Chapter 75: Disappearance — I’ll agree to anything… as long as you live…
Everything happened too fast, like a nightmare with the fast-forward button pressed.
The plateless car drifted in the rain curtain, tires crushing through puddles, turning around to rush at them again. Behind the window, Zhang Hao turned the steering wheel with his unbroken hand, slamming the accelerator to the floor. His face was twisted to the extreme, eyes burning with madness.
Jiang Yan maintained his position pinning Jiang Yunian down, protecting him firmly beneath his body. Rainwater blurred their faces. Jiang Yunian didn’t even have time to recover from the terror of the previous second before the shadow of death loomed again.
“Watch out!”
Jiang Yan reacted shockingly fast. Almost by instinct, he held Jiang Yunian and rolled violently toward the riverside guardrail.
Bang!
His back slammed heavily against the riverside guardrail, making a muffled sound. Jiang Yan’s brows furrowed deeply; cold sweat instantly seeped from his forehead, mixing with the rain.
“You… you’re hurt!” Jiang Yunian was protected in his arms, clearly feeling the tremors of his body. Looking up, he saw the clothes on Jiang Yan’s arm and back quickly soaked in a dazzling red. Frightened, his voice changed tune. He flusteredly used his hands to cover the continuously bleeding wound, his fingertips trembling.
Those intense pains were deliberately ignored by Jiang Yan. His arms still clamped tight around him, his voice suppressing pants. “Doesn’t hurt… go first…”
Jiang Yunian burned with anxiety. He hurried to pull him up, only to find the injuries were worse than imagined. The movement pulled at the wounds, making Jiang Yan’s face turn a few shades whiter.
However, before they could stand steady, that chilling engine sound returned.
Zhang Hao, driving that nearly destroyed plateless car, actually floored the gas pedal regardless of everything. Like a wild beast that had completely lost its reason, he drove straight at them!
“Dodge!” Jiang Yan’s pupils shrank abruptly. Using all his strength, he shoved Jiang Yunian in his arms away fiercely.
“Ah…”
Jiang Yunian fell heavily to the ground. looking back, his eyes split with rage. The car, with a posture of absolute finality, crashed boomingly into the guardrail they had just leaned against.
Crack—
The sound of steel dislocating was deafening. Half the guardrail was forcibly snapped. Driven by inertia, carrying Zhang Hao’s howl filled with hatred, the car rushed directly out of the broken gap, flying out with the person inside, plunging headlong into the surging river below.
Splash!
The massive sound of falling into water exploded in Jiang Yunian’s heart like a cannonball, splashing up sky-high spray.
After pushing him away, although Jiang Yan tried his best to turn sideways to avoid the impact, he lost the support of the guardrail. Added to the violent airflow caused by the falling car, the huge impact force carried him toward the edge of the broken gap, sliding out.
“Jiang Yan!”
Jiang Yunian was scared out of his wits, scrambling over on hands and knees.
One of Jiang Yan’s hands clung deathly to the edge of the stone slab. Relying only on his meager remaining strength, he struggled to support himself. Rain washed over the meandering blood trails on his arm, mixing with muddy water flowing down continuously. He hung in mid-air, his body sinking uncontrollably bit by bit. Below was the turbulent ocean of water, enough to swallow a living person whole.
“Grab me!” Jiang Yunian threw himself to the edge, half his body leaning out, deathly gripping the hand Jiang Yan used to cling to the edge. It felt wet and sticky; the red liquid was turbid, indistinguishable between rain and blood.
“Ugh…” Jiang Yan grunted, his face pale as paper, blue veins popping on his forehead. He tried to climb up with force, but that arm had obviously been heavily injured in the impact just now; he couldn’t exert any strength.
He looked up, cold rain dripping down his sharp jawline. Looking at his Ge’s face, so worried he was about to cry, he actually pulled a dismal smile.
“Ge… this time I’m the one saving you… does your heart… feel… a little better?”
“Stop talking! Come up first… hold tight…” Jiang Yunian shook his head desperately, tears flowing uncontrollably. However, his completely soaked clothes were incredibly heavy, increasing the difficulty of pulling. But he gritted his teeth, fingernails almost digging into Jiang Yan’s flesh, refusing to let go even if he died.
Jiang Yan could feel the strength of his life draining away bit by bit with his blood. His injuries were too severe. Relying on his Ge alone, it was impossible to pull him up. If this continued, he would only drag Ge down with him…
Jiang Yan suddenly clenched his teeth, a wave of despair rising from the bottom of his heart. He struggled to raise his other hand that could still move, holding Jiang Yunian’s hand back, but without using force. Then, he forced himself to look up. Rain beat on his pale face. Those eyes, usually deep and unfathomable, now reflected Jiang Yunian’s shadow, revealing complex emotions—fervor, paranoia, guilt, and a trace of unwillingness, finally strangely transforming into a near-calm release.
“This time… can you… forgive me?” He spoke with a hoarse throat, carrying a faint hope, sounding like a final farewell.
“Quick… come up…” In such a critical moment, Jiang Yunian had absolutely no mental energy to discuss anything else. He only wanted to save him, using all his strength to pull upward, his arms even scraping raw and bleeding from the excessive exertion.
Jiang Yan watched his Ge’s face turn red from trying his utmost, watching his stubborn refusal to give up despite the torrential tears. His heart was filled with mixed flavors. His eyes reddened, his lips astringent.
“It doesn’t matter if you can’t…” His breath grew weaker, wrapped in wind and rain. “Ge… I’m sorry… I have one more thing I haven’t told you… but it doesn’t seem important now…”
“Ugh…” He groaned in pain, using his last shred of strength to look at him deeply, full of attachment. “If I can survive… I don’t want to lie to Ge anymore…”
Before his voice faded, Jiang Yunian felt the hand he was gripping tightly begin to loosen its strength bit by bit.
“No…” Jiang Yunian was terrified. He tried desperately to hold on, but that hand was as slippery as a fish in water. “Don’t let go! I beg you! Don’t…”
In the moment when Jiang Yunian pitched forward due to the downward force, nearly slipping off, Jiang Yan gathered strength from somewhere unknown and broke free from his hand.
“No!”
Jiang Yunian grabbed downward in a breakdown, but grabbed empty air. He watched helplessly as the familiar figure, like a kite with a cut string, fell straight into the surging river below, swallowed bit by bit by the rolling waves until he completely disappeared.
Jiang Yunian maintained the posture of reaching forward, staring blankly at the river surface, eyes full of disbelief. A few seconds later, he propped himself on the edge of the broken stone slab, crying and shouting Jiang Yan’s name hoarsely toward the bottom. However, the only response was the continuous sound of rain. Suddenly remembering to call for help, he reached for his phone with trembling hands, only to find it had long been soaked and broken in the chaos just now. For a moment, huge despair drowned him.
“Help! Is anyone there? Someone fell down! Help…” He slumped on the ground, hands supporting himself on the cold, wet surface, crying brokenly toward the empty riverbank. The white expanse blurred his vision. “Ah Yan… you absolutely cannot have anything happen to you, don’t die… I forgive you, I’ll agree to anything… as long as you live…”
The following days became the darkest moments of Jiang Yunian’s life.
Search and rescue teams dredged the river surface day and night. Zhang Hao’s body and the wreckage of the car were quickly found, confirming death on the spot. According to the salvage personnel, one of Zhang Hao’s arms had been broken before the crash. It was clear he came with the determination to perish together, never intending to let them go.
Two days later, a male corpse, soaked beyond recognition but similar in build to Jiang Yan, was found downstream. Because there was no identification, and Jiang Yan’s origins were unknown, the police, after preliminary testing, leaned toward confirming this was the missing Jiang Yan and prepared to close the case.
“Impossible, it can’t be Jiang Yan!” Hearing the news, Jiang Yunian was so agitated he almost rushed into the morgue, held back firmly by Lu Yuanbai and the newly arrived Hao Meng. His eyes were red and swollen, his voice hoarse as he repeated over and over, “It’s not him… I can feel it… it’s not him…”
He didn’t believe it, refused to believe it even upon death; no one could persuade him.
However, no one believed his intuition.
He began refusing food and drink, stubbornly guarding the riverside, searching back and forth along the bank. He would search for a whole day, only being forcibly taken back late at night. His studies had long been thrown to the back of his mind. He lost weight rapidly, his eye sockets sunken like a wandering ghost.
The police sent someone to persuade him. “We understand your feelings of losing a loved one, but the situation is not optimistic. You still need to accept reality. Falling from such a height, the chances of survival are negligible. The weather is so cold; I’m afraid the odds are grim…”
“We will continue to pay attention, but please pull yourself together and stop interfering with the police’s normal search and rescue work.”
They even set up a cordon by the river to prevent anyone from getting close and causing danger.
No one believed his words. The salvage progress became slower and slower. People around him began to look at him with pity and helplessness, like looking at a poor wretch who refused to face reality.
When the police formally issued the preliminary report deducing the body to be “Jiang Yan,” Jiang Yunian’s final psychological defense was nearly crushed. He refused to sign, refused to acknowledge, refused to accept any speculation that Jiang Yan was dead.
To prove that it wasn’t Jiang Yan, he stubbornly ran home from the police station to get Jiang Yan’s personal clothing for DNA comparison. Holding onto this last glimmer of hope, it was like clutching a life-saving straw.
He ran straight to the bedroom where Jiang Yan used to stay, rummaging frantically. Jiang Yan didn’t have many things, mostly clothes he had worn for a long time. When he reached the wardrobe, the door seemed stuck. He pulled hard a few times but couldn’t open it. Red-eyed, almost venting his anger, he smashed the leg of a stool viciously against the thin wooden board.
With a clang, the cabinet door burst open.
He reached in to grope around. Among the thick piles, he touched something square. It was an old shoebox, hidden in the most concealed corner.
As if guided by a ghost, he took out the dusty shoebox. A voice in his heart told him it contained what he was looking for, but his hands trembled uncontrollably as he lifted the lid.
The moment the contents came into view, the blood in Jiang Yunian’s entire body seemed to freeze in an instant.
There were no shoes in the box, nor were there Jiang Yan’s personal clothes. It had nothing to do with him at all.
Every single item, large and small, was incredibly familiar to him. They were arranged neatly, with a certain twisted sense of order. They were all things he had used.
The wet wipe he had wiped his hands with, the nipple covers he used that had long gone missing, even the underwear that got dirty and he told Jiang Yan to throw away… various extremely private personal items were cherished here in a way he never expected.
Jiang Yunian’s gaze inadvertently glanced at the bottom of the box, at a yellowed piece of paper. That was a lottery ticket he had bought in passing the day he picked up Jiang Yan. He won a thousand yuan. After redeeming the prize, he clearly remembered stuffing it into a drawer…
This lottery ticket existed at the starting point of their meeting.
And the other things in the box, the order of their arrangement, spanned the entire process bit by bit—from their meeting, to being together, to the final separation.
Jiang Yunian covered his mouth in disbelief.
From the beginning… from the very first day they met, Jiang Yan had held these abnormal thoughts about him!
A chill rushed from the soles of his feet to his back, freezing him all over. He leaned against the wall to barely support his weak body. Suddenly, the last sentence Jiang Yan said before falling into the river flashed through his mind.
“Ge… I’m sorry… I have one more thing I haven’t told you… but it doesn’t seem important now…”
At that time, he was in extreme panic and had no time to think carefully. Now, looking at this box of private items full of his traces, a horrifying thought surged up.
Perhaps Jiang Yan had been lying to him from the very beginning.
Perhaps… he never lost his memory! From the start, it was a calculated scam.
Jiang Yunian closed his dry eyes, his heart filled with infinite desolation.
In the end, the liar who thought he controlled the whole game had trapped himself in it too…
Author’s Note: Sorry babies, late again [Pitiful] (From this chapter on, someone’s main account is also exposed [Glasses])
T/n: Have fun reading!
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