Chapter 504: Explanations and a Log

After Jude Kao returned from Banai, he lived for another three months before passing away. The international salvage company underwent shareholder restructuring and auctioned off some assets. Among Jude Kao's team, there were some people with whom I had personal connections. When many project teams were dissolved, they took away many files. Of course, these files were all sent to me, but none were as important as the twelve volumes given to me earlier. Although I found many details in them to supplement the story, the overall pieced-together story did not move forward.

I had coffee with a few of them, and they told me that the top management of the international salvage company would continue to look for more possibilities, and their funds were still very ample. Several big shots who might take over asked them to pass a message to me: if there was an opportunity, they would like to continue cooperating with us, and the terms would be more generous than when Jude Kao was around.

I made a FUCK gesture and asked them to convey my meaning back.

Sister Ya got married half a year later. The groom was a very unremarkable man, a little bald, middle-aged, and seemed to have little money. Many people said he didn't really like Sister Ya but coveted her money and status. I attended the wedding. This man seemed to be named A Bang, with a cunning look in his eyes, but he was very attentive, constantly toasting and offering cigarettes to everyone. Sister Ya, however, remained expressionless, staring at the empty seat beside me.

Many men are not remembered for this or that reason; a man is remembered because he will never come back.

It was said that Sister Ya got together with this man because he was a deliveryman for a liquor store. After making many deliveries, he would occasionally take care of her whenever he saw her dead drunk, and that was how the relationship began.

After Pibao's injuries healed, he turned over a new leaf and took the self-study exam, majoring in something like international trade. But he failed every specialized course. In his own words, with his educational level, he often couldn't even understand the questions, let alone figure out how to answer them. As for English, he couldn't even recognize all twenty-six letters.

In the end, he still returned to this line of work, but he absolutely refused to do big deals. His partner said his current catchphrase was, "If you earn money but have no life to spend it, you might as well go home and sell tofu pudding." Pibao became the most skilled but also the most timid among his peers. I think he will soon become a formidable figure, or at least quite wealthy.

I also have to mention Xiuxiu. I think Xiuxiu probably likes Xiao Hua, after all they grew up together and shared burdens. But that liking might not be the kind of liking I think it is, because they are too familiar with each other; many emotions that should have arisen never materialized and instead turned into something deeper.

Xiuxiu never contacted me again. Maybe I hurt her, or maybe the tragic outcome of the events and the decisions I made at that time made it impossible for her to face me.

At this point, my heart had been tempered well enough that her avoidance seemed irrelevant to me.

Finally, I have to talk about Poker-face.

Some say he is the one I worry about most, because he seems not to belong to this world. He is a person who keeps moving forward for his goal. Even if countless barbs stand upright on the path he walks, he will keep going, disregarding any injury, until all his flesh is scraped off by the barbs or he reaches his destination alive.

Actually, concerning our two generations, I already know the general outline of the previous generation's affairs. But as for him and his purpose, I truly have no idea at all.

I can clearly list everyone else's purposes. But Poker-face, he always seemed to be a very passive puppet; in everything, he seemed to act for the purposes of others.

However, from my experience with Poker-face, he is a person with very clear objectives. Every time he entered a place, he had his own purpose. Judging from his professional disappearing skills and the way he often seemed to be sleepwalking along the way, he must know far more than we do.

Many times I felt that in his heart, our purposes were ridiculous, and only his own purpose was the core.

At that time, he refused everyone's offer to accompany him again and resolutely set off alone on the path he had chosen.

"You have accompanied me enough. The road ahead is the final one. None of you can bear it. I hope you won't follow me anymore." Damn it, what kind of thing was this? We had been drawn into such a huge conspiracy, and I had finally figured out the situation, only to find that Poker-face didn't care about any of it at all; what he cared about was something none of us knew.

At that time, should I have wrapped my arms around his legs and sobbed, "Don't leave us"? Given the emotions and circumstances then, none of us had the strength to do that, so we just let him go.

Now, this contrived conspiracy seems to be over. Most of the mysteries around me have dissipated, but the mysteries surrounding him have never shown any signs of clearing up.

And after I parted with him, there has been no news of him at all.

Each following his own fate; he headed north, seemingly toward his own end. From the expression he showed when he left, all the misery we were in at the time was irrelevant to him.

I still remember what Fatty said: If one of your close relatives dies while the others are still alive, you'll feel that this death is a huge catastrophe. But if your close relatives die one after another within a year, you'll slowly become numb. And the look in Xiao Ge's eyes when he left seemed to be the latter. Over a long period, watching the people around you die one by one in various ways, you realize that no one can stay by your side. At such times, you develop a different view of death.

Deeper than numbness is detachment, a detachment toward death.

Time passed slowly. I kept waiting for the secret mentioned in that letter to be revealed, but nothing was ever sent to me. At first I checked the mail twice a day, then once a day, then once every three days, and finally once a week, but I never received any message.

I thought, no more mail would ever be sent to me. I had been tricked again, and it seemed everything was supposed to end like this.

I was not sad, nor even conflicted. Later on, I even hoped that email would never come. Every week I would open the mailbox and then silently close it, enjoying the scenery by West Lake or scolding my subordinates. This kind of life seemed pretty good too.

In fact, that email had arrived long ago, but at the time I didn't know that someone who looked exactly like me had already taken it. I only discovered this much later.

One year later on the Start of Autumn, I rode my bike around West Lake for exercise. Although after this period of training, Wang Meng had become a particularly calm kid, his expression now indicated that he had encountered something he couldn't handle on his own today.

I asked him what was wrong. He pointed to the side, and I saw that in the corner of the shop, a person was standing, flipping through some of our unsold rubbings.

I was quite familiar with this person's figure, but for a moment I didn't recognize him. He was wearing a black hoodie, and beside him was a very large backpack.

"Xiao Ge." As he turned his head, I recognized him. "You... how... how did you come back?"

He looked at me calmly, and after a long pause, he said, "I've come to say goodbye to you. My time is up."