Chapter 44

As they watched the police swiftly take the troublemakers away, the bullet comments erupted:

"Ahhh, finally! Someone's putting those street punks in their place!"

"I've had enough of them for ages! When's Qiao Huan coming to our village? We've got scum like that too, loafing around and picking fights all day!"

"Boohoo, but I still didn't get a good look at Qiao Huan's face! I've just got one question for the Production Team: do you dare move the camera closer?!"

"Someone just recommended the Body Health brand apples, so I bought some. Will Qiao Huan's picture be on them?"

"Yep, a high-definition headshot too. Trust me (manually added doge.jpg)."

The viewers in the bullet comments were delighted, and even those fans of the rascal didn't dare speak up.

How could they not know why they followed Rascal Bro? Weren't they just there to gawk at ugliness?

But compared with watching Rascal Bro keep making trouble, seeing him hauled off to the slammer clearly made them happier.

After all, troublemakers like him were like dog-skin plasters: impossible to shake off. Even people who didn't live in the countryside had run into them to some degree.

Qiao Huan had never imagined that sending a troublemaker to the slammer would hit the sweet spot for so many viewers. He had simply been doing his duty, without much emotion involved.

Besides, he had more pressing things to worry about now.

"It hurts." Constantine held his little head, looking utterly aggrieved.

Although Zhuo Yang had stopped Chubby just now, inertia was proportional to an object's weight, and he had still knocked Constantine over.

There was also the lobster bucket. It hadn't felt heavy to the adults, but it had sailed through the air and landed squarely on Constantine's head.

"It's my fault." Zhuo Yang's face was full of regret. "I should've stepped in sooner."

He had hesitated because he had spent so long worrying that he wouldn't be able to control his strength if he intervened.

It would have been one thing if he had gotten hurt himself, but the one who got hurt had been the child who needed protection most.

"Don't dwell on it, Brother Zhuo. You're not all-powerful either." Qiao Huan patted him on the back. "Let me take a look."

Constantine looked fairly alert, but a small bump had risen on his forehead.

"Ah... What do we do?" Zhuo Yang didn't feel any better. "An IQ of 140, and I might've knocked it right out of him..."

He even wished Ye Yiwei were there. That guy was pretty good at treating people and saving lives.

Qiao Huan picked Constantine up. "Let's take him to the hospital."

Tears brimmed in Constantine's eyes, and he nodded obediently.

The female judge looked worried too. "This happened during our event, after all. I'll come along and cover the costs for now."

"Okay."

Qiao Huan thought this was a good opportunity to ask her about Fan Hui too.

"Excuse me, were you the one who reported the incident?" Just then, an officer walked over to Qiao Huan. "Could you come back with us and give a statement?"

Qiao Huan stopped in his tracks.

He was usually the one receiving reports, so he had actually forgotten about that.

"Go ahead, A-Huan." Zhuo Yang took Constantine from him, looking determined to see this through. "I'll take Ding Ding to the hospital."

"All right."

By the time Qiao Huan came out of the police station, it was already afternoon.

The local police station was far busier than he had imagined. Several officers barely had a moment off their feet during their shifts.

One moment, children had ruined someone's rice crop; the next, two families had come to blows because one had dug a ditch onto the other's property. Such trivial matters cropped up endlessly.

An eighty-year-old woman even wanted a young officer to help her catch a goose that had run into the street.

For a moment, Qiao Huan felt his dream of returning to his hometown police station after graduation to live an easy, healthy life shatter.

But this kind of life, full of everyday warmth, seemed pretty happy too.

To save time, he even volunteered to help his "colleagues," whose heads were practically steaming, settle neighborhood disputes.

He was the one who caught those geese.

Of course, he didn't help out for nothing.

He couldn't get hold of Qiao Tang for the moment, so he could only wait until his "colleagues" weren't paying attention and secretly log into the nationwide networked system.

The information was just as he had expected.

After quietly buying afternoon tea and dinner for the local officers, Qiao Huan left the station.

But instead of going straight to the hospital, he went to do something else first.

Night fell.

Only then did Qiao Huan enter the hospital, carrying several buckets of popcorn.

Outside the VIP ward, he saw the female judge and... Chubby sitting side by side.

After exchanging greetings with her, Qiao Huan looked at Chubby. "Why are you here?"

Chubby pointed to his back. "It hurts."

His skin had peeled from the sun.

Qiao Huan: ...

Served him right. That little diode hadn't put on sunscreen.

The female judge explained for him, "His mom said she couldn't come get him until tonight, so I brought him along for now."

"Oh..." Qiao Huan handed him some popcorn. "Sit here and eat."

"Yay!" Chubby's eyes lit up at once, as though he had no idea his parents had abandoned him one after the other.

Qiao Huan sighed.

The fake brat was still inside the ward getting examined, while the real brat ate popcorn without a care in the world.

"Can we talk?" the female judge asked Qiao Huan.

She had noticed early on that he had something to say.

"Mm." Qiao Huan's voice softened. "I heard about your daughter at the police station just now."

"I thought so. But it's no secret anymore," the female judge said evenly. "It's a shame we didn't meet you sooner. I didn't get much schooling, and I really thought she was possessed by something evil."

Qiao Huan's heart trembled.

He had just looked up information about the female judge's daughter in the system.

Her name was Dreamship.

"Could you tell me what happened back then?" Qiao Huan asked very carefully. "If it's too upsetting, never mind."

"All right." The female judge looked into the ward. A long while passed before she spoke. "No one else dares ask me, and even I haven't thought back on it for a long time. I don't know why, but seeing how you and Mr. Zhuo treated Constantine today, I rather wanted to talk about it."

Three years ago.

When Constantine was still in kindergarten, Fan Hui had noticed that he had some "problems."

But she was a producer who could summon the wind and rain in the film and television industry. How could she let anyone find out?

So she bought a house at the Platinum Coast and hid her son in that small community, cut off from the outside world. But she usually worked in City A, so she needed a nanny.

That nanny was the present-day female judge, A Fang.

And so A Fang began living with Constantine. As she spent time with him, she was surprised to find that his symptoms were very similar to her daughter's.

Dreamship was four years older than Constantine, but her symptoms were much more severe.

If Constantine really did have Asperger syndrome, then he was high-functioning. He could take care of himself, could even occasionally tell truth from lies, and had a high IQ. It was a blessing amid misfortune.

Dreamship, however... was the exact opposite.

But at the time, neither A Fang nor Fan Hui knew about the condition.

So when Fan Hui went to work in City A, A Fang would sometimes take both children back to her village for a couple of days, for convenience.

The two children, who both behaved strangely, became good friends. But gradually, rumors spread through the city that they had both been possessed by evil.

Constantine was still young, so naturally he hadn't heard many of the rumors.

But Dreamship was sensitive, and because A Fang believed it too, she faced pressure both at home and outside. She grew increasingly despondent.

Dreamship poured everything into her drawings, making up stories and telling them to Constantine.

Constantine was a strongly rational thinker and didn't like drawing, but he loved watching his big sister draw. As the school and the entire community ostracized them, the two grew closer and closer.

Then one time, Fan Hui returned and discovered Dreamship's drawings. They told a fairy tale about the starry sky, and she was instantly delighted.

She hoped to develop the story into a film, and in fact, she did.

That was the original basis for the film "Dreamship."

Time passed, and a year ago arrived.

Just when A Fang thought both Dreamship and Constantine were getting better, she overlooked the harm that constantly drawing and coming up with stories was doing to Dreamship herself.

The more absorbed she became in her fantasy world, the more keenly she felt the pain of being abandoned by reality.

That day, Fan Hui was due to return and had said she was bringing good news. As usual, A Fang was cleaning a room on the second floor and had left Constantine and Dreamship to play downstairs.

But children with special needs had extreme emotional swings. While drawing a story, Dreamship suddenly hit a block and couldn't make up any more of it.

Only a few dozen seconds passed between A Fang hearing the scream and rushing downstairs.

But Dreamship had already stabbed herself with a knife, just as in the story she had written, trying to return to the stars.

Fan Hui, who had hurried home, witnessed it too, as did Constantine.

The incident caused quite a stir. People there had never heard of a child in her teens doing such a thing, and they were even quicker to label her possessed.

Afterward, Fan Hui hired another nanny, and A Fang had no further contact with them.

That tragedy became a red full stop at the end of one of the few beautiful chapters in their lives.

After hearing the story, Qiao Huan let out a long sigh too.

That afternoon, there had happened to be a preview screening of "Dreamship" in City B, so Qiao Huan had gone to see it.

Amid all the melodramatic romantic scenes, he had found one story about a little girl that stood out awkwardly. He supposed that was what "Dreamship" had originally been.

The tragedy had happened on June 20.

That was also the date Fan Hui had insisted "Dreamship" be released.

"Are you wondering why 'Dreamship' ended up the way it did?"

Qiao Huan still hadn't shaken off the emotions stirred by A Fang's story when he heard a woman's voice behind him.

It was Fan Hui.

Fan Hui had actually come back.

In the dark, narrow corridor, sighs and cries of pain drifted over from patients in nearby rooms from time to time.

Fan Hui and A Fang hadn't seen each other for a long time. They looked at each other in silence, both in tears.

"I originally wanted to present 'Dreamship' as it was at the start, but as you know, that wasn't very commercial." Fan Hui sat down and sighed. "The script went through revision after revision without much success. Then an old friend came to me and said there was an opportunity to turn 'Dreamship' into Country C's first VR feature film. A VR equipment manufacturer also wanted to use the opportunity for promotion and would make a substantial investment."

"That day, I came home wanting to tell A Fang and Dreamship the good news, but then... that happened."

"Afterward, I turned down the dinner party, so naturally I didn't get the investment," Fan Hui continued. "But I wanted to push the project in my own direction, and I just didn't have the power. The investors, senior management at the production company, the actors, and the director all pressed down on me until I could hardly breathe. And after that incident, Constantine got more and more... unwell. So I gave up and let them do as they saw fit. In the end, 'Dreamship' became what it is now, and the only thing I could control was the release date."

Qiao Huan understood.

Ye Yiwei had once said that abnormal behavior in this world came down to three things: "money, affection, and power."

Clearly, the reason for Fan Hui's bizarre actions was "affection."

"I watched "Phantom River"," Fan Hui said gravely. "You did win a beautiful victory, but I still hope you won't tell anyone what I've told you, all right?"

Qiao Huan nodded and took a key from his pocket. "Did you deliberately leave this for me?"

After watching "Dreamship," he had returned to the attic in Fan Hui's house and opened the safe behind the painting. It had been full of Dreamship's old manuscripts.

Fan Hui took the key. "Yes."

"Why?"

"Because part of me wanted you to know I'm not the person the rumors say I am." Fan Hui smiled. "But if you hadn't investigated this far, I wouldn't have brought it up myself. Since you did, it means... it was fate."

Qiao Huan thought for a moment, then asked, "May I ask who invited you to that dinner party?"

Fan Hui looked at Qiao Huan for a long while. "You're not just an entertainer, are you?"

Conversation between clever people didn't need to be too direct, and Qiao Huan didn't answer directly either.

"It was Lin Xiangnan." Fan Hui didn't press the question. "There was also an international promoter. I went abroad this time hoping to find him, but I couldn't. I don't know anything else."

"Hmm."

Qiao Huan hadn't expected one of the mysterious people at the dinner party that led Luo Mi to hang herself to be Lin Xiangnan, who looked so very amiable.

And he happened to be the parent of the brat in Ye Yiwei and Bai Jike's group.

Qiao Huan quickly sent Ye Yiwei a message, telling him to stay alert.

"All right, I'm going to see my child." With that, Fan Hui finally stood up.

But her steps weren't very quick. Clearly, she still had reservations and was struggling with them.

"Ms. Fan, I went to see a child psychologist this afternoon," Qiao Huan recalled just then. "But I only gave him a general picture. I didn't say it was you."

"What did he say?" Fan Hui stopped.

"He said that if a child witnessed a scene like that, and afterward his mother devoted all her attention to the victim... there was a strong chance he would suffer psychological trauma. He might imitate the scene to get his mother's attention. And for a child suspected of having Asperger syndrome, such stereotyped behavior would be even more likely."

Fan Hui's figure went rigid for a moment.

"Then I... No, what should that mother do?"

She still couldn't bring herself to set aside her pride so quickly.

"It's already very good that the mother came back." As Qiao Huan spoke, he looked at Chubby, who hadn't even finished half a bucket of popcorn.

His mother was right here in this city, yet she was arriving even later than Fan Hui, who had flown back from Country U.

"As for the rest, it should be quite simple too."

With that, Qiao Huan and the others walked to the ward door and looked inside through its window.

Although Constantine had hurt his head, it wasn't serious.

He just had a bump on his head, which made it a little hard to lie down and sleep.

Zhuo Yang was holding Constantine, letting him sleep in his arms.

The rough-looking, straightforward man still hadn't let go of his guilt and distress. He could only make it up to the child, who hadn't blamed him at all, in this most clumsy and exhausting way.

There was no telling how long he had been holding that position.

After watching them, Fan Hui straightened her clothes and hair, then pushed the door open and went in.

"Give him to me. I'll hold him," she said to Zhuo Yang. "From now on, I'll hold him."

The sun and moon traded places.

Qiao Huan, Zhuo Yang, Fan Hui, Constantine, and A Fang all returned to the Platinum Coast.

Filming still had to continue, but Qiao Huan and Fan Hui had already agreed with the Production Team to leave out the parts about A Fang and Dreamship. So now it looked like nothing more than the story of a mother who had always neglected her child rebuilding her relationship with her son.

But that seemed to be the real story, too.

At present.

Zhuo Yang and A Fang were both teaching Fan Hui how to cook, while Constantine had gradually begun accepting other foods after the crayfish incident.

So they all crowded into the kitchen, and the usually quiet house finally came alive.

Qiao Huan, meanwhile, was happy to take it easy.

He got up early and went to the farmers' market to buy some flowers, plants, and seeds. After finding plenty of tools, he began experimenting with gardening in the backyard.

Partly because he believed Ye Yiwei could build a relationship with their current mission target, Lin Xiangnan, and draw information out of him, and partly because...

His experience at the local police station that day had cast a shadow over the retirement life of his dreams. He needed to heal himself.

Besides, the cameras were all focused on the kitchen, so he could spend less time on screen.

Fan Hui hadn't tended her yard in a very, very long time, so Qiao Huan had to start with the most basic tasks, like turning the soil.

Fortunately, he was "Apple Boy," and with the old man's help, he had acquired plenty of agricultural knowledge. Now, putting it into practice one step at a time, he finally understood the true meaning of the old saying: "What you learn from books always feels shallow; to truly know a thing, you must do it yourself."

After several days, he had already finished a quarter of the work.

Today, he had finished transplanting a few kumquat trees and finally had something to show for it.

Qiao Huan clapped his hands and straightened up. The tender leaves seemed to dance and glisten in the sunlight, giving him a distinct sense of being reborn.

Ah, his back ached, and so did his arms, but it was a happy ache.

Unfortunately, such easy, pleasant moments vanished in the blink of an eye.

He was an undercover agent.

His watch suddenly buzzed a few times. Qiao Tang had sent him a message.

Inside the house.

Having finished a round of work, Zhuo Yang looked out into the yard.

Qiao Huan was smiling at the newly planted kumquat trees.

He actually smiles!

Zhuo Yang had been here for so long, yet he had never seen Qiao Huan smile so genuinely.

Come to think of it... he really does like this kind of pastoral life, doesn't he?

A sudden pang of guilt rose in Zhuo Yang's heart.

Maybe he shouldn't have taken it upon himself to recruit Qiao Huan as his subordinate.

Being a happy salted fish in the entertainment industry, earning some money, then retiring and going home—that's what Qiao Huan wants, isn't it?

Besides, he could complete the mission on his own.

He had never been one to let his emotions rule him. Though he and Fan Hui had gotten along well enough on the surface over the past few days, he understood that their relationship wasn't close enough for him to ask outright, "What's the story with that key? Do you know my old captain's daughter?"

Fortunately, he was quick with his hands and feet.

After Fan Hui finished cooking, she went to a corner of the yard while waiting for the rice to cook and picked up a book. She had barely turned two pages before she was nearly asleep.

She was too tired.

It's time, Zhuo Yang thought.

He was going to do the one thing he least wanted to do in his life—steal.

And so.

While Fan Hui read and dozed, Zhuo Yang avoided the cameras and moved through the shadows until he was behind her.

Fan Hui's phone was right at the edge of her pants pocket, on the verge of falling out.

Zhuo Yang was certain her phone probably held plenty of inside information.

But he hadn't expected a familiar touch against the back of his hand the moment he reached out.

It came with the scent of kumquats, soil, and grass.

He quickly turned around and, caught completely off guard, met Qiao Huan's complicated gaze.

When had Qiao Huan gotten behind him?

Zhuo Yang froze. He felt that the person he trusted most had seen him at his most disgraceful, and he didn't know how to react.

A hundred excuses flashed through his mind, but facing Qiao Huan, he moved his lips several times and couldn't get a word out.

"You shouldn't investigate like this," Qiao Huan said first, his voice low and gentle, yet firm. "Brother Zhuo, can we talk?"