Chapter 13 - 1#

Jiang Qin didn’t come home for two consecutive weeks, didn’t answer calls, and didn’t reply to messages.

Jin Yan was full of anger, and in the company, he was also irritable, scolding people severely at every turn. One day, a young male model messed up two sets of shots, which happened to be discovered by Jin Yan during his inspection, and he scolded the person to tears on the spot.

It is unknown where the gossip started, saying that the director whom President Jin personally drove to pick up at the company’s annual meeting that day was actually a couple with President Jin, but now the two have fallen out and are breaking up. For a time, everyone suddenly realized—it turned out to be a fire in the backyard! So they all avoided Jin Yan coincidentally.

There were also some flexible-minded people who wanted to climb up, feeling that they had an opportunity, and ran to the top-floor office dressed up all day long. After the rumors spread, everyone knew that Jin Yan liked the same sex more than the opposite sex, so there were many young male stars among these people, all of whom were popular flower boys nowadays. As a result, Jin Yan was annoyed to death and didn’t even want to go to the company. He watched Li Meng do homework at home all day, making little student Li Xiaomeng very pitiful.

Jiang Qin stayed in the hotel for two weeks and often met Fang Yuan when commuting. He hadn’t contacted his family for many years and actually missed them very much in his heart. Every time he met Fang Yuan, he would stop and chat for a while, and go out for tea together on weekends.

As a result, that day, several colleagues from the police station had a dinner party, and Fang Yuan insisted that Jiang Qin go with them. Under the great hospitality, Jiang Qin also paid for a share. Several people ordered a table of dishes and half a table of wine in the mutton restaurant. They drank a lot while exchanging cups. When the cool wind blew after coming out, Jiang Qin suddenly felt a headache.

A policewoman drank less and volunteered to drive them back. Seven or eight big men squeezed into an SUV, and the smell of sweat filled the car. Jiang Qin could only stick his head out of the window desperately to breathe.

Just then the phone rang. He didn’t look carefully and picked it up asking: “Hello?”

Jin Yan asked coldly: “Did you drink again?”

Jiang Qin sobered up instantly, didn’t know how to answer, and just stalemated there.

The car quieted down at some point. The people in the front row probably fell asleep, and no one in the back row spoke. Jin Yan’s voice was particularly clear on the phone: “Jiang Qin, our conflict is our business, you can’t ignore the child. Li Xiaomeng has been crying and clamoring for you for many days. You don’t even call him. Do you really not want to care about him anymore?”

Jin Yan’s ability to make trouble out of nothing was simply at its peak. In previous quarrels, Jiang Qin could never win against him. He could always pick out Jiang Qin’s mistakes, hold on to them, expand them infinitely, and put on a face of “Although I was wrong, you were not completely right either, so let’s not haggle over it and take a step back to broaden the horizon.”

So later Jiang Qin was too lazy to argue with him and directly sanctioned him with cold violence. Jin Yan was not afraid of anything, but he was afraid of cold violence. Once Jiang Qin ignored him, he would be full of anger and confusion, always wanting to find fault and quarrel. But when he was anxious, he often made bad moves, making himself unable to step down, and finally could only roll on the ground and act shamelessly to finish the matter.

“Where are you now? Do you know that Li Xiaomeng almost failed math in this midterm exam? Oh, I’m fine, I can take care of myself, but the child is still so young. Can you bear to see him fail to get into college and have no food to eat in the future, huh?!”

Jin Yan paused, probably hearing that Jiang Qin on the other end of the phone kept silent, feeling uncertain, so he softened his tone and said: “But don’t worry, I have already educated the child. As long as you come home quickly, nothing will happen. He just wants to attract the attention of adults. He feels insecure if you don’t come home all the time. You have to understand children… He won’t blame you, and don’t blame him either.”

If it weren’t for so many people sitting in the car, Jiang Qin would have sneered. Li Meng failed math? Li Meng had an IQ of 160 when he was tested at the age of thirteen. He failed high school math?

“You know, Jiang Qin, actually I don’t blame you. You left home to relax, can’t I understand this?” Jin Yan changed the subject and emphasized: “I’m not forcing you to come back, it’s just that our child needs you. Actually, I’m fine, really fine. You must not have any psychological burden.”

Jiang Qin couldn’t help but open his mouth, suddenly realizing that the car was quiet, not knowing how many people were asleep and how many were listening to him, so he gritted his teeth and endured, saying coldly: “We’ll see.”

Jin Yan was in a mess: “What do you mean we’ll see! When on earth are you coming home! Hey Jiang Qin, I warn you, I’m not joking!…”

Jiang Qin hung up the phone heavily.

Fang Yuan, sitting close to him, looked embarrassed and held back a sentence after a long while: “Jin Yan… has quite a temper, huh.”

“Hmm.”

“Then are you still sleeping in the hotel tonight?”

“Hmm.”

Fang Yuan stole a glance at him and comforted him carefully: “Actually Jin Yan still loves the child very much, you can hear it. By the way, does Li Meng take his mother’s surname? Jin Yan has no objection?”

Although Jiang Qin was a little surprised why he brought it up in front of a car full of people, he didn’t think much about it and said: “When Li Meng was born, it was not smooth. Jin Yan went to the temple to make a big wish, donated two tanks of sea lamps, and asked for the surname in front of the Buddha.”

Before Li Meng was born, Jin Yan didn’t know how many names he thought of, racking his brains to embed both of their names, but no matter how he arranged and combined them, they sounded weird. Later, after asking for the surname in front of the Buddha, he thought he might as well save the trouble and ask for the name directly, so there was the character Meng.

Fang Yuan suddenly realized and asked: “Then do you still contact Li Meng’s mother now?”

Jiang Qin couldn’t say that Li Meng came from surrogacy, so he just smiled and shook his head.

“Hey, it’s nothing. Seeing that you have a good relationship with Jin Yan now, the family is relieved.”

I don’t know if it was Jiang Qin’s illusion, but Fang Yuan’s words seemed a bit probing, and after saying it, the atmosphere in the car was weird. He frowned, and after a long while, he gave a vague “hmm” and closed his eyes without speaking.

After circling around the city, Jiang Qin got off near the hotel.

It was still a ten-minute walk from Fang Yuan’s home, but he said he wanted to blow some wind to sober up, so he also got off. He also stuffed a cigarette to Jiang Qin, and the two walked towards the hotel while chatting.

As a result, no one expected that something happened right at the hotel entrance.

At that time, Fang Yuan said he was thirsty from drinking too much, so Jiang Qin asked him to go up for a cup of tea before leaving. When the two entered the hotel gate side by side, two young men suddenly rushed out from behind, grabbed Fang Yuan and dragged him back without saying a word.

This came too fast, and Jiang Qin had drunk alcohol, so he didn’t react at that time. Fang Yuan was sober, but the incident happened too suddenly. Before he could figure out what happened, he was dragged to the street and punched hard!

“What are you doing?!” Jiang Qin rushed over in a stride and shouted sternly: “Stop!”

The two didn’t listen at all. One pushed Jiang Qin several steps away, and the other raised his foot to kick Fang Yuan.

But was Fang Yuan so easy to kick? He suffered a loss just now because he was caught off guard. Now seeing a kick coming, he immediately raised his hand to grab the man’s ankle, twisted it hard, and at the same time kneed the man’s leg bend hard. The whole action was done in one go without any flaws, truly not even half a second off, and instantly pressed the man to kneel on the ground!

Seeing his companion suffer, the other person immediately pounced to fight, but was grabbed by Jiang Qin and couldn’t break free.

Actually, Jiang Qin wasn’t very strong. Those two moves could only beat Jin Yan, but were useless in a real fight. Fortunately, that person didn’t dare to fight him, so he fell into a disadvantage during the struggle. While entangled, he was knocked down by Fang Yuan with a kick and almost vomited blood.

The whole process took less than a minute. Fang Yuan solved the two cleanly, clapped his hands and asked: “Are you okay?”

Jiang Qin then realized with hindsight that his heart was beating very fast. After a long while, he said hoarsely: “I… am fine.”

Several passers-by watched from a distance, not daring to come forward, only pointing at them.

Seeing this, the young man who was kicked over earlier got up and wanted to slip away. Fang Yuan was quick-eyed and quick-handed, grabbed him directly and pinned him against a tree, shouting: “Who sent you? What do you want to do? If you are not honest, I will send you directly to the police station!”

That person was still stubborn and refused to say. Fang Yuan didn’t talk nonsense, directly clicked the handcuffs.

That person immediately softened and begged for mercy repeatedly: “Big brother, calm down! Calm down! I failed to recognize Mount Tai and offended you. Please don’t hold it against me!”

“Don’t talk nonsense with me! Say, who sent you, what grudge do you have with me?!”

That person hemmed and hawed and refused to say. After being beaten by Fang Yuan a few times, he spat out a name called “Kun Yang”. He only said that Fang Yuan offended this big brother surnamed Kun, and knew nothing else.

Fang Yuan said he never knew this person, and couldn’t force anything out after questioning. But Jiang Qin’s heart moved and said: “I remember a person surnamed Kun once came to our house and gave some calligraphy and painting to Jin Yan… Did Jin Yan send you?”

That person denied repeatedly, but his face had changed.

I don’t know if it was because of too much alcohol or excessive fright, Jiang Qin only felt breathless. After a long while, he barely asked in a normal tone: “—Jin Yan sent you to follow me?”

That person almost peed his pants in fear. If Fang Yuan hadn’t held him down, he might have knelt down and kowtowed on the spot: “Ouch, please have mercy, you are my uncle, my real uncle! If Brother Jin knows we messed up, my brains will be kicked out! You are magnanimous, we really have no choice, just messing with Brother Kun for a living!…”

Jiang Qin gasped for breath, but felt he couldn’t inhale any oxygen, his chest feeling stuffy. Seeing this, Fang Yuan immediately patted his back hard twice and asked in a low voice: “Are you okay?”

“Tell… tell them to leave,” Jiang Qin gasped, “Leave now.”

Fang Yuan didn’t take these small hooligans who knocked people out on the street seriously, kicked them and signaled them to get lost. The two young men were trembling with fear, got up and ran away in a flash, not even daring to look back.

“Help me hail a taxi, I’m going to Star Entertainment.”

Seeing his pale face, Fang Yuan felt a little unbearable and asked: “What are you going to do at Star Entertainment?”

Jiang Qin didn’t know if it was anger or something else. His lips were trembling when he spoke, saying word by word: “—I’m going to find Jin Yan!”

When Jiang Qin arrived at Star Entertainment, Jin Yan already knew the whole thing.

Kun Yang’s voice on the other end of the phone was almost crying: “Brother Jin, I really didn’t expect these two brats to be so useless. The man your wife found is too skilled, damn it, he even has handcuffs. The two little brats confessed as soon as they were beaten, pouring out everything like beans from a bamboo tube, even I didn’t escape…”

Jin Yan knew that if Jiang Qin went drinking, it could only be because he met Fang Yuan. And Fang Yuan was a policeman—according to him, a civil policeman, whether it was true or not—he had some skills anyway. Subduing two small hooligans was really a piece of cake.