Chapter 62#

In fact, for the first month after Yan Zishu fell into the sea and went missing, Fu Jinchi kept his eyes open almost all night long.

He couldn’t say if it was insomnia, but as soon as he closed his eyes, it was all thick blood color. It seemed that he could still smell the overwhelming rust in his nasal cavity, which made him unable to bear it and crawl up after lying down for a while. Others said they smelled nothing.

Occasionally falling asleep for a while, Fu Jinchi would dream of Yan Zishu, but none of them were scenes that would make him happy.

He always saw Yan Zishu falling on the deck with a weak breath, and a dark shadow still frantically raising a dagger.

But he was desperately powerless to stop it, until he woke up in agony, and then ran to the bathroom to vomit.

There was no way. That day Fu Jinchi climbed up the observation deck and even watched helplessly as the blade was pulled out of the flesh and blood for the last time.

The stimulation was too great, whether visually or mentally. It would be strange if he wasn’t crazy by now.

From the outside, Fu Jinchi didn’t show the appearance of seeking death like on the day of the incident.

But familiar subordinates, including Secretary Lily, felt that the boss was getting further and further away from a normal person.

Ah no, there was still one time. Lily witnessed with her own eyes that just after coming back from the sea, Fu Jinchi was lost in soul and insisted on going to the small flower bed on the roof of the building where Yinghan Group was located, almost digging through every inch of flower mud. She even had to help call the cleaning lady and the building management one by one to ask if they had cleaned this place, and finally found an inexplicable cufflink.

Whose it was, it was easy to guess, but Lily just wondered, did they do it here? Why would it fall here?

Later, the other one was found in Yan Zishu’s relics—bah, can’t say relics, but someone had to go to his rented house to tidy up personal belongings—and then Lily found that no matter what clothes Fu Jinchi wore, he wore that pair of cufflinks. One had lost its luster due to wear, and the other was almost new, appearing as unparticular as it could be.

And all that person’s belongings, from clothes, shoes, and hats to books and green plants, were also moved to the boss’s own home.

In fact, Fu Jinchi originally went directly to live in Yan Zishu’s place, looking like he was waiting for someone to return. Later, looking at the traces of life left everywhere by him, and the water in the cup evaporated by half, he couldn’t stand it himself, saying something like “He only treated this place as a transition.”

Lily was used to Fu Jinchi going back on his word. Fine, the boss said move things, then move.

There weren’t many things in total. A few boxes were enough to pack them all, and Fu Jinchi packed them himself.

The sealed moving boxes were stacked on the floor of the small western-style house. He sat in the twilight light, wondering what he was thinking.

Lily didn’t know that Fu Jinchi was imagining the scene of Yan Zishu standing there, quietly packing things up.

He used to be very confident, whether by coercion and inducement, or by coaxing and deception, anyway, he had the ability to put Yan Zishu in his pocket.

Fu Jinchi felt that there was no rush. He could keep him waiting first. After all, there were many more important things. Wait until the day when Fu Weishan had no hope of turning over, and until those who deserved bad luck got their due ending, then it wouldn’t be too late to think about how to play love tricks.

But Fu Jinchi had already fantasized about the scene of picking the fruit of victory in advance.

At that time, he could have many ways and many excuses to make Yan Zishu live in his home. Yan Zishu, this person, was actually quite sensible and interesting. Fu Jinchi imagined facing such a person day and night, and sometimes he would secretly feel happy.

On the day Yan Zishu really moved in, he could tease lightly on the side: “Do you have to pay something to live in my house?” Or change to another one: “Don’t think about going out in the future.” Of course, it was all flirting. Fu Jinchi could imagine that the other party would show a helpless and soft look. Then he could take the opportunity to put his arm around Yan Zishu’s thin shoulders, pull the other party into his arms and hug him…

But Fu Jinchi didn’t realize the problem. Flirting was fine, but why had he never thought of saying “Because I love you”?

His way of dealing with things was habitually denying happiness, using predatory means to cover up the real desire in his heart.

Anyway, it’s too late to say anything now.

Now imagining that scene again would only make his heart pierce with hundreds and thousands of needles, and he couldn’t continue further.

Lily didn’t dare to disturb him, only saying that the boss had neurasthenia recently, so she said to turn on the record player and play some music casually.

Logically speaking, the music in Fu Jinchi’s house was all listened to by himself usually, so there shouldn’t be any problem. Who knew that after playing for a while, it cycled to a nonsense song. The lyrics sang “How many birds in the same forest have become separate swallows” for a while, and “The lover is gone, to whom to cry for injustice” for a while. Lily was so scared that she quickly rushed over and turned it off with a snap, laughing awkwardly twice.

The room was immediately enveloped in heavy and awkward silence.

Darkness stirred into cement, almost solidifying. After a long while, Fu Jinchi didn’t get angry, waving his hand to tell her she could go home.

Later, Fu Jinchi also brought back the suit shirt Yan Zishu wore when he was kidnapped, which was found on the ship, as well as his mobile phone.

The clothes were quite damaged and mottled, but he wouldn’t let them be washed, just hanging them there as they were, hidden in the wardrobe.

Lily felt that he was very contradictory. He didn’t believe that something happened to the person, but insisted on keeping this for self-torture. What for?

Forget it, he is the boss, he pays the salary, he can do whatever he loves.

As for the mobile phone, Fu Jinchi found a way to crack Yan Zishu’s mobile phone password, but there was actually nothing much except for work content. At most, there were many photos and videos of the picked-up puppy in the album.

Fu Jinchi looked at it for a long time and thought, Why are there photos of stray dogs in his phone but none of me?

—If Lily knew he even had to compare this, she really wouldn’t know what to say.

But Fu Jinchi’s phone actually had photos of Yan Zishu, all taken secretly while he was asleep.

He flipped through these photos late at night, admitting that he turned out to be a coward who dared not face his heart.

After more than a month of noise, Fu Jinchi finally looked calmer.

Perhaps it was because at the beginning, he refused to believe that Yan Zishu had suddenly disappeared. A perfectly fine living person had poured tea for him and spoken to him shortly after getting on the ship. How could he just disappear?

The longer time dragged on, the slimmer the hope of finding him. His subconscious had to accept it, but his body and mind were resisting violently.

These uncoordinated cognitions tore at his nerves crazily, screaming unwillingness.

At this point, Fu Jinchi finally realized with hindsight that he had severe insomnia.

But if he couldn’t sleep, he wouldn’t let others sleep and rest easy.

Lily secretly determined that the boss’s mental illness was already incurable and he had simply become more possessed.

Fu Jinchi, this person, his gentlemanly demeanor was all superficial work. In fact, he was extremely vengeful, not to mention those involved in Yan Zishu’s accident. He would definitely settle accounts one by one. Sometimes when Lily thought about this, she also felt quite terrible.

She had long known that the boss she followed was not very upright, and also knew that Fu Jinchi’s social network was particularly complex. There were a bunch of people in the think tank who had been in for high-IQ economic crimes. People with criminal records actually found it hard to be accepted by society after coming out, but Fu Jinchi seemed to particularly like to reuse them. If you said such a boss was dedicated to doing good and being a vegetarian, would you believe it?

But Lily was only a secretary for life affairs, so she didn’t get involved much in these things. She just remembered one sentence: watch more, ask less.

More obviously, the remnants of Wen Biao’s men were wiped out by the police’s anti-gang action, and the nightclub was sealed off. Including later, the former president of Yinghan Group, Fu Weishan, was also prosecuted by the procuratorate, and the first instance made a judgment unfavorable to him.

It seemed that Yinghan was busy filing an appeal for the second instance, but it seemed that Fu Jinchi had no intention of stopping yet.

Even one day, the lobby manager from Jinfengtai called Lily and said that a young student-like person came to see Fu Jinchi. He looked quite pitiful standing there. It was said that someone reported some of his faults to the school. He was already a senior, but as a result, he was facing non-graduation or something. The lobby manager asked her to ask Fu Jinchi if this was to plead for mercy and how to deal with it.

She instinctively thought at the time: Does the boss have a grudge against a student? Uh, but this sounds like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

After a while, Lily relayed the reply to the lobby manager: “The boss said, let that kid go to his own boyfriend to solve it.”

The lobby manager was confused, but since he got the definite message, he said okay and hung up.

In fact, what Lily conveyed to him was a summarized and simplified version. To fully restore it, Fu Jinchi showed a particularly strange smile at that time, stared at the crystal chandelier overhead for a while, and then looked away. His eyes made Lily shudder a little.

“Yes, I told him that he could come to me if he encountered any trouble. But that was all before. I now feel that stupid people harm others and themselves, it’s not worth it. Let him go to his own boyfriend to solve it. Provided his boyfriend can stay out of prison.”

Later, the lobby manager passed on the message again without understanding: “But what did that kid say? He just wants to ask the boss to let his boyfriend go?”

Lily thought to herself, I really don’t understand the love and hatred of these gays very well. She was just a ruthless messenger.

As a result, Fu Jinchi suddenly lost control this time: “Let him go in the next life! At least he knows he can find the person in prison! Isn’t this merciful enough?” He gritted his teeth and smashed the ornament, his eyes red. “What about me? Where can I go to find him? Let him get out!”

Lily knew she had said too much again.

But it also made her realize that the boss had never really been calm.

Later that day, Lily heard from the hourly worker that the boss almost smashed the entire study, which was quite surprising. She didn’t know how he accumulated such great anger. Actually, it wasn’t because of the same thing. It was because Fu Jinchi received another cross-border call from an insurance company. Every sentence stepped on a landmine, saying they wanted to confirm with him whether the insured person named Yan Zishu had died, and also confirm whether he was the beneficiary himself.

Fu Jinchi looked through for a long time. The other party sent a new receipt, and he found that Yan Zishu had changed the beneficiary and emergency contact to him at some unknown time. In fact, Yan Zishu had no good intentions. Doing this might have been meant to return the favor. But it was considered successful.

In short, no matter how you looked at it now, it was heartbreaking, forcing Fu Jinchi’s eyes to be full of red bloodshot.

On the day Yinghan Group filed an appeal for the second instance, Fu Jinchi just listened to it and still unswervingly asked Lily to buy him a plane ticket.

Lily didn’t mind booking tickets endlessly. It was nothing more than moving her fingers and making a phone call, and it wasn’t her money being spent. But she was just a little emotional, not knowing when Fu Jinchi would stop like this.

Her impression of Yan Zishu was actually quite good. After dealing with him a few times, she felt that the other party was a gentle and honest person. He didn’t talk much usually, but he did things very appropriately and was also very good-looking. Ignoring the boss’s paranoid personality, the two of them looked quite compatible.

But no matter how good a person is, if they encounter misfortune, death is like a lamp going out. He is just gone.

Besides, besides, she didn’t see the boss being so sticky with him before? The two of them looked like they were just playing together occasionally. If you said they were lovers who swore eternal love, and one left and the other didn’t want to live, then everyone could understand, right? But this, they hadn’t even defined a relationship, and Fu Jinchi didn’t seem like a very affectionate and devoted person. How could he suddenly be unswerving unto death?

But these words could only be thought in the stomach.

Regardless of whether others could understand, the situation was like this now.

Even if Fu Jinchi’s obsession was “to see the person alive or dead,” Lily pondered whether getting a definite result would make him give up and accept reality, learn to coexist with grief like a normal person, and move on with life.

But as she saw it now, Fu Jinchi clearly only accepted “seeing the person alive.” If one day he unfortunately found evidence of Yan Zishu’s death, who knew how many outrageous incidents this person would cause.

If a wound cannot scab, it will always fester. The boss being like this for a month or two was uncomfortable for others to watch. Three months or five months like this made Lily and the others a little more uneasy, even suspecting whether Fu Jinchi didn’t want to come out for ten or eight years.

But Lily couldn’t control that unknown result. she just had to do what the boss explained.

She just occasionally wondered, is it less heavy to be confused forever with illusory hope, or to open one’s eyes and be pierced through the chest by reality soberly? Both felt hard to answer.