Cangmang Asks the Way 1: Guardian of the Lamp

Smoke filled the air, mingled with the stench of blood, gunpowder, debris, and amniotic fluid. Sirens wailed, and flashing lights illuminated the scene.

Cang Lifeng gasped for breath, trying to stand up, but felt all his strength rapidly draining away with the warm liquid gushing from his left shoulder. He looked up in the direction of the pregnant woman and saw medical staff already beside her, providing emergency treatment. It was worth it… his coworkers' money… he felt sorry… he had to find a way… This thought drifted through his mind like smoke. His tense nerves relaxed slightly.

In that brief moment of relaxation, the intense blood loss and dizziness from the pain suddenly struck. The scene before her eyes began to spin and blur; the figures of the special police, the flashing police lights, and the rushing medical staff all turned into swaying spots of light.

His body swayed, unable to maintain his kneeling position any longer, and he collapsed forward. His vision blurred and swayed. In his daze, he seemed to see paramedics carefully lifting the pregnant woman onto a stretcher; a trace of color seemed to have returned to her face. Outside the shattered glass doors of the bank, Old Li and his coworkers were frantically pounding on the police cordon with twisted, terrified faces.

Below his left shoulder, warm blood continued to gush out, soaking his cotton-padded coat and spreading a rapidly expanding dark red stain on the ground. That sticky, warm touch was like the last warmth emanating from the only oil lamp in his hometown during a winter's day. Fragments of memory fluttered uncontrollably: Tianci's crooked yet earnest profile as he learned to write the character for "person" as a child… Xiaohua's quiet silhouette as she mended his clothes under the lamplight… his father's hunched back as he squatted on the doorstep smoking his pipe… his mother's gentle gaze as she said, "You must have strong bones…"

...Father, Mother... Your son is unfilial... Tianci, Elder Brother... I broke my promise... The money from the coworkers... Old Li... I'm sorry... I'm sorry to everyone...

These thoughts became the last flickering glimmer of light in his consciousness. And the dark gold coin, lying quietly not far from his hand, stained with dust and blood, seemed to faintly reflect the rotating red light of the ambulance's overhead light in his last glance before he completely succumbed to darkness, like a silent riddle.

Immediately, boundless darkness surged up like a silent tide, completely engulfing everything.

He fell heavily to the ground, and beneath him, a pool of dark red blood spread silently, soaking the cold terrazzo floor.

The cordon, like a trembling boundary, separated the human world from the battlefield. Inside the cordon, the smoke of battle lingered, the shadows of special police officers and flashing police lights intertwined; outside the cordon, chaos reigned, the cries of rescued hostages, the shouts of their families, and the reporters' questions mingled into a boiling cauldron of sizzling oil.

Lin Wei struggled to squeeze through the crowd, her navy blue short down jacket cuffs already stained. Her eyes scanned like radar, searching for any valuable witnesses. Just then, a tearful cry caught her attention—

"Mr. Wang! Mr. Wang, you've finally arrived!"

A middle-aged woman with disheveled hair and a deathly pale face—Zhang Ma—like a sack that had lost its balance, suddenly lunged at a man who was desperately trying to squeeze through the police cordon. The man, wearing a wrinkled suit and with his briefcase strap tightly gripping his shoulder, was none other than Wang Lide, who had arrived late and was still shaken.

He grabbed Zhang Ma's arm, his voice trembling, "Zhang Ma! Where's A-Yun? Where is A-Yun? What happened to her?"

"They're on...on the ambulance, they were just carried away..." Zhang Ma stammered, tears streaming down her face. "My wife was bleeding so much, her water broke, she's probably...she's going to have a premature birth! The doctor said she needs to be rushed to the hospital for a C-section! I...I wanted to go with her, but the police stopped me, saying that family members can't all go with her, that someone has to stay behind to cooperate with the investigation and wait for further notice...Before my wife was carried away, she held onto my hand tightly, saying, 'Wait for Lide, tell him to save the baby!'..."

She cried so hard she could hardly breathe: "Mr. Wang, I... I'm so sorry, I didn't take good care of my wife... But she wasn't quite lucid at the time, she kept repeating that one sentence, I... I didn't dare disobey her..."

Wang Lide's legs went weak, and he almost knelt down on the spot. After the intense dizziness and fear, there was a chaotic feeling of relief and heartbreak. He opened his mouth, wanting to question Zhang Ma about why she didn't insist on going with him, but when he heard his wife's last words before she fainted, "Save the child," all the words stuck in his throat, and only hot tears welled up and poured out.

"Yes...someone saved Madam!" Zhang Ma, oblivious to Wang Lide's emotional shift, continued, "That beast with the knife...he'd even raised it to chop Madam down!...Just then, a tall man...looking like a laborer...highly skilled in martial arts, he darted out from the side and easily snapped the man's wrist, the knife fell to the ground. Then the gun went off..."

Wang Lide listened blankly, his initial relief quickly replaced by fear. "A worker... a tall man... highly skilled in martial arts..." These pieces of information gradually pieced together a blurry outline, beginning to overlap with the figure he most wanted to avoid. Impossible... what a coincidence... He shook his head, trying to shake off this ominous association.

Just then, a series of hurried shouts and footsteps came from the bank's entrance. Several medical staff rushed out carrying a stretcher. The person on the stretcher was covered in blood, with a shocking dark red patch on his left shoulder. His face was as pale as paper, with only his tightly pursed lips and brows showing a trace of painful resolve.

Zhang Ma's gaze was suddenly drawn to it, her crying stopped abruptly, her finger trembled as she pointed at the stretcher and cried out:

"It's him! Mr. Wang, it's him! This is the man who saved Madam!"

Wang Lide and Lin Wei, following the direction Zhang Ma pointed, both looked at the blood-stained face on the stretcher.

Time seemed to stretch out at that moment.

Wang Lide's facial muscles suddenly stiffened, then twitched uncontrollably. He recognized that face—the face that had demanded his wages at the construction site, the face that had struggled to control its anger on the phone. All his hopes, all the "impossibilities," were shattered by reality in that moment. He felt as if he had been struck in the chest by an invisible hammer; his body beneath his suit swayed violently, and he staggered. Had he not been gripping Zhang Ma's arm tightly, he would have almost collapsed.

At the same time, Lin Wei's heart skipped a beat. That face...it seemed familiar. In a flash, the tall figure who had moved with lightning speed and silently departed at the South City bus station suddenly overlapped with the pale, blood-stained face before her. It was him, the "kind person" who hadn't even left his name! A tremendous shock and excitement gripped her, making her almost forget to breathe. She gripped the pen tightly, her knuckles white, her professional instincts clashing violently with the complex emotions surging within her. She had to know his story, she absolutely had to!

The world began to spin and collapse silently before Wang Lide. Zhang Ma's identification, Lin Wei's gaze, and all the surrounding noise faded into a blurry background sound. He could only see the departing stretcher and the man on it who had risked his life to pull his wife back from the brink of hell.

He knows him.

More than just acquaintances.

That payment he had intended to delay and make excuses for today… that list filled with countless names like Cang Lifeng… now, they all felt like red-hot branding irons, searing his very soul. And the lives of his wife and children were saved by the very owner of one of those branding irons, who had traded his own life for them.

Lin Wei's professional instincts instantly snapped her out of her shock. She realized that Mr. Wang's reaction far exceeded that of the average family member of a recipient of aid. Amidst the shock, lingering fear, and gratitude, the undisguised horror and near-terrified sense of collapse pointed to a more hidden core. She had to seize this fleeting window to ask him a question.

Lin Wei quickly adjusted her breathing, subtly bringing the recorder closer, her voice deliberately lowered, carrying a soothing quality:

"Mr. Wang, please take a moment. Auntie told me your wife is safe and sound; that's truly a relief!"

She paused, her sharp gaze capturing every subtle change in Wang Lide's expression, and continued to ask:

"That man who saved the person...did you know him before?"

However, Wang Lide couldn't answer Lin Wei's question at all. He just stood there, frozen in place, like a clay sculpture whose support had been instantly removed and was silently crumbling amidst the clamor of the crowd of survivors.

Seeing that Mr. Wang didn't answer, Lin Wei didn't mind. She had already deeply etched this extremely dramatic scene into her mind. She knew that she had unearthed a wonderful story vein.

Meanwhile, a thousand miles away at the Jixian Sports School, in the storage room, Cang Tianci, who was practicing the Hidden Dragon Technique in utter silence, experienced a sudden and violent upheaval in the depths of his dantian, a "surface" as clear as the moon reflected in an ancient well. It was as if he had been struck by a scalding, blood-red star that had fallen from an endless distance. Immediately, an excruciating pain exploded from his heart without warning, instantly spreading to every part of his body. His vision went black, and he could barely breathe, as if something of utmost importance was being torn apart.