“Actually, the objectives of their operation tonight are also very clear,” said Zheng Jingfeng. “First, to clean up any traces left in the archives. Second, the reason they made such a racket was because they discovered the existence of people like Zhang Yong—people with weak personalities and shaky ties to the organization who might turn to the authorities. Tonight’s broadcasting tower death game was a warning for all Zhang Yongs, letting them know that even if they’re tailed and protected by the authorities, the organization can still kill them right under the police’s noses. They’re putting all their collaborators and underlings in their place.”
He went on, “Third, they wanted to wrap up the Cheng Kang incident. They sent Lu Yuzhu out on a suicide mission, and they might send other scapegoats out in the future. They’re taking advantage of those among us who’d rather minimize the impact of the case and rush to close it as quickly as possible. Even if there are police officers who want to investigate this further in the future, they would be acting alone, with their own meager abilities… And I’m not discounting the possibility that there’s a huge mole in the force.”
Zheng Jingfeng’s eyes fell on Xie Qingcheng. “But what I don’t understand is the last part.”
Xie Qingcheng already knew what Zheng Jingfeng was talking about, but he still asked, “What do you mean?”
“Why would they play those videos of you at the end?”
It was likely because they had discovered that the people attempting to stop Lu Yuzhu were Xie Qingcheng and He Yu. All they would have had to do to come to this conclusion was steal a portion of the school’s security footage. But the fact that they had used this method to stop He Yu from helping Xie Qingcheng meant this organization already knew that He Yu was mentally ill—and that Xie Qingcheng had once been his personal physician.
This information wasn’t widely known. Zheng Jingfeng didn’t know about it; not even Xie Xue did. In all the years that Xie Qingcheng had been employed by the He family, he had always told others that the work he did was related to a project for He Jiwei’s pharmaceutical company. With that in mind, Xie Qingcheng had even suspected He Jiwei for a split second, but it was really a rather absurd idea. He Jiwei was He Yu’s father, and he had once helped Xie Qingcheng a great deal—he wouldn’t do such a thing.
Besides, he realized, the secret of He Yu’s mental illness wasn’t ironclad. The He family had plenty of servants who all knew a thing or two; with so many people in their home, something was bound to slip out. That made it extremely difficult to use this fact to narrow down the suspects to a certain group of people—to say nothing of how these criminal masterminds had a hacker who had the ability to go through various online databases as if they were unguarded and treat confidential data like freebies open for the taking.
Zheng Jingfeng scratched his head in irritation as he saw Xie Qingcheng spacing out. “I’m asking you a question, Xiao-Xie.”
“I’m not sure.” Even now, Xie Qingcheng did not tell Zheng Jingfeng about He Yu’s condition. “They probably realized that I was trying to stop Lu Yuzhu and wanted to teach me a lesson.”
Zheng Jingfeng stared at him in mild disbelief. Likewise, Xie Qingcheng gazed back at Lao-Zheng without blinking.
At last, Zheng Jingfeng sighed. “That’s just great. In that case, they’ve achieved their goal.” He pushed his own phone toward Xie Qingcheng. “Take a look for yourself.”
The internet had already exploded with discussion. For one thing, Xie Qingcheng’s words were absolutely callous and improper and poked at many people’s sore spots, and they’d even involved the esteemed Professor Qin Ciyan.
For another, this criminal organization had gone to the trouble of broadcasting an old video of Xie Qingcheng after completing their “drop the hanky” death game. Although the video had circulated through the internet at one point, not many people had watched it—after all these years, it hadn’t even reached a couple hundred views. It was very unlikely that the organization played it just because they thought Xie Qingcheng was handsome. No one could possibly know that this video had been selected specifically to drive a wedge between Xie Qingcheng and He Yu, the hacker who had been with him at the time, so everyone had begun to speculate whether Xie Qingcheng was somehow linked to the mastermind of this terrorist attack.
All sorts of opinions had popped up very quickly. Xie Qingcheng, a plain, ordinary former doctor and current Huzhou Medical School professor, had actually become a trending topic.
“Like what you see?” Zheng Jingfeng felt both helpless and aggrieved that Xie Qingcheng wouldn’t listen to his advice. With his emotions in a jumble, Zheng Jingfeng’s words sounded a little like a scolding a father would give his child.
At this moment, one of Zheng Jingfeng’s subordinates called for him from outside, so he got up, patted Xie Qingcheng’s shoulder, and sighed. “How impressive. Even the celebrities aren’t as handsome as you. It’s just that you have such an unpleasant mouth. Did you take the wrong medicine that day? I can’t believe you’d say something like that. What was up with you?”
“Nothing.”
“What do you mean, ‘nothing’? Was that even you? How could I not fucking know you? If you don’t explain everything as soon as possible, just wait and see what happens. The public’s opinion has already—”
“Do you think you know me very well, Officer Zheng?” Xie Qingcheng stared at him. “Those were all my true feelings.”
“True feelings, my ass. I’ve known you and your parents for forty years if you add both generations together. How could I not know you…” Zheng Jingfeng’s tone softened once more when he met Xie Qingcheng’s eyes. “Forget it. If you don’t want to talk about it, then just forget it! I won’t force you, and in any case, no one can stop you from doing whatever you want, even if you end up beaten to a bloody pulp. I give up, okay?”
Xie Qingcheng remained silent.
“Take care and rest up. Once you’ve recovered, go see that little friend of yours.” It was quite evident that this was something Zheng Jingfeng only chose to tell him at the last minute. “For some reason, he’s been burning up with a high fever, even though the wound was treated in time so it wouldn’t get infected.”
Xie Qingcheng looked up, his hands imperceptibly balling into fists. An unexplainable high fever was one of He Yu’s symptoms when his psychological Ebola flared up. Then he…
“But I don’t know if he’d want to see you. He seemed to be in a pretty bad mood—he didn’t say much beyond answering the necessary questions.” Zheng Jingfeng sighed. “He’s already gone to the hospital. You can contact him yourself later.”