Redemption from the Abyss: The School Beauty Insists on Pulling Me Out of the Mire

Xie Wang stared at the line of text Kang Ping had sent, his thumb pressed on the screen without moving.

The little dumpling jumped off the desk, its calico body rubbing against his ankle twice before jumping back up and stomping on the English essay template he had just finished writing, leaving a plum blossom print.

Xie Wang ignored it.

He locked his phone, then unlocked it, then locked it again.

"Gu Nan met your father, Xie Zhengyang, in the southern district of Jiangcheng."

I went over that sentence in my mind three times.

In the southern part of the city, on the streets where mahjong parlors are clustered, Xie Zhengyang stayed in that area after he was released from the detention center, making a living by running errands and moving goods for others.

Gu Nan—the eldest son of Tianlong Group, a man with two doctoral degrees, the kind of person who returns to China on a private jet—went to a run-down card room in the southern part of the city to find a gambling addict.

Xie Wang picked the rice ball up from the draft paper, and the cat wriggled a couple of times in his arms. After feeling his arms tighten, it obediently lay down.

My phone vibrated again.

Caller ID: Xie Zhengyang.

Xie Wang looked at the three words for five seconds, then accepted the answer.

It was very noisy on the other end of the phone, with mahjong tiles clattering and someone shouting "Self-draw!" while others cursed, "You son of a bitch, you cheated again!"

Xie Zhengyang's voice broke through the noise, carrying the smell of alcohol, but he pronounced each word clearly.

"Some beast surnamed Gu is looking for me."

Xie Wang remained silent.

Xie Zhengyang coughed twice: "He was dressed smartly, but I couldn't even recognize the brand of the car he was driving. He brought two people with him, sat across from me, and chatted with me for twenty minutes with a big smile."

Xie Wang spoke, his voice very soft: "What do you want to talk about?"

"First he asked me how I was doing and if I needed money." Xie Zhengyang's throat felt like it was stuck in sandpaper. "Then he took out a check, a six-figure sum, put it on the table, and pushed it in front of me."

Xie Wang's finger remained on the back of the rice ball's head, without moving.

"What did he say?"

"He said—" Xie Zhengyang paused for a moment, "He told me to persuade you to stop investigating what happened twelve years ago, saying that continuing the investigation would not benefit anyone, and that you are young and don't understand, and that as your father, you should stop him."

There was silence for a few seconds on both ends of the phone.

The noise from the card room was as if it were through a layer of water.

Xie Wang's voice turned cold: "You accepted it?"

Xie Zhengyang did not answer immediately.

He heard a "click" from a lighter on the other end of the phone, took a deep drag of his cigarette, and coughed slightly as he exhaled.

"I'm a piece of trash."

Xie Zhengyang's voice was hoarse, as if a rusty wire was dragging in his throat.

"I gambled, I'm in debt, I've hit you. If your mother were alive and saw me like this, she'd tear me apart, bone by bone."

Xie Wang remained silent.

"But when your mother was alive, I truly loved her." Xie Zhengyang's voice deepened. "She was the only person in this world who ever looked at me with a straight eye."

Xie Wang slowly tightened his grip on the phone with his five fingers.

"Gu Tianlong killed her."

Xie Zhengyang spoke these five words very slowly, enunciating each word one by one.

"Even if I rot into mud, I won't eat the food from the family that killed my wife."

Someone in the card room called out to him, "Old Xie! It's your turn!"

Xie Zhengyang ignored him and continued, "Besides, even if I tried to persuade you, could I convince you? You've been stubborn since you were little, just like your mother. You'll never change your mind even if you hit a brick wall."

Xie Wang opened his mouth.

He wanted to say something, but his throat was blocked, and nothing came out.

Xie Zhengyang added, "The man smiled as he left and said, 'What a pity.' I don't know what he meant, but be careful."

Xie Wang closed his eyes briefly: "I understand."

There was a moment of silence on the other end of the phone.

The background noise included the clattering of mahjong tiles and people playing drinking games, making a lot of noise.

Xie Zhengyang's voice suddenly became much lower, so low that it was almost buried by the noise.

"I visited your mother's grave last month. I bought three pieces of osmanthus cake, which she used to love."

Xie Wang's Adam's apple bobbed slightly.

"you--"

"Alright, I'm hanging up if there's nothing else." Xie Zhengyang spoke faster, as if afraid he would say something else. "Go study, don't fucking follow my example, gambling addicts never end well."

"beep--"

The busy sound rang out.

Xie Wang took the phone away from his ear, and the call duration on the screen showed "02:47".

Two minutes and forty-seven seconds.

He leaned back in his chair, staring at the white ceiling light. A moth's shadow was visible in the bulb; it had somehow gotten in and was now imprinted on the lampshade, motionless.

The rice ball jumped out of his arms and squatted on the corner of the table, licking its paws.

Xie Wangxiang wanted to insult Xie Zhengyang.

But I can't bring myself to say it.

He sat for a minute, took a deep breath, opened the encrypted channel, and relayed Xie Zhengyang's words to Kang Ping verbatim.

Kangping's reply took ten seconds to arrive.

"Your dad has more guts than I thought."

Xie Wang typed: "Let's get down to business."

Kangping sent a long message—

"Gu Nan has been in Jiangcheng for more than 72 hours. Ostensibly, he is inspecting the southern suburbs project, but in reality, he has met with three groups of people."

"The first one is your father; the second one is an external supplier of the Lu Group, surnamed Wu, who is in charge of logistics subcontracting in Central China; the third one is more interesting—a retired deputy captain of the traffic police team, surnamed Zhou, who was in charge of the scene investigation of the car accident on Binjiang Road twelve years ago."

Xie Wang paused for a moment on the keyboard.

He typed: "Is he investigating what happened back then?"

Kang Ping replied even faster: "Yes, he's investigating too, and he's even more anxious than you. I checked Tianqi's surveillance system and cross-referenced it. Before Gu Nan met with that retired deputy captain, he even sent people to the old archives of the Municipal Archives and the Traffic Management Bureau."

Xie Wang frowned: "He found something?"

"No." Kang Ping sent a sneer emoji. "That old bastard Gu Tianlong may not be good at anything else, but he's a master at erasing traces. The accident files from back then have long been replaced. The original paper documents can't be found, and the electronic files have been covered up at least three times. All the conventional methods Gu Nan could think of are dead ends."

Xie Wang leaned back in his chair and tapped his fingers twice on the table.

"That's why he went to find my dad."

"Yes." Kang Ping's message followed, "If the conventional approach doesn't work, he'll leave. Your father was someone who had a direct relationship with your mother back then. Gu Nan wants to pry out from him what your mother actually possessed and where it was stored."

Xie Wang stared at the screen, typing out each word carefully: "He didn't get anything out of my father."

Kang Ping replied, "I know. That's why he said 'What a pity' and left. This person won't waste time on a dead end a second time. He's already given up on your father's line of work, and he'll change direction next."

"Which direction should we change to?"

"It's uncertain, but Apocalypse's people will be keeping an eye on him. You don't need to worry. Apocalypse had no reason to target Tianlong Group before, but now that he dares to touch Apocalypse's people, it gives us a reason."

Xie Wang sent a "Okay" message and closed the encrypted channel.

The screen returns to the WeChat interface.

Su Qinghe's chat box was still at the top, the last message being that little red heart.

Xie Wang typed a few words in the input box with his thumb, deleted them, typed them again, and deleted them again.

Finally, she sent the message: "Teacher Su, I love you."

The reply came quickly: "Speak like a human being."

Xie Wang smiled and typed another line: "It's nothing, I just wanted to say something to you again."

Five seconds passed.

Su Qinghe replied with three words: "I'm still here."

Xie Wang stared at the words "I am still here," reading them once, twice, and a third time.

He put his phone next to his pillow, got up to brush his teeth and wash his face.

When I returned, Fantuan had already jumped onto the bedside table, and the calico cat's paws were right on the dark blue velvet diary peeking out from under the pillow.

Xie Wang reached out and picked up the cat, so the two of them were facing each other.

"You troublemaker, you're always stomping on this place."

"The thing you stepped on is more valuable than your life."

The rice ball yawned, its mouth wide open, revealing its pink tongue and two rows of tiny teeth.

Xie Wang put it back in the cat's bed, bent down to smooth the corners of the diary, and tucked it back under the pillow.

He lay down on the bed, picked up his phone, and scrolled to Lu Wen's chat window.

Lu Wen hasn't replied yet about the flower shop.

Xie Wang glanced at the time again; it was 1:12 AM.

Never mind, I'll talk about it tomorrow.

He placed his phone face down next to his pillow and reached out to turn off the bedside lamp.

Xie Wang closed his eyes, his mind replaying Xie Zhengyang's words.

"I truly loved your mother when she was alive."

Xie Wang turned over and buried his face in the pillow.

"Tianlong Group, just you wait."