NB Chapter60

The younger Zhang Mingsheng was more direct than the thirty-five-year-old version.

I had to remain on guard at all times. At the same time, I needed to pry information out of him to find the real killer of Auntie Yang so I could understand exactly what role my mentor played in all of this. If the truth could be brought into the light, the villains held accountable, and Auntie Xiao Yang finally laid to rest, I wouldn’t have any regrets; even if I were to die this very year just as that charlatan claimed.

As for the vague, lingering feelings and entanglements Zhang Mingsheng currently holds for me, a single photograph would be enough to sever them.

I looked at Zhang Mingsheng’s profile. “Zhang Mingsheng, don’t you want to know why I saved you?”

Zhang Mingsheng’s gaze swept over instantly like a silent wind.

I pulled my soaked jacket across the deck, fishing out a watch and a laminated photograph. I handed them to him.

He looked down at them under the lights. After a few seconds, the smile on his face gradually turned ice-cold. “Who is this?”

“It’s me,” I said, looking straight into his eyes. “After your mother left, she came to the orphanage where I was staying.”

The young Zhang Mingsheng had endured more than twenty years of agony only to suddenly discover that she had been dead all along. That was why he turned to street racing, why he courted death, why he allowed fate to dictate the course of his life.

Fate sent me to drag him out of that wrecked car.

Perhaps I had ruined him.

And in turn, he would want to ruin me.

He held the photo and looked at it until he started to laugh. He pressed the picture face-down against the deck and said in a light tone, “Right now, I have a very impolite urge.”

I didn’t respond.

The next second, I was slammed down onto the wet deck with his hand locked around my throat. He leaned over me, his face so close it blurred my vision; saltwater dripped from the ends of his hair, tracing down his features before falling onto my cheeks like cold rain.

Even though I reacted quickly, my windpipe was already trapped in his grip. He wasn’t using his full strength, giving me just enough room to resist. As I struggled, I clawed at his fingers, trying to pry them loose. As if he couldn’t feel pain at all, he tightened his grip with relentless force, forcing me down as he demanded sharply, “Who are you?”

“Did you get close to me on purpose?”

“What are you trying to do?”

“What was your relationship with her?”

I tightened my grip on the watch tangled in my fingers, curled my hand into a fist, and drove it hard into his face.

He let go instantly, so I seized the chance to grab his collar. The two of us began to brawl right there.

I don’t know how much time passed, but eventually, we both exhausted our strength without a clear winner, yet we still clung to each other’s clothes. The yacht rocked unsteadily, while the sea’s surface was heaved and sank in rhythm with the wind.

Finally, I gave up. I let go of him and grabbed the handgun from the deck.

Zhang Mingsheng panted, having not once made a sound even while taking the blows. The moment he saw me reach for the gun, he rolled sharply to the side, splaying his limbs out as he lay there and then closed his eyes.

“That counts as cheating.” He spoke.

“You’ve never actually beaten me.” I replied calmly.

Zhang Mingsheng laughed. “Then I suppose I should thank you for not just shooting me dead.”

The stars in the sky varied in brightness, and Zhang Mingsheng looked up at them.

“She was my mother.” Zhang Mingsheng said softly.

“I know.”

“She abandoned me.”

“She didn’t.” I argued on Auntie Yang’s behalf.

“Really?”

“Yes. She told me that… her child raised a puppy?”

Zhang Mingsheng laughed.

“What are you laughing at?”

“Laughing at your lie,” Zhang Mingsheng said before sitting up. “Though I don’t know how you found out, I did indeed have a puppy; but I didn’t get it until years after she left. Unless you’re going to tell me she was secretly watching over me all that time.”

I fell silent. “Then… what about the puppy? Is it okay?”

“It’s dead.”

I couldn’t go on. Zhang Mingsheng’s life truly was tragic.

I tossed the watch back to him. “I’m returning this to you. The hands stopped moving; I’ll pay you back for it.”

“No need. The watch was simply no good. If anyone found out, they’d think I gave you a counterfeit.” Zhang Mingsheng picked it up slowly, cradling it in his hands to look at it.

On the horizon, a brilliant star shone like a child’s eye, flickering for a moment with a bright, almost mischievous gleam.

For a fleeting moment, I thought I heard the sound of the second hand ticking.

Just once.

“Did the hand move just now?”

The sea wind blew steadily. Under the starlight, Zhang Mingsheng remained silent, his gaze lingering on the watch face as he studied it for a long while. Then he curled his fingers, smoothly slipping the watch into his pocket, and said, “No. But it doesn’t matter. What’s precious has never been the watch, it has always been time.”

Zhang Mingsheng’s face was battered, marked by both blood and bruising. Yet he continued to smile, appearing to be in a good mood.

The yacht rocked gently, and as the breeze skimmed across the water, the sea’s surface resembled a translucent, rippling mirror.

“Let’s go, Officer Yu,” he said. “It’s time we head back.”

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