novelI have pawns that have crossed the river
| ← Ch.536 | Ch.538 → |
Huang Yaming sending over that gun and those words caused Xu Tingsheng some worry.
There are some things in this world that can bless those who were once weak and inferior to possess power and influence, thus becoming addicted to them. These things include authority and money, as well as the camera and the pen.
Guns fall under this category too, representing the influence of violence. Some have called it the blessing of the weak.
In the year 2002, Fernando Meirelles had expressed through <> that once people begin to have faith in the power of the 'gun', relying on violence, their mindsets will change too in a process that is difficult to reverse.
The weaker the person, the stronger the allure and the addiction.
Huang Yaming might not originally have felt himself to be weak and powerless, but when he was nineteen, Tan Qingling had pushed such a mindset onto him through a callous betrayal, and but for a mere BMW at that.
His pursuit of wealth and authority had thus become more crazed because only these things could give him the sense of security he needed.
Xu Tingsheng had known all along that Huang Yaming was changing. Still, he was clearer on the fact that he should set a bottom line for him. This was not South America or the former Italy as while some things that could not see the light of day still existed, they could only ever be in some dark corners behind the scenes. If anyone still openly followed those paths, they would perish miserably in the end for sure.
Setting this unease aside, Huang Yaming's text at the end caused Xu Tingsheng to feel much more assured. This showed, at least, that his current position in Bingzhou was not all that bad. Not only could he take care of himself, he could also provide protection for others if that turned out to be necessary.
As for treating the situation with the Fang family like an 'exercise' as he said, this could not be easily disputed as well.
Lacking experience, thus using only fundamental human nature and ponderings to go against those two wily, experienced foxes in accumulating experience. No matter what, Xu Tingsheng would grow from this overall.
"Right, there's something else I want to tell you, " Huang Yaming texted him again after a while.
"Go on, " Xu Tingsheng hurriedly replied.
At a time like this, when Huang Yaming was bringing something up in such solemnity, Xu Tingsheng surely had to take it seriously. He even felt a bit nervous and anxious.
"I'm thinking of finding someone to give birth to a child for me after I graduate from university. Best a son."
"..." Having been paying serious attention, Xu Tingsheng was left nonplussed.
"I'm going to have to father a child anyway. My parents won't let me not. Then, I definitely won't be able to find another person that I especially want to have a child with in this life. So, I might as well find a high-level one and give birth to a better one. Sister-in-law's helped me to get in touch with a girl, a third year at Qingbei. The time matches perfectly. She looks pretty good too, and only accepted this because her family has no other option. The asking price is a bit high, a million. I thought about it and think it should be worth it. I'm preparing to go sign the agreement in a few days, pay some deposit too."
Xu Tingsheng was completely thrown by how surprisingly serious Huang Yaming was. This guy had really seen through life too thoroughly, lived with full clarity, he really had to admit.
"Well, say something. What do you think of it?" Huang Yaming pressed.
"That's not a bad idea, " What else could Xu Tingsheng say?
"Right. I'm just feeling a little conflicted now. Should my son marry Niannian next time, or should he wait for your daughter? If it's Niannian, it will be more or less when she's in her third year of university that she'll get a gold mine. If it's yours, there is a long time to wait. But... your assets are vast! That pauper Fu Cheng..."
"..."
Xu Tingsheng glanced a few times at the screen of his phone that had a picture of Xiang Ning on it. Reconsidering things, his crafty mother's idea... perhaps it really wasn't all that bad!
......
The wild shots of the Fang family continued.
As the counterattack came, the daughter of the Fang family and her husband were imprisoned due to financial reasons just like her elder brother had been. Next, the second and third sons were shifted in their vocations one after another as they left their original departments, roles...
Many understood that this was the prelude to making a move on them. It was similar to how people scooped fish out of the water and placed them on the chopping board to make things more convenient.
Under these circumstances, the Fang family's random shots continued firing away. It was just that there were already fewer and fewer people they could rely on. Most of those who had still had hopes of the Fang family or had not understood the situation before had already retreated from the battlefield, hurriedly showing that they were unrelated. It was obvious that those in the front would all be cannon fodder. No one was a fool.
The Fang family was laughed at, thought of a joke till some suddenly wondered, "Moving about without any organisation whatsoever, messing up their own formation and using up their own power-why exactly are things so chaotic in the Fang family? What are they so frantic about?"
"From the looks of it, could it be that... the old man has actually already passed on?!"
This seemed to be the sole explanation. The chaos was because they had lost their mainstay and strategist, now being unable to stay composed and act calmly. With the tree having fallen, all the creatures living on it had to scatter anyway. Thus, even if chaos ensued, they might as well use the power they still had at their disposal when they were still able to make use of that.
This sounded the more likely the more one thought about it as more than half of Yanzhou's upper echelons soon had this as their theory.
Some tried to find out through the hospital and found that indeed, the Fang family's sick ward had virtually become a forbidden ground these past days, not allowing outsiders inside. The doctors and nurses in charge of tending to the old man had also become fixed and virtually within the grasp of the Fang family without exception.
All the signs seemed to point to the same conclusion-that old man Fang might be well and truly dead, just that it was not being announced.
......
Xihu City's First Hospital.
"What do you have in mind? Basically everyone outside should be beginning to think that I'm dead by now, right?" The old man asked Xu Tingsheng.
"I think even some of your grandchildren may believe this, " Xu Tingsheng said.
"Go on."
"Since it's like this, you'll still be able to 'live' for some time after you really die."
"Oh, makes sense. Anything else?"
"It's also to make those two guess a little, act a little. Otherwise, I'd have no way of guessing at their minds."
"True. Anything else?"
"Nope."
"You're being dishonest, kid."
"What?"
"You have one more goal. The person I'm waiting for, whom I don't know if will attend my funeral-you want to see if he will care about whether I'm dead. Also, about his identity...
"Gramps is Zhuge Liang reborn."
"I advise you not to think too much. It's useless. I can tell you that the way things are now, even if you stage a grand funeral for me tomorrow, that person will still be thoroughly uninterested."
"Why?"
"Actually, two old war buddies and I, we're all his men. About how they've tolerated this matter for over twenty years and how I too didn't suppress them prematurely, it isn't because of their willpower or that I truly am that weak-hearted. It's because it wasn't the time. That person-he suppressed the matter, but left behind a sentence. When this day comes, he definitely won't intervene."
"So things were like this."
"So you have to make it such that he definitely has to intervene."
"I still can't think of how to do this yet."
"Do something else first then. Slowly is fine."
"I have been. Do you think those two will come personally to try to get to the bottom of this?"
"What do you want me to do if they come?"
"Tell them that you have pawns that have crossed the river."
"Oh. I have pawns that have crossed the river. What good will that do?"
"Treating a seeming lost cause as a potentially salvageable affair-actually, isn't that what you've been thinking?"
"... When did you realise?"
"This morning, when I got up and looked at my reflection in the mirror."
"Ha."
| ← Ch. 536 | Ch. 538 → |