble.”
“It’s fine, go ahead.”
“Can I go back to the small county town with you guys?” Zhao Muqing hesitated for a long stretch before finally blurting it out. “I’m planning to fake my death by jumping into the sea.”