"When did things start going wrong?" Xie Qingyan asked.
He Jinsong was silent for several seconds.
"Beginning of the second year." He set the beer can on the armrest. "Chen Wan suddenly became a different person. Not his personality—he still smiled at everyone the same way. But he started taking days off constantly, sometimes disappearing for the entire day. Ask him about it, and he'd just say family stuff."
"What family stuff?"
"No idea. He didn't say, and I didn't push." He Jinsong shook his head. "It wasn't until later that I found out—his mom got into trouble."
Yin Wuwang's focus sharpened like a wire pulled taut.
"What kind of trouble?"
He Jinsong looked up at him. Something hesitant flickered in that gaze—as if weighing how much to say.
"Go look into Chen Wan's family background and you'll find out. All I know is what he told me once—"
He took a long pull of beer, his Adam's apple bobbing.
"He said: 'Jinsong-ge, I owe a debt I can never pay off. I can't hold onto the bar anymore.'"
The living room went quiet for a moment. On the TV, a mechanic was lifting an engine hood, the clang of metal drifting through at low volume, sounding very far away.
"He wasn't lying to you," Yin Wuwang said.
He Jinsong blinked.
"He really did owe a massive debt." Yin Wuwang's tone carried no emotional coloring—just a statement of fact. "The bar was mortgaged. But he didn't deliberately swindle you out of your five hundred thousand—he himself was crushed under that debt for five years."
He Jinsong's grip on the beer can tightened. The metal wall crumpled inward, leaving a dent.
"How much?"
"I can't tell you that. But it's far more than you'd imagine."
He Jinsong stared at the dent for a long time.
Then he let out a breath. Not a sigh—deeper than a sigh, heavier, like something that had been pressing down for years was finally being set down.
"I always thought he was the kind of—" He faltered, searching for words. "The kind who takes a brother's money and blows it. I hated him for years. Every time I thought about that five hundred thousand, I couldn't sleep."
He placed the beer can on the coffee table and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
"Turns out he had it worse than me."
Yin Wuwang watched He Jinsong's face. The shift was subtle—the anger was gone, the resentment was gone, replaced by something complex and difficult to name. Not forgiveness. Not sympathy. More like the silence that comes when a puzzle is finally complete and the full picture turns out to be bigger—and sadder—than you ever thought.
Xie Qingyan sat nearby without speaking. He observed He Jinsong's response quietly, notebook open on his knee, pen motionless.
Because this part didn't need recording. This wasn't testimony, wasn't a formal statement. This was simply a man learning the truth and re-digesting years of his own anger.
"Mr. He," Xie Qingyan spoke after a pause, his tone gentled deliberately, "after the bar was mortgaged, did Chen Wan ever mention where the debt came from?"
He Jinsong shook his head: "I was furious at the time—didn't want to hear a word of his explanation. Later I went to a lawyer, lawyer said it was all legal, and I never looked for him again."
"Do you know who took over the bar?"
"Long Wei Trading." The moment He Jinsong said the name, his voice dropped a register. "The boss is Liu Long. People on the street call him Dragon Brother."
"You know him?" Yin Wuwang asked.
"Not personally. But everyone doing business in that area knows the name." He Jinsong's expression turned guarded—not fear, but the instinctive restraint of a man who'd been around long enough to know which names warranted caution. "Dragon Brother isn't organized crime—at least not on the surface. But his money isn't clean, and everyone can see that. Gambling dens, lending, all the gray-zone operations. He doesn't do the violent debt-collection thing, plays by certain rules. But if you owe him money—he will get it back."
"Chen Wan owed him money." Yin Wuwang laid it out directly.
He Jinsong gave a single nod. The dent in the beer can deepened under his fingers.
"If you want to know what really happened to Chen Wan—" He looked up, meeting Yin Wuwang's eyes. "Go ask Dragon Brother. Chen Wan's life—was chained to that debt."
Neither of them spoke for a moment. He Jinsong picked up the remote and turned down the TV another notch, as if the low hum of engine modification was suddenly too loud for a room full of that kind of quiet.
The sky had gone overcast by the time they left He Jinsong's apartment.
Cloud cover pressed low, gray as a massive lead plate capped over the city. The wind had picked up since morning, rustling the yellow leaves of the ginkgo trees along the curb.
Yin Wuwang walked ahead, Xie Qingyan beside him. Their strides had synchronized naturally—left foot, right foot, rhythm matched, spacing constant. Not deliberate. Just the body's automatic calibration after too many days of walking side by side.
Half a block in, Yin Wuwang spoke.
"Did you notice?"
"Notice what?"
"He didn't freeze once today."
Xie Qingyan's stride hitched briefly, then resumed.
"Last time we asked about the repair shop, he went blank for three full seconds." Yin Wuwang slipped his hands into his pockets. "Today we talked for nearly half an hour, and everything he said was off-script—the entrepreneurship forum, Chen Wan's drive, the first year of business. Not a single beat of hesitation."
"His character logic has been completed," Xie Qingyan said.
"Mm." Yin Wuwang tilted his head toward the residential building they'd just left. He Jinsong's window was on the third floor, curtain half-drawn, the faint glow of the TV leaking through. "Last time he was like a shell with the power cord pulled. Today was different—he has a past now. Memories of partnering with Chen Wan, the excitement of starting a business, the anger and struggle after being betrayed."
He paused.
"He's become a complete person."
[End of V2_Chapter 46]
Next: A Half-Finished Man Gets His Ending—and Fuguang Smiled for Exactly 0.8 Seconds