Ji Yongtao thought, it is impossible for this person not to realize that Chen Xiaohu is a bait.
Since they were aware of the situation, they couldn't have chosen to act during the car-changing phase. If they hadn't acted there, this madman's actions would have inevitably caused chaos in the crowded Chunfeng Square and led to the rescue of his accomplices. The police would have had concerns in the crowd, but they didn't.
So, they publicly announced that the bus was leaving from Chunfeng Square, but the route was subject to temporary changes. Today was Wednesday, and the square wasn't crowded, mostly elderly people with children coming to see the prisoners. If the route were to change, these people wouldn't deliberately chase the bus; instead, the young and middle-aged people in the crowd who took the new route would be the focus of surveillance.
-
At 10:05, a gray-green truck carrying five serious criminals slowly drove toward Chunfeng Square. After the crackdowns of the past few years, people were accustomed to such scenes. Elderly people would even hold children in their arms and teach them to read the charges written on the signs in front of the prisoners.
The truck pulled into the square, and the number of people there remained around a hundred, fewer than expected. Because it was noon on a weekday, there were few young people, mostly elderly people and children.
At this moment, the loudspeaker on the truck announced to the crowd: Route changed, route changed, Chunfeng Square is changed to Yunnan Middle Road, route changed...
The crowd showed signs of dispersing.
Among them, six or seven people stood still and looked around nervously. Almost instantly, these people were all knocked down by the operatives scattered around them.
The game was a complete success.
Everyone breathed a sigh of relief at the same time.
Ji Yongtao used the radio to confirm with the team: Have you found anyone who meets Chu Jiajun's characteristics?
Answers came one after another, but they were all "no".
Could it be that Chu Jiajun didn't participate in the operation? Was he just a few hired guns? They were just trying to guess where this person was when a sudden cry came from outside the square: Another car is coming!
A hundred people looked towards the edge of the square and saw an incredible scene - five identical gray-green trucks, carrying several handcuffed prisoners, were driving into Chunfeng Square along the original route of the truck.
The real truck was about to turn when it was stuck between several cars. From a distance, it was impossible to tell which car was the real one; nearby police cars surrounded it and ordered the driver to stop.
Driver: Aren't you from the TV station?
Ji Yongtao heard the conversation on the radio. The driver repeatedly asked what "TV station" and "legal program" meant. It seemed that someone had paid them to drive people over to film a segment of the program.
The real car was surrounded by several fake vehicles, and the situation was unclear. Ji Yongtao acted decisively and led his men to the outermost vehicle. He saw several "prisoners" from the trucks being pushed onto the real cars, and others being taken off. They were all young men wearing prison uniforms, with crew cuts, their features blurred, mingling like leaves in a forest.
He fired into the air, frightening two groups of people getting out of cars and falling to the ground. Only one group sped away. Ji Yongtao aimed at that group and pulled the trigger, killing one person. Another strayed sideways and was hit in the shoulder, forcing his accomplice to flee into a parked taxi.
The man shot in the shoulder was Chen Xiaohu; his accomplice was an ordinary-looking middle-aged man. Ji Yongtao turned over the man who had been beaten to death, also a man in his thirties, not Chu Jiajun.
The rest of the drivers and "prisoners" were apprehended. They had all been paid to be filmed, and their faces were filled with fear. Among this group of people, no one matched Chu Jiajun's appearance.
-
Chu Jiajun is in the Ai Yahe community, at his upstairs neighbor's house, tutoring his neighbor's grandson in English.
The five letters ABCDE were repeated over and over for a long time, and the children fell asleep; his elderly grandmother was sitting in a chair by the balcony knitting.
The old lady is old and hard of hearing. She takes care of her grandchildren at home alone during the day. After hearing that the college student is willing to teach the children, she happily agreed to the home tutoring today.
Chu Jiajun picked up an apple from the fruit bowl and took a bite. He hummed a song and glanced at the things in his bag.
There was a mobile phone in the bag, and soft singing could be heard from it.
"A Small Town Story".
According to his and Fang Ping's plan, if they successfully rescued Chen Xiaohu, they would play this song through their mobile phone.
——
To be continued
Love River Mystery Record: Bound Ears 10
After work, Ji Yongtao felt that the weather was a little hot.
After returning home, Xu Fei made some cold dishes. The electric fan in the living room was on, and Feng Feifei was placed in the semiconductor.
Chu Jiajun wanted to eat shaved ice. This year, many tickets were completely canceled, and the mung bean shaved ice shop was especially busy after dinner. Girls, dressed in fashionable floral dresses with vests, squatted outside the shop, chatting and chatting, bowls of shaved ice in hand, to enjoy the cool air.
They each ordered a bowl and ate from it, leaning against a roadside sycamore tree. Chu Jiajun gazed at the night sky, illuminated by the streetlights, listening to the cicadas' chirping, feeling a little sleepy. An oscillating fan at the entrance of the small shop blew both inside and out. An old man, seeking cool air, lay on a bamboo stool, a small radio resting on his soft belly...
Summer is coming.
After that incident, Ji Yongtao received a severe disciplinary action for his poor leadership. Liu Weide was enjoying a period of success until one of his men lost his gun while on duty.
City A was peaceful for a while, with occasional robberies occurring in surrounding cities; "Xu Fei" seemed to have become more focused on his studies and would occasionally stay in school for a few days.
-
Chen Xiaohu and Fang Ping rushed out of the gold shop with guns, opened the car door and got in. In the driver's seat, Chu Jiajun glanced at the stopwatch.
Five minutes and seven seconds.
Chu Jiajun: Seven seconds off.
Chu Jiajun sneered and cursed: "It's no use." In seven seconds, the police car turned the intersection, the people got out, guns raised, enough to shoot you into sieves.
Fang Ping dared to be angry but not to speak; Chen Xiaohu was happy to accept it and asked about the legends of the underworld back then: Big brother, did you follow "Marshal Tianpeng" to kill people when you were a teenager?
Chu Jiajun drove the car and rushed into the previously planned route: No.
Chen Xiaohu: No?
Chu Jiajun stuck the muzzle of his gun through the gap in the car window and blew out the tires of the police car that was surrounding him: It didn't start when I was a teenager. It started when I was a few years old.
After escaping the chase, they parked their car on the outskirts of the city and divided the loot as usual.
Chen Xiaohu: Bro, let's go to the nightclub tonight? It's a two-hour drive to W City!
Chu Jiajun lowered his head to read the newspaper: Something happened.
Chen Xiaohu: My brother opened a shop, and they have all kinds of fun stuff!
Chu Jiajun looked at the train schedule in the newspaper: Something happened.
Chu Jiajun had to catch the next train back to City A and arrive before eight in the morning in time for roll call for his university anatomy class.
There was a lantern festival at the City God Temple in City A that night, and Ji Yongtao was on night shift. If he went to visit the crew, Brother Yong would treat him and his men to grilled lamb skewers.
-
After taking roll call in the morning, I lay down on the desk and took a nap for a while. Before I fell asleep, I was picked up by the anatomy teacher.
Teacher: You don't have time to sleep at night because you are busy with a business worth tens of thousands of dollars every day?
Teacher: Get out! You are not allowed to sleep in my class!
Chu Jiajun was kicked out. He imagined shooting the old man to death in his mind and walked out of the classroom with his hands in his pockets.
He bought a pack of cigarettes at the university canteen and sat under a tree, chewing on a cigarette and watching the students coming and going. He thought of the Coal Mountain case a few years ago. Five people, armed with a few guns, took control of an entire mine and held it there for seven days and seven nights. What was their motive? To collect money? It didn't matter.
Anyway, I'm very brave.
——Chu Jiajun remembered that it seemed to be a grudge among the fellow townsmen association.
All the miners were forced into the cafeteria, and anyone who was not from their hometown was forced out in rows and killed. The cause seemed to be that miners from one area were being excluded by miners from other areas and they felt revengeful.
Sometimes when I think about this case, I feel very peaceful, as if I were one of those five people. Those people who made me unhappy are now like food waiting to be slaughtered in the cafeteria, waiting for his fate.
That's how the man taught him. If he couldn't reach an agreement with a business partner, he would just shoot him. If he didn't pay enough to an employer, he would just shoot him.
If you kill someone in their home, kill the whole family. Now that the pillar of the family is dead, the others won't have a good life either, so they will all die together.
Truck drivers who dare to resist will be killed, and passengers who dare to hide gold and silver inside their clothes will also be killed. It's good to have a gun in your hand, and life is so simple.
When Chu Jiajun was a child, if he angered someone, he would be picked up and beaten to death.
There are only two kinds of people in this world: either they beat others to death or they get beaten to death.
On that train that year, everyone was killed one by one in each carriage, because it was a freight train heading south, and it was full of businessmen who were taking all their belongings with them to start businesses on the coast.
Money, gold jewelry, high-end watches... the harvest was so rich that it couldn't even be contained in a snakeskin bag.
One of the accomplices took advantage of Li Dapeng and the others' inattention and dragged Chu Jiajun over. The accomplice's plan was simple: after this crime, the whole country would be alarmed, and the group would inevitably take the money and temporarily disperse, each going to different places to hide.
It would be better for the two of them to join forces, kill Li Dapeng and the others, divide the spoils between them, and then they won't have to worry about the rest of their lives and can retire from the underworld.
Before Chu Jiajun could answer, the carriage door was opened and Li Dapeng stood outside, a strange smile forming between his smoke-stained teeth.
Chu Jiajun always remembered that smile.
The accomplice knew he was doomed and dared not utter a word. Chu Jiajun raised his gun and shot the traitor to death in front of Li Dapeng.
Li Dapeng: Good son, come here and I'll give you more pocket money.
Chu Jiajun nodded, and seemed to be about to take a step towards him; but just as he took a step, he raised his gun and pointed it at Li Dapeng——
——Li Dapeng also raised his gun and pointed it at him.
Chu Jiajun understood that smile.
He was too familiar with the twisting of every muscle in Li Dapeng's body before he killed someone. His prediction was very accurate. In fact, the two of them raised their guns at each other almost at the same time, but he was just a few tenths of a second faster.
Chu Jiajun would often reminisce about those few tenths of a second. At the same moment the gunshot rang out, he heard a voice echoing from within his heart.
——The sound of the beast cage door opening.
Chu Jiajun was lost in thought when he was suddenly struck on the head. He opened his eyes and found the man standing before him.
Ji Yongtao: Skipping class?
Chu Jiajun: Brother Yong, why did you come to university?
Ji Yongtao: There's a meeting over there. Why don't you go to class instead of sitting here and grinning like an idiot?
Chu Jiajun: I'm thinking about summer vacation.
Chu Jiajun followed him and walked towards the motorcycle parked on the side of the road: I don't want to go home during the summer vacation, I want to stay here and work.
Ji Yongtao: Money-grubber.
Chu Jiajun: It helps to reduce the financial burden on my family. I can earn half a year's living expenses in just one summer vacation.
Ji Yongtao: You don't have to worry about living expenses, we can still afford to support you.
Chu Jiajun: When will you no longer be able to support it?
Ji Yongtao: What do you mean? Are you trying to get me to quit?
Chu Jiajun: No, your job is too tiring. Many people have gone into business. Brother Yong, please consider it. The conditions in City A are so good...
Ji Yongtao: I finally see that you are obsessed with money.
Chu Jiajun: I just don't want to go back. Moving is so annoying.
Chu Jiajun: I'm used to living here with you.
Ji Yongtao: ...Then you should stay here and get more exposure to society.
Chu Jiajun: Really?! Then please call home for me. If I call home, I'm sure people will scold me.
Ji Yongtao sighed: Okay, okay...
Ji Yongtao: I'll call your family and tell them you won't be going back during the summer vacation.
Chu Jiajun was so happy that she hugged him tightly on the back of the motorcycle. The car body swayed from side to side for a while. Ji Yongtao cursed and straightened the front of the car and turned into the Ai Yahe community.
-
Ji Yongtao went out to be on duty, and Chu Jiajun went to the City God Temple to play. Ji Yongtao asked him to bring some "Kaiser" back to give to the big sister upstairs - the enthusiastic person who gave them onions, ginger and garlic from time to time.
I'll go see Brother Yong at around ten o'clock and have a midnight snack together.
The lantern festival at Chenghuang Temple was packed with people, but it was pretty boring. The stalls along the way were the same ones you see at every night market.
He yawned, bought a bowl of eight-treasure porridge, sat on the railing at the end of the bridge, found a high spot, and ate while watching the public movie in the distance.
On summer nights, shirtless men, girls in tank tops, and naked little kids gathered in the open space of the City God Temple, either bringing stools from their homes or spreading mats on the ground, to watch a public film projected onto a white canvas. It was a romance, "River Love," and as the hero and heroine ran hand in hand through a sea of flowers, several parents grabbed their children and blindfolded them, while the other children booed at the screen.
Chu Jiajun casually glanced at the crowd and actually saw a familiar face - the local tyrant "Film" was holding a child. The child was dressed very decently and was holding a big chicken leg in his hand. He was covered in sauce from eating so much.
Mixed in the crowd, the film looks like an ordinary middle-aged woman, taking her grandson out for a walk in the evening.
The two looked at each other, then glanced away like a dragonfly skimming the water.
It was nine o'clock, and he took the night bus back to the city with others. Ji Yongtao gave him a bicycle and parked it in the bicycle shed outside the community.
Chu Jiajun wanted to ride his bike over, but when he approached the bicycle shed, he found two petty thieves squatting inside, trying to pick the lock.
The little thief also saw him, and they stared at each other, feeling a little embarrassed.
Fifteen minutes later, somewhere on the bank of the Ai Ya River, two sounds of bodies falling into the water were heard, but no sound of anyone emerging. On the riverbank, Chu Jiajun whistled as he cycled across the bridge.
The bicycle stopped at the entrance of the brigade. Chu Jiajun took a few deep breaths outside the door and walked towards the communication room.
Someone was on the phone in the reception room, and people were running in and out of the doorway, as if something had happened.
Chu Jiajun knocked impatiently on the window. The caller looked up and continued talking, ignoring him.
Chu Jiajun smashed the window: What time are you good at?
The man was a little angry and was about to curse, but when he looked carefully at Chu Jiajun's face, his expression changed again.
This person is Xiao Zhang from Ji Yongtao's team.
Xiao Zhang: You're Yong's younger brother, right? The college student, right?
Chu Jiajun: What's wrong?
Xiao Zhang: Hurry, hurry! Go to the Eighth Hospital! Hurry! You, you take Lao Yu's car! — Lao Yu, this is Brother Yong's brother!
Someone outside called out to Chu Jiajun: "This way! Get in the car!"
There were two other people in the car. Chu Jiajun was pushed by him to sit in the passenger seat, and then the car drove directly to the nearby No. 8 Municipal Hospital.
Chu Jiajun: What happened...
Lao Yu: He was injured and just sent there.
Chu Jiajun: What injury? Wasn't he on duty...
Old Yu: Two daring men came to steal guns. Last time, they stole from Team Two and succeeded. This time, they were trying to steal another, but were caught by Xiao Ji. When your brother caught one of them, he was shot by the other...
Chu Jiajun:...
No one spoke in the car. Someone handed a cigarette to Chu Jiajun from the back seat. Seeing that Chu Jiajun didn't respond, he tapped his shoulder with the cigarette.
-
The hospital was filled with the smell of disinfectant. Ji Yongtao was pushed into the ward and was still unconscious.
Chu Jiajun sat by the bed, smoking with the window open, feeling annoyed. He didn't know what expression he should have as he sat by the bed, his heart filled with all the emotions he felt, just annoyance.
It's an indescribable annoyance, a kind of annoyance I have never experienced before. It's like a person who can only add one plus one is sent to university to take advanced mathematics classes.
When I heard that Ji Yongtao was shot, I thought it would be better if he was dead.
I breathed a sigh of relief, went back to pack my luggage and left.
How nice, stop bothering me.
Chu Jiajun lay on the windowsill, put out the cigarette butt on the glass, and sighed deeply.
Ji Yongtao woke up at this time, opened his eyes, and saw him lying on the ground with his back to him.
Ji Yongtao said in a hoarse voice: What's wrong with you?
Chu Jiajun didn't look back: You are so annoying.
Chu Jiajun's voice was tense, as if he was trying to hold back tears.
Chu Jiajun: I'm so annoyed. I wouldn't be so annoyed if I hadn't met you!
Chu Jiajun lowered her head, covered her face with her hands and cried loudly. Her face turned red and tears fell from between her fingers.
Chu Jiajun: I don't know why… I just feel annoyed… I really don't like this, you're so annoying…
Ji Yongtao forced a smile: How did I bother you? College student...
Chu Jiajun cried until his voice was hoarse. He didn't say anything, just cried, crying until he was out of breath. He had never been so sad before, and tonight was the first time he felt this way - as if someone was about to die, and once this person died, he would have nothing.
Ji Yongtao wanted to say something, but he saw "Xu Fei" turn around and return to the bedside with tears on his face. His body, still smelling of blood, was hugged tightly through the quilt by him. "Xu Fei" repeatedly said, "I don't want you to die."
Would you like to live on? Live a hundred years, a thousand years, become an old monster, and never die.
Live until everyone else in this world has died, and don't die. You must keep living, because being alive is wonderful. I'm most afraid of death. Death will hurt, it will be cold, and I'll be burned to the eighteen levels of hell.
So I don't want you to die, I want you to live.
He fell over the man and wept bitterly. There was the sound of a deep-sleeping seed breaking through the earth. In biology class, a teacher said something, one of the few things he remembered: a seed can last for thousands of years. It can last forever, forever alive. As long as it's a seed, it's asleep, encased in a thick, cold shell.