Chapter 169
Chapter 169
“As a precaution? What, did you have the university surrounded?”
Qiu Ziyu looked around at their grand force of three and could not resist the jab.
“No,” Nan Mu replied calmly. He took the jar of chili in front of Qiu Ziyu and added a spoonful to his own wontons. “So the two of you should hurry up and eat. Once you’re done, follow her and make sure she doesn’t run.”
Fang Yue, who had been eating noodles with his head down, looked up blankly. “Me?”
Qiu Ziyu fell silent.
Then he burst out indignantly, “Unbelievable. You make the threats, but the two of us have to do all the work?”
Nan Mu chewed and swallowed the wonton in his mouth, then gave Qiu Ziyu an innocent look. “What else can we do? Both of them know me.”
Qiu Ziyu choked on his retort. He had no choice but to swallow the suggestion that Nan Mu follow them himself.
===
Cheng Jiamin stared at the tiny flash drive Nan Mu had left behind, her eyes filled with indecision. She was not sure whether she should contact Wen Tangtang.
She scanned the office with near-paranoid care. Only after confirming that no one was listening did she lift her bag from beneath the desk and retrieve a SIM card from a hidden compartment.
Fortunately, she had prepared in advance. Afraid that her phone and number would be monitored if the matter came to light, she had deliberately bought several backup SIM cards registered under strangers’ names for this very day.
Careful not to use her own phone, she removed the SIM card from the office phone used for recruitment and replaced it with the one in her hand.
After Wen Tangtang escaped, Cheng Jiamin had obtained a SIM card for her so they could stay in contact. The card in Cheng Jiamin’s hand had been purchased at the same time.
The call connected quickly.
“What is it?”
Wen Tangtang’s voice was low and hoarse. Since fleeing the hospital, her physical condition had deteriorated by the day. Cheng Jiamin had seen her losing handfuls of hair, and her health was deeply concerning.
Cheng Jiamin told her about Nan Mu’s visit.
“Who did you say? Nan Mu?”
Wen Tangtang gave a strange laugh. “I was worried I wouldn’t be able to get close to him. I never expected him to come to me first.”
Cheng Jiamin froze. “You were looking for him?”
As though she had not heard the question, Wen Tangtang asked, “You said he gave you a flash drive? What’s on it?”
“I don’t know. He said it was for you, so I didn’t open it.” Cheng Jiamin asked, “A flash drive shouldn’t be dangerous, should it? Do you want me to check the contents first?”
Wen Tangtang seemed to weigh her options. Several seconds passed before she answered, “Forget it. Bring it over tonight. I’ll look at it myself.”
“All right,” Cheng Jiamin agreed readily.
Then she asked once more, “Are you sure you want to meet Nan Mu?”
“Yes.”
“Then when and where should we arrange it?” Cheng Jiamin asked anxiously. “If we let him decide, could he set up an ambush? Wouldn’t it be safer for us to choose?”
Wen Tangtang remained silent for so long that Cheng Jiamin assumed she had not decided on a place yet. “Why don’t you take some time to think? Send me a message when you’ve decided, and I’ll contact Nan Mu.”
“No need,” Wen Tangtang said slowly. “Give me the contact information he left. I’ll call him myself.”
Cheng Jiamin paused, then immediately grew anxious. “You can’t do that. If you contact him directly, what if… what if he keeps you on the phone while the police trace your location?”
Wen Tangtang gave a cold laugh. “Didn’t he claim he’d already made arrangements at the university? If he wanted to arrest me, why bother visiting you first? Wouldn’t it be easier simply to follow you?”
Her reasoning made sense, but Cheng Jiamin remained uneasy. After thinking seriously for a moment, she said, “We still need to be careful. Why don’t I contact him first? It would be safer.”
Wen Tangtang was silent for a while, apparently considering something. At last, she explained, “If you pass messages for me, that proves you know where I am. If I’m arrested, you’ll be prosecuted for harboring me. I’m implicated in a murder. If you’re convicted for helping me, the sentence will inevitably be severe. But if I contact him myself, then even if they arrest me, all you have to do is destroy this SIM card so they can’t trace it back to you. They won’t be able to prove we were in contact.”
Cheng Jiamin had not expected Wen Tangtang to consider so many things in such a short time.
She also suddenly understood why Wen Tangtang had always contacted her by phone and refused whenever Cheng Jiamin offered to visit her room…
Wen Tangtang had long anticipated that if the police caught her, they would search the place where she was staying. Frequent visitors could easily have been seen or left biological DNA behind. Cheng Jiamin was safest only if she never went there.
Cheng Jiamin’s eyes suddenly reddened, and a nasal note entered her voice. She said stubbornly, “I’m not afraid…”
“But I am.” Wen Tangtang sighed on the other end of the call. “I don’t want to drag you into this. If I hadn’t… had no one else to turn to, I would never have disturbed your life.”
“How is this disturbing me?” Cheng Jiamin pressed her lips together as her vision gradually blurred. “If it weren’t for you, I might have died ten years ago.”
She sniffed and smiled through her tears. “These extra ten years are more than I was owed. Even if I’m really arrested, I won’t regret it. You know I’ve always wanted to repay you for saving my life, but I could never find the opportunity… I’m glad you thought of coming to me now.”
Holding the phone, Wen Tangtang sat in a pitch-black room with the curtains drawn despite the daylight. She stared at the ray of sunlight slipping through the seam where the two curtains overlapped and said nothing.
As Cheng Jiamin rambled about the past over the phone, sadness and gratitude mingled in Wen Tangtang’s heart.
“But I would regret it.”
Faces flashed through Wen Tangtang’s mind: Wen Miao, who had failed to return one night and was later found dead in a hospital bed; Wen Xin, whose body had been pierced by Xu Lei’s knife in the laboratory while trying to save her…
She had once had so many people she cared about, yet one after another, they had disappeared from her life.
“Cheng Jiamin, you still have a beautiful life ahead of you. Don’t let us drag you into the mud. Don’t let…” Standing before the window, Wen Tangtang raised her head, and sunlight fell into her eyes. “Don’t let everyone I care about leave this world. Someone should remain in the sunlight and see the world for us.”
The people most important to her were already gone.
But fortunately, before she too left this world, she had found another precious friend.
“Cheng Jiamin, thank you so much. I’m glad… I got to know you.”