When Pei Zhi pushed open the restroom door, Chu Ci was standing with his back to him, head lowered as he washed his hands.
Chu Ci washed his hands very carefully.
He lathered every finger individually, scrubbing even under the nails and around the cuticles. Only after thick foam completely covered both hands did he turn on the warm water and rinse them slowly. He washed his palms, then the backs of his hands, over and over again, letting the water run for a full half minute.
Pei Zhi stood behind him and watched.
For half a minute, he didn’t move.
His gaze never shifted even once.
Only then did Chu Ci ask without turning around,
“What are you looking at?”
Pei Zhi paused and withdrew his gaze.
“I was thinking you look a little tired. Your room is ready. Shall I take you there?”
Chu Ci turned off the faucet.
“President Pei certainly keeps busy. In the middle of the night, you’re personally handling matters for an acquaintance who had an accident, and now you’re personally arranging a room for another acquaintance who isn’t even particularly close to you. If someone who didn’t know you saw this, they might think your full-time job was running errands and meddling in other people’s business.”
Pei Zhi started smiling the moment Chu Ci opened his mouth.
By the last sentence, his smile had deepened.
“How did I only just discover that Engineer Chu has quite a sharp tongue?”
Then he added,
“But to be honest, Zhao Ting isn’t important enough for me to come here personally in the middle of the night.”
His smile faded slightly.
“I came because I want to know who the next one will be.”
Chu Ci did not turn around.
Yet his back seemed to stiffen for a brief instant.
It was gone almost immediately.
“The next one?” he asked casually. “What do you mean?”
“The first was Hou Hongchang.”
“The second was Zhao Ting.”
“Who will be next?”
Chu Ci remained facing away from him.
He could hear Pei Zhi’s footsteps approaching.
One step.
Then another.
Until he stopped directly behind him.
When Pei Zhi spoke again, his voice was so close it was almost against his ear.
“Engineer Chu…”
“…what do you think?”
The question was loaded with implication.
Yet Pei Zhi’s voice remained calm.
More than calm, even gentler than usual.
Chu Ci closed his eyes.
His voice carried undisguised resistance and disgust.
“How would I know? I’m not the murderer.”
“Why ask me?”
His unwillingness to conceal his contempt was as sharp as a needle.
Pei Zhi paused.
Then slowly stepped back half a pace.
Looking at Chu Ci’s eyes through the mirror, he sighed.
“…That’s true. Only the murderer would know who’s next.”
He paused.
“But I’m a little worried for that murderer.”
“Everyone knows Zhao Ting is Han Qiang’s closest friend. Two years ago, when Han Qiang hit someone with his car, Zhao Ting even committed perjury for him in court and helped him escape conviction.”
“Now that he’s lost an arm for no apparent reason, Han Qiang—and possibly the entire Han family—won’t let this go.”
Chu Ci was silent for a moment.
Then he said lightly,
“And what does that have to do with President Pei? You’re worrying on someone else’s behalf.”
Pei Zhi replied, enunciating every word:
“I only worry about the things I choose to worry about.”
The statement was so decisive, so unlike his usual smooth and diplomatic manner, that Chu Ci found himself momentarily speechless.
The restroom fell silent.
Outside, voices echoed faintly through the corridor.
Police officers moving about.
Doctors and nurses speaking loudly.
It sounded as though the operating room doors had opened.
In the stillness of the restroom, every sound seemed unusually clear.
Chu Ci turned around.
His expression had already returned to normal.
“It sounds like the surgery is over. Aren’t you going to check on the situation?”
“…Room Number One in the VIP ward.”
Pei Zhi smiled and gestured politely.
“I’ll take you there first. Dawn is almost here.”
“This way.”
As they passed each other, Chu Ci’s jaw tightened almost imperceptibly.
He fixed Pei Zhi with a long look.
Pei Zhi met his gaze with a smile that never changed.
They walked through the bustling emergency ward corridor and entered an elevator.
The higher they went, the quieter it became.
By the time they reached the VIP ward, the noise below had vanished completely.
The entire journey passed in silence.
Chu Ci remained expressionless.
Pei Zhi appeared perfectly at ease.
Neither spoke a single word.
When they finally stopped outside Room Number One, Pei Zhi suddenly seemed to remember something.
“Oh.”
“Engineer Chu, I heard you drank quite a bit tonight. Would you like me to have some soup brought up before you sleep?”
“…No, thank you.”
“I’ll order some anyway. Sleeping before you’ve sobered up can leave you with a terrible headache in the morning.”
“No. I want to sleep. Thank you.”
Pei Zhi laughed softly.
Then sighed.
“Engineer Chu, when you played cards at the hotel that day, you were quite polite to Hou Hongchang. On Han Yue’s birthday, you were chatting and laughing with Zhao Ting too.”
He tilted his head slightly.
“So why is it that whenever you see me, you never give me a pleasant expression?”
Without realizing it, Chu Ci clenched his teeth.
He said nothing.
“But what a coincidence.”
Pei Zhi rubbed his forehead and chuckled.
“Everyone you’ve treated nicely has immediately ended up becoming the target of revenge.”
“If you think about it that way, I’m actually the lucky one.”
Chu Ci said coldly,
“If you’re unhappy about that, I don’t mind giving you a pleasant expression too.”
He looked directly at him.
“As long as you’re not afraid of having a hand chopped off as well.”
“…I’m not afraid.”
Pei Zhi smiled.
“I’d be willing.”
Chu Ci’s response was to step into the room.
Then—
Bang!
The door slammed shut.
The sound echoed through the corridor for a long time.
Pei Zhi rubbed his nose and stood there smiling to himself for a while before finally turning and walking away.
In the end, Zhao Ting survived.
But he lost an arm.
Just as Pei Zhi had predicted, Han Qiang arrived at the hospital the very next day.
He flew into a rage and berated every surgeon involved in the operation.
As a result, numerous doctors complained bitterly to Ren Jiayun:
“The arm wasn’t even brought to the hospital until half an hour after it was cut off! The fact that we saved his life at all is already a miracle!”
“And you’re still dreaming about reattaching the arm?!”
The doctors weren’t the only ones under immense pressure.
The police suffered as well.
There were no surveillance recordings.
No clues.
No witnesses.
Zhao Ting had never seen the attacker’s face.
The hostess who had been knocked unconscious was completely useless as a witness.
Even if every officer were a legendary detective reborn, solving the case in such a short period of time would have been nearly impossible.
Moreover, Zhao Ting’s identity complicated matters.
He was a businessman.
A businessman deeply connected to the princeling circle.
Unlike Pei Zhi, whose family background and state-owned enterprise connections gave him genuine political standing, Zhao Ting possessed no meaningful political influence despite his wealth.
His entire network depended on serving the princelings—running errands, handling problems, and doing favors.
Over the years he had taken the blame for countless incidents and offended countless people on their behalf.
The number of enemies he had accumulated was impossible to count.
His friends could shake the ground with a single cough.
His enemies could form a line stretching from Wangfujing all the way beyond Beijing’s city limits.
If investigators tried to identify the culprit by eliminating suspects one by one, they might spend years and still find nothing.
Han Qiang, however, was an arrogant man with a lofty opinion of himself.
Expecting him to understand the practical difficulties of criminal investigations was impossible.
In Han Qiang’s view, all he needed to do was keep applying pressure.
Call enough people.
Lean hard enough on the police.
Then the culprit would naturally be found.
After all, he was the eldest son of the Han family.
His grandfather was one of the nation’s founding heroes.
His father occupied a position of enormous power.
People listened when he spoke.
Therefore, in his mind, if he ordered the police to find the murderer, they should find the murderer immediately.
And if they couldn’t…
Then clearly he simply wasn’t putting enough pressure on them yet.
Pei Zhi was also present at the hospital on the day Han Qiang came to berate the police.
Throughout the entire scene, he stood there smiling, occasionally offering a few words of persuasion.
“Alright, Old Han. You’ve scolded them this much already. They definitely won’t dare slack off anymore, so calm down a little.”
After a pause, he added,
“When Han Yue gets back, have him come take a look too. He’s quite familiar with Director X.”
“When is Han Yue coming back?” Han Qiang snapped. “Something this serious has happened and he’s still not here—”
“Han Yue went to Qingdao to verify Old Long’s data. It couldn’t be helped. As for when he’ll return, that’s honestly hard to say.”
Pei Zhi considered for a moment before continuing:
“Although, since Long Jiwei has already arrived in Beijing, Han Yue should probably be back soon as well.”
Han Qiang’s anger had not subsided. He immediately glared at him.
“Aren’t you his closest friend? How can even you not know?”
Among Han Yue’s circle of close friends, Pei Zhi occupied a somewhat special position because he had been deeply involved in the matter of Chu Ci.
Before Han Yue had used his power and influence to force his way into Chu Ci’s life, he had first investigated his background.
At the time, however, Han Yue had been busy.
So the task had been entrusted to Pei Zhi.
It was because Pei Zhi’s investigation concluded that Chu Ci came from an ordinary family, that his parents were dead, and that there were no powerful relatives behind him, that Han Yue felt confident enough to boldly show up at his door.
…Of course, even if Pei Zhi had reported that Chu Ci’s family was influential and well-connected, Han Yue would still have shown up at his door.
He simply might have exercised slightly more restraint.
“There’s really no way to be certain,” Pei Zhi said with a smile, waving a hand dismissively. “The matter is too important. Several departments under the Military Commission want the numbers to be as accurate as possible.”
Then he added:
“Look on the bright side, Old Han. Zhao Ting managed to keep his life. That’s already good news.”
Han Qiang snorted angrily and said nothing more.
When he finally left, Pei Zhi got up to see him out.
He accompanied him all the way to the stairwell. The two chatted briefly about their families and elders before parting ways.
Han Qiang still had meetings to attend that afternoon, and his car was already waiting downstairs.
Pei Zhi also needed to get to his company. After spending the entire night in the hospital, he needed to change clothes and eat something.
As he walked back into the corridor, he suddenly saw Chu Ci standing by a window.
Looking downstairs.
His expression was terrifying.
He seemed to be staring fixedly at something below.
Whether from restraint or suppression, his entire body was trembling slightly.
Both hands were pressed firmly against the windowsill.
His knuckles and fingernails had turned pale from the force.
It looked as though he might snap his own fingers in half.
Pei Zhi had never seen him like this.
Without thinking, he rushed forward and grabbed his hand.
“Chu Ci! What’s wrong with you?!”
Chu Ci jerked violently.
It was as though he had suddenly broken free from a nightmare.
His whole body shuddered.
Several seconds passed before he slowly returned to normal and his eyes gradually refocused.
Pei Zhi immediately looked out the window.
There was nothing unusual below.
The hospital entrance was quiet.
A few patients were strolling and chatting.
Cars occasionally passed on the road farther away.
Nothing more.
“Engineer Chu, what’s going on?” Pei Zhi asked. “Are you feeling unwell? Maybe you should go back and rest for a while—”
“I’m fine.”
Chu Ci interrupted him quietly.
“Actually, I should be asking you what’s wrong.”
Pei Zhi followed his gaze downward.
Only then did he realize he was still tightly holding Chu Ci’s hand.
“…Sorry.”
After a few seconds, he slowly let go.
“I was worried about you.”
Chu Ci closed his eyes briefly.
When he opened them again, the familiar coldness had returned.
“President Pei certainly worries about a lot of things.”
“…”
Pei Zhi stood there.
He neither spoke nor moved.
All he could do was watch as Chu Ci turned around and strode away down the corridor.