I couldn’t suppress my anger and asked, “Do you think that’s possible?”
“You have to do it or I can’t help you.”
“You know that Jiang Ming killed my parents, even if you don’t let me investigate, now you are using this reason to force me to make amends with Jiang Ming, do you think it’s possible?!”
I couldn’t control it anymore, when I thought of what Han Kun and Chu Huaien had said, my anger shot straight to my head, I trusted him so much, but he had completely betrayed my trust!
“Little Chao, I didn’t let you investigate Jiang Ming because I didn’t want you to get close to the Jianghu. There are too many truths in the jianghu and you will get lost. Your parents died in a car accident because of drink driving, it was an accident, the police have already made up their mind, and it’s been seventeen years since the incident. You shouldn’t keep lying to yourself, it won’t do you any good.”
“I’m lying to myself? Why would my father drink and drive when he doesn’t drink a drop? Jiang Ming himself admitted that he was the one who killed my mother, and you say otherwise!”
“That’s why I won’t let you investigate. You’ll be blinded by the truth.”
I laughed in exasperation, “Han Kun, listen to what you’re saying to yourself. I’ll ask you one truth, did Jiang Ming kill my parents?”
“Yes.”
“Then what else is there to say? My mother and you were childhood friends, my father and you were brothers, even if you don’t avenge them, I’m their son, there’s no way I won’t avenge them.”
“Yes, but also no. This is too complicated, I’ll tell you later, but now is not the time. You either need to stop investigating Jiang Ming or make amends with him. Little Chao, I won’t harm you.”
“Then what did you and Chu Huaien say?! You’re still lying to me, I heard everything you said with Chu Huaien!!!”
I was gasping for breath, there was a knock at the door, then Lin Yue’er pushed in, I didn’t want anyone to know about this, so I had to suppress my anger and said, “It’s alright, you can go out first.”
Lin Yue’er looked at me worriedly, but closed the door and went out. I turned around and saw the reflection of the computer screen on the table, and I was so angry that the veins on my head popped up.
“Ji Ruan is really you.” Han Kun laughed, “You are posing as a member of the Ji family, but you don’t know that. As the second largest family in the Jianghu back then, the Ji family was privately protecting the descendants of the Yin family, but they were jointly strangled by the eight great families and reduced to having no male children, so they ended up hiding in the deep forests. You only know that Jiang Ming killed your parents, but you don’t know that if it wasn’t for Jiang Yunqing’s protection, your grandfather’s family would have become a legend in the jianghu by now, just like the Yin family. You only knew that someone had told you that the Thoughtless Mountain was the greatest treasure of the martial world and that everyone wanted it, but no one had ever told you that it was a time bomb and that whoever took it would die. When the Ji family was slaughtered by the Jianghu clan, your mother divided the alliance of the rest of the seven great clans with the position of the alliance master, and the seven great clans fought to the death for the Lord of the Jianghu clan before the Ji family could breathe a sigh of relief. In order to end this meaningless infighting, it was only under the leadership of Elder Ge that the seven great clans made a jianghu covenant that the nine great clans must not kill each other. Why don’t you think about it, when it was obvious that it could have been announced back then who the jianghu alliance was, but your mother dragged it out and put it in a painting instead? This was a bomb of revenge that your mother had carefully created, yet you held it in your hands as a treasure. Zhang Chao, you really let me down too much. You said the most important things were family and friends. Do you want your family and friends to die because of this painting? Think about it yourself.”
Han Kun got a bit emotional when he spoke and said many things he had never told me before.
These words left me speechless straight away.
I only knew the skinny on these matters in the jianghu, Zhao Zichen and Yue Man Gong were young men and they told me very little.
Old Mo, however, was so secretive about these matters that he hardly spoke about them.
I would like to know what happened back then, but there is no way to know.
It feels so f*cked up!
I said, “Then why don’t you ever tell me.”
“One day I’ll tell you, but not now. Because I promised your mother that I would keep you safe. I can’t care if you shed your blood for your country on the battlefield, but I can’t let you die in the foul waters of the jianghu. The less you know about this jianghu, the safer you will be. You give Mount Thoughtless to Jiang Ming, and after that I will tell Liu Rong to get the hell out of Junran.” Han Kun’s serious tone suddenly choked and he snorted with laughter, “Old Gan is almost eighty years old and was so angry with you that he almost had a stroke, so consider it some good deed.”
When Han Kun hung up the phone, my whole body was frozen.
Looking at the phone in my hand, for the first time I felt like a fool who didn’t understand anything.
Han Kun was inconsistent in what he said, but I couldn’t understand why he had to cover up like that. Couldn’t he just tell me what was going on?
It was Jiang Ming who killed my parents and Jiang Yunqing who saved my maternal grandfather’s family.
When I opened the door and went out, Cai Xiaobing and Fox almost fell in, these two had been lying on the door eavesdropping.
“What are you two doing?” I asked without a smile.
“Team, Captain, how did your talk with your benefactor uncle go?”
“No luck, we’d better rely on ourselves, lean on the mountain to fall, lean on the water to break.”
I walked over to the sofa and sat down on my butt, my mouth was thirsty from arguing with Han Kun just now, so I poured myself a gla*s of water.
Cai Xiaobing and Fox were still undyingly pasted over, and the gossipy eyes of these two annoyed me to no end.
“What the hell do you two want? Do you want to be punished with push-ups?”
Fox said, “Captain, don’t be angry, we just want to see what your failure looks like.”
“Are you looking for a beating?”
Cai Xiaobing was busy saying, “No, no, captain, we’ve known you for so long and we’ve seen that you’re never full of ambition, never held back anywhere, this uncle of yours is really too much of a bully.”
I was so angry I laughed, “You two are nuts aren’t you? Well, don’t count on backup now either. You find a way to get the word out that I have Lin Kang, and hurry up and get Lin Fang back.”
Fox said, “But Captain, how are you going to end up after this mess you made at Junran today? You can’t just lick your face and apologise tomorrow, then you’ll really be a mascot in Surran from now on, with no authority at all.”
I said, “Who says so? Keep up the fuss.”
The two men’s mouths dropped open and they both said, “Are you crazy?”
Old Yu, who was fiddling with his computer, heard this and also looked up from his screen and said, “Yes captain, aren’t you afraid of taking your own company out of business, it’s your property?”
If it wasn’t for Han Kun’s words today, I wouldn’t have thought that way, but it was because of what he said today that made me firm that I must take Junran into my own hands.
Whatever the reason, I didn’t need Han Kun to keep the truth from me. I was already in my twenties, and I didn’t know how many times I’d been through life and death, so I didn’t need anyone else to lie to me under the pretext of protecting me.
If I can’t even figure out why my parents died, then am I a human being?
