Chapter 14 - 2#

The personalities of Jiang Qin and Jin Yan were vastly different. Fundamentally speaking, the key word for Jiang Qin was “caution.” He would plan before acting and would never make a move easily unless he was 99% sure. Once he discovered that something he had poured a lot of effort into was exposed or even threatened his own initiative, he would immediately give up everything and withdraw resolutely without any hesitation.

This was actually not cowardice, but a manifestation of mental maturity and patience. Not everyone had the courage to cut off their own wrist like a brave warrior. In this regard, Jin Yan was completely different. He was good at taking risks, extremely bold, and curious. In the words of the ancients, his fate carried Tai Chi. Even if the situation was extremely critical, he could grit his teeth and walk on firmly, eventually finding a chance of survival in a desperate situation.

For example, sending someone to follow. If Jiang Qin sent Jin Yan to follow Li Xiaomeng to see if he went home obediently or went to an internet cafe to play games after school, but unfortunately was discovered by Li Xiaomeng and caused a big scene (“You don’t respect my personality! Violate my human rights! I want to appeal to the court to deprive you of custody waaaah!”), then Jiang Qin would definitely recall Jin Yan immediately and would not play this tracking game for a long time.

However, if it were Jin Yan, he would not stop.

He felt that the reason he was discovered was because the quality of those two punks was too low and Kun Yang was incompetent. Of course, Fang Yuan’s personal ability was also beyond his expectation, but that was not the point.

So he beat Kun Yang up, personally visited the intermediary in the underworld, hired a tracking expert who was said to have retired from the top mercenary industry, and continued to track Jiang Qin from the next day.

He insisted on finding out how much Jiang Qin knew and who told him. Jin Yan had a beast-like keen and terrible intuition that this secret must be the key to Jiang Qin’s request for divorce—even Jiang Qin knew not only about Zuo Zhijie, he must know something else, something fatal, something beyond his moral bottom line that he couldn’t accept, otherwise his attitude towards divorce wouldn’t be so resolute.

An expert knows if there is something as soon as he makes a move. The person hired with a high salary this time really dug out something real.

—Zuo Zhijie came back from the United States.

Jin Yan felt cold all over as soon as he heard it, and the tracking expert’s next sentence immediately threw him into the ice cave of the coldest winter:

“This person came back more than half a year ago, and has already had face-to-face contact with Mr. Jiang.”

Jiang Qin pushed open the door of the teahouse, walked to his usual seat and sat down, ordered a pot of Tieguanyin and two plates of snacks.

A few minutes later, a man wearing gloves and a silver-gray suit walked up to him, pulled out a chair and sat down, saying: “Jiang Qin.”

“…Mr. Zuo.”

Zuo Zhijie smiled, picked up the teacup indifferently and smelled the fragrance: “Haven’t contacted for a while, how have you been recently? Is Jin Yan’s business okay?”

“Thanks to you.”

“For a person like him, it’s probably hard not to be prosperous. How about it, last time I told you that Jin Yan was involved in the Jiang family’s affairs back then, but you didn’t believe it. Have you asked anything now?”

Jiang Qin’s face was a bit ugly. After a long while, he said: “Haven’t asked yet.”

“Is it that you haven’t found a chance to ask, or you don’t want to ask at all?” Zuo Zhijie smiled again and said understandingly: “I understand. Some things have passed for too long, and it’s meaningless to ask for a result. Besides, what can you get by asking? The same thing feels different when said from different people’s mouths. It depends on how you understand it.”

He took a sip of tea and looked at Jiang Qin as if he found it very interesting.

Jiang Qin folded his hands on the edge of the table. His neatly trimmed oval nails glowed slightly. Because of practicing piano since childhood, his fingers were particularly long, and there was no temperature at the fingertips.

He looked at his hands expressionlessly for a long time, not knowing what he was thinking. It took a long time before he said: “I don’t need to ask. For these things, once I figure it out, I will almost know the cause and effect… But Mr. Zuo, you asked me out from so far away, it shouldn’t be just to say these few words.”

Zuo Zhijie didn’t deny it either, shrugged and said: “I came to say goodbye to you.”

“You are going back to the United States?”

“Hmm, the Zuo family has failed. Thanks to the brothers and sisters of the Jin family, they can now truly be called the only dominant family. You probably can’t imagine how many people Jin Yan manages now. After the Zuo family failed, his power has grown to a level that no one could imagine two years ago. A company like Star Entertainment, the world you helped him build hard more than ten years ago, maybe is completely out of his eyes now.”

Zuo Zhijie paused and said: “Don’t think I’m saying this to sow discord. Jin Yan hasn’t been to the company much recently, and often pushes the business of Star Entertainment to his subordinates. You must be able to see these too. Did he dare to do this a few years ago? A few years ago, this company was his capital for survival. Heh, now he has much more. Most of the Jin family’s shady businesses are under his control.”

Jiang Qin closed his eyes slightly and remained silent.

“I have to go. Our family is no longer an opponent for people like Jin Yan. Do you believe that with Jin Yan’s means, maybe one day my body will be found by the highway, and even the cause of death can’t be found?” Zuo Zhijie laughed at himself and said: “I’m really not sowing discord between you, Jiang Qin. I say this out of sincerity. These are all words from the bottom of my heart.”

He drank the tea in one gulp. Just as he was about to get up and leave, he saw Jiang Qin take out a check from his wallet, press it on the table with his fingertips and gently push it to him.

Zuo Zhijie’s face changed slightly: “You are…”

“What I have is limited,” Jiang Qin said, “I can’t help you more.”

He stood up and walked out. Zuo Zhijie looked at his back and asked loudly: “What are you doing? Want to make it up to me? Jiang Qin—”

“I don’t know,” Jiang Qin said, “I didn’t think that much.”

He strode out of the teahouse and didn’t look back until he disappeared outside the glass door.

Zuo Zhijie sat back dejectedly.

It was already very warm in this season. The air carried the moist smell of grass and trees in early summer. The sunlight shone from the window onto the shiny solid wood floor of the teahouse. In a trance, one could see tiny dust floating in the air.

For a few seconds, he even forgot where he was and forgot his own existence, as if the great hatred and obsession in his life disappeared instantly as that person turned around.

He covered his face hard and let out a long sigh that even he couldn’t hear.

Zuo Zhijie sat motionless for a long time until the tea was completely cold before getting up to go to the bathroom, preparing to leave the teahouse.

The teahouse business wasn’t very good. At this time, the bathroom was empty. He lowered his head to wash his hands with a heavy heart, only to hear the door behind him being pushed open and someone walking in.

He didn’t pay attention either. Just as he turned around, he felt his shoulder being patted: “Mr. Zuo?”

Zuo Zhijie subconsciously said “Hmm”. Before he could turn his head, he was pressed onto the counter by that person. Immediately, a hand like iron pliers blocked his mouth, and his whole person was tightly restrained. A series of actions took less than half a second, so swift and tough that resistance was impossible!

“Mmph mmph mmph…” Zuo Zhijie couldn’t struggle at all, only hearing the person shout in a low voice: “Don’t make a sound if you don’t want to die! Outside the teahouse are all Jin Yan’s people. You want them to rush in now, right?”

Zuo Zhijie was dumbfounded instantly.

“Looking at you like this, no wonder the Zuo family is failing.” The person let go and ordered coldly: “Be sensible and cooperate honestly, otherwise in at most three days, Jin Yan can make you a nameless corpse by the highway. Now shut your mouth, go change clothes, and follow me.”

Zuo Zhijie asked tremblingly: “You… what do you want to do to me? I warn you…”

Although the man was wearing casual clothes, his whole body had a tough and undeniable momentum. Hearing this, he sneered silently: “Save it. Your little tricks are only enough to deal with my beautiful cousin who has the benevolence of a woman.”

Zuo Zhijie wanted to say something more, but the man threw him a bag containing the teahouse staff uniform directly, then walked to the exhaust window, propped himself up on the window sill and jumped up, making a “follow quickly” gesture to Zuo Zhijie.

Jin Yan wore headphones, extended the muzzle into the round hole behind the soundproof glass plate, adjusted the selector to 1, aimed at the target and fired a bullet with a bang.

His subordinate showed him the parameters transmitted to the tablet computer. Seeing him nod, he took it to the gun expert.

Jin Yan adjusted the selector to two-round burst, and this time hit a 9.5 and a 9 ring.

Just as the subordinate brought the computer over, suddenly someone hurriedly pushed open the door of the shooting range, walked to Jin Yan and opened a notebook with a line of words written on it: “Tell Mr. Jin, Zuo Zhijie ran away.”

Jin Yan’s face didn’t change. His finger clicked to full auto. This time, bang bang bang, he fired all the bullets in one breath. Without looking at the target, he took off the headphones and threw them, and strode out.

Everyone lowered their heads and dared not say a word. It wasn’t until the sound of his footsteps went out of the gate that they breathed a sigh of relief one after another.

“How did Zuo Zhijie run away?”

Jin Yan wiped his fingers with cotton dipped in alcohol, looking very focused. When asking this, he didn’t even raise his head.

However, the heaviness of his voice made his confidants who were used to seeing various dangerous scenes tremble uncontrollably.

“We were waiting outside the teahouse, and then Mr. Jiang came out very quickly. That Zuo Zhijie didn’t mean to follow. Mr. Jiang drove the car out alone. We didn’t dare to stop him or show ourselves, so we all hid far away on the street. After a while when he went far, when we surrounded the teahouse entrance again, there was no one in the seat…”

“Did you search the teahouse?”

“Searched, no one saw him come out. Mr. Jiang paid the bill.”