GBT Chapter 142

## Chapter 128: Extra 3

Chapter 128 Extra 3

A small house near the railway in the Wangjiang District of West City.

On the stove sat an old kettle, its handle missing and the body riddled with cracks.

Liang Dong squatted in front of the stove, pinching a piece of iron to push it inward. His fingers were rough and dark, with a bit of mud embedded in the neat nails.

That was from when he pulled up radishes.

The radishes were planted right behind the house.

Jiao Bai sat on the only chair in the small house, able to see the almost barren radish patch with a turn of his head. He had come straight after getting off the plane, driving himself and not letting anyone, including Qi Yi Liao, accompany him. He had been very discreet the whole way.

Because Shen Er An had lied to him.

Shen Er An’s people were not only looking for Liang Dong, but also staking out the airport, hoping to find Liang Dong’s location through him.

“Why didn’t you contact me after you came out of the drug rehab center last year?” Jiao Bai’s gaze followed Liang Dong.

“Inconvenient.” Liang Dong placed wine and dishes on the small table: two plates of home-style dishes, and a bottle of white wine costing a dozen or so yuan.

Jiao Bai glanced around the one-room house: “Have you been living here all this time?”

Liang Dong shook his head: “I only came after I finished my business.”

He said that he had met a few friends in the drug rehab center, and one of the older guys’ place before he went in was here. The old guy worked in railway maintenance, and after he passed away, no one took care of the house, which gave him a place to hide.

Jiao Bai circled the word “hide” from Liang Dong’s words. He didn’t ask proactively, waiting for the other party to reveal it voluntarily.

“At the end of last year, I found out that Tan Jun was in Cheng Mountain,” Liang Dong poured juice for Jiao Bai, “The day I went to look for him was just the day Tan Jun was preparing to leave.”

Jiao Bai’s eyeballs rolled. He remembered that at last year’s charity gala, he had asked Shen Er An why Tan Jun hadn’t come. Shen Er An said Tan Jun had gone to Cheng Mountain.

At the time, Jiao Bai even thought that Tan Jun had gone to pay respects to his beloved.

So, Tan Jun and Liang Dong had intersected during that time, planting the fuse for the old case to resurface today?

“Yes,” Liang Dong sat on the bed opposite the table, picked up his cup, and took a sip of wine, “I got Tan Jun’s handle at that time, and used it more than half a year later.”

The wine was very strong, burning his lungs. He suddenly smiled at Jiao Bai, a strange smile, “Do you want to know what the handle is?”

The dog-blood radar in Jiao Bai’s brain was ringing, as if it had detected a high concentration of dog-blood. Every pore on his body was rejecting it: “I don’t want to know.”

“It’s better not to know, it’s pretty disgusting.” Liang Dong nodded, said softly, with an indistinguishable hint of ridicule or malice in his eyes. He was still smiling, his smile becoming gentler, “Eat, eat.”

Jiao Bai picked up the damp bamboo chopsticks and ate a bite of shredded radish. The taste was surprisingly good.

The surface of the table was uneven, but it was wiped very clean. Liang Dong faced him, his back against the wall covered with newspapers. His energy was better than ever before.

Like a half-old teenager who had finally climbed out of a stinking swamp, shaken off the mud on his feet, and was starting anew.

The last time Jiao Bai had a farewell meal was with the Yu family brothers, a year ago.

“Jiao Bai, you seem like you haven’t changed, but you also seem like you’ve changed a lot,” Liang Dong suddenly said from across the table.

Jiao Bai was noncommittal: “People change.”

“That’s true.” Liang Dong said with feeling, not knowing who he was thinking of. His expression changed several times. He lowered his eyes to look at the white wine in his cup, and finished it off in one gulp, choking and making him grimace, his eyes reddening, and blue veins rising on the back of his hand. “Now that the Shen family is no longer at odds with the Qi family, and Shen Er An still treats you as a friend, this friendship of his may be important to you, but he is also the chairman of Shen Corporation. He is a young and successful businessman, you must remember that.”

Before Jiao Bai could speak, Liang Dong continued, “I’m not trying to sow discord between you, I just want to say that human nature is too complicated, it can’t be pure.”

“I understand better than you,” Jiao Bai shrugged, smiling carelessly and clearly.

Liang Dong looked at Jiao Bai for a while, recalling the events of the past, one by one. He dully poured wine and took a few gulps into his mouth.

Indeed, Jiao Bai had experienced more than him in the past few years, and lived more thoroughly. Back in Three Middle School, he was still an ignorant idiot, but Jiao Bai was already a smart person.

The mouth of the kettle on the stove slowly puffed out mist.

Jiao Bai was eating shredded carrots, and the side of the plate facing him was already empty.

Liang Dong held the wine glass with one hand, and the other was in his pocket, holding a small USB drive. Inside it was what he hated, and also Tan Jun’s shameful existence.

Alcohol burned Liang Dong’s thoughts, and corresponding memory fragments floated into his mind.

That night, a bar at the foot of Cheng Mountain was holding a carnival. When Liang Dong entered, Tan Jun was already drunk, sitting at the bar being chatted up.

The handsome old man had lost his usual shrewdness and viciousness. His eyes were unfocused, and his posture was swaying. Liang Dong thought he was too drunk, so he directly took him away and threw him into a cheap hotel nearby.

Liang Dong couldn’t settle this privately, it was meaningless. He wanted the unpunished murderer to confess, for the case to be reopened, and for everything to be laid out in front of the public, so that the Liang family could clear their name.

So, he didn’t prepare a dagger, he prepared a surveillance camera with a microphone.

He hadn’t figured out exactly how to do it, so he tied Tan Jun up first, and used the other party’s phone to send a message saying that he wouldn’t be back for the time being.

Just as Liang Dong kicked Tan Jun a few times with hatred and ferocity, Tan Jun grabbed his leg and rubbed up against him like a female dog.

And he himself realized something was wrong at that moment.

Tan Jun wasn’t just drunk, he had drunk something laced. As for his own reaction…

The air in the bar probably had special psychedelic powder in it, which would enter the body through breathing and ferment with the rise and fall of emotions.

The camera recorded the room for two days and two nights. Liang Dong was the first to regain his senses. He glanced at Tan Jun, who was incontinent and in a mess, staggered to the bathroom, and vomited, scrubbing himself raw.

When Liang Dong came out, Tan Jun called out a name from the bed.

He was stunned and couldn’t believe it. After regaining his senses, he found his phone to watch the surveillance, vomiting as he watched. During those two days and two nights, Tan Jun called out many times.

Er An,

Er An… Er An…

Tan Jun was under Liang Dong, calling out his former best friend’s name again and again, sobbing and convulsing with tears, obsessed and in love, humble to the extreme.

Liang Dong laughed loudly, unable to stand up straight. God had finally opened his eyes.

.

A small segment of the video was recorded by Liang Dong using Tan Jun’s phone. That was the gift he gave to Tan Jun.

Hell is waiting for you.

Winter passed, spring came, then summer, then autumn. Liang Dong hid, not letting Tan Jun find him. He also didn’t negotiate with the other party through any cautious means.

A knife hung over Tan Jun’s neck.

Liang Dong wanted Tan Jun to experience the anxiety, living like a year, the pain and anxiety that he had once experienced.

Over time, Tan Jun would inevitably comfort himself, that Liang Dong must have died from a drug relapse, and that ugly scene would be buried forever.

Liang Dong waited and waited, until the day before yesterday, he felt it was about time to make his move.

Tan Jun ushered in his death.

Even such a ruthless criminal had weaknesses. Tan Jun didn’t dare let Shen Er An know his thoughts at all.

He was an old friend and admirer of Shen Er An’s mother, an uncle, teacher, guide, and even a father-like figure who watched Shen Er An grow up.

How disgusting.

One thing that surprised Liang Dong was that he thought Tan Jun would lose control when he said, “If you don’t go to the police station, the surveillance footage will appear in Shen Er An’s hands.” He would cunningly negotiate with him, looking for an opportunity to search his hiding place and kill him.

But Tan Jun only said one sentence. He said: You’re still alive.

“What are your plans for the future?”

Liang Dong heard Jiao Bai’s question. He restrained the emotions in his eyes and took out a photo from under the pillow: “My business is over. Next, I will find a way to help him find his parents and family.”

Jiao Bai glanced at the photo, which was a family portrait of a couple and a child.

The child’s eyebrows and eyes were familiar to Jiao Bai. He remembered the teenager who had scared him with flour and eventually died of a drug overdose.

“Everyone’s gone, what’s the point of finding his family?” Jiao Bai was puzzled.

“I promised him,” Liang Dong said softly.

Jiao Bai didn’t waste any more words on this matter. He put down his chopsticks: “Don’t use drugs again.”

Liang Dong didn’t speak. He couldn’t guarantee it.

Jiao Bai drank a sip of the sweet juice and smirked: “Relapse is very easy, take care of yourself.”

The silence on the table didn’t last long. A “glug glug” sound came from the stove, accompanied by a crisp sound. The lid of the kettle popped up, and circles of heat overflowed.

The water was boiling.

Liang Dong went to pour water: “I’ll leave at dawn tomorrow.”

Jiao Bai was sending a message to Qi Yi Liao. He heard this and raised his head in surprise: “You’re not attending the trial?”

“No,” Liang Dong said without hesitation.

Jiao Bai didn’t respond. He wouldn’t show up for the trial either, even though he was the closest relative of the deceased in the case, which was very farcical.

Qi Yi Liao’s reply came on his phone, not asking anything, just giving a word of advice.

-Drive back slowly.

Jiao Bai sent Qi Yi Liao a cat-licking expression. He exited the interface and browsed the news, but no media had reported the Shen Corporation’s changes yet.

Tan Jun must have confessed everything about that year to the police.

Liang’s older sister was equivalent to illegal detention. She didn’t want to extort money, she only wanted to restrict Qi Shuang’s personal freedom for a short time, and the mastermind behind the scenes, Tan Jun, was suspected of murder. Lao Pan and the others were accomplices, and he was the main culprit.

Shen Er An was looking for Liang Dong, not to reverse the situation, leaving only one possibility.

Tan Jun didn’t know why, but he refused to say why he surrendered. Shen Er An wanted to find out the reason, so he could only start with Liang Dong.

“Shen Er An is looking for you, probably to find out the cause and effect,” Jiao Bai said to Liang Dong, who had poured the water and sat back on the bed.

“I don’t want to see him,” Liang Dong’s face was clearly stiff.

Jiao Bai couldn’t be a lobbyist. He stood up and said, “That’s it, I have to go.”

“Wait,” Liang Dong called out to Jiao Bai. He took out the USB drive that had been warmed in his pocket and pushed it over, past the two plates of light stir-fried dishes: “This contains Tan Jun’s weakness.”

“After thinking about it, I should give this to you,” Liang Dong said before Jiao Bai could open his mouth, “If you don’t want to know, you don’t have to open it and look.”

“With it, if one day Shen Er An disgusts you, you can take this out and disgust him back.” Liang Dong wasn’t being forceful at all. Before he entered the drug rehab center, he was neither human nor ghost. Now his cheeks had filled out, his eyebrows were furrowed in a “Sichuan” shape, and his eyes were black and deep, with a kind of vicissitudes and handsomeness that didn’t match his age.

Jiao Bai hesitated for a few moments and agreed: “Okay, I’ll take it.”

It probably won’t be needed. He’ll take it back and casually throw it in Qi Yi Liao’s safe.

There weren’t many buildings around the railway. The mountains and trees were gray and hazy, looking somewhat empty and desolate. Liang Dong sent Jiao Bai to the car and closed the door for him.

Jiao Bai lowered the car window and waved with a smile: “Goodbye.”

As if they could make an appointment to play ball and sing KTV tomorrow. If not tomorrow, then the day after tomorrow, they could definitely get together.

The Land Rover sped away, stirring up dust. Liang Dong stood on the spot, watching the car until it disappeared from sight, and then kept watching.

Take care, stir-fried pork.

After I finish the last thing, I’ll come back. I’ll be your slave for the rest of my life to repay you.