Chapter 259: It Was Clearly Her

After daybreak, the rain in Licheng cleared.

On the muddy path, a pair of feet wearing polished black leather shoes stepped down from a car.

Mud splashed onto the leather shoes, but the man did not care at all; he raised his eyes, looking at the path leading deep into the jungle with an unusually calm expression.

A string of messy footprints followed the muddy road and disappeared into the surrounding jungle.

There were three people in that car, and the different shoe prints on the ground belonged to those three different people.

They had fled into the woods.

After a whole night of rain, the jungle was shrouded in a thick fog; in this season, the jungle was full of venomous snakes and insects, and the miasma deep in the jungle could cost a person half their life.

At the same time, the jungle terrain was treacherous, making a carpet-style search impossible.

Just before daybreak, he had fired a shot and hit one of the three.

If they were Bodyguards, the other two would not risk their lives to protect the other.

Whoever wanted to kill Shen Yijing to silence her was definitely a ruthless person.

Therefore, the person who was shot must be the mastermind, which was why the Bodyguards would risk their lives to protect them.

"Young Master Yu, look!" Suddenly, a Bodyguard picked something up from the mud and, after wiping it clean, handed it to Sheng Yu.

It was a cufflink.

Sheng Yu frowned slightly; it was an item belonging to the Sheng Family.

The Sheng Family had a specialized clothing design team, including specialized designs for accessories, so it could be recognized at a glance.

Sheng Yu reached out to take the cufflink and flipped it over to look at the inside.

A letter was imprinted on it: W.

In the Sheng Family, the person whose name had the letter W was his second uncle, Sheng Hongwei.

The face of a middle-aged man wearing rimless glasses and a shrewd smile appeared in Sheng Yu's mind.

Why would Sheng Hongwei's item appear here?

After a night of rain, if the cufflink had fallen here a long time ago, it should have sunk into the mud and been completely covered in dirt.

But in fact, that was not the case.

Judging from the situation just now, this cufflink was not stained with much mud.

This meant it had only just fallen here.

Sheng Hongwei.

Sheng Yu's fingers slowly curled around the cufflink in his palm.

Very few people knew now that Sheng Hongwei was an architectural designer.

For the Hot Spring Villa his mother left him, Sheng Hongwei was one of the lead designers.

The sun emerged from behind the clouds, and the sunlight shone on the puddles on the ground, reflecting light, blindingly bright.

Sheng Yu lit a cigarette. "Send more men to track them, and set an ambush at the jungle exit in advance."

This was the border, and drones were prohibited from flying; otherwise, it would have been much easier to find them using drones.

Sheng Yu returned to the car and tossed the cufflink from his palm out the window; he smoked quietly, his entire face sunken into the shadow cast by the banana leaves outside the car window.

He stubbed out the cigarette and closed his eyes.

Last night, that small courtyard appeared in his mind once again.

In a hurried glance, he hadn't seen anything else, but he had seen a couplet at the entrance, which looked like words written casually by the owner in their spare time.

But those ugly characters were like a brand, engraved in his mind and impossible to shake off.

The rice paper Lu Huaizhan had once tucked into a diary was the calligraphy she had written.

A hand of chicken-scratch writing.

Sheng Yu raised his hand to pinch the bridge of his nose, but his chest heaved violently.

What if it was her?

Before his brain could even react, his hands had already gripped the steering wheel; the Bodyguard heard the sound of the car starting and saw Sheng Yu's poor complexion and his faintly trembling hands, realizing he was not in a good state.

"Young Master Yu?"

Sheng Yu kept his head lowered, the veins on his forehead bulging, his fingers gripping the steering wheel turning white from the force.

Finally, he let go and said hoarsely, "You drive."

The Bodyguard got into the car and glanced at the man in the passenger seat, hesitating whether to speak up and suggest Young Master Yu go to the hospital to get checked out, in case his previous gunshot wound hadn't fully healed and his body was having issues after a night of rushing about.

However, the man in the passenger seat said without a hint of concern, "Return along the same path as last night, don't miss a single spot."

The car drove out of the jungle area.

As time passed, the sunlight became more brilliant, and in a season like June, the temperature continued to rise.

The ground, soaked by the heavy rain all night, gradually dried out.

When the car drove into the bustling Ancient Street of Licheng, it was already nearly noon.

It had been the middle of the night when they passed through here last night, and it was raining, so it didn't look as lively as it did in the daytime.

At this moment, the street was crowded with people, and the car wheels were almost crawling slowly along the ground.

Today was the weekend, and there were many people.

The car drove slowly down the street.

Sheng Yu half-closed his eyes; there was a red light ahead, and when the car stopped, he opened his eyes, rolled down the window, and lit a cigarette.

A young man and woman passed by the car, and the woman said crossly, "She's still a child, a flower of the motherland, and you're jealous of her?"

The man was unhappy when he heard this. "Anyway, you can't be biased; she's a flower of the motherland, but I'm the present tense of the nation. She's important, and I'm not?"

The woman rolled her eyes at the man, but was amused by his words, and she took the man's arm and coaxed him softly.

The two people's voices grew distant, but Sheng Yu's hand holding the cigarette stiffened, and his entire arm felt as if it had gone numb.

The conversation between him and Zhu Yuan back then flashed through his mind.

Zhu Yuan's expression was far more vivid than that woman's, her pretty little face full of speechlessness.

And he was far more overbearing and far more shameless than that man, pestering her and forcing himself on her in the lounge at the Horse Racing Track.

As scene after scene of the past played out, Sheng Yu's heart twitched with pain.

Just as he impatiently lifted his eyes to glance at the red light, his peripheral vision caught a figure walking past the front of his car.

The woman was wearing a short-sleeved floral dress and holding a sun umbrella; a section of her arm beneath the short sleeve was not covered by the umbrella and was exposed to the sunlight, her skin glowing white.

The road was crowded, and the woman walked very slowly; when she encountered a crush of people, she lifted her umbrella, revealing a face wearing a mask.

Whether it was because the mask was too big or the woman's face was too small, the edge of the mask was almost pressed against the woman's lower eye sockets.

A pair of eyes, clear and distinct in black and white, yet vivid and gentle.

The green light turned on.

The moment the car moved forward, the man in the passenger seat suddenly pulled open the car door.

The Bodyguard was so frightened that he slammed on the brakes, a cold sweat suddenly breaking out; the Bodyguard's heart contracted violently, and he was so scared that his vision went black.

Sheng Yu rushed out of the car with unsteady steps, ignoring the honking of other cars urging him on from behind.

He chased after the group of people who had walked across the crosswalk.

The crowd dispersed, some heading toward the Ancient Street, others going elsewhere.

Sheng Yu chased after them, standing in the crowd, his eyes gradually turning red.

He had taken in so many people, yet that figure from just a moment ago was someone he seemed unable to recognize no matter what.

It was impossible for him to have seen wrong.

How could he possibly misidentify the person he had held countless times, kissed countless times, and seen in his dreams countless times?

It was clearly her.

His Yuanyuan!

Suddenly, Sheng Yu stopped in his tracks.

He stood under the scorching sun, his whole body icy cold, his face turning pale in an instant.

He had chased that car all the way to Licheng; the fact that the other party dared to come to Licheng meant there were people here, but was he in the light or in the dark?

And how many pairs of eyes were watching his every move right now?

The lingering fear from when he had almost lost her beat against his heart like ocean waves.

Zhu Yuan looked at him, her eyes calm and devoid of any ripples.