Part 2
Wen Rong raised his eyes slightly, stopping at Wang Sichen’s nose, and shook his head dully. “No…”
“You can ask me about those policies just the same. I can answer them for you.” Wang Sichen leaned closer. His warm breath, baked by the sun, became even hotter. “I can help with other favors, too.”
Wen Rong’s lips trembled, but he shook his head again.
“Then you may go,” Wang Sichen said.
“Thank you.” He turned to run.
One.
Two.
Three.
Wen Rong counted in his heart.
Hurried footsteps sounded behind him. Wang Sichen’s secretary grabbed him. “Senator Wang has a meeting in ten minutes. After the meeting, he will have ample time to listen to your request.”
Wen Rong didn’t know if this degree of refusal was enough. He hesitated for a moment, then continued to shake his head in decline.
“Do you know that Senator Wang is the person most likely to succeed President Zhou? As long as he gives the word, he can help you solve any difficulty.”
The other party began to entice him, which meant the suspicion was mostly dispelled. Wen Rong pretended to be very hesitant and said, “Then… I will wait for him here.”
The secretary’s eyes lit up. “It’s so hot out. You can wait at the hotel nearby. Senator Wang has an exclusive suite there.”
Wen Rong wasn’t sure if this question was a test, but his usual self would definitely refuse, so he feigned panic and shook his head. “No, no, I won’t go to a hotel.”
“Our leader didn’t mean it like that…”
Behind the secretary, Wang Sichen waited quietly.
The distance wasn’t far; he could hear the conversation.
Within his fake smile, his gaze was burning, making no attempt to hide his desire.
Two seconds later, Wang Sichen reached out and pushed the secretary aside. “There is a gathering tonight. You can come find me there.”
“Can I ask Shi Ye to accompany me?”
Wang Sichen was silent for a moment, then smiled. “When we speak alone, he cannot be present.”
“…Then never mind. I’ll ask someone else.”
“Not everyone will help you. Only our leader will help you.”
Wen Rong sensed the secretary’s anxiety.
He stole a glance at Wang Sichen, then quickly looked at the ground. “President Zhou had a message he wanted me to deliver to Minister Liu before he died. I’ll wait here a bit longer. He should help me after hearing it later.”
President Zhou’s dying words were Wen Rong’s bargaining chip.
Zhou Xie had said it at the door of the operating room. Now, everyone wanted to know what President Zhou had said before he died, and everyone wanted to make him say the words they wanted to hear.
Everyone should include Wang Sichen.
“You can bring Shi Ye.” Wang Sichen’s eyes indeed shifted slightly.
“Really?”
“En.” After nodding, Wang Sichen’s lips curved into a meaningful smile. “Your relationship with Shi Ye is unusual.”
“He is my boyfriend.”
Admitting this relationship gave Wang Sichen the signal that he liked men.
The next step was to provoke Lin Jinghang.
Lin Jinghang had no reverence for life, but he definitely wouldn’t kill Wang Sichen.
Wen Rong thought, as long as one is human, they can be deceived and make misjudgments. So the plan was simple: make Lin Jinghang mistake Wang Sichen for the person he wanted to kill.
Shi Ye would go with him tonight. Either kill Shi Ye, or kill him.
Wen Rong had Shi Ye operate under the default assumption that Lin Jinghang was the murderer to provoke him, but when the flower pot fell, he guessed… the intended target was himself.
Lin Jinghang really wanted to be the Student Council President of Floriman Academy.
Perhaps what he said on the train that day was slightly skewed. Finding someone wasn’t his original intention; his original intention was to step on F4 and become the most powerful person at Floriman Academy.
Lin Jinghang, a person who didn’t understand himself.
Inside the interrogation room, Wen Rong rolled his neck.
The plan had concluded perfectly. He should have been happy, but President Zhou’s death still loomed over his heart.
The two investigators asked a few more detailed questions, which he answered one by one. Around 11:00 PM, just as his body began to feel drowsy, the investigators indicated that he could leave.
Wen Rong stood up, his brain instantly dizzy. He held onto the table for two seconds until his vision cleared from black to bright.
A figure appeared at the door.
He was somewhat surprised; the person who came was actually Wang Sichen’s secretary.
He had thought it would be Shi Ye or Zhou Xie.
Wen Rong thought about it—he was in here because of Wang Sichen. If Zhou Xie and Shi Ye came to pick him up grandly, it might arouse even more speculation.
“What did you tell the people from the Bureau?”
Walking out of the main gate, Wang Sichen’s secretary asked impatiently.
“I told the truth. Senator Wang invited me to a hotel, I refused, and finally, he asked me to attend his celebration banquet.”
Wang Sichen’s secretary thought, How could you ruin my leader’s image? But looking at Wen Rong, he realized that telling the truth wasn’t strange. After all, he was an 18-year-old boy who didn’t know how to deal with the Investigation Bureau.
“Nothing else?” the secretary pressed.
“Nothing.”
The two walked to the main gate of the Bureau. Moving away from the lights, their shadows slowly merged into the darkness.
“I reached an agreement with Zhou Xie to get you out of the Bureau. You have to tell me President Zhou’s dying words.”
Wen Rong thought for a moment. “It was you who reached an agreement with him. You should ask him.”
“I only believe it if you say it.”
“Actually, you probably won’t believe it if I say it.”
The secretary was curious. “Is it something strange?”
“He told me to eat more of Zhou Xie’s cooking and to praise Zhou Xie.” Wen Rong shrugged. “Before he died, he wanted to be a father more than a President.”
“But you said he had a message for you to bring to Liu Zhaohai.”
Wen Rong patched the loophole he had left. “He told me to find Liu Zhaohai because President Zhou promised to help me find my parents, but since that wasn’t his department, he told me to find Liu Zhaohai to handle it.”
The secretary tilted his head in thought for a few seconds. A pair of headlights flashed in the distance, drawing their attention.
Wen Rong saw the familiar silhouette of a car.
“That’s your ride. I think our leader will want to see you very much when he wakes up. I hope you will do us the honor then.”
“My pleasure.”
Wen Rong walked toward the familiar nanny van. He didn’t get in immediately; he stood at the door and only relaxed when he saw Shi Ye’s face inside.
The nanny van slowly left the Investigation Bureau, its orange taillights leaving a brief afterimage on the road.
That night, Zhou Xie sent news. Wang Sichen was still in the ICU. Whether he would survive depended on the situation. Fortunately, the procedures for Leon’s return flight were completed, and he would depart tomorrow.
Everything showed signs of improvement, but due to President Zhou’s funeral, the three had no interest in celebrating the success of the plan.
Wen Rong returned to school, Zhou Xie prepared for the funeral, and Shi Ye didn’t say what he was doing, though Wen Rong assumed he had his own arrangements.
A week later, Wen Rong saw on the news that Wang Sichen had temporarily passed the critical period. Although still in a coma, there was a high probability he would wake up.
Shi Ye sent Wen Rong good news. That night, he had told him to assume Lin Jinghang was the murderer, and following that line of thought really yielded results.
Since Lin Jinghang possessed weapons that Federal instruments couldn’t detect, the military temporarily took him into custody.
On the day of President Zhou’s funeral, winter was coming to an end. The sky was overcast. The Academy’s bell rang, and the few remaining pigeons looked as if they were swimming in an aluminum pot. Wen Rong craned his neck and watched for a long time.
While eating dinner in the cafeteria, he thought of President Zhou’s words and sent a message to Zhou Xie.
[If there is a chance, I’ll taste your cooking.]
Zhou Xie: [En.]
The phone fell silent. Room 100 was quiet, so quiet one could even hear breathing.
Room 100 had already been this quiet before the break; the seniors were all striving for their careers.
It was just that encountering such a situation now made his heart faintly stifled.
Wen Rong seemed to have returned to his childhood—alone, needing to find something to do to consume the long, lonely time.
But picking up a pen, he seemed to have no interest in mathematical formulas. His brain would unconsciously recall the explosion at the airport and President Zhou’s final voice.
Should I really go back to the welfare home for a visit?
He had just come off leave and couldn’t ask for more time off, or he wouldn’t catch up with his studies.
So, the current task was to study hard.
A chain of logical reasoning finally gave Wen Rong some motivation. He picked up his pen again, ready to study properly, but unfortunately, his stomach rumbled unseasonably.
Hungry. Time to eat.
Unable to pinpoint the reason for his resistance to studying, Wen Rong dragged his heavy body out of Room 100. It was dark outside.
The weather was still poor, looking like it was about to rain.
Perhaps after eating, he could go straight back to the dorm and have a good sleep.
It wasn’t far from Room 100 to the cafeteria. Wen Rong walked the whole way, the wind stinging his face. When he entered the cafeteria, hot air and the sound of discussions hit him in the face.
The lively scene turned into an annoying zone of noise that grated on his ears.
I’ll just grab a bun and go back to the dorm to eat, he thought, frowning.
“Look, now that President Zhou is dead, can Zhou Xie still be arrogant? He doesn’t even dare come to school.”
A clear voice mixed into the buzzing. Wen Rong turned his head to look.
Two meters away stood two boys, both strangers he hadn’t interacted with before.
Discussing these “national affairs,” both boys looked excited.
After the first one spoke, the other boy replied anxiously, “I heard that on the day President Zhou died, Zhou Xie went around begging people.”
“He can’t even be the Student Council President now, right? With Senator Wang Sichen taking power, it’s absolutely impossible for him to let Zhou Xie be President.”
“Isn’t Senator Wang Sichen still in a coma?”
“I heard he woke up ages ago. The government has no President right now; they’re just waiting for others to beg him to take office.”
“It’s good if Wang Sichen becomes President. I like his policy of separating the slum districts from the common districts.”
“I like it too. That way, we won’t have to smell the stench of the poor anymore.”
“Just thinking about him succeeding as President makes me so excited I can’t sleep.”
Actually, Wen Rong had never really liked these people in the school, but in this moment, his feeling of disgust reached its peak.
Just as he was about to say something to refute them, a voice came from behind.
“A normal person wouldn’t lose sleep thinking about a middle-aged man in the middle of the night.”
“The poor would also find your fetish quite peculiar.”
As the voice fell, a hand rested on Wen Rong’s shoulder. “Let’s go. Senior will take you to a clean place to eat.”
📖 Advance Access: Complete Novel
- Option 1: Note your email on PayPal/Ko-fi.
- Option 2: Email proof to beezzzreads@gmail.com.
- Option 3: Comment below.
Recommended Reads
