Almost at the same time, a pitch-black, gleaming Rolls-Royce drove into Jinghe Road.
At a little past three in the afternoon, this was the busiest time of the street. Tricycles and vans coming to deliver goods occupied half the street, and coupled with speeding electric scooters, the Rolls-Royce drove like a struggling boat, making its way with extreme difficulty.
“Are you sure that tricycle came into this street?” Qin Yaodong sat in the front passenger seat, sizing up the shops on both sides of the street and the unkempt pedestrians with a critical gaze, seemingly unwilling to believe that his son actually hung out in such a neighborhood.
“Yes. But this street is rather old and lacks public surveillance cameras, so we don’t know which specific shop it stopped at.”
In the back seat of the car sat two tall and muscular bodyguards with crew cuts, dressed all in black with bulging muscles, looking like gang members.
The car advanced slowly. One bodyguard looked to the left and the other to the right, closely searching for that semi-new red tricycle. Before long, one of the bodyguards pointed toward the entrance of a grocery store: “Does that vehicle look like it?”
“Is the last digit of the license plate 945?”
“Someone is blocking it, I can’t see…”
Qin Yaodong pressed down the car window and frowned as he looked: that grocery store named “Wu’s” was quite deep. The sunlight only illuminated the entrance, and further inside it was pitch black and unclear.
He thought, Yize was hiding in a shop like this? It looked even less bright than the shop next door… His gaze absentmindedly shifted to the adjacent shop, only to see a beige curtain hanging halfway down, covering the figure behind the counter.
At this moment, a little boy ran out from behind the car, looking back every three steps as he sprinted toward that shop, exclaiming in wonder: “Wow, where did that luxury car come from?!”
He was holding two photos, swinging them back and forth in his hand, and called out loudly into the shop: “Brother Xiaoshu! The photos taken for you and Brother Xiaojun last night, along with our group photo, have been developed!”
“Really?” A familiar yet unfamiliar voice sounded from behind the curtain. Immediately, a sturdy arm—incongruous with an innocent tone—reached out, brushed aside the cloth curtain, and revealed that outstanding face he was all too familiar with: “Let me take a look~”
Qin Yaodong’s breathing paused, and he laughed despite himself: “…You put on a smiling face for others, but you can’t even be bothered to return a single phone call from your old man!”
Straightening his arm, he tidied his collar and cast a look at the bodyguards. Then he opened the car door and strode toward the smiling older teenager.
Three tall men in suits and leather shoes were far too out of place on this street. Half the people on the street couldn’t help stopping what they were doing to curiously gaze at them. The afternoon sun cast their three shadows onto the flagstone path, crawling forward as they advanced until they stopped steadily in front of the glass counter.
Xiao Hui followed the shadows to look back, raising his head. Seeing that they were dressed in suits and ties, with two of them even wearing sunglasses, he froze in astonishment, dumbfounded and not daring to move.
The teenage boy inside the counter also raised his head, his gaze falling on Qin Yaodong’s face. At that instant, he was slightly startled, as if he recognized the face before him, and sized him up intently while suppressing his confusion.
Qin Yaodong waited with his hands in his pockets, taking his time, wanting to see how this child who always went against him would make excuses. He was already prepared, ready to face his eldest son’s indifference and passive-aggressive cold war once more. But unexpectedly, five seconds later, Qin Yize looked at him calmly and asked a question: “Mister, what would you like to buy?”
Qin Yaodong was so angry he almost laughed out loud: “What is this? Running away from home for a month, and you’ve developed a new routine?”
He rarely showed an expression of disgust, frowning as he said: “If you’re not buying anything, don’t block the entrance! You’re getting in the way of our business.”
At this moment, Granny, who had been dozing off to the side, woke up and asked fuzzily: “Xiao Shu, who’s here to buy things?”
Qin Yize unassumingly pulled down the cloth curtain to cover Granny: “Nobody, just asking for directions.”
“…Xiao Shu?” Feeling inexplicably that this action of his was somewhat glaring, a mocking look appeared on Qin Yaodong’s face: “I’ve raised you for seventeen years, how come I didn’t know you had this name?”
And the purpose of his appearance today was, without needing to think, definitely to take himself back home!
Thus the fake child decisively chose to play dumb: “Are you going to buy something or not? If not, don’t block the counter. If you mess up our business, are you going to pay for the losses?”
Seeing that the atmosphere between the two of them was poor and vaguely tense, the neighboring residents nearby couldn’t help stepping forward alertly: “Mister, what do you do? What business do you have looking for Xiao Shu? He doesn’t seem to know you…”
The upper halves of their faces, which were almost identical, instantly choked off everyone’s words. Uncle Wu reacted, putting away his vigilance in surprise and remaining silent. The next second, he heard this man call Xiao Shu “Qin Yize”:
Qin Yize? Uncle Wu remembered that the second time Xiaojun took him to see a doctor, the name registered was precisely this! They said it was a former name… All doubts completely vanished from his heart. Acting on the idea of neighborhood mutual aid, he stepped forward to smooth things over earnestly:
“Father Qin, don’t be so fierce. Xiao Shu bumped his head a while ago, got amnesia, and became a bit muddled, which is why he’s recovering at home. He’s a good kid, talk to him properly…”
“Does whether he’s a good kid need you to tell me?” Qin Yaodong squinted impatiently and glared sideways, his brow immediately furrowing: “It’s you… you took him to the hospital, right? What happened to Yize, did you guys cause him to bump his head?”
Uncle Wu retreated a step under the interrogation: “It has nothing to do with me! Xiaojun was the one who asked me to take them…”
Qin Yize also grew anxious, stuffed the photos into his pocket, and stepped out of the counter: “Why are you being so fierce to others?! I bumped my head by myself by accident; it has nothing to do with Uncle Wu! I don’t remember you now, and I don’t want to go back… Anyway, you didn’t pay any attention to me for a whole month, so what’s wrong with me continuing to stay here?”
“You!” Choked into silence by him, Qin Yaodong’s expression grew even uglier, as if his hypocritical skin had been ripped off and exposed to everyone. Losing his patience, he turned around and walked toward the Rolls-Royce while instructing the bodyguards: “Stop chattering, take him away directly!”
“…Alright.” The two bodyguards exchanged glances for a second, simultaneously looked at the tall Qin Yize, and reached out. Unexpectedly, this fake child was very vigilant; the moment he turned around, he bolted. Seeing that the situation was turning bad, the two immediately set off in fierce pursuit.
“Let go of me!” Looking at that pitch-black car, Qin Yize suddenly felt an incomparable sense of panic. He struggled with all his might, subconsciously shouting, “Brother! Brother! Brother Xiaojun!”
The fake child was instantly energized, shouting in response amidst the restraints: “Brother!”
Yan Jun rode his bicycle sprinting over from the end of the street, his entire face flushed red, drenched in sweat all over. From afar, he could see those two bodyguards savagely grabbing Qin Yize’s wrists and forcefully pushing his head down, trying to fold him up and stuff him into the car.
Hearing his voice, the two men grew even more urgent, lifting a foot to kick fiercely at the bend of Qin Yize’s knees while using both hands to push down on the back of his head with a hard shove!
With a “bang,” even from far away, Yan Jun could hear the dull thud of Qin Yize’s forehead hitting the car door.
Seeing that car start to move, Yan Jun simply discarded his bicycle, crossing various vehicles blocking the street like an antelope, and chased with the speed of a hundred-meter sprint, finally catching up to the outside of the car window before it drove out of Jinghe Road!
“Xiao Shu, Xiao Shu!… Let him down!” Vigorously pounding on the car window, Yan Jun saw Qin Yize shouting “Brother! Brother!” inside the car, only to be pushed back down by the bodyguards the next instant.
He had no choice but to chase to the window of the front passenger seat, glaring angrily at the middle-aged man who looked very much like Qin Yize, roaring and pounding: “Let him down! He doesn’t want to go with you, didn’t you see?! Is this how you treat your son, leaving him to live alone for over twenty days without even a single phone call, and then throwing heavy blows the moment you show up! No wonder he doesn’t want to remember you!”
Listening to the violent pounding sounds, the bodyguard covered Qin Yize’s mouth tightly and couldn’t help asking: “Do you want us to get out of the car and deal with him?”
“No need,” Qin Yaodong said with a gloomy expression, a simmering annoyance in the depths of his eyes. “I haven’t fallen to the level of bickering with a kid! Leave him be; once we leave this street, he won’t be able to keep up.”
Sure enough, after the car drove out of the crowded Jinghe Road, it turned onto the main avenue and accelerated sharply. Yan Jun was instantly left behind in the traffic stream.
“Xiao Shu!” Watching that black car driving further and further away, he ran over two hundred meters with all his might, but eventually lacked the physical strength and stopped with resentment.
The seventeen-year-old boy stood in the middle of the road, panting out of breath, his vision gradually blurring… There was a car honking behind him, and a taxi driver stuck his head out and cursed loudly: “What are you doing standing in the middle of the road, trying to die?!”
Yan Jun looked back heavily and panted, his eyes lighting up as he practically tumbled and crawled into the back seat of a taxi, pointing toward the front of the road: “Driver, keep up with that Rolls-Royce ahead, quickly…!”