“I’d like to tell you all that’s happened over the years.”
Yan Xie blurted out: “Be careful!”
The accident happened so fast that he only had time to pounce and grab Jiang Ting’s ankle with one hand while holding the stone pier with the other, which instantly stopped Jiang Ting from continuing to slide out.
However, in the blink of an eye, one and a half of the three people who were originally on the river bank were suspended in the air, and all the weight was tied to Yan Xie’s hand holding the stone pier, which became numb in an instant.
“I’m a liar… but I only said one sentence to deceive you.” Jiang Ting was overwhelmed by the weight of Bu Wei’s falling, and he squeezed every word out of his teeth with great effort: “That sentence was, your name has nothing to do with me… That’s not true. From the very beginning, you were just yourself in my eyes. You were not related to me, nor were you my shadow.”
Bu Wei raised her head, her one elbow was tightly grasped by Jiang Ting’s right hand, and the weight of dozens of kilograms made Jiang Ting’s blue-white nails dig deep into her flesh.
“The King of spades lied to you. No matter what he said to you, it was all a lie. You are still too young, and he has already distorted a lot of concepts before you can see the truth. But as long as you come up…
Jiang Ting felt that his center of gravity was tilting outward centimeter by centimeter; cold sweat slanted from his temples to his cheeks, and his face became blue because he gritted his teeth too hard:
“Just come up and I’ll tell you everything, Bu Wei. All the things that happened over the years, all—”
Bu Wei finally reacted, and her gentle laughter came along with the wind:
“You might as well wait until we get down together, and then tell me.”
At this time, the balance has reached an end. Bu Wei’s one hand grabbed Jiang Ting’s arm, violently pulling him down with all her strength!
Yan Xie lost his voice: “Stop!”
Jiang Ting slid outwards under the force. In an instant, Yan Xie’s heart almost stopped beating, and his mind went blank; by the time he reacted, he had already grabbed Jiang Ting’s ankles and leaned out most of his body, in a thousandth of a second, he was able to stop him from continuing to fall down because of the gravity——
Immediately after, Bu Wei like a kite with a broken string fell straight into the river from a dam several meters high!
Splash!
The splash of water was reflected in the depths of Jiang Ting’s pupils.
He was completely suspended in the air above his waist, and the wind on the river was howling, making it impossible for them to balance, so much so that even the piers on the riverbank weren’t enough. Jiang Ting was hanging upside down, gasping for breath, and suddenly shouted: “Yan Xie! Let me go!”
Yan Xie gritted his teeth and cursed: “What the fuck…”
“Let me go!” Jiang Ting’s hoarse voice changed his tone: “I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to hide it from you!”
Yan Xie was stunned. Jiang Ting suddenly pushed his hand away, and in the gap that was hastier than the blink of an eye, the whole person fell into the river with Bu Wei!
“Damn!”
Yan Xie’s scolding came from the bottom of his heart, it was more real than 24K real gold. He got up quickly, took off his trousers and shoes, and without thinking about anything in his mind, he jumped over the river embankment!
The river water rushed towards his face, slamming into his eardrums in an instant.
Yan Xie spewed out bubbles and reached the surface, took a deep breath, and fiercely plunged into the river, swimming forward with all his might.
Fortunately, it was midsummer, and the river was not too cold at night. Yan Xie was swimming very fast. After a while, he felt the water flow in front of him become turbulent, so he swam forward. Sure enough, he reached out and touched someone.
——That figure felt like that of Jiang Ting.
Although Yan Xie was reckless when he was a child, he was also the only son of the richest man. In order to prevent him from encountering a dog blood plot like kidnapping, he received the necessary skills training such as diving, racing, and survival in the wild. Jiang Ting’s swimming skills were not bad, but they were definitely not as good as that of a semi-professional like Yan Xie, who reached the shore in a few strokes.
“Huh…huh…” Yan Xie’s soaked shirt clung against his chest muscles, and as he panted violently, he forcibly dragged Jiang Ting to a stony shore under the river embankment. He pinched Jiang Ting’s chin and arched his face left and right several times. The force was not heavy, but it was not light either. Jiang Ting couldn’t help and finally spit out a mouthful of water mixed with saliva from his throat.
“Cough, cough, cough!…” Jiang Ting leaned over the rough stony shore, his face was completely wet with water, and he was wrapped in Yan Xie’s arms, who was sitting opposite him.
“Are you crazy, you dare to jump in the water in the middle of the night?!”
“I almost caught her in the water just now,” Jiang Ting coughed hoarsely: “Just a little bit, just a little bit more…”
Yan Xie patted him on the back.
“She had a sum of money of her own and told me that she planned to go south to work. I guessed that she would contact the King of spades in the future. Although she would definitely not be able to contact him, she might be able to contact A-Jie and more of his accomplices… I didn’t expect her to just directly…”
It was unknown if it was emotional excitement or lingering fear, but Jiang Ting’s whole body was wet and cold, and he was shaking violently. Yan Xie grabbed his palm tightly and let him rest most of his weight on himself, almost sitting on the bank of the river in a half-hugging posture. They could only hear the wind wrapped in water roaring along the river surface and disappearing at a distance.
“It’s useless, she can’t be rescued.” Yan Xie said concisely and forcefully in his ear, “The rescue in the water requires the cooperation of the rescued, but she just wants to drag you to death.”
Jiang Ting nodded while trembling, and after leaning against Yan Xie’s fiery arms for a long time, he barely calmed down.
“King of spades.” Jiang Ting suddenly said without warning, his voice still hoarse after being immersed in water: “He is very good at inducing young people who are somewhat anti-social in nature, or whose minds are not fully developed, and are easily deceived by power. This is his innate nature. He has been gifted in this area since he was a child, not only for Bu Wei but also…. for me…”
“I know.” Yan Xie said in a deep voice, “You and the King of spades are the first pair of victims in the serial kidnapping case, aren’t you?”
Jiang Ting was silent for a long time and nodded.
“Which year did it happen, were you also fifteen or sixteen years old?”
“…No.”
Yan Xie lowered his head slightly, facing Jiang Ting’s gaze, only to see a short smile on the corner of his bloodless lips: “When I met the King of spades for the first time, I was ten years old.”
Yan Xie was slightly surprised.
He could guess that the two knew each other very early, but he didn’t expect it to be this early!
“I was abandoned at the entrance of the orphanage since I was a child, not this orphanage.” Jiang Ting raised his chin weakly in the direction of Jiayuan Road in the distance: “It was in another city. The living conditions of everyone in those days were generally poor, and in remote rural areas adopting a child was not as popular as it is now. I grew up in the orphanage until I was ten years old and didn’t study much. I ran around the mountains and wild to play when I had nothing to do. Until one summer evening, I met a little boy on the bank of a small river who looked about the same age as me. He was dressed very well, and was playing the violin in front of the water…”
In the early summer evening when the clouds were covered with the red evening glow, a well-dressed little boy stood by a small river in the countryside and played the violin.
If this scene was handed over to the big director to shoot, it would definitely be a very romantic, poetic, and maybe even beautiful scene. But he didn’t know why, maybe knowing what happened later, this scene made Yan Xie feel an eerie chill in his heart.
“I had never seen this little boy in the nearby towns, and I thought it was very rare. I guessed that he might be a young master from a wealthy family. Later, I peeked more and found that he often played the piano in the abandoned theater, and the sound of the piano was very good, so I sneaked out of the orphanage, ran several miles to the theater, and hid on the second floor to eavesdrop on his performance.”
“Gradually, we became friends — I really thought we were friends at the time.” Jiang Ting laughed at himself: “I had only myself to blame for possessing such intense curiosity. Since childhood, I’ve been exceptionally inquisitive, and could never control my impulsive hands.”
Yan Xie was holding his hand. The palms of their hands were very close together, and after hearing the words, he patted the back of his hand.
“How did the King of Spades introduce himself to you at that time?” Yan Xie asked.
“An eight or nine years old child introduce himself using some name, later I can’t even remember the fake name he made up… It might be called Kaikai or Keke and such. Anyway, I didn’t think much about it at the time. I have a new friend, and I sneak out to play foolishly and cheerfully every day. Occasionally, I couldn’t get enough to eat at the orphanage, and when I’m hungry, he even bought some snacks for me to eat.”
Jiang Ting raised his hand to block himself. “Don’t look.”
Yan Xie took his hand away gently but firmly and looked directly at his pale face: “That’s why when you encountered kidnapping, you did your best to protect your little companion?”
Jiang Ting lowered his head and nodded after a while.
“The King of spades is not a self-made drug lord. On the contrary, his family background concentrated on the three elements of money, background, and crime. I also learned later that he was sent to the country because his family was involved in a mutual confrontation between several big drug lords. He actually came here to avoid disaster, but he didn’t expect that he would not be able to escape the fate of being kidnapped in the end, and also took me with him.”
“…Is the whole kidnapping process the same as Bu Wei and Shen Xiaoqi?” Yan Xie asked in a low voice.
Jiang Ting lowered his head to his chest. From Yan Xie’s slightly higher angle, he could only see the dripping black hair and a small piece of white cheek, which slightly reflected the light of the street lamp in the distance.
“Yes,” Jiang Ting said sternly after a long time.
“At that time, we were trapped in the valley, and he had a high fever. I could only look for water everywhere. I was so thirsty that I coughed up blood but didn’t dare to drink it… In fact, I didn’t think much about it. I thought that if I died, no one would care. But he must be a young master with parents, relatives, and love, like a god. If only one person can live, it is more worthwhile for him to survive.”
——A ten-year-old child had such thoughts in his head when he was on the brink of desperation.
Yan Xie has been rough since he was a child and did not pay careful attention to the so-called gap between the rich and the poor or the class threshold. But at this moment, the self-consciousness and cautiousness of an orphan who came from the mountain region more than 20 years ago screamed and passed through time, hitting him heavily.
“Shen Xiaoqi swore to Bu Wei that he will repay her when they go out. This detail was the same as that year because the King of spades also said the same thing. Maybe his original words were more serious than Shen Xiaoqi’s, who swore that we would always be brothers in this life and so on. It’s like the lines of a TV series, but I couldn’t remember it clearly after more than 20 years.”
Jiang Ting smiled bitterly, movers his eyes, and looked at the sparkling river.
But at that moment, Yan Xie understood what Jiang Ting was thinking — It’s not that he didn’t remember it clearly, on the contrary, he always remembered it clearly.
It was because it was so clear that he was even more reluctant to mention it.
“Then you were saved?” Yan Xie asked warmly, “The so-called mineral water is…”
“What kind of water, there was no bottle of water at all.” Jiang Ting shook his head sarcastically, “The so-called betrayal of the King of spades is a metaphor for another thing — after we were trapped for several days, dehydration, high fever, and injury, almost reached the limit. The guys from the King of spades’ family finally tracked down into the valley. At that time, my consciousness was not very clear, I only vaguely felt someone calling ‘grab the rope’ above my head, and I reached out my hand subconsciously. But the King of spades moved faster, and suddenly pushed me from behind, grabbing the rescue rope first. And I could only look at him as he was dragged up.”
“They left you?!”
“That’s not true.” Jiang Ting paused and said, “But it did take a long time. After the sun went down… Only then did someone pull me up.”
He could speak about the past so casually now, but for a little boy who was severely dehydrated and on the verge of death, the joy of hope and the momentary despair, and the agony of waiting alone for hours, were unimaginable to many adults.
Yan Xie’s lips moved, but he didn’t know what to say. After a while, he squeezed out a sentence: “That group of people…”
“They don’t really want to save me.” Jiang Ting said softly, “I know.”
The faint moonlight passed through the clouds, reflecting the river, the plains, and the tops of the mountains and rivers in the distance. Jiang Ting closed his eyes silently, and when he opened them again, he seemed to see a similar night, with the same cold and quiet moonlight, passing through the simple frosted glass window of the township hospital—
Lying on a small hospital bed, he opened his eyes and saw a familiar figure standing in front of the bed against the light, holding a small handful of wild fruits in his arms.
The two children didn’t speak. After a while, the little boy who was standing asked abruptly,
“I pushed you, do you remember?”
“……” Little Jiang Ting nodded.
“Do you hate me?”
Jiang Ting thought for a moment and shook his head.
“Why?”
The high fever made little Jiang Ting speak weakly and hoarsely, and he said softly, “Because that is your family. They should save you first, right?“
“……”
“I don’t have Family.”
The little boy finally moved. He carefully placed the wild fruit in his arms on the head of the hospital bed, then stood on tiptoe and leaned toward little Jiang Ting’s ear, his voice soft and firm:
“I am your family.”
“From now on, you and I share wealth, status, and power equally, and you are my only brother.”
The wind swept the earth from the depths of the sky, passing through the mountains and rivers, the railway tracks in the plains, and the vast and ethereal lights of the city, whistling, swirling, and flying straight to the end of the horizon.
Jiang Ting shivered slightly, then was taken into Yan Xie’s arms, who pressed his palms against the wet black hair behind his head.
“So you grew up with the King of Spades?”
Although it was a question, Yan Xie’s tone was a gentle statement, and he was actually ready to accept any answer.
To his surprise, he felt Jiang Ting shake his head in his arms: “No. Do you remember I told you that when I was tracing the new fentanyl compound ‘Blue Gold’ a few years ago, at the abandoned village drug production base I encountered the King of spades, and he pointed a gun at my head?”
Yan Xie obviously remembered. He said those things the night they returned to Jianning from Jiangyang County, and he climbed on Jiang Ting’s window and forcibly dragged him out to drink — only the authenticity was still debatable.
“That’s true.” Jiang Ting seemed to see through his thoughts, and a wry smile appeared in his eyes: “That was the first time I met an adult King of spades after the kidnapping incident 20 years ago…”
“So now you know the reason why he silenced the informants after the secret investigation was exposed, but agreed to let me go if I promised to cooperate.”
It was raining heavily outside the factory, and countless faint blue lights flickered in the depths of the darkness, the glimmer whose end couldn’t be seen filled the field of vision as if hellfire was dancing in the eighteenth layer of hell.
“Twenty years have passed… but I have never forgotten you.”
Jiang Ting’s fingers hanging on his side couldn’t stop trembling, but he forced himself to calm down and raised his head slightly, although this action might affect the cold muzzle on his temple:
In the heavy rain a banging sound came from the distance, then again, and again — That was the sound of gunshots.
“Then are you trying to kill me now?”
“No.” He heard the King of Spades laughing: “You are my only brother, always have been. My wealth, status, authority, all the things in the world can be shared with you…”
“Just like twenty years ago, in the mountains and forests, you and I shared the water, wild fruits, and later the life-saving rope.”
“I’d like to tell you all that’s happened over the years.”
Yan Xie blurted out: “Be careful!”
The accident happened so fast that he only had time to pounce and grab Jiang Ting’s ankle with one hand while holding the stone pier with the other, which instantly stopped Jiang Ting from continuing to slide out.
However, in the blink of an eye, one and a half of the three people who were originally on the river bank were suspended in the air, and all the weight was tied to Yan Xie’s hand holding the stone pier, which became numb in an instant.
“I’m a liar… but I only said one sentence to deceive you.” Jiang Ting was overwhelmed by the weight of Bu Wei’s falling, and he squeezed every word out of his teeth with great effort: “That sentence was, your name has nothing to do with me… That’s not true. From the very beginning, you were just yourself in my eyes. You were not related to me, nor were you my shadow.”
Bu Wei raised her head, her one elbow was tightly grasped by Jiang Ting’s right hand, and the weight of dozens of kilograms made Jiang Ting’s blue-white nails dig deep into her flesh.
“The King of spades lied to you. No matter what he said to you, it was all a lie. You are still too young, and he has already distorted a lot of concepts before you can see the truth. But as long as you come up…
Jiang Ting felt that his center of gravity was tilting outward centimeter by centimeter; cold sweat slanted from his temples to his cheeks, and his face became blue because he gritted his teeth too hard:
“Just come up and I’ll tell you everything, Bu Wei. All the things that happened over the years, all—”
Bu Wei finally reacted, and her gentle laughter came along with the wind:
“You might as well wait until we get down together, and then tell me.”
At this time, the balance has reached an end. Bu Wei’s one hand grabbed Jiang Ting’s arm, violently pulling him down with all her strength!
Yan Xie lost his voice: “Stop!”
Jiang Ting slid outwards under the force. In an instant, Yan Xie’s heart almost stopped beating, and his mind went blank; by the time he reacted, he had already grabbed Jiang Ting’s ankles and leaned out most of his body, in a thousandth of a second, he was able to stop him from continuing to fall down because of the gravity——
Immediately after, Bu Wei like a kite with a broken string fell straight into the river from a dam several meters high!
Splash!
The splash of water was reflected in the depths of Jiang Ting’s pupils.
He was completely suspended in the air above his waist, and the wind on the river was howling, making it impossible for them to balance, so much so that even the piers on the riverbank weren’t enough. Jiang Ting was hanging upside down, gasping for breath, and suddenly shouted: “Yan Xie! Let me go!”
Yan Xie gritted his teeth and cursed: “What the fuck…”
“Let me go!” Jiang Ting’s hoarse voice changed his tone: “I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to hide it from you!”
Yan Xie was stunned. Jiang Ting suddenly pushed his hand away, and in the gap that was hastier than the blink of an eye, the whole person fell into the river with Bu Wei!
“Damn!”
Yan Xie’s scolding came from the bottom of his heart, it was more real than 24K real gold. He got up quickly, took off his trousers and shoes, and without thinking about anything in his mind, he jumped over the river embankment!
The river water rushed towards his face, slamming into his eardrums in an instant.
Yan Xie spewed out bubbles and reached the surface, took a deep breath, and fiercely plunged into the river, swimming forward with all his might.
Fortunately, it was midsummer, and the river was not too cold at night. Yan Xie was swimming very fast. After a while, he felt the water flow in front of him become turbulent, so he swam forward. Sure enough, he reached out and touched someone.
——That figure felt like that of Jiang Ting.
Although Yan Xie was reckless when he was a child, he was also the only son of the richest man. In order to prevent him from encountering a dog blood plot like kidnapping, he received the necessary skills training such as diving, racing, and survival in the wild. Jiang Ting’s swimming skills were not bad, but they were definitely not as good as that of a semi-professional like Yan Xie, who reached the shore in a few strokes.
“Huh…huh…” Yan Xie’s soaked shirt clung against his chest muscles, and as he panted violently, he forcibly dragged Jiang Ting to a stony shore under the river embankment. He pinched Jiang Ting’s chin and arched his face left and right several times. The force was not heavy, but it was not light either. Jiang Ting couldn’t help and finally spit out a mouthful of water mixed with saliva from his throat.
“Cough, cough, cough!…” Jiang Ting leaned over the rough stony shore, his face was completely wet with water, and he was wrapped in Yan Xie’s arms, who was sitting opposite him.
“Are you crazy, you dare to jump in the water in the middle of the night?!”
“I almost caught her in the water just now,” Jiang Ting coughed hoarsely: “Just a little bit, just a little bit more…”
Yan Xie patted him on the back.
“She had a sum of money of her own and told me that she planned to go south to work. I guessed that she would contact the King of spades in the future. Although she would definitely not be able to contact him, she might be able to contact A-Jie and more of his accomplices… I didn’t expect her to just directly…”
It was unknown if it was emotional excitement or lingering fear, but Jiang Ting’s whole body was wet and cold, and he was shaking violently. Yan Xie grabbed his palm tightly and let him rest most of his weight on himself, almost sitting on the bank of the river in a half-hugging posture. They could only hear the wind wrapped in water roaring along the river surface and disappearing at a distance.
“It’s useless, she can’t be rescued.” Yan Xie said concisely and forcefully in his ear, “The rescue in the water requires the cooperation of the rescued, but she just wants to drag you to death.”
Jiang Ting nodded while trembling, and after leaning against Yan Xie’s fiery arms for a long time, he barely calmed down.
“King of spades.” Jiang Ting suddenly said without warning, his voice still hoarse after being immersed in water: “He is very good at inducing young people who are somewhat anti-social in nature, or whose minds are not fully developed, and are easily deceived by power. This is his innate nature. He has been gifted in this area since he was a child, not only for Bu Wei but also…. for me…”
“I know.” Yan Xie said in a deep voice, “You and the King of spades are the first pair of victims in the serial kidnapping case, aren’t you?”
Jiang Ting was silent for a long time and nodded.
“Which year did it happen, were you also fifteen or sixteen years old?”
“…No.”
Yan Xie lowered his head slightly, facing Jiang Ting’s gaze, only to see a short smile on the corner of his bloodless lips: “When I met the King of spades for the first time, I was ten years old.”
Yan Xie was slightly surprised.
He could guess that the two knew each other very early, but he didn’t expect it to be this early!
“I was abandoned at the entrance of the orphanage since I was a child, not this orphanage.” Jiang Ting raised his chin weakly in the direction of Jiayuan Road in the distance: “It was in another city. The living conditions of everyone in those days were generally poor, and in remote rural areas adopting a child was not as popular as it is now. I grew up in the orphanage until I was ten years old and didn’t study much. I ran around the mountains and wild to play when I had nothing to do. Until one summer evening, I met a little boy on the bank of a small river who looked about the same age as me. He was dressed very well, and was playing the violin in front of the water…”
In the early summer evening when the clouds were covered with the red evening glow, a well-dressed little boy stood by a small river in the countryside and played the violin.
If this scene was handed over to the big director to shoot, it would definitely be a very romantic, poetic, and maybe even beautiful scene. But he didn’t know why, maybe knowing what happened later, this scene made Yan Xie feel an eerie chill in his heart.
“I had never seen this little boy in the nearby towns, and I thought it was very rare. I guessed that he might be a young master from a wealthy family. Later, I peeked more and found that he often played the piano in the abandoned theater, and the sound of the piano was very good, so I sneaked out of the orphanage, ran several miles to the theater, and hid on the second floor to eavesdrop on his performance.”
“Gradually, we became friends — I really thought we were friends at the time.” Jiang Ting laughed at himself: “I had only myself to blame for possessing such intense curiosity. Since childhood, I’ve been exceptionally inquisitive, and could never control my impulsive hands.”
Yan Xie was holding his hand. The palms of their hands were very close together, and after hearing the words, he patted the back of his hand.
“How did the King of Spades introduce himself to you at that time?” Yan Xie asked.
“An eight or nine years old child introduce himself using some name, later I can’t even remember the fake name he made up… It might be called Kaikai or Keke and such. Anyway, I didn’t think much about it at the time. I have a new friend, and I sneak out to play foolishly and cheerfully every day. Occasionally, I couldn’t get enough to eat at the orphanage, and when I’m hungry, he even bought some snacks for me to eat.”
Jiang Ting raised his hand to block himself. “Don’t look.”
Yan Xie took his hand away gently but firmly and looked directly at his pale face: “That’s why when you encountered kidnapping, you did your best to protect your little companion?”
Jiang Ting lowered his head and nodded after a while.
“The King of spades is not a self-made drug lord. On the contrary, his family background concentrated on the three elements of money, background, and crime. I also learned later that he was sent to the country because his family was involved in a mutual confrontation between several big drug lords. He actually came here to avoid disaster, but he didn’t expect that he would not be able to escape the fate of being kidnapped in the end, and also took me with him.”
“…Is the whole kidnapping process the same as Bu Wei and Shen Xiaoqi?” Yan Xie asked in a low voice.
Jiang Ting lowered his head to his chest. From Yan Xie’s slightly higher angle, he could only see the dripping black hair and a small piece of white cheek, which slightly reflected the light of the street lamp in the distance.
“Yes,” Jiang Ting said sternly after a long time.
“At that time, we were trapped in the valley, and he had a high fever. I could only look for water everywhere. I was so thirsty that I coughed up blood but didn’t dare to drink it… In fact, I didn’t think much about it. I thought that if I died, no one would care. But he must be a young master with parents, relatives, and love, like a god. If only one person can live, it is more worthwhile for him to survive.”
——A ten-year-old child had such thoughts in his head when he was on the brink of desperation.
Yan Xie has been rough since he was a child and did not pay careful attention to the so-called gap between the rich and the poor or the class threshold. But at this moment, the self-consciousness and cautiousness of an orphan who came from the mountain region more than 20 years ago screamed and passed through time, hitting him heavily.
“Shen Xiaoqi swore to Bu Wei that he will repay her when they go out. This detail was the same as that year because the King of spades also said the same thing. Maybe his original words were more serious than Shen Xiaoqi’s, who swore that we would always be brothers in this life and so on. It’s like the lines of a TV series, but I couldn’t remember it clearly after more than 20 years.”
Jiang Ting smiled bitterly, movers his eyes, and looked at the sparkling river.
But at that moment, Yan Xie understood what Jiang Ting was thinking — It’s not that he didn’t remember it clearly, on the contrary, he always remembered it clearly.
It was because it was so clear that he was even more reluctant to mention it.
“Then you were saved?” Yan Xie asked warmly, “The so-called mineral water is…”
“What kind of water, there was no bottle of water at all.” Jiang Ting shook his head sarcastically, “The so-called betrayal of the King of spades is a metaphor for another thing — after we were trapped for several days, dehydration, high fever, and injury, almost reached the limit. The guys from the King of spades’ family finally tracked down into the valley. At that time, my consciousness was not very clear, I only vaguely felt someone calling ‘grab the rope’ above my head, and I reached out my hand subconsciously. But the King of spades moved faster, and suddenly pushed me from behind, grabbing the rescue rope first. And I could only look at him as he was dragged up.”
“They left you?!”
“That’s not true.” Jiang Ting paused and said, “But it did take a long time. After the sun went down… Only then did someone pull me up.”
He could speak about the past so casually now, but for a little boy who was severely dehydrated and on the verge of death, the joy of hope and the momentary despair, and the agony of waiting alone for hours, were unimaginable to many adults.
Yan Xie’s lips moved, but he didn’t know what to say. After a while, he squeezed out a sentence: “That group of people…”
“They don’t really want to save me.” Jiang Ting said softly, “I know.”
The faint moonlight passed through the clouds, reflecting the river, the plains, and the tops of the mountains and rivers in the distance. Jiang Ting closed his eyes silently, and when he opened them again, he seemed to see a similar night, with the same cold and quiet moonlight, passing through the simple frosted glass window of the township hospital—
Lying on a small hospital bed, he opened his eyes and saw a familiar figure standing in front of the bed against the light, holding a small handful of wild fruits in his arms.
The two children didn’t speak. After a while, the little boy who was standing asked abruptly,
“I pushed you, do you remember?”
“……” Little Jiang Ting nodded.
“Do you hate me?”
Jiang Ting thought for a moment and shook his head.
“Why?”
The high fever made little Jiang Ting speak weakly and hoarsely, and he said softly, “Because that is your family. They should save you first, right?“
“……”
“I don’t have Family.”
The little boy finally moved. He carefully placed the wild fruit in his arms on the head of the hospital bed, then stood on tiptoe and leaned toward little Jiang Ting’s ear, his voice soft and firm:
“I am your family.”
“From now on, you and I share wealth, status, and power equally, and you are my only brother.”
The wind swept the earth from the depths of the sky, passing through the mountains and rivers, the railway tracks in the plains, and the vast and ethereal lights of the city, whistling, swirling, and flying straight to the end of the horizon.
Jiang Ting shivered slightly, then was taken into Yan Xie’s arms, who pressed his palms against the wet black hair behind his head.
“So you grew up with the King of Spades?”
Although it was a question, Yan Xie’s tone was a gentle statement, and he was actually ready to accept any answer.
To his surprise, he felt Jiang Ting shake his head in his arms: “No. Do you remember I told you that when I was tracing the new fentanyl compound ‘Blue Gold’ a few years ago, at the abandoned village drug production base I encountered the King of spades, and he pointed a gun at my head?”
Yan Xie obviously remembered. He said those things the night they returned to Jianning from Jiangyang County, and he climbed on Jiang Ting’s window and forcibly dragged him out to drink — only the authenticity was still debatable.
“That’s true.” Jiang Ting seemed to see through his thoughts, and a wry smile appeared in his eyes: “That was the first time I met an adult King of spades after the kidnapping incident 20 years ago…”
“So now you know the reason why he silenced the informants after the secret investigation was exposed, but agreed to let me go if I promised to cooperate.”
It was raining heavily outside the factory, and countless faint blue lights flickered in the depths of the darkness, the glimmer whose end couldn’t be seen filled the field of vision as if hellfire was dancing in the eighteenth layer of hell.
“Twenty years have passed… but I have never forgotten you.”
Jiang Ting’s fingers hanging on his side couldn’t stop trembling, but he forced himself to calm down and raised his head slightly, although this action might affect the cold muzzle on his temple:
In the heavy rain a banging sound came from the distance, then again, and again — That was the sound of gunshots.
“Then are you trying to kill me now?”
“No.” He heard the King of Spades laughing: “You are my only brother, always have been. My wealth, status, authority, all the things in the world can be shared with you…”
“Just like twenty years ago, in the mountains and forests, you and I shared the water, wild fruits, and later the life-saving rope.”
