Chapter 56 - 2#

Gu Chenzhou’s gaze was fixed on the warehouse door. He felt as if he had grasped something, but he couldn’t quite figure it out:

Shi Shan was about to be caught, and all the clues pointed to He Nanshan. So why were the faces of both Gu Xinjun and Wei Chengbo so ugly?

A short, muffled explosion sounded. The iron gate of the warehouse was opened, and a black cloud suddenly rushed out from the open gate!

—What is that?

Just as Gu Chenzhou thought this, he saw the nearby armed police directly aim a flamethrower at the black cloud, and a middle-ranking officer shouted, “It’s flies, burn them with the flamethrower!”

At this moment, Gu Chenzhou finally found the path to the end in the fog, and was instantly enlightened!

Shi Shan was dead.

Her face was black and swollen, her eyeballs protruded, and her skin outside her clothes was covered with green patches. Even from a distance, one could smell the stench of decay.

Hundreds of thousands of flies were killed by the flamethrower, and then they flew over from various dark corners in an endless stream, circling the body that was carried out by the armed police, reluctant to leave.

Gu Chenzhou and Wei Chengbo stood very close, so close that they could feel the trembling of the other’s body and hear the whisper squeezed out from between the other’s teeth.

“He Nanshan, He Nanshan…”

“This is too much, simply too much…”

“I, Wei Chengbo, and you, are irreconcilable!”

Gu Chenzhou remained silent, glanced around, and saw that whether it was Adjutant Zhang or the soldiers surrounding Wei Chengbo, they all had serious expressions, as if they hadn’t heard these words at all.

At this time, the body had been preliminarily examined. The responsible armed police officer ran forward and saluted Wei Chengbo, then said, “Reporting to the commander, the suspect has been found. A preliminary examination has determined that the suspect has been dead for more than twelve days.”

Wei Chengbo said nothing, pushed aside the human wall in front of him, snatched a submachine gun from a soldier’s hand, opened the safety, and aimed at the ground next to the body, emptying the ammunition!

Amidst the “pupupu” of the submachine gun’s strafing, everyone around was silent as a cicada in winter.

Time was both long and short. Within a dozen seconds, Wei Chengbo threw the empty submachine gun on the ground, turned around, and strode away: “Dismissed!”

Gu Chenzhou remained silent. He followed behind Wei Chengbo, left Dexin Garden, got in the car, returned to Tianrui Garden, and then went back to Wei Chengbo’s home, where he said angrily to Gu Xinjun, who had come from next door:

“Old Gu, I’ll be direct. This matter has been investigated to this point, and it’s already very obvious. You don’t need to get involved anymore! He Nanshan has good methods. If he dares to kill people and cut off the evidence, I also dare to fight him to the death!”

Gu Chenzhou sighed deeply in his heart. He still said nothing, just waiting for Gu Xinjun to make a decision.

But in fact, at this time, there was no second choice.

Only an hour and a half.

An hour and a half ago, he had told Wei Xiangjin that this matter would not affect the Gu family’s plan to retreat…

“Wei Chengbo, what do you mean by this?” Gu Xinjun’s face was very grim. “You watched my Chenzhou grow up, didn’t I watch your Xiangjin grow up? If He Nanshan wants to cut off your family’s roots, he’s cutting off my Gu family’s roots! Now everything has come to light. Although we can’t hold the evidence, we can be sure that everything was done by He Nanshan behind the scenes. Again and again, He Nanshan has too little regard for our two families! He stands with the Yu faction, so we will stand with the Wang faction. Let’s see who will pull whom down in the end!”

Wei Chengbo let out a sigh of relief, sat back on the sofa and said, “Old Gu, let’s analyze Wang Boyuan.”

The following discussion was about the victory and defeat of the Wang faction and the Yu faction. Gu Chenzhou did not stay any longer. He quietly left the house, but did not go back next door. Instead, he drove to Tianxiang Mountain Villa.

Now he needed to be alone and quiet, to think carefully.

In the early morning on the mountain, before the sun came out, a thin veil of mist often gathered.

Gu Chenzhou sat in the back garden of the villa drinking tea, just like the previous two days. But today, he also received an uninvited guest.

“Grandpa, why are you here?” Gu Chenzhou said in surprise as he went forward to greet him.

Old Master Gu, who got out of the car, said with a chuckle, “I’ve been too lonely these two days without my grandson to accompany me fishing.”

“I was planning to go back today.” Gu Chenzhou explained, and then said, “Grandpa, you haven’t been here to see it yet, have you? I’ll show you around.”

Old Master Gu nodded and went in with Gu Chenzhou.

Gu Chenzhou took Old Master Gu for a tour upstairs and downstairs, and finally walked to the garden behind the villa—they both knew that Old Master Gu did not come here to see how the villa was built.

“What are your thoughts on the Shi Shan matter?” Sitting down on the stone bench, Old Master Gu asked Gu Chenzhou directly.

“He Nanshan played a good hand.” Since his grandfather was here, Gu Chenzhou poured out all the tea leaves and water in the teapot, washed them one by one, and began to boil water and make tea again. “He laid this chess piece, Shi Shan, five years ago. If it weren’t for the car accident being accidentally exposed, the alliance between the Gu and Wei families would have been in jeopardy at that time. But since the matter was exposed, he was not in a hurry. He hid in the dark and did not act until now, when he made a decisive move, a thunderous strike.”

“The tens of kilograms of the warehouse door in Dexin Garden were locked from the inside. There were no windows and no sewers. Shi Shan died inside, holding a knife in her hand and stabbing it into her heart… Almost without waiting for the coroner’s examination, it can be confirmed that Shi Shan committed suicide.” Gu Chenzhou’s face was indifferent. He had thought about these things repeatedly in the past two days. “The same is true for the dead. Comparing Wang Chang, who was killed by He Hailou, with Shi Shan, who was killed by He Nanshan, the difference is immediately apparent. To put it bluntly, He Hailou is sinister, has a plan, and has courage, but his methods are still a bit immature. It’s not too difficult to see through and counterattack. As for He Nanshan, Dad thought of this when he learned about Shi Shan—but at this time, our Gu family can no longer get out. As long as we investigate, we can’t get out of this matter. He is not afraid or simply wants us to find out something, but at the last moment, he pulls the rug out from under us and destroys the most crucial evidence…”

Gu Chenzhou poured boiling water into the teapot, picked up the lid, and gently skimmed off the tea foam at the mouth of the pot.

“There are people pulling in front, people pushing behind, and the Wei family standing by our side.” Gu Chenzhou sighed, “We can only stand on the right side, and we must stand decisively.”

Wei Xiangjin’s car accident and Gu Chenzhou’s attack were different.

Gu Chenzhou was attacked only because He Hailou wanted to muddy the waters, and he was not in any danger of his life; but Wei Xiangjin was different. In that car accident, if Gu Chenzhou had not arrived in time, he would have really died that time.

On this point, not to mention that Wei Chengbo could not bear it, even Gu Chenzhou would absolutely not be able to say to Wei Xiangjin, who had suffered a life-threatening threat: you endure it and wait for this change of term to pass, we will accumulate strength and plan for the future.

More than ten years of brotherhood, and the friendship of three generations of the two families.

If they don’t take a stand at this time, the decades-long alliance between Wei and Gu will inevitably split. Whether from a political point of view or a personal emotional point of view, Gu Chenzhou could not accept such a result.

And now, the struggle between Yu and Wang has just begun, and no one knows the result, so the Gu and Wei families can still take sides and fight. As long as they win, in the next ten years, they will probably see the end of He Nanshan in prison…

“Grandpa,” Gu Chenzhou suddenly said, “there is another way.” His eyes flickered with a cold light, “We must stand on the side of the Wang faction now, this is already beyond doubt. But it is not without a chance to get out of this vortex…”

“Oh?” Old Master Gu said, “Tell me.”

“Drag the He family down.” His voice was calm, “Even if Dad doesn’t have the possibility of going further, we will drag the He family down with us. If he is sent to the provinces for five years, I don’t see how He Nanshan can run for the Standing Committee and the Premier. At that time, with the Gu and Wei families joining forces, even if the authorities take care of him, they may not be able to take down He Nanshan.”

“You don’t think highly of Wang Boyuan at all?” Old Master Gu was thoughtful, but did not mean to get to the bottom of it with Gu Chenzhou. Then he said slowly, “This is also good. Before you plan for success, plan for failure. Before you plan for gain, plan for loss…”

A black shadow suddenly flipped down from the tree and jumped onto the stone table!

The guard who had been standing by was startled and was about to raise his gun.

Old Master Gu was also stunned for a moment, and then when he looked closely, he saw that the black shadow was a monkey: “This…” He hadn’t seen a monkey appear in front of people so openly for a long time.

“Squeak, squeak!” The monkey chirped twice and handed the apple in its claw to Gu Chenzhou.

Gu Chenzhou reached out and took it: “I brought it back from Huainan. It looks quite smart.”

In this sentence, the monkey had already jumped back onto the tree, took out another apple from somewhere, and jumped down again to hand it to Old Master Gu.

Old Master Gu was a little surprised this time: “I have one too?”

“Squeak, squeak!” The monkey chirped twice, looked left and right, jumped down from the stone table, and ran to the well. It actually brought over a small mouthwash cup with some water in it, held it up and wanted to hand it to Gu Chenzhou and Old Master Gu.

“…Is it for us to wash the fruit?” Old Master Gu asked.

“I think so…” Gu Chenzhou said, also feeling in his heart that this monkey was getting smarter and smarter. He took the cup from the monkey’s hand and put it on the stone table, then took the apples in his and his grandfather’s hands to the well to wash them before handing them back to Old Master Gu.

Old Master Gu took it and took a bite.

“It’s quite sweet.” He smiled at the monkey, praised it a few times, and seeing that the monkey was also very happy, dancing with its hands and feet, he couldn’t help but get interested. He teased the monkey for a long time until he finished the apple, then stood up and said, “Alright, you have your own ideas, Grandpa is relieved.”

He raised his arm, placed his hand on Gu Chenzhou’s shoulder, and squeezed it gently, saying, “Politics is like this. There are ups and downs, there is glory and desolation. We can afford to win, and we must also know how to lose.”