Chapter 292

The car my aunt gave me was an automatic transmission, a "fool-proof" car. A fool-proof car isn't stupid; the driver is. As long as you can hold the steering wheel, you dare to hit the road. Guo Wei's Beijing Jeep was a world apart from this. I could drive a Jeep, so this fool-proof car was, of course, a piece of cake.

I opened the car door and looked around. The car seemed to still retain my aunt's scent, permeating with warmth everywhere. A fluffy little bear hung in front of the windshield, looking so silly it made one unable to help but smile. A bottle of car perfume was fixed on the dashboard, and a faint scent of flowers and grass drifted out.

Suddenly remembering He Jiaxiao's romantic affairs in this car, my nostrils seemed to smell a scent of obscenity. I felt a wave of nausea in my heart and almost vomited.

Xuelai! Xuelai seemed to have disappeared during this time. The bankbook my cousin gave me was still on me, but I had been so busy during this time that I had long forgotten her affairs to the ends of the earth.

Xuelai wouldn't just disappear like this! I felt something eerie in the dark. Xuelai was not a lamp that saved oil; the fact that she dared to break into the Municipal Committee office alone proved that she had long been prepared for everything.

My aunt left before dawn, and Wu Qian came to pick her up personally. I didn't even see the two of them. My aunt and Wu Qian had once teamed up to deal with Xuelai, but in the end, they both returned in defeat. Something even my aunt couldn't handle was definitely not a hot potato, but a nuclear bomb.

I decided to give her a call to test the waters.

As soon as the call went through, I hung up quickly. The hope I had been holding onto that the phone wouldn't go through was shattered!

Xuelai's phone was clear, which meant she still existed. She hadn't disappeared, hadn't gone missing, and there was no possibility of it being left unsettled as I had hoped.

The phone rang loudly; it was Xuelai calling. I hesitated for a moment, wanting to hang up, but in the end, I pressed the answer key.

"Who is this?" I deliberately pretended to be indifferent and asked straight to the point.

"It's me, Xuelai. Town Mayor Chen!" Xuelai exposed my identity without any courtesy on the phone, making me feel quite embarrassed. Fortunately, there were only invisible radio waves between us, and she couldn't see my embarrassment.

"Oh, it's Xuelai!" I said, pretending to be surprised, "I'm sorry, I dialed the wrong number."

I wanted to hang up; since I already knew she still existed, there was no need for me to waste words with her on the phone.

"You didn't dial the wrong number, and I didn't dial the wrong number either," Xuelai answered me calmly. "If you didn't call me, I would have called you. What a coincidence."

She sighed, but there was no emotion to be heard at all.

"Are you looking for me for something?" I had to keep pretending.

"What do you think?" She kicked the ball back to me.

"What are you looking for me for?" I leaned back in the seat and stretched out a long yawn.

"Let's meet and talk when you have time," she said, her voice lazy.

I heard a rustling sound; she seemed to still be lying in bed, stretching just like me.

"I'm in Chunshan County," I said, moving the phone from my left ear to my right ear, using my shoulder blade to hold the phone, and freeing up my hand to open the toolbox in front of the passenger seat.

It was empty inside, but so clean that not a speck of dust could be seen.

"It's fine, if you're busy, I can go," she said lightly, and then I heard her scream.

I was so scared I almost dropped the phone and shouted into the receiver, "Manager Xue, Manager Xue, what's wrong with you?"

After a long while, her groans came through the receiver; she seemed to be in great pain. "I fell," she said, and hung up the phone.

She fell? I felt a jolt. Was her fall serious? Where did she fall? Why did she fall?

I looked blankly outside the car. Xuelai had said she was pregnant; wouldn't this fall cause her to lose the baby? Only then did I realize that I had been despicable all along. Was I hoping that Xuelai would lose the baby?

I dialed the number again, but it was just a busy signal.

I sat blankly in the car, losing my soul.

The phone rang again. I picked it up and saw it was Liu Hongyan. My heart tightened; had Hao Qiang had another accident?

I hurriedly answered the phone, and it was actually Hao Qiang calling, weakly expressing his gratitude to me. He said the County Public Security Bureau had set up a treatment team for him, with the director personally in charge, determined to restore his health.

After Hao Qiang expressed his gratitude, he stammered for a long time and asked me, "Town Mayor Chen, what kind of illness do I have? To make such a big scene, with reporters coming and bureau leaders coming too. I don't have an incurable disease, do I?"

I hurriedly interrupted him and said, "Director Hao, don't let your imagination run wild. Your illness isn't actually serious; it's mainly because you lack rest. You'll recover if you just rest in bed more."

"Are you comforting me?" Hao Qiang obviously didn't believe my words. "You know me, I'm not even afraid of death, so would I be afraid of illness? You have to tell me what illness it is."

"It's really not a serious illness," I answered him decisively.

"I have no strength in my whole body, and my appetite isn't good either. You don't have to hide it from me! If you trust me, Hao Qiang, tell me the truth. You have to believe in my strength." Hao Qiang spoke weakly, but his persistent questioning left me at a loss.

"I'll come to see you," I said, hung up the phone, and started the car.

A good car is a good car; once the car started, it was like a boat gliding on the rippling blue waves of a lake.

I bought a fruit basket at the hospital entrance. The woman selling the fruit baskets had a mouth full of black teeth, which was disgusting to look at. She welcomed my selection with great exaggeration, while praising me for being a rich man. Someone driving such a good car should buy a fruit basket worthy of their status.

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry, and had to avoid the bad breath that overflowed every time she opened her mouth. I had no choice but to hurriedly take the largest and most expensive fruit basket, which cost me over three hundred yuan.

Liu Hongyan was not in the ward. Hao Qiang was lying alone in the white sheets, with an IV needle inserted into the back of his hand, staring out the window with a pair of lifeless eyes.

Seeing me enter, he smiled weakly at me and wanted to get up.

I pressed him down and said, "Don't move, just lie down and rest."

Hao Qiang was still smiling, but the smile pulled at the muscles on his face, making him look somewhat ferocious.

"Town Mayor Chen, Zhao Dequan has been caught, right?" he asked me, his eyes shooting out a professional, sinister gaze.

I didn't expect him to ask this question as soon as he saw me. I didn't have time to think and had to say honestly, "He hasn't been caught. We're not catching him anymore!"

"Why aren't you catching him?" Hao Qiang struggled to sit up, appearing somewhat agitated. "He gathered a crowd to fight, and someone died, yet you're not catching him?"

"It's the county's decision," I said, bringing out the County Committee.

"Whose decision in the County Committee? Isn't this treating human life like grass?" He reached out to pull out the IV needle, wanting to get up.

"What are you doing?" I shouted, glaring at his eyes. "Director Hao, I understand you. But you have to know that the County Committee's decision is not something you or I can overturn. Besides, a person who was about to die anyway died; it's not worth dragging several young and strong people to be buried with him, right?"

"What kind of talk is that?" His eyes seemed to be spitting fire. He pointed a finger at me and questioned me loudly, "Are you the one playing tricks?"

I smiled bitterly and said, "Rest assured! I won't play tricks, and I don't want to play tricks. I know the principle that everyone is equal before the law. Some things are not the truth just because we see them, don't you think?"

Hao Qiang hung his head in defeat, turned away, and ignored me.

I knew that if we kept talking, he wouldn't say another word to me. So I got up and prepared to leave.

Just as I got up, the door was pushed open, and Liu Hongyan entered in a hurry, holding a soup pot in her arms. A few snowflakes that hadn't completely melted still remained on her shoulders, and the shadow of snow trembled on her eyebrows.

"Is it snowing?" I walked to the window and looked at the snowflakes fluttering in the sky outside.

"It's snowing!" Liu Hongyan shook off the snow dust from her body.

I returned to the bedside, tucked in the quilt for Hao Qiang, and said as if to both of them, "I have to go back; the construction site needs people."

I said goodbye to Hao Qiang and went out. The car parked at the hospital entrance was already covered with a thin layer of white snow, crystal clear, like powder and dust.

This was the first snow after the beginning of winter! This snow wouldn't last too long. Based on my six years of Suxi experience, this snow would definitely stop in the afternoon, and the following days would be sunny, ruining the world of white clouds and blue dogs. The second snow that followed would be reckless and overwhelming, and Chunshan County would begin to hibernate in the second snow.

As soon as the first snow fell, the villagers would stop all their work. Before the second snow began, the men would cover the drafty windows with thin plastic bags, and the women would dig up the cabbage and radishes from the fields and bring them home. They would find small fire braziers and light a pile of dry wood in the middle of their houses.

The men would gather around the smoky fire, each taking out the yellow rice wine they had brewed themselves, accompanied by a plate of scorched yellow soybeans, chatting with each other about the harvest of the year.

Once the snow fell, the construction site would have to stop work.

When the construction site stopped, Sun Demao would be as worried as if his parents had died, while Qian Youyu was still waiting for a miracle in the cold prison.

A gust of wind blew, carrying a few snowflakes, and they fluttered onto the corners of my mouth.

I stuck out my tongue and licked it, and a trace of chill seeped into the bottom of my heart.

I have to go see Qian Youyu! I thought, and strode toward the car in the snow and wind.