Chapter Eighty-Eight: Warm Sunshine

Chapter Eighty-Eight: Warm Sunlight

Lowering his head to inspect Ye Weitian’s lifeless body, Liu Xiaobing shook his head with a trace of regret. “He’s dead. No saving him now. Xiaobai, you were far too ruthless. Four or five shots, was it? I’ve finally seen your vicious side.”

Rising to his feet, Liu Xiaobing patted Bai Zeshao on the shoulder. “Still, I really ought to thank you. If you hadn’t blocked him just now, that fellow might have rushed straight at me. Come to think of it, you saved my life.”

“It was nothing.” Having already regained his composure, Bai Zeshao put away his pistol and cast a deliberately cold glance at Ye Weitian. “A man like that—alive or dead, I doubt he would have confessed anything useful.”

“That’s true.” Liu Xiaobing nodded in agreement.

Only then did Bai Zeshao have time to look at Ye Weitian’s child. But what troubled him was this: the boy had stopped crying, yet his eyes had turned vacant and hollow. He sat there wooden and dazed, as if he had gone witless.

“The kid hasn’t gone stupid, has he?” Following Bai Zeshao’s gaze, Liu Xiaobing looked over as well and spoke in an odd tone.

“Don’t talk nonsense,” Bai Zeshao muttered with a frown.

Yet inwardly he was seized by anxiety. With his dying breath, Ye Weitian had entrusted the child to him, but the boy’s condition was clearly wrong.

A child who had watched his mother and father die miserably before his very eyes—if such psychological trauma were not treated and guided in time, the child’s entire life would be ruined.

At that thought, Bai Zeshao turned to Liu Xiaobing. “Xiaobing, let the child go.”

“As you please. You won the bet earlier—if you want to take him away, then take him.” Liu Xiaobing sounded unconcerned. By his own thinking, it would have been better to uproot the whole thing and leave no trouble behind.

In their line of work, one had to be ruthless. Otherwise, sooner or later, the unlucky one would be oneself. But now the child plainly seemed half-witted, and with Bai Zeshao asking for it, Liu Xiaobing was willing to grant the favor.

Holding the silent little boy in his arms, Bai Zeshao fled the dark interrogation room as though escaping. He did not wish to remain there a single minute longer.

The moment he stepped out, a beam of bright sunlight streamed through the window. Facing that dazzling late-autumn light, Bai Zeshao found himself unable to open his eyes for a moment.

He felt as though he had remained in that gloomy interrogation room for a very, very long time—so long that he had almost begun to think he was becoming one of those rats that lived forever in darkness, creatures unfit to see the light. And now the sunlight struck him as piercing, radiant, righteous.

For some reason, as the sun fell upon him, Bai Zeshao suddenly felt a warmth unlike any he had ever known. The bloodshed, the chill, the terror that had clung to him in the interrogation room seemed to vanish like smoke beneath the sunlight.

That warmth made his arms tighten unconsciously around the little boy. He left the Secret Service at once and headed quickly toward Yaren Hospital.

At Yaren Hospital,

Bai Zeshao looked nervously at Shen Guohua. “Huazi, how is the child?”

“He’s lost his speech,” Shen Guohua said heavily.

“What? Lost his speech?” Bai Zeshao nearly shouted.

“You heard me correctly. He has indeed become mute. He suffered too violent a shock from external trauma, and it caused this loss of speech. Whether it is temporary or permanent will depend on how his treatment goes from here.”

Shen Guohua sighed, then stared straight at the bloodstains on Bai Zeshao’s chest. “Xiaobai, can you tell me what exactly happened to this child?”

Bai Zeshao closed his eyes in pain. “The child watched his parents beaten to death right in front of him. His mother’s brains were splattered everywhere. His father was struck by several bullets.”

“Who could have done such a thing? What a sin. No matter what, the child is innocent.” Hearing this, Shen Guohua glanced at the little boy still sitting there in a daze, his eyes full of pity.

Bai Zeshao had no answer. He merely let out a silent sigh.

“It wasn’t you, was it?” Looking at Bai Zeshao’s expression, Shen Guohua suddenly asked in a startling tone.

“Why would you think that?” Bai Zeshao shot him a surprised look, his face full of strangeness.

“Then it really was you. Xiaobai, you should do more good deeds and store up some virtue for the dark world. Leave this child to me—I’ll arrange for him.” With that, Shen Guohua turned and walked away.

Bai Zeshao did not stop him. The child would be better off with Shen Guohua than with himself, and he knew Shen Guohua’s character. Though they had not seen each other in many years, he still trusted him.

As for the words Shen Guohua had left him with before departing, Bai Zeshao could only accept them bitterly. He did not know how to explain himself, nor how he could ever make others believe him, understand him.

In low spirits, Bai Zeshao walked out of Yaren Hospital alone. He did not take a car; instead, he wandered quietly by himself beneath the warm sunlight, touched by a faint breeze.

By the time he returned to the Secret Service, it was already noon. After hastily eating a little food, Bai Zeshao’s emotions had calmed—or rather, he had forced them down into the deepest corner of his heart.

Back in his office, Bai Zeshao could not help recalling again the scenes from the interrogation room that morning. When Ye Weitian had snatched the pistol from his waist during the sudden attack, Bai Zeshao had noticed it at once; he had even had a chance to react.

Yet before he could make a move, he felt the gun that had just been taken somehow return to his own hand. The instant his fingers closed around the familiar grip, caught utterly unprepared, he heard several gunshots in rapid succession.

Ye Weitian had clasped Bai Zeshao’s right hand tightly and pulled the trigger himself—without the slightest hesitation—firing several times in a row.

There was no doubt: Ye Weitian’s resolute rush toward death had not only been born of a desire to escape the torment in his heart; part of it had also been to protect Bai Zeshao.

Bai Zeshao did not know how to describe what he had felt at that moment: shock, stupefaction.

He let out a long breath.

As he came back to himself, Bai Zeshao could not help thinking of An Guoming, that shameless traitor.

He still remembered what Mister Li had once said to him: among us in the Red Party, a few scum may appear from time to time.

But the overwhelming majority of us are still warriors who struggle steadfastly for our faith.

Ye Weitian’s experience had shown Bai Zeshao, vividly and in blood, what the loyalty and unbending spirit of a Red Party member truly meant.

Having been baptized by that tragic and heroic scene, Bai Zeshao’s heart only grew firmer.

And after this brief stretch of reflection and self-adjustment, his state of mind finally returned to normal.

While Bai Zeshao was lost in memory and introspection, Liu Xiaobing and Lu Tiankang were also discussing him.