While An Jie was returning home, Mo Cong was being used as a whetstone by Zhai Haidong’s men. Which was to say, being able to meet the right person at the right time was probably as lucky as winning five million from the lottery – because An Jie just didn’t have that luck.
But it could have been worse.
Mo Jin screamed and shouted, wiping away the tears that were flowing from her uncontrollably, but the moment her vision cleared, she saw that An Jie had already lost consciousness. He had one hand pressed weakly against his wound, blood seeping out from between his fingers all over his clothes and the sofa. His complexion had evolved from the usual pale to deathly white. If this continued on, he would soon end up as a vengeful ghost.
What… had she done? Mo Jin opened her mouth and gasped like she was suffocating. The stagnant scent of blood in the air struck needles through her head; she lowered her head slowly, slowly, and saw her blood-covered hands.
Her eyes widened further and further. She shook her head futilely. “No…
“No, it wasn’t me…” Mo Jin sobbed, her features twisting into a pitiful, tearful expression, though not a teardrop left her. She desperately wiped her hands on her body. “No, I didn’t…”
At that moment, the unlocked door was pushed open and Mo Yu walked in hurriedly, her nose a little blocked. “What happened? I heard… Ah!” She saw An Jie lying on the sofa immediately and screamed in shock. She took a sudden step back and slammed onto the door. Mo Yu covered her mouth as she stared in disbelief at An Jie, before her dazed eyes moved to Mo Jin. The girl who was always so soft-spoken suddenly changed her tone. “Mo Jin!”
Mo Jin seemed frightened by the sharp voice and instinctively put her hands behind her, her expression almost blank. “I… I don’t know, I…”
“You ass, you…! Move!” Mo Yu pushed her violently aside. She grabbed the landline in the living room, dialed the ambulance, and clearly reported what happened and the location of the incident.
She tried to calm down. Now that she was the only somewhat-normal person in the entire room, if she did something wrong, An Jie-gege might die, and Xiao Jin… Xiao Jin would be the murderer.
After informing the emergency services of the situation, Mo Yu felt like the telephone in her hands was too heavy to be held. Cold sweat had already soaked through her clothes. She glared at the telephone on the table, her mind blanking out for a while, before she grabbed it again and pressed a number almost instinctively. The other side picked up, quietly answered the phone, and Mo Yu’s overloaded CPU finally broke down. She cried out, “Ge… Ge, come back quickly! Ge…”
Some would call it luck, and some would say that the grim reapers had been slacking. Some too would say it was because of the protagonist halo. In a state where he had only two young girls, both mentally unstable for slightly different reasons, An Jie still somehow held on until the ambulance screamed its wailing siren over, and was pushed into the ER still breathing, and came back to life in a moment of pure bullshit.
Of course, without said bullshit, this story wouldn’t be able to continue on. An Jie awakened to the familiar smell of disinfectant and perceived a great expanse of ghastly white in his blurry vision. He sighed inwardly, a few chuckles rising.
An Jie tried to ignore the uncomfortable parts of his body and moved around, wanting to see which of his muscles were still under his command. A hand immediately reached out from the sides and pushed him down. It wasn’t forceful, but it was unyielding. “Don’t move, I’ll call the doctor.”
Mo Cong? An Jie slowly turned his head and glanced at him. The young man’s face was deeply fatigued, his voice low, looking weaker than the actual patient. When he stood up, his back was a little slouched, stubble visible under his chin.
After a short while, doctors rushed in and checked An Jie from head to toe. In all honesty, An Jie was afraid of those white wolves and the smell of disinfectant, and it took a great deal from him to suffer through this routine checkup. Mo Cong silently moved a chair over and sat down next to him. He stared dazedly at his pillow, his mind lost in thought.
An Jie gathered himself, quietly interrupted Mo Cong’s haze, and asked the question he cared most about. “Where’s Xiao Jin?”
Mo Cong gaze was a little dazed, processing much slower than usual, but he looked up in shock upon hearing that – because An Jie said ‘Xiao Jin’, not ‘Mo Jin’. An Jie was definitely no saint. He might be apathetic towards some people because of his age and experience, but those ‘some people’ definitely did not extend to those who stabbed him.
“You…” Mo Cong suddenly stopped and cleared his throat. His voice was dry enough that it was on the verge of ripping. He looked at An Jie with something he couldn’t understand; something that was so complicated that, on top of his haggard face, made it seem almost like there was an irrepressible fragility within him. An Jie thought that he was probably seeing wrongly. Perhaps he was just too worried about his sister.
Mo Cong said lowly, “The hospital called the police when they saw your knife wound. I’ve already arranged people to suppress the incident. I’ve locked Xiao Jin at home, Xiao Yu’s watching over her… When you’ve recovered a little, the police will probably come back for you. You… you…” He gritted his teeth but couldn’t speak any further.
An Jie shook his head very slightly; it was too much effort to even speak. He quietly whispered out a number. “Did you catch that? Call him and tell him to come over.”
Mo Cong didn’t quite understand.
An Jie closed his eyes, his voice so weak that Mo Cong had to lean in to hear him. “It’s a psychiatrist. Tell him to take a look at Xiao Jin… there’s something wrong with her mentally.”
“What?!”
As the saying went, only the uninvolved could see with clear eyes. An Jie sighed. There was probably only mush left in this child’s brain. He said weakly, “Didn’t you hear what the doctors said? To be honest, I really thought I was going to end up in hell this time. Don’t you know what sort of person your darling younger sister is?” An Jie curled the corners of his lips up and drawled deliberately, “Even if I really did kill your father…” He opened his eyes slightly to see Mo Cong’s frozen body before continuing leisurely, “Xiao Jin wouldn’t be the one to stab me with a knife. I’d lean towards her smashing my head open with a hammer… rather than making such a professional stab.”
Mo Cong frowned.
An Jie continued, “Now, your father. It’s true that I didn’t have a particularly pretty reputation when I was young, but I’m not a psychotic murderer either and I’m not inclined to hurt a random stranger. Don’t worry.” The words ‘don’t worry’ came out without him meaning to. Confusion flashed through his mind. He didn’t know why those almost comforting words would come out of his mouth.
Mo Cong leaned heavily back against his chair and soundlessly breathed out. When he opened his eyes again, An Jie discovered in shock that something new had appeared on this young man’s face. Something firm and calm, almost courageous – it made him look like a man and not some cynical child.
He wanted to know what had caused this child to change like this.
Mo Cong carefully watched the progress of his IV drip, then tucked his sheets in with an extremely natural movement, his lean but powerful fingers brushing past An Jie’s hair. He said, “Stop talking and go to sleep. I’ll deal with the rest.”
Mo Cong smiled, picked up his phone, then left. There was some eerie ingredient to what he had just said that gave An Jie a sudden bout of fatigued warmth. After experiencing all that had happened, he finally saw Mo Cong grow, start to look after his family, and shoulder his responsibilities. From the disappointment at their meeting to the security of their present…
An Jie closed his eyes. He felt awful physically, but emotionally, he felt a joyful satisfaction. He thought, so this was what it felt like to watch children grow up. No wonder people said being a parent was a happy thing.
——————————————–
What happened next was not something of concern. The police harbored obvious and serious doubts over An Jie’s explanation of “getting wounded after fighting with an intruder in the dark”. But since this old man had countless experiences haggling with the police, they ended up leaving without advancing a single step.
Mo Cong dialed the number An Jie gave him and after politely stating the facts, he met with a young man dragging a giant suitcase behind him. They were around 27 or 28 years old and introduced themselves as Song Chang’an. They wore a pair of frameless glasses and even though their complexion was a little unhealthy, they weren’t bad looking. For some reason though, they reminded Mo Cong of a scummy gentleman. Song Chang’an didn’t say much. After a brief lookover of the situation, he took the keys and went to Mo Cong’s house.
As the first person An Jie thought of in a dangerous situation, Mo Cong knew he had to pay him some respect both logically and emotionally, but he still made an extra comment as Song Chang’an hurried over to his house. “He’s really wounded, won’t you go take a look at him first?”
Song Chang’an turned to look at him, a cold flare flashing across his glasses. “An Jie?” He spat out those two syllables as if An Jie had killed his father. “Didn’t you say he’s physically wounded? I can’t treat that as a psychiatrist. Why should I care if he dies or not?”
Mo Cong had nothing to say against that – this green-faced tsundere!
———————————————
Black-framed Sixteen pushed a wheelchair slowly through a park. Dawn had just broke; there were few people in the park at this time; not even the elderly were doing their morning exercises. A man wrapped in a dark grey robe sat on the wheelchair; he seemed rather spindly, his posture slightly slouched and his face covered by a giant hood.
Sixteen lowered his voice and asked, “It’s already been half a month and that Yin Hu-gege of yours is still in the hospital. I heard that girl almost killed him with that stab.” He smiled. “R, who exactly is that An Yin Hu? Was he being serious when he intimidated Fifteen? Why is he so weak?”
“An Yin Hu? Half of An Yin Hu’s claws were broken by Cui Mulian, and the other by He Jingming. There aren’t many left… Fifteen was intimidated because he was too young.” The man in the wheelchair said each word carefully and slowly. His voice was terribly harsh to listen to, like the clash of sharp metal. “This is for his own good. I’m forcing him to regrow his claws. How could An Yin Hu disappear among the crowds?”
Author’s Notes: Another update just before class, runs away
Vera & Luci Translations 