Chapter 64#

The monastery Zeng Peirong mentioned was the St. John’s Monastery standing halfway up the mountain, which has a history of more than a hundred years.

Hong Kong has many mountains, and many buildings are built against the mountains like this, magnificent enough. The only fly in the ointment is that climbing up is extremely physically demanding. The sanatorium where Yan Zishu lived was at the foot of the mountain, separated by a distance. He walked slowly up the small path.

Zeng Peirong and her fellowship group were going to stay here for two days and one night. Yan Zishu was entrusted by her to communicate with the person in charge about accommodation matters.

There was a small chapel inside that was open to the public. When Yan Zishu came back, he went in and sat for a while, and no one stopped him.

Previously, he was brought here by Zeng Peirong to visit, and he also met two or three friendly preachers and staff members.

He got a visitor pass, and sometimes came over to look around by himself afterwards.

After all, people are social animals, and staying alone is also lonely.

Today was not a weekend, so there were few people. Only a middle-aged preacher sat in the chapel reading the New Testament aloud.

Yan Zishu recognized him but didn’t disturb him. He sat in the back row and listened for a while. The other party was reading in Cantonese:

“…For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice.”

The tone was even and the voice was steady. In the wide and empty hall, the volume was amplified by a little echo and sent to Yan Zishu’s ears.

The light refracted the dust dancing all over the sky. The stained glass painted with images of saints surrounded him high above, overlooking the world. In front was the solemn pulpit and cross, with a dark red curtain tied to one side. At this moment, he was tranquilly at peace with himself.

He thought, to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. Indeed.

Yan Zishu was a layman, not without resentment in his heart.

In the past six months, he would occasionally use his new mobile phone to check the latest news about Yinghan Group. He was far away from the center of the vortex. Now, like thousands of netizens, he only peeked into how the people he once knew were doing through various entertainment leaks.

He also saw the news of Fu Weishan’s first-instance verdict, which was quite heavy. Later, Fu Weishan’s gold-medal lawyer team seemed to have filed an appeal again, perhaps reducing his sentence by two years like a drop in the bucket. But since Fu Jinchi was making trouble, the result was probably hard to say.

Anyway, from the moment the criminal crime was confirmed, for Fu Weishan, who thought highly of himself and was proud inside, it was a huge Waterloo in his life. Not to mention that he himself might find it hard to accept, even Yan Zishu had never thought that the protagonist could go to jail.

But thinking narcissistically, who knows if the current situation was formed because he saved Fu Jinchi?

If Fu Jinchi had been injured or even died at that time, it would naturally be difficult to stir up trouble again. Maybe the plot would turn to the other side: Fu Weishan fought back from a desperate situation, was acquitted without danger, and embarked on the sunny road of a winner in life from then on.

Yan Zishu didn’t care how much possibility this hypothesis held, because a hypothesis can only be a hypothesis.

In terms of reality, he got the result he wanted anyway.

He didn’t have deep hatred for Fu Weishan, but he could only say sorry.

Loyalty is not such a cheap thing that can be obtained just by “setting.”

By now, since he was no longer restricted, he would say one thing: Fu Weishan had to be worthy of it too.

*

On the way back, Yan Zishu’s mind was still lingering on “For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice.” When he arrived at the sanatorium and passed the recreation room, he was caught by Old Mr. Ding, and returned to the secular world at once.

Old Mr. Ding had a loud voice and was always bluffing. seeing him, his eyes lit up: “I was wondering where you went this morning! Want to play a round?”

Old Mr. Ding, full name Ding Jiansheng, was also a long-term resident of this sanatorium. He was addicted to various chess and card games. He was bad at playing but had a big addiction. At first, when Yan Zishu always sat alone reading in the reading room, he tricked him into playing against him in the name of teaching him chess.

Later, when Yan Zishu found out that actually no one liked to play with him, it was too late to withdraw.

Even Old Mr. Ding’s own children and grandchildren didn’t want to play with him—the old man always retracted moves.

Only Yan Zishu could tolerate his retraction at will, so Ding Jiansheng praised this young junior endlessly. Another reason for their good relationship was that the language environment in Hong Kong was diverse. People who both spoke Mandarin would naturally fall into the same close small circle.

Old Mr. Ding was a mainlander who came to Hong Kong to strive in the last century. Although he had settled here for most of his life, the accent of his hometown was engraved in his bones, and so was his feeling for his hometown. While eating, Yan Zishu heard him recall the story of stealing sweet potatoes from someone else’s field and being chased by dogs when he was a child.

Old Mr. Ding complained to him: “Now even my grandson is busy as hell. Who has that American time (idle time) to listen to an old man nag about this?”

Yan Zishu just smiled, and indeed the old man was not without pride: “Forget it! At least it’s better than learning to drink and pick up girls all day long.”

Besides playing bad chess, the two of them usually talked about these domestic trifles. However, Old Mr. Ding, with his big mouth, never asked a single sentence about why Yan Zishu was an idle person at such a young age, living in solitude like a sick person.

This was exactly what Yan Zishu needed.

In the afternoon, the grandson Old Mr. Ding nagged about happened to come to visit him. In fact, judging from his appearance, he was already a mature and stylish business man.

Hearing that the other party had come, Yan Zishu went back to his room to find the proofread contract and went to hand it in.

This eldest grandson, Ding Hongbo, was not as friendly to Yan Zishu as his grandfather.

Old Mr. Ding started from scratch and built his own media group. In the territory of Hong Kong, he could be counted as a rich man. But rich families always put on airs. Probably in the eyes of his children and grandchildren, Yan Zishu was just one of the people who curried favor with the powerful around the old man.

Every time Ding Hongbo looked at Yan Zishu, his eyes said “I’ve seen a lot.”

It’s just that this level of contempt was nothing to Yan Zishu.

He had received much kindness, but he was not afraid of malice. He would not have cared about such small things long ago.

Moreover, now people were providing him with convenience and work. He should treat them as Party A.

It was because Yan Zishu spent a lot of money on hospitalization treatment before. He still had some anxiety about his situation of having no income and eating up his savings. during a chat, Old Mr. Ding noticed this and once casually told him that his grandson needed a freelance worker proficient in both Chinese and English to do some document proofreading work, which was relatively easy, and asked if Yan Zishu could help.

Look, this old man’s art of speaking, “could help.”

It wasn’t until Yan Zishu contacted Ding Hongbo later that the cat was let out of the bag on both ends.

The other side was concise and to the point, asking him to send his graduation certificate and certificate proving his foreign language level for review. Yan Zishu naturally couldn’t take them out and couldn’t explain. Ding Hongbo was very displeased: “Please, you have nothing and are incompetent, yet you dare to ask my grandfather for help? Why do you think I should give you this job?”

“…” He also knew that the old man meant well, but it might not work.

Although later, with Old Mr. Ding smoothing things over, Yan Zishu was still given this part-time job.

But it seemed that he was still considered by Ding Hongbo as an “opportunist who curried favor with and used the old man.”

Meeting today was the same as usual. Ding Hongbo was like a standard Party A, looking critically at the thick stack of contracts in the file bag full of sticky notes and annotations, seemingly estimating Yan Zishu’s work standard: “Just mail it next time.”

Yan Zishu never cared about the attitude of his financial backer. He smiled and left Old Mr. Ding’s room.

In the process of fighting for this job, Yan Zishu admitted that he indeed relied on his thick skin and indeed used Old Mr. Ding’s favor. But for him now, sources of income were always precious, every little bit counted.

Thinking about it, it was also very realistic. He had finally withdrawn from other people’s sadomasochistic love, but still had to consider his own livelihood.

If it were before, Yan Zishu wouldn’t be so embarrassed. He had savings and ability, and never thought he wouldn’t be able to support himself.

Until he lost his health, he discovered…

Maybe he would really lose a lot of things along with it.

*

Yan Zishu returned to his room, checked the time, poured out a row of pills, and took them with water, extremely familiar.

After that, he was sleepy but couldn’t sleep. Lying in bed, he considered his future. After all, he couldn’t hide on the island forever.

Calculating, he knew he had dragged on long enough. Every day passed, he should understand that there was one less day of peaceful life.

Currently, his savings were enough to live for three to five years, but not enough to elevate him to the leisure class that could live solely on wealth management and interest. Moreover, he had used a lot before. His current health condition meant that he would have to throw a lot of money into the hospital constantly in the future.

The time that could sustain his life would be even shorter. His fragile body could drag him down financially at any minute.

But he could no longer work at high intensity, nor could he work overtime forgetting food and sleep. Even the most basic eight-hour working hours might not guarantee enough energy. Thinking about this gave him a headache.

Yan Zishu was a little pessimistic. The jungle world outside would probably become a hard mode for him after he went back. In the future, he couldn’t always expect to meet kind people for charity.

He couldn’t do such a thing.

If he really had no way out… he remembered he had a commercial insurance policy. He just didn’t know if Fu Jinchi had discovered it. He was blindly confident at the time. Who would have expected that it would really be useful one day? Being discovered would be another embarrassing event.

Of course, Yan Zishu hadn’t realized at this time that the insurance company had a more sensitive nose than he thought and had called to confirm eight hundred years ago. Naturally, he didn’t know that Fu Jinchi was like a madman and refused to admit that something happened to the insured person.

Proofreading documents for Ding Hongbo for the first few days, and going to see the Bun Festival yesterday, he lacked energy. Yan Zishu was dazed. Lying down for a long time, he still fell asleep for a while. At dusk, he was woken up by his mobile phone again.

He looked at the caller drowsily and found it was Zeng Zhanpeng. He picked it up, and the other side hesitated: “William…”

Yan Zishu propped himself up, leaned against the head of the bed, and asked with a hoarse voice: “What’s wrong? How do you have time to call me?”

Compared to his sister Zeng Peirong, Zeng Zhanpeng rarely thought of chatting if there was nothing. Calling was mostly because something was up.

“It’s like this… I saw Mr. Fu today.” Zeng Zhanpeng seemed a little embarrassed. “He, I don’t know if I let it slip. Anyway, mentioning you, he seemed to have discovered something.”

Yan Zishu was much more awake and subconsciously looked out the window.

He was stunned for a moment before replying, Okay, I know. Then he came back to his senses, Thank you, Zeng Zhanpeng, for notifying me.

Zeng Zhanpeng felt his reaction was very flat. Didn’t he say he offended someone? “Is there any problem with this?”

“I don’t know either.” Yan Zishu said uncertainly. “But it shouldn’t be a big problem, right?”