Chapter 35: You’re Always So Self-Righteous
In truth, even Zhou Sijin himself couldn’t quite figure out where the surge of anger in the depths of his heart had come from.
The moment he received Han Chi’s call, he had led his men to rush here without a moment’s pause. He had first learned the full story from Han Chi’s mouth. Upon discovering that Chen Wei had actually risked his safety to go to Zhang Chen’s place alone to save someone, he truly felt like he could kill.
Fortunately, Chen Wei was fine. Otherwise, he was afraid he wouldn’t have been able to resist the urge to personally destroy that scum, Zhang Chen.
By now, as the adrenaline faded, Zhou Sijin found it baffling. Since when had Chen Wei become so important to him?
He would worry upon knowing the man was in danger. He would be furious upon learning the man had ignored his own safety to rescue someone else. He was even more incensed that when something happened, Chen Wei hadn’t told him immediately.
This was a mess that could have been resolved with a simple flick of a finger, yet Chen Wei insisted on tossing himself into the fray, risking being devoured whole by others. After all that effort, didn’t he still have to rely on Zhou Sijin to clean up the mess?
What if he had been busy today and couldn’t make it? Had Chen Wei considered the consequences? After provoking Zhang Chen, did he really think he could walk out of that hotel unscathed?
The more he thought about it, the angrier Zhou Sijin became.
He violently shoved Chen Wei into the back seat of the car, his voice laced with a heavy, suppressed gloom:
“Sit there and take a good look at yourself. Reflect on what you’ve done.”
Chen Wei was momentarily dazed from the rough handling. Although the leather seat cushions beneath him had caught him gently, Zhou Sijin’s force had been excessive. He felt as if his brains were about to be rattled out of his skull.
He vaguely heard Zhou Sijin saying something about reflection. Steadying himself, Chen Wei looked up at him.
“Reflect on what?”
Zhou Sijin’s chest felt tight with a stifled breath. Seeing Chen Wei’s lack of remorse, he could hardly restrain the impulse to personally teach him a lesson. He stepped into the car and pulled the door shut.
In the narrow space of the back seat, Zhou Sijin pinned Chen Wei’s hands behind his back, pressing him down firmly. He used his knees to pin Chen Wei’s thighs, trapping him completely in his embrace from head to toe.
“Chen Wei, I don’t remember you being this stupid.”
Being pinned down and scolded as “stupid” out of the blue, Chen Wei’s expression soured.
“What do you mean?” he countered.
“Did you think about the consequences before acting so recklessly?”
“?” Chen Wei half-closed his eyes.
“If I hadn’t come, did you really think you’d be able to escape that dog Zhang Chen today?”
?
At this point, Chen Wei finally understood why Zhou Sijin was angry. The doubts that had arisen due to Zhou Sijin’s sudden appearance vanished instantly. Chen Wei looked at him and laughed with a sense of liberation.
“Zhou Sijin, whether you came to save me or not was your business. Whether I went to save someone from Zhang Chen was mine.”
He spoke each word clearly, looking up at the man above him.
“My business has nothing to do with you.”
To put it bluntly, they were just casual bed partners. He didn’t meddle in Zhou Sijin’s affairs, so Zhou Sijin had better not overreach by trying to judge his.
“Nothing to do with me?” Zhou Sijin was so angry at his indifferent attitude that he laughed.
He was worrying about the man’s safety with his whole heart, yet the man repeatedly claimed it had nothing to do with him. Suppressing the inexplicable malice rising from within, Zhou Sijin’s eyes were filled with an unmaskable gloom.
“Chen Wei.” He called his name in a chilling tone.
His lips tightened into a hard line as he commanded, “Don’t push me.”
He had abandoned a room full of guests at a banquet to rush here. During such a critical period of power-grabbing, this move was highly detrimental to the stability of his position. Yet, he had come anyway, because he was worried something would happen to him.
The Chen Wei in Zhou Sijin’s memory had always been well-behaved and sensible. Today was the first time Chen Wei had so sharply and sternly rebuffed him.
But it didn’t matter. As long as Chen Wei was willing to lower his head, admit his mistake, and apologize, Zhou Sijin could pretend none of this had ever happened.
His intention was to make Chen Wei realize his mistake through today’s incident. He wanted Chen Wei to stop taking risks alone; if there was something he couldn’t handle, he could tell him and wait for him to come back and resolve it.
But the words reached his lips without the proper tact of concern, causing their already thin-ice relationship to freeze over once more. The reckless words made Chen Wei’s heart turn cold.
The tiny, indistinct spark of joy that had risen in his heart due to Zhou Sijin’s sudden appearance was snuffed out before it could even see the light.
“So, you think I’ve wasted your time?”
Clearly, that wasn’t what he meant in his heart. But because he was acting out of spite, the question came out as a soul-piercing interrogation.
“Is that not the case?”
An inexplicable pang of pain shot through Chen Wei’s chest. Yet, his face remained a mask of calm.
“Zhou Sijin.” Chen Wei glanced at his face, then looked away, dropping a final sentence:
“You’re always so self-righteous.”
As he spoke, he stubbornly curled his leg upward to a height where his palm could easily reach. Under Zhou Sijin’s confused gaze, Chen Wei expressionlessly pulled a black tracker from the heel of his shoe.
The tracker was blinking with a red light.
Zhou Sijin looked at the tracker, then at him, not understanding what he meant.
Knock, knock, knock—
The sound of someone tapping on the car window interrupted their confrontation. Zhou Sijin snapped back to his senses. Only then did he realize that, at some point, the sound of police sirens had begun to wail outside.
Looking at the calm Chen Wei beneath him, Zhou Sijin’s mind suddenly roared as he realized something was wrong.
“You called the police?”
Chen Wei gazed at him quietly, watching the shock in his eyes. Then, he raised his hand and, while the man was still in a state of astonishment, shoved him off his body.
He opened the car door and stepped out.
Outside, the bank staff member looked at the unscathed Chen Wei and finally let out a sigh of relief.
“Mr. Chen.” The staff member’s attitude was deferential.
Chen Wei placed the black tracker into a pre-prepared transparent evidence bag and handed it over.
“Thank you.”
Taking the tracker, the staff member smiled politely. “Think nothing of it. Serving our clients is our duty.”
Chen Wei smiled and said nothing. He looked up at the two police officers walking toward him.
As the officers came to a stop beside him, Zhou Sijin happened to step out of the car behind him.
The police officer conducted a routine inquiry:
“Was it you who asked the bank staff to call the police on your behalf?”
Chen Wei nodded.
“You claimed you were being threatened and extorted with private photos?”
“Yes.” Chen Wei continued to nod without changing his expression.
“Where are the photos?” the officer asked.
Chen Wei handed over Zhang Chen’s phone. The officer took it and opened the album, but aside from the two-hour video Chen Wei had just filmed, there was nothing else inside.
The officer frowned in disapproval.
“This is the ‘private photo’ you mentioned?”
Chen Wei shook his head.
“The real videos and photos are in there.”
As he spoke, he raised his hand and pointed toward the Zijin International Hotel behind them.
Since Zhang Chen used recordings to threaten celebrities, there were bound to be pinhole cameras hidden in the hotel rooms. Chen Wei’s goal was to get the police into the hotel. While they searched for the cameras, they would “accidentally” discover other things as well.
Once the police had concrete evidence, Zhang Chen could forget about ever leaving prison in this lifetime.
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