NOS Chapter 104

Chapter 104: The Border Marker (12)

Chapter 104: The Border Marker (12)

Bang! Bang, bang—

This small, soon-to-be-scrapped car rolled down the beach, flipping a full three times in the air before landing with a thud, roof down, on the ice of the Blackwater River.

The ice cover, a full two meters thick, cracked open with a huge fissure. A teeth-grinding scraping sound came from the bottom of the river, then sent the fissure towards the opposite bank.

“Cough, cough…” Yu Chunming struggled to undo his seatbelt.

The violent impacts had caused his vision to black out intermittently, and a series of sharp buzzing sounds rang in his ears. Before long, blood welled up from his ear canal and trickled into his eyes.

Through the blood-tinged haze, Yu Chunming saw someone get out of the black car parked on the riverbank. This person held a gun in his hand. His steps were steady and unhurried, as if he was certain that the lives of the two in the car were about to end in his hands.

“Damn it, damn it…” From the back seat came Qian Guowei’s weak curses. He tried to crawl out of the left-side window, half of which was shattered, onto the ice, but then discovered that his right foot was stuck under the passenger seat.

“Jiang Xin!” Qian Guowei shouted, “Save me, hurry, save me!”

Yu Chunming’s head was dizzy and heavy. He could only vaguely hear some unclear calls. He opened his eyes blankly, then sank back into unconsciousness.

“Damn it!” Qian Guowei gritted his teeth. He turned his head and, through the small crack in the crushed window on the right side, saw the person walking slowly towards him.

“Li Guanglai…” Qian Guowei’s heart sank.

Indeed, it was Li Guanglai.

Just as the police had described in countless profiles, he was a tall, burly middle-aged man with a gloomy face.

Because he hadn’t bothered to groom himself for days, Li Guanglai’s chin was covered with short stubble. Under the cotton hat, a pair of dark, heavy eyes were revealed. He wasn’t in a hurry at all, even had a bit of composure, and when he saw Qian Guowei struggling, a smile floated to the corners of his mouth.

“Damn…” Qian Guowei said in despair.

He and this man had been entangled for too long. Perhaps their deeply rooted, intertwined ill-fated relationship had begun thirty-three years ago. Li Guanglai hated him, and he hated Li Guanglai, but through so many life-and-death situations, neither of them had been able to kill the other.

Perhaps today, this decades-long chase was about to come to an end.

Who would die in the end? Qian Guowei didn’t know.

Thud! A muffled sound came from the black car in the distance, as if someone had been locked in the trunk by Li Guanglai. This person was struggling desperately, trying to pry open the tightly sealed door with his bare hands.

Li Guanglai didn’t turn his head. He was staring intently at Qian Guowei, tightening his grip on the gun in his hand.

“Don’t kill me, don’t kill me!” Qian Guowei shouted.

This hysterical plea scattered in the wind, mingling with the cries of the wilderness and mountains, becoming a joke that delighted his enemy.

Li Guanglai had already walked up to him. He smiled faintly, “You’re scared?”

Qian Guowei’s face was covered in blood and tears. He whimpered something, as if to embolden himself, or perhaps to beg for mercy.

Li Guanglai straightened up and cocked the shotgun in his hand. He said softly, “I’ve thought about how to kill you many times. I thought about cutting you into pieces, like I did with Xu Wen, and throwing you into the pond to feed the fish. I even thought about giving you a quick death, just one shot. But no matter what, I always felt a tightness in my chest. I realized, even if you died, I still couldn’t get rid of it. So, I decided…”

Qian Guowei opened his mouth, his whole body feeling like he had fallen into an ice cellar. He heard Li Guanglai continue, “So, I decided to let you taste the flavor of fire, just like ‘Little Pear Blossom’.”

That’s right, Li Shengnan had been burned to death in a fire.

Li Ying’s daughter, the girl Li Hongge from *My Hometown, Jin A Lin*, this innocent and quiet girl, had been burned alive by Qian Guowei, Xu Wen, and Ai Hua.

That year, she was not yet eighteen, the prime of her youth, but because she was caught up in a dirty conspiracy, she lost her life.

She died silently, and only today, thirty-three years later, did she finally utter a cry that belonged to her.

“No, it wasn’t…” Qian Guowei argued desperately, “I didn’t kill her!”

“If it wasn’t you, who was it?” Li Guanglai suddenly roared, he pressed the gun to Qian Guowei’s forehead, and said with hatred, “Wasn’t it you who came up with the idea for Zhang Changling, telling that old beast to find a way to kill Shengnan, to get rid of the problem once and for all, to cut off the roots!”

Qian Guowei shrank back, he felt a little cold, a little hot, as if something somewhere was starting to get scorching hot.

Li Guanglai took a deep breath, he was not flustered, unhurried, and regained his indifferent demeanor, looking at Qian Guowei, he sneered, “September 23rd, after you and Xu Wen and Ai Hua ruined Jiang Min, you were thinking of using Jiang Min as bait to trick Shengnan into meeting in the birch forest. Qian Guowei, dare you say that you weren’t the one who came up with the idea?”

“So what if it was me?” Qian Guowei stubbornly refused to budge, “Xu Wen, that bastard, was the one who did it. I’ve already cleaned up Xu Wen with you, and even covered up the fact that you and Li Ying colluded to kill Zhang Nan! Li Guanglai, you son of a bitch, don’t turn your back on your friends! The fire we started back then was clearly extinguished, but you and Li Ying burned down the entire No. 2 Timber Factory to cover up your crimes. You’re the one who deserves to die the most!”

Li Guanglai grinned. He glanced at Yu Chunming in the driver’s seat and said quietly, “It doesn’t matter anymore who did it, anyway, you and your son are about to die. Qian Guowei, this is fate.”

After saying that, Li Guanglai pulled the trigger, firing a shot into the car’s gas tank, then another shot, hitting the dripping puddle of gasoline.

With a “whoosh,” the fire blazed up.

“What’s that noise?” The young police officer sitting next to Guan Yao suddenly became nervous. He said, “Is it the wind?”

“It’s gunfire.” Guan Yao’s face was grim, but his expression was calm.

“Gunfire…”

“And there’s fire, there’s fire on the river over there!” the young police officer shouted.

Guan Yao’s eyes were like torches. He looked over and saw the flames leaping up. He floored the accelerator, turned the steering wheel, and headed straight for the river.

In the distance, he saw someone standing on the ice of the Blackwater River with a gun in his hand. This person was tall and strong, like a small mountain, gazing at the burning car in front of him.

Soon, this person put away the gun and prepared to leave.

“Put your hands up!” Suddenly, a stern voice rang out from the shore.

Li Guanglai paused and raised his head.

“Put the gun down and put your hands up.” Guan Yao closed the car door behind him with his elbow, then slowly walked forward, placing his index finger on the trigger.

“Put your hands up!” The young police officer who had come with Guan Yao also shouted sternly.

Li Guanglai stood there silently, not moving at all. He seemed unable to understand Guan Yao’s words, and couldn’t see the gun in Guan Yao’s hand. This person was like a puppet, staring straight at the ground under his feet.

“Li Guanglai?” Guan Yao took a deep breath, took out a pair of handcuffs from behind his waist, and threw them to the other side. “Put down the gun and come with us, you still have a chance.”

Li Guanglai seemed to chuckle softly, but the wind in the river valley was too strong, and no one could hear clearly whether this person actually chuckled or not. Guan Yao could only see his hands flash suddenly, and the gun that had been hanging down was suddenly raised.

Bang! A loud noise.

“Careful!” Guan Yao reacted the fastest. He pushed away the young police officer next to him, sidestepped, and dodged behind the car.

The bullet grazed past his shoulder and slammed straight into the door.

The young police officer stumbled and fell backward.

Guan Yao was about to reach out to pull him up, but the next moment, there was another “bang.”

“Officer Guan…” Someone called out in the wind.

Guan Yao’s eyebrows tightened. He looked up and saw that the colleague who had just been holding a gun was now lying under the car. He had been lucky enough to dodge the first shot, but he hadn’t been able to dodge Li Guanglai’s second shot.

“Damn…” Guan Yao shook his hand as he opened the magazine and reloaded.

Li Guanglai chuckled and said, “You want to live, so you will die. I’m not afraid of death, so I can always live.”

These words were like demonic sounds from hell, causing the person hiding behind the car to tremble.

Guan Yao seemed to instantly return to that late night more than ten years ago, when he was alone guarding the sentry post, aiming his gun at the back of the drug dealer.

The wind was as fierce as it was then, and Guan Yao’s hands were trembling as lightly as they were then. He couldn’t straighten up, and he couldn’t risk dragging his colleague who had fallen in the snow behind the car. He could only wait, waiting for a chance to shoot.

Just then, there was another “thud” from the trunk of the black car, and a person fell out of it, shouting, “Master!”

Li Guanglai raised his eyebrows and couldn’t help but look over there.

As soon as he glanced away, Guan Yao had already drawn his revolver, and the bullet immediately slid out of the barrel.

But unexpectedly, this person was quick-witted and quick-handed, his body flashed, and he pounced to the side.

Bang, bang—

Two shots swept past, and Li Guanglai’s knees and shoulders ached. He knelt on the ground.

By the moonlight outside the dark clouds, Guan Yao saw a smear of blood slowly spreading on the ice, that smear of blood extending all the way, flowing toward the giant crack.

“Ah!” In the fire, Qian Guowei let out a deafening roar. He shouted, “Jiang Xin, Jiang Xin, wake up!”

Jiang Xin paid no attention.

The pungent smell of gunpowder rushed into his ears and eyes, causing Qian Guowei to burst into tears. He couldn’t wait any longer, and there was no time left. This person finally decided, in order to escape, to sever his right leg, which was stuck under the seat.

“Ah!” Qian Guowei roared again, this roar containing pain, unwillingness, and perhaps a trace of imperceptible regret. He pulled hard, using the seatbelt that had been used to tie his hands to pull the bar across his leg.

This person had always been ruthless enough. He was ruthless to women, ruthless to his own children, and even more ruthless to himself. After all, only by being ruthless enough could he survive.

So—

Crack!

The fire burned even more intensely.

Yu Chunming coughed from the smoke, he moved slightly in a daze, only to find that his whole body was in pain.

“Qian Guowei…” Yu Chunming called out in a low voice.

The person who had cut off one of his legs to seek survival had already climbed half of his body out of the car window. The other side was in front of him, and that strange foreign country was waiting for him. Once he crossed the line of the river, he would be free. The passport and visa in his arms would “bless” him to go to a more distant place. This bandit who had killed and committed countless evils was about to be “reborn.”

Yu Chunming struggled to get up, and he called out laboriously: “Qian Guowei!”

Qian Guowei—

The person crawling on the ice stopped.

Who was calling him?

Qian Guowei didn’t know. He could only hear the whistling wind and see the unobstructed sky. He looked at the undulating hills on the opposite bank, looked at the light of the moon sprinkled on the snow, and gathered his last strength to crawl toward the centerline of the river.

“Qian Guowei!” Yu Chunming called out again.

This time, the person dragging his injured leg finally stopped. He turned his head, turned around, and knelt and crawled on the ice sheet in an extremely distorted posture.

His face was almost completely frostbitten, and red and purple sores hung on his originally handsome face. Even the most crazed female workers in the No. 2 Factory back then could not recognize that this ghost-like man would be Qian Guowei.

Yu Chunming watched this face and stretched out his hand. He knew that if he only pulled it, he might be able to live.

But would Qian Guowei save him?

At this moment, Li Guanglai, who was kneeling on the ice sheet, slowly raised his head, and started pulling the trigger like a mad beast.

But very unfortunately, he had fired the last bullet.

Guan Yao bent down, picked up the handcuffs, and walked towards the grim-faced Li Guanglai.

It was one thing to make Yu Chunming pay for his father’s crimes, but for Li Guanglai, it was a matter of course.

Guan Yao, who was huddled in the bathroom with his sister, watching the sky full of fire thirty-three years ago, was now standing in front of the culprit, watching solemnly.

“Kill me.” Li Guanglai said.

Guan Yao’s Adam’s apple rolled, and he really gripped the pistol tightly.

“Kill me!” Li Guanglai looked up at the sky, he said, “I want to reunite with them…”

There were still bullets in Guan Yao’s gun. He knew that if he pulled the trigger now, no one would hold him accountable. In the remote mountains and wilderness, he had killed a murderer who had been wanted for more than a year, and he was duty-bound.

But—

“The suspect has ceased resistance, put your hands up.” Guan Yao breathed out a white breath. He couldn’t explain whether this was for himself or for Li Guanglai.

After all, it was about to dawn.

The wind on the river was strong, blowing people’s minds dizzy. Qian Guowei vaguely heard the “clang” of the silver handcuffs, and suddenly felt a shiver all over his body.

He took a few steps back and stared at Yu Chunming.

“Qian Guowei…” Yu Chunming was still holding out his hand. He said, “Save me…”

Qian Guowei didn’t move.

“Do you still remember who I am?” Yu Chunming lay on the car window, muttering to himself, “I am, I am the son of you and Jiang Min, do you remember? I am the son of you and Jiang Min.”

The corners of Qian Guowei’s eyes twitched, as if he was really touched by this.

He had a son. Yang Xiaowei had given birth to a lovely boy, and he had also loved this child, but now, that old and plastic love had long since disappeared. So what if he was a son?

The sky is big, the earth is big, my survival is the biggest thing.

But Yu Chunming’s eyes were already a little unfocused, but he still refused to give up, always holding out his hand, he said: “Jiang Min mentioned you to me in the past, she, cough cough, she mentioned you more than once…”

These words made Qian Guowei’s eyes flash, he opened his mouth, and raised his eyes somewhat numbly.

It was almost dawn, and on the other side of the eastern ridge, there was a faint light. This light was set off by the fire, as if it were blood sprinkled on the clouds, and it was about to spread over the sky.

Qian Guowei finally turned his gaze to the hand that Yu Chunming stretched out to him. He moved his lips, as if he wanted to say something.

But in the end, this person didn’t say anything. He grabbed Yu Chunming’s wrist, braced the car door with his intact leg, and then pulled hard.

Click!

As Yu Chunming escaped from the fire, a crisp sound rang out.

Qian Guowei lowered his head and saw a pair of bright handcuffs.

Yu Chunming lay on the ground, coughing up a mouthful of blood. He smiled and said, “Jiang Min did mention you to me, she said, you are an unforgivable rapist.”

The wind swirled upwards, carrying fine snow and sand, fluttering towards the sky.

Across the waves rising in the air after the fire broke out, Guan Yao saw Yu Chunming dragging Qian Guowei’s handcuffs, coming from the center of the river.

In the distance, police sirens rang, and the red and blue police lights arrived with the sun at the corner of the sky, dispelling the last trace of darkness in the original ridge.

Guan Yao raised his head and gently touched the blood on Yu Chunming’s face. He asked, “Does it hurt?”

Yu Chunming couldn’t hear Guan Yao’s words at all. He tried hard to identify the shape of the opposite’s mouth, and then replied: “It doesn’t hurt.”

“Let’s go, let’s go home.” Guan Yao said.

“Go home.” Yu Chunming breathed a sigh of relief.

[The author has something to say]

Two more chapters until the end!

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Next, let’s do something about love and hate~

*Southward Journey* cp1856628, older, aloof and powerful alien regent VS forbearing and tenacious old minister of a fallen country

*Angry River Bend* cp1856629, younger, romantic and unruly prairie young master VS gentle and virtuous prime minister

I haven’t decided which one to start first, welcome everyone to collect and feed starfish in advance~

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