After Bai Haoying left, Lu Henqin returned upstairs.
He sat by the bed for a while, then leaned over and opened the bottom drawer of the bedside table. Next to the gun lay a small bottle of white vitamins. He picked it up, twisted off the cap, and shook out two pills.
Plain, ordinary white tablets—no matter what bottle they were in, they looked no different. They could be vitamin C, vitamin B, or cold medicine. Lu Henqin calmly placed them in his mouth and washed them down with warm water.
After waiting quietly for a moment, he picked up his phone and went to Xia Tingchan’s room.
Xia Tingchan must have truly been bored. She was curled up alone under the covers, sleeping soundly. Lu Henqin gently closed the door behind him, thinking he should move her to a room with a television.
Or maybe get a projector, he thought expressionlessly. It would serve a similar purpose to an e-ink screen—eye protection, as if anyone couldn’t do that.
Her phone lay beside her pillow. Lu Henqin walked over and sat lightly on the edge of her bed. He picked up her phone, turned it over in his palm a few times, but ultimately didn’t unlock it. Instead, he placed it on the bedside table.
Her hand was also stretched out, frozen in the posture of someone who had fallen asleep immediately after playing with their phone. Lu Henqin gently grasped her fingers—they were icy cold. The temperature sent a slight shiver through him, and he opened his hand to envelop her entire hand.
He adjusted the air conditioning temperature slightly higher and carefully tucked the blanket around her. Lu Henqin lowered his head, patiently waiting for her fingers to regain the warmth a living person should have.
As he leaned closer, a faint, delicate fragrance drifted into his nostrils. Within his line of sight, he noticed the oversized cotton T-shirt she always wore as pajamas piled to the side. This piece of clothing had been left at his place back in China, and somehow, he had packed it and brought it across the ocean with him when he was organizing his luggage.
It had clearly been stuffed into the storage room in the basement—how had she managed to dig it out?
He pressed his cheek against the soft fabric and took a deep breath, noticing that the scent on the clothing was even stronger now. After she arrived, whenever she tossed clothes into the washing machine, she occasionally used shower gel to wash some silk fabrics. She had once called this a “life hack,” but he suspected it was because she often wore this shirt after showering, which was why it carried this scent.
Lu Henqin closed his eyes. Under the blanket, his palm still held her wrist. As his thumb traced the contours of her wrist bone up and down, a subtle sense of hunger stirred within him. He felt a slight urge to bite her—or do something else that might better satisfy this craving.
In the period before they broke up, they had been intense.
He could easily recall that time—a period that had since destined her face to appear in both his spring dreams and nightmares.
Lu Wencheng rarely concerned himself with his son’s life, but he knew about Xia Tingchan and had reminded him twice.
He said, “That little girlfriend of yours—the Yangguang Welfare Home she stayed in as a child seems to be connected to Zhong Liqun.”
It was completely unexpected news. Before this, Lu Henqin had never linked the two.
His father was inherently suspicious, rigid, and lacking in empathy. Lu Henqin had learned how to deal with him from a very young age.
Not a trace of astonishment showed on his face. When the investigation materials were handed to him, he pinched the edge of the paper with two fingers, flipping through them with little interest. Only when the last page was turned over by his fingertip did he give a light flick, sending the materials across the table.
The paper slid across the smooth surface, stopping just a few centimeters from the edge. He lied, "I know. Xia Chan told me from the start."
His father’s hawk-like probing gaze swept over his face. That statement wasn’t enough to convince him.
Lu Henqin met Lu Wencheng’s scrutiny with composure. "Zhong Liqun has been doing charity work for years now. Dig up a few generations in any welfare home, and you’ll find some distant relative of his. Would he really remember one orphan girl among so many hope schools, nursing homes, and welfare centers?"
"Would you remember an ordinary patient who once visited our Zhaotai Medical?"
He was too calm and collected. His father, half-convinced and half-doubting, let him off.
Looking back later, he realized how skilled he was at covering for her lies. He and Xia Tingchan hardly ever argued, because whenever conflicts arose—even when it was her fault—he would mentally prepare excuses and justifications for her in advance, forgiving her almost as if brainwashing himself before she even spoke.
Friends teased him for having no principles when it came to Xia Tingchan. He’d say, "Yeah, the sky is vast, the earth is wide, but my girlfriend comes first."
She had trained him too well, taming him into a dog that only knew how to circle around her.
He didn’t even bring up this little episode to question Xia Tingchan. He was full of confidence in her, arrogantly convinced it was nothing more than his father’s unreasonable suspicion.
Lu Wencheng, indeed, didn’t have much energy to spare on such trivial matters.
Because the decline of the National Election Party was already showing signs.
Lu Wencheng had long laid groundwork abroad—like a cunning rabbit with three burrows, he had to secure an escape route for himself and his family.
During that period, his father grew even busier. The people coming and going were rarely seen even by Lu Henqin himself. Lu Wencheng would often leave with just a phone call, like a mole moving unseen beneath the earth.
Word had it that the party was embroiled in disputes during meetings, with a special task force intervening to investigate environmental issues. His mother, who had long resided abroad, returned home midway, purchasing large quantities of luxury goods to quickly liquidate overseas. The family arranged for him to be sent abroad ahead of schedule, which meant he would have to break his promise to Xia Tingchan.
Lu Henqin didn’t want to go abroad. The calendar on his phone marked the "countdown to Xia Chan’s return from her business trip." He had almost made it through the wait, only to be told now that there was no need to wait—they would be separated by countries instead.
What a joke.
He called Xia Tingchan. The phone rang twice before she hung up. Thinking she was temporarily busy, he hadn’t even left a message when she sent him a photo.
It was a highway, but no specific road signs were captured.
Another photo followed—an overpass, shot too blurrily, with an ordinary sedan occupying most of the frame.
The third was a bustling intersection with traffic lights, and the fourth a snapshot turning into an inner road.
It was near her home.
"I came back early."
An unexpected surprise. Lu Henqin immediately canceled a ball game with friends and drove to her place to see her.
Every time he went to find her, he had to pass through that 300-meter tunnel—the final stretch of the entire journey.
Driving into the darkness felt like the night before dawn. The lights along the tunnel ceiling flashed by one after another, casting flickering shadows on the windshield. All his restless tension, anticipation, and joy were crushed into that brief half-minute.
Then, the light at the exit suddenly drew near. Warm sunlight flooded into the car like a tide, gradually illuminating his knuckles, cuffs, and the side of his face.
He knew what passing through the tunnel meant.
At the end of the tunnel was her.
Xia Tingchan had said she was returning early to surprise him. She asked if he was planning to go abroad.
During that time, rumors were swirling, and even she had keenly sensed it. Chaebols supporting political parties meant shared prosperity and shared downfall—a symbiotic rise and fall.
His family had urged him several times, but Lu Henqin kept procrastinating. Several flight tickets had been "missed" for various reasons. He wondered if there was a better solution, like taking her with him.
His future should naturally include her. Lu Henqin planned to ask for her opinion first. As long as she was willing to go abroad, he could arrange everything.
But that day, in the end, he never asked the question, because he keenly sensed that Xia Tingchan was mildly anxious.
She was unconsciously picking at her nails. Whether she was talking or eating, her free hand kept slowly digging at her nails.
He noticed her nails had already begun to show slight layering.
"What's wrong?" Lu Henqin took her fingers and wrapped her hand in his palm.
Xia Tingchan shook her head and didn't speak.
Lu Henqin cupped her fingers in his hand, gently kneading them. After a brief moment of thought, he reassured her, "Tingchan, I won't force you. You have your own life goals, and there's no reason for them to change because of me. If you're struggling with this, I can travel back and forth frequently—"
She suddenly interrupted, lifting her face to look directly at him. "Lu Henqin, can you masturbate for me?"
The rest of his words stuck in his throat. His brow trembled slightly, a hidden desire rising bit by bit until it surged, almost stirred into a physical reaction by her words.
He had separation anxiety. Of course, he thought it was only mild. His mother was abroad long-term for medical treatment, his father was busy with work, but no matter how busy Xia Tingchan was, she always made time for him.
So he clung to her intensely.
During times they couldn't meet, he had often engaged in phone sex with her. At first, it was she who brought it up. Her sudden "I want to see" caught him off guard, and he had hesitated, saying, "I'm not very good at it…"
She then sent him several downloaded resources from the internet. In the top right corner of the videos, the words "Premium" glittered in gold.
"Like this, hold it, can you? I'm just giving an example. The guy in the video isn't good-looking. You have fair skin, long fingers, a high nose bridge…" She talked herself into laughter. "I want to watch you."
Once the precedent was set, it became unstoppable. Later, he even bought some wearable or restraining toys. Xia Tingchan teased him, saying she would share his videos on foreign websites. Breathing unevenly, his damp fingers pressed the camera lower, calling out, "Baby, look at me." He knew that as long as he made a mess of himself, she would always gaze at him with even more tender eyes, telling him over and over how much she liked it.
When your girlfriend asks, there's no reason to refuse.
Lu Henqin was always ready to oblige. He let go of her hand, kissed her fingernail, then tilted his head slightly and gently bit the metal tab of the zipper with his teeth, smoothly pulling the jacket zipper down with one hand. After taking off his top, he didn’t rush to undo his pants, just loosened the waistband so they hung precariously on his hips. Then he slowly lay back on the bed, guiding her gaze with his fingers as he slowly unzipped another zipper right in front of her.
Of course, she liked it. He was fair-skinned, handsome, and authoritative—nothing like any of the men in those videos.
Lu Henqin knew exactly how to please her. He had her sit facing away from him on his face, so when he couldn’t swallow in time, she could lean down and wipe it off his chin with her fingers.
But this time, things got a bit out of control. Xia Tingchan’s anxiety was more severe than he had imagined, and both of them were caught up in the heat of the moment. At one point, they even forgot to use protection in their dazed state. Breathing unsteadily, he gripped her thigh, holding back again and again, trying to pull out first. But she leaned down to kiss him and said, “Didn’t you get a vasectomy?” And so, everything spiraled further out of control.
Lu Henqin stayed overnight at her place. The next day, he was too lazy to leave until evening. Xia Tingchan suddenly mentioned that she was considering moving and needed a temporary place to stay.
“Sure,” he sent her the addresses of the properties under his name. “They’re all empty. You can go wherever you like. The passcode is your birthday.”
Xia Tingchan chose the house closest to his main residence. He couldn’t have been happier. During that time, they installed a mirror in the bedroom and replaced the chair in the study with a larger, sturdier one. Both were at that energetic age, practically inseparable 24 hours a day.
On the day Lu Wencheng had his accident, Xia Tingchan, as usual, took the initiative to invite him out. But this time, the meeting place was far from his main residence. He waited there for two hours, but she never showed up. During that time, he sent countless calls and messages, all of which went unanswered.
At 7:22 p.m., Lu Wencheng died suddenly less than thirty meters from his home.
At the same time, Cui Chengmin, the chairman of Sanhe Heavy Industries, who had been close friends with Lu Wencheng for years and was another key figure behind the National Election Party, hanged himself at home, leaving behind a brief suicide note. The note didn’t contain any crucial information, only stating that he couldn’t bear the pressure due to “personal health issues.”
Security guards surrounded both residences, and the media camped out for the latest updates, but in the end, neither side said much.
Because on the third day, a BMS list published on foreign websites revealed the private overseas accounts of high-level domestic figures, implicitly pointing to major economic crimes and tax fraud.
In that list, the name Lu Wencheng appeared so frequently it seemed like his personal biography.
But the list was quickly blocked across the entire internet. Whether using homophones or symbols to refer to it, the result was the same: “Due to relevant regulations, the content cannot be displayed.”
Many self-media outlets scrambled to brainstorm, unanimously concluding that it was “a very obvious political struggle” and “hard to distinguish truth from falsehood.” But the ultimate judge of its authenticity would depend on the outcome of the upcoming election.
Throughout it all, mainstream media maintained uniform, brief reports, once again proving the adage: “The bigger the event, the shorter the news.”
Members of the National Choice Party listed in the roster faced intense investigative pressure, with those connected like grapes on a vine all being exposed. Some raised doubts, questioning whether the classified nature of the list likely indicated that the means of obtaining it were illegal, and whether this could be leveraged to shift the burden of proof in their favor.
But such voices were quickly suppressed.
The Social Democratic Party also had individuals implicated in the list, though far from suffering any significant damage.
By this point, the disagreements between the two parties over energy and immigration policies had dissolved into non-existence. Public opinion was in severe turmoil, a vote of no confidence triggered an early election, and the National Choice Party’s approval ratings plummeted.
Lu Henqin never got to see Lu Wencheng’s body in the end. He was sent abroad on the night of the incident. His mother, Jiang Min, had long been in poor health and had gone overseas early to receive specialized medical care, repeatedly urging him to leave the country as soon as possible.
Yet Xia Tingchan remained completely unreachable. Her phone number became invalid a week later, and all her social media accounts blocked him.
Lu Henqin was utterly unable to set his mind at ease about her, driven to the brink of madness. Not only did he dangerously keep his domestic phone number active, but he also enlisted several mutual friends to discreetly keep an eye on her and offer care. Unexpectedly, he finally saw her on an overseas television channel.
A fleeting appearance of less than five seconds, a familiar face flashing across the screen—she stood beside Zhong Yi.
She had been adopted as a goddaughter by Zhong Liqun.