Gu Huai hadn't slept all night.
The light in his study stayed on until dawn.
He sat on the sofa with a cigarette between his fingers, oblivious to the long column of ash hanging from it.
The Gu Family had sent people overnight to deal with the southside project, but word had still spread.
At two in the morning, someone posted a video of the construction site online.
The headline grabbed attention.
[Old car wreck unearthed at southside construction site, suspected to be vehicle that disappeared in overpass accident three years ago.]
The video was short and badly shaky, but it captured the last digits of the license plate. Though damaged, they matched the rideshare car involved in the accident.
That accident had caused a stir three years ago.
A rideshare car had been struck on an overpass. The driver died at the scene, a female passenger in the back seat suffered severe injuries and fell into a coma, and another passenger disappeared. Later, the driver responsible turned himself in, claimed he'd been driving while exhausted, paid compensation, and served time.
But now, the wreck of the missing vehicle had turned up at the Gu Family's southside construction site.
Suddenly, the whole affair took on a different meaning.
People online had already started digging.
[How convenient is that? A car that disappeared three years ago gets dug up on the Gu Family's land?]
[Was something wrong with the original investigation?]
[I remember the driver responsible wasn't the owner of the car, was he?]
[The Gu Family needs to explain.]
Gu Huai stared at the comments, his expression growing uglier.
He knew this was only the beginning.
If people really started following the license plate, surveillance footage, and the history of the project site, sooner or later they would uncover how the Gu Family had cleaned up the scene.
His father called at three in the morning and gave him a furious dressing-down.
Gu Huai didn't argue.
His thoughts were in turmoil.
More than the online backlash, he cared about the face he'd seen last night.
He remembered that woman.
On the night of the crash three years ago, the female passenger in the back seat hadn't died on the spot. Her face covered in blood, she had begged him through the car window to save her.
Gu Huai had gotten out of his car.
He'd taken just one look.
Then he'd turned around and climbed into another car.
The Gu Family's people arrived soon afterward and handled the aftermath for him.
The woman later fell into a vegetative state and had remained in the hospital ever since.
Gu Huai had thought he'd long forgotten that face.
Last night, it had appeared again.
Gu Huai stubbed out his cigarette in irritation.
"Xu Zhihan."
He ground out the name, his gaze dark.
It had to be Xu Zhihan.
Who knew how that sickly weakling had learned about what happened three years ago? He was deliberately using it to scare him. What had happened at the southside construction site had to be connected to Xu Zhihan, too.
The more Gu Huai thought about it, the more impossible it seemed.
Xu Zhihan had rarely even left the Xu Family home before. How could he possibly have the ability to dig up an old case like this?
But those words, "Within three days, you'll suffer a run of bad luck," lodged in his mind like a thorn.
He couldn't shake them.
At nine that morning, Gu Huai took his men to the hospital.
He wanted to confront Xu Zhihan and get answers.
But the moment he reached the inpatient building, he saw Lu Wenchuan leaning against a pillar in the lobby, a cup of coffee in his hand and an utterly languid expression on his face.
Gu Huai stopped.
Lu Wenchuan looked up at him and smiled. "Young Master Gu. What a coincidence."
Gu Huai's gaze darkened. "Were you waiting for me?"
"More or less." Lu Wenchuan took a sip of coffee. "Didn't want you going upstairs and disturbing a patient's rest."
Gu Huai sneered. "You're overstepping."
Lu Wenchuan tossed his coffee cup into the trash, his tone still easy. "Occupational habit."
Gu Huai stared at him. "Who exactly are you?"
"I told you yesterday. Lu Wenchuan, Seventh Team, Special Investigation Bureau."
Gu Huai's expression shifted slightly.
He hadn't paid any attention to the name yesterday. But after he went back, his secretary looked into it, and only then did he learn that the Special Investigation Bureau was no ordinary agency. Lu Wenchuan didn't have a particularly good reputation in their circles, but no one dared cross him lightly.
He seemed flippant, but when he took action, he never spared anyone's dignity.
Gu Huai took a deep breath. "I have something to discuss with Xu Zhihan."
Lu Wenchuan blocked his path. "He's busy."
"You're making decisions for him?"
Lu Wenchuan smiled. "Wouldn't dare. He's got a bad temper. If I made decisions for him, he'd throw me out along with you."
Gu Huai's expression grew uglier. "Then move."
Lu Wenchuan didn't budge.
He was still smiling, but there was little warmth in his eyes.
"Young Master Gu, you haven't finished cleaning up the southside project mess. Isn't it inappropriate to come looking for him now?"
Gu Huai's pupils contracted.
"You're investigating me?"
"Relax." Lu Wenchuan's tone was casual. "Your family's making so much noise, there's no need to investigate."
Gu Huai lowered his voice. "Captain Lu, this is a private Gu Family matter."
"People dying in a car crash counts as a private matter, too?"
Gu Huai's face darkened completely.
People were coming and going through the lobby. He couldn't lose his temper here, so he could only grit his teeth and say, "If you have no evidence, you'd better watch what you say."
Lu Wenchuan nodded. "Funny. I like evidence, too."
Gu Huai caught the implication, and his heart sank.
Just then, his phone rang.
Gu Huai glanced at the caller, and his expression changed instantly.
It was his father.
He answered, but before he could speak, his father's low, furious voice came through. "Where are you?"
Gu Huai glanced at Lu Wenchuan and said quietly, "The hospital."
"Who told you to go to the hospital? Come back immediately! That woman in a vegetative state woke up!"
Gu Huai's mind went blank with a buzz.
He held his phone, unable to process it for a moment.
"What did you say?"
His father's voice grew grimmer. "That woman from three years ago woke up this morning. She says she saw you."
A chill swept through Gu Huai's entire body.
The voice on the phone continued.
"The police are already there. Come back right now, and stop running around."
Gu Huai's fingers were stiff when he hung up.
Lu Wenchuan studied his expression and drawled, "Bad news?"
Gu Huai jerked his head up. "Was this Xu Zhihan's doing?"
Lu Wenchuan raised an eyebrow. "You're asking me?"
"He said yesterday that I'd have bad luck, and today she wakes up. Can you honestly say he had nothing to do with it?"
Lu Wenchuan watched him for a moment, then suddenly smiled.
"Young Master Gu, are you saying that because she woke up and identified you, Xu Zhihan's somehow the one at fault?"
Gu Huai went pale.
Lu Wenchuan stepped forward, lowering his voice a little.
"She lay there for three years, and the first thing she did when she woke up was tell the truth. You're not afraid of her, but you're afraid of Xu Zhihan. You really know how to pick an easy target."
Gu Huai's face turned livid at his words.
He was about to say something else when his phone rang again.
This time, it was his secretary.
"Young Master Gu, we've got a problem. Someone posted interviews with the accident victims' families online. And there's-there's also a recording saying someone used money to force them to keep quiet back then."
Gu Huai's vision went dark.
His secretary's voice was still trembling. "It's trending. The Gu Corporation's share price has already been affected. Chairman Gu wants you back at the company immediately."
Gu Huai gripped his phone so tightly that his knuckles turned white.
He finally realized this was no ordinary public backlash.
It was as though an invisible hand were digging up everything that had been suppressed three years ago, one piece at a time.
The car at the southside construction site.
The woman who had woken from her vegetative state.
The interviews with the victims' families.
The recording that had been sealed away.
One link followed another, too quickly for the Gu Family to react.
Gu Huai suddenly looked up toward the inpatient building's elevators.
Xu Zhihan was right upstairs.
That man, who had been lying in a hospital bed just yesterday, so pale he looked as though he might stop breathing at any moment, had said only one thing.
Within three days, you'll suffer a run of bad luck.
Yet in less than a day, Gu Huai had already been driven to this point.
A chill crept down Gu Huai's back.
For the first time, he felt that Xu Zhihan might not have merely been trying to scare him.
Having watched his reaction long enough, Lu Wenchuan finally stepped halfway aside.
"You can go up if you want."
Gu Huai looked at him.
Lu Wenchuan gave a faint smile. "But I'd advise you not to."
Gu Huai asked grimly, "Why?"
Lu Wenchuan looked at him and said unhurriedly, "He's probably not in a very good mood right now."
"You're afraid of him?"
Lu Wenchuan considered it and didn't bother pretending otherwise.
"A little."
Gu Huai sneered. "Even Captain Lu gets scared?"
"Sure." Lu Wenchuan admitted it readily. "I'm not an idiot."
He glanced at Gu Huai's pale face and added, "If you were a little smarter, you'd be scared, too."
Gu Huai stood there, his expression shifting again and again.
In the end, he didn't go upstairs.
When he turned and left, his steps were considerably less steady than when he'd arrived.
Lu Wenchuan watched him go, the smile fading from his face.
After a while, he took out his phone and sent Xu Zhihan a message.
[Gu Huai left.]
In his hospital room, Xu Zhihan had just finished taking his medicine.
It was bitter.
His brows were tightly furrowed.
His phone lit up.
He picked it up, saw Lu Wenchuan's message, and sent a brief reply without any change in expression.
[Was he noisy?]
Lu Wenchuan replied quickly.
[Not as noisy as you.]
Xu Zhihan stared at those words for two seconds.
Then, expressionless, he muted notifications for Lu Wenchuan's messages.
A nurse happened to come in just then, holding the day's test results.
"Mr. Xu, your color seems a little better today than yesterday."
Xu Zhihan put his phone down, his tone calm. "Does it?"
The nurse smiled. "Are you in a better mood, too?"
Xu Zhihan didn't answer.
He looked out the window.
The sky was overcast, as though it was about to rain.
Gu Huai's trail of crimes had already begun to backfire on him, and more would come to light next. The Xu Family probably couldn't sit still anymore either.
There would only be more trouble.
Xu Zhihan closed his eyes for a moment, feeling his head begin to ache again.
But this time, he didn't find it utterly unbearable.
After all, some people really were rather quiet when misfortune struck.