Chapter 283
Chapter 283
Assistant He had indeed lied.
Anning and I retraced our steps. On the road leading to the mourning hall, we saw no one lying in wait.
We reached the hall safely.
Although it was late at night and fewer people were present than during the day, several villagers were still keeping vigil.
As long as people were around, we were safe. Anning and I sat down nearby, gasping for breath.
“Are we… safe now?” Anning looked from side to side, terrified that someone might pursue us.
I told her not to worry. “They aren’t that brazen. They won’t dare make trouble openly inside the village.”
But if we wanted to be truly safe, we still needed to call someone.
I pulled out my phone and called Song Xiaotian.
He seemed to have been asleep. It took him a long time to answer, and his voice was weary. “Hello? What do you want in the middle of the night…”
“Anning and I were attacked in Xujia Village. Assistant He is a mole.”
“Holy fucking shit!”
Sounds of Song Xiaotian getting out of bed immediately came through the phone.
I could also hear Pan Xiaorou’s voice.
Song Xiaotian asked, “How are you two now? Are you safe?”
I told him we were safe for the moment. Someone in the village had passed away, and we were at the mourning hall, where people were keeping vigil.
I did not tell him much more over the phone.
Song Xiaotian instructed Anning and me to remain at the mourning hall. He and Meng Yifan would come at once.
After hanging up, I sighed.
We had been fortunate tonight. I had managed to speak with the Ninth Concubine and could have learned part of the truth about what happened back then, only for someone to ruin everything just as the truth came within reach.
What baffled me most was that Assistant He had been working with our attackers.
Assistant He worked for Boss Lin. Suppose Boss Lin was also involved, and the people who attacked us had been sent by him. Why would he do such a thing?
Boss Lin and I had never met before this, while Seventh Master was his friend. No matter how I looked at it, Boss Lin had no reason to harm us.
That meant our attackers tonight had not been sent by Boss Lin. I could only conclude that the previous developer had sent them and that Assistant He had been bought off.
Assistant He was a hypocrite to begin with. He disliked the countryside and even looked down on it, yet insisted on pretending he loved the place.
His own family came from the countryside, yet he still despised it. That made him an ungrateful man who would betray his friends for personal gain. It was perfectly plausible that someone had bribed him.
Anning and I could only sit there and wait for Song Xiaotian. Soon, both of us were nodding off. I did not dare sleep, but after sitting for a while, Anning rested her head on my shoulder and fell asleep.
About two hours later, Song Xiaotian called to say he could already see us. He told us to follow the road to the left of the mourning hall.
I hurriedly woke Anning and went to meet him.
Before long, we saw Song Xiaotian and Meng Yifan.
They had parked the car by the roadside and were leaning against its doors, watching their surroundings with great vigilance.
Only when they saw Anning and me did they finally relax.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Where’s Assistant He?”
I shook my head and quickly gave them a detailed account of what had happened.
Assistant He would never dare return now. We had exposed him as a mole, so he probably would not even go back to Boss Lin.
Meng Yifan cursed, “That fucking He was a mole? What kind of boss is Boss Lin? He didn’t even know his own subordinate had been bought off?”
“Call him and make him deal with his own man.”
Song Xiaotian raised a hand to stop him. “Calling him now wouldn’t be wise. How can you be certain He was bought off? What if he wasn’t?”
Meng Yifan did not understand. “He tried to hurt Chen Mo and Anning. How could he not have been bought off? That bastard was definitely bribed.”
I frowned. “Brother Tian means Assistant He may have been following Boss Lin’s orders. But Boss Lin has no reason to hurt us. Seventh Master and I are the ones he hired, and Seventh Master said Boss Lin had no grudge against him. Surely he wouldn’t try to kill us?”
Song Xiaotian said, “You can’t judge a situation like this by common sense. Someone who intends to harm you isn’t going to write it on his face.”
“Since we don’t know whether there’s something wrong with Boss Lin, our best option is to act as though nothing happened and see how he responds tomorrow. If he asks where Assistant He went, we’ll say we don’t know and assumed he went back on his own.”
“If Boss Lin reacts abnormally, then he’s involved.”
Song Xiaotian’s solution was to meet every change by remaining unchanged.
I nodded, agreeing with his suggestion.
The four of us drove out of the village.
Boss Lin had lent Song Xiaotian the car so it would be easier for us to handle our business in Lincheng.
After leaving the village, we booked several more rooms at the hotel in the scenic area.
We could have returned directly to our hotel in the city, but first, we had not said goodbye to the old man, and second, we would probably need to spend another night in the village.
Since I had already met the Ninth Concubine tonight, I would definitely see her again tomorrow night. I needed to finish asking all my questions.
Once I reached my room, I took a shower, collapsed exhausted onto the bed, pulled the covers over my head, and fell into a deep sleep.
But I had not been asleep for long when I began to dream. It was a lucid dream.
Ordinarily, people had no idea they were dreaming while a dream was taking place, but there were exceptions.
When I had dreamed of the Ancestral Master, for example, I had been fully aware that I was dreaming. My consciousness could converse freely with the Ancestral Master inside the dream, and after waking, I remembered everything that had happened.
Tonight was the same. I knew I was dreaming, and I dreamed that I had returned to the Luo Mansion.
This time, however, the mansion held only an old woman. She sat in the main hall as though she had been waiting for me.
She was so old she could barely straighten her back. Once I saw her face clearly, I matched it to the face in the portrait at the mourning hall.
“Immortal Maiden Xu?”
I called out to her in surprise.
She looked up at me. Despite her great age, her expression was kindly. It was hard to imagine that she had once possessed the face of a peerless beauty.
“It seems you’re safe,” she said.
I nodded. “I’m safe. Thank you for warning me earlier. Can you tell me who murdered you?”
She said nothing, merely raising her right hand slightly.
Two men soon appeared in the main hall. One was the man who had attacked me earlier and then had his head smashed open by Anning. The other looked vaguely familiar, but I could not remember who he was.
I had definitely seen him before, perhaps only once. He must not have seemed important at the time, which was why I had failed to remember him.
For now, I committed both faces to memory, then asked the Ninth Concubine, “Do you know who these two men are? Why did they want to kill you?”