Where do you want to go?
"casual."
Li Shishi said sadly, "I'll go with you."
I asked, puzzled, "Aren't you going to stay with Jin Shaoyan?"
Jin Shaoyan did spend most of his time with Li Shishi during this period—but only most of it. I always thought he would spend every spare moment with her, but he didn't. He devoted all his time to company affairs, even carefully planning his meal and sleep schedules. I don't know what he meant by doing this, but Li Shishi was definitely not a dispensable woman to him; there was an inexplicable mystery between them.
Li Shishi forced a smile and said, "There's still a day. Shao Yan flew to Shanghai today."
Ersha looked at Liu Bang and Hua Mulan and said, "Alright, you guys don't need to go, just the three of us."
I patted Liu Bang on the shoulder and said, "You should spend some time with Fengfeng. She's actually a good woman."
Liu Bang's smile was strained: "Do you even need to tell me? But..."
Ersha turned and walked towards the car: "Hurry up, that's it."
Baozi was unaware of all this; she had already gone to Yucai High School early in the morning.
Ersha sat next to me, and I slowly started the car, driving along the bustling road. I asked Ersha, "Why don't we go see Xiao Zhao?"
Ersha, gazing up at the sky at his classic 45-degree angle, uttered a nonsensical statement: "He knows." He suddenly looked ahead and said, "To the left ahead."
Turning left would take you out of the Third Ring Road. At every intersection, he casually told me to turn. The idiot was acting a bit more sophisticated today.
Before long, we found ourselves on a deserted path. Ersha fell silent, leisurely watching the scenery. I had no idea where he was going, so I just kept driving. Suddenly, I wondered if the idiot wanted me to take him on a desperate escape from Liu Laoliu? Was he bringing Li Shishi along because her time was approaching? To be honest, I really would have liked that. For Ersha, for the five of us, I'd do anything!
Then I noticed a car following us. I hadn't noticed it before, but now that we were on the dirt road, it was very conspicuous. It must have been following us for a while. It quickly overtook us, but didn't drive fast, and started intentionally or unintentionally cutting off my car.
I smiled slightly, remembering that Jiang the Doorkeeper had pulled a similar trick before. I wondered which of my friends liked to play pranks. I parked my car on the side of the road, and sure enough, the other car stopped too. Just as I was about to get out, Ersha suddenly stopped me: "I'll go."
Before I could speak, he opened the car door and got out. A tall man wearing a baseball cap got out of the car in front of us, strode towards me in the driver's seat, and suddenly pulled a gun from his pocket…
It's Goodbai! That kid's not dead!
When Goodbai saw the simpleton blocking his way, he frowned and fired a shot without hesitation. The simpleton's body trembled slightly. His back was to me, so I couldn't see where the bullet hit him, but he still punched Goodbai in the face. Goodbai fired another shot at the simpleton. This time I knew where it hit; a spurt of blood shot from the simpleton's back, spraying onto the glass in front of me. The bullet had pierced his body; the simpleton swayed and collapsed to the ground.
At that moment, I couldn't shout or cry out; it was as if I were in a nightmare...
Goodbai, holding a silenced pistol, silently walked up to me. His eyes were filled with venom. I looked at him expressionlessly as he silently fired—one shot, two shots, three shots… Sparks flew between us as the bullets grazed the glass. Undeterred, Goodbai continued firing meticulously until he ran out of ammunition. Only then did a flicker of doubt appear in his eyes, his finger still mechanically on the trigger. He was a highly trained assassin; I knew he intended to shoot the same spot on the glass to kill me.
But after he ran out of bullets, he seemed to lose his mind. Apart from constantly pulling the trigger, he stood motionless. I reached for my bag of bricks, opened the car door, and slowly walked out. Then I knocked him down with one brick, and then another, two bricks, three bricks... I hit him meticulously until the top of Goodbai's head was covered in a clump of fluff. Only then did Li Shishi, who had regained her senses, scream and run out of the car to grab me.
I ran to Ersha and hugged him tightly. I found that he was still able to open his eyes, and apart from his weak limbs, his expression was quite relaxed. He didn't look like someone who had been shot at all. I shouted and carried him into the car, calling his name repeatedly: "Kezi, hang in there, we're going to the hospital right now!"
Li Shishi shouted, "He has something to say!"
I scrambled to the back, grabbed his head, and put my ear to his mouth. The idiot's eyes gradually lost their light, and he murmured:
“I… was about to leave anyway, I wanted to go back to Yucai.”
I wiped away my tears, ran to the driver's seat, and floored the accelerator, speeding towards Yucai. I hadn't gone far when I heard Li Shishi stop sobbing and say in a calm voice, "Cousin, Brother Jing is gone..."
I pressed hard on the steering wheel, waved my hand to signal her to be quiet, and then drove all the way to Yucai.
Yucai School remained as peaceful and serene as ever, filled with children's laughter and the sound of them reading aloud. I drove into the old campus, grabbed Ersha from the car, and ran into a large classroom. Li Shishi ran and shouted, "Where's An Daoquan? Where's Bian Que? Where's Doctor Hua?"
The room was mostly filled with my clients. When they saw Ersha covered in blood, they all crowded around him, some shouting that they had asked what had happened. Three doctors arrived quickly. They were all seasoned veterans who had seen countless deaths and could tell at a glance that there was no hope of saving him, but they still lingered around Ersha's body. I shooed them aside and quietly said, "Let him have some peace and quiet."
Li Shishi tearfully recounted what had happened to everyone. Wu Yong sighed and said, "As an assassin, he may have already discovered Gu Debai's whereabouts, so he deliberately lured him out and then fought him to the death."
No one spoke in the classroom; they all silently watched Ersha. These heroes were men accustomed to bloodshed; even scholars like Wang Xizhi had faced death, and they were no strangers to the passing of life. Jing Ke's death today wouldn't be avoided simply by taking fewer bullets; he was merely gone a few hours earlier. These people felt a deep sense of shared sorrow, a sense of dread that they all faced before the arrival of the next New Year…
Just then, the classroom door was suddenly flung open, and Baozi stumbled in, anxiously asking, "What happened to Kezi?" When she saw Ersha lying on the two desks, she panicked and rushed to his side, shouting, "What happened? Why haven't you taken him to the hospital yet?" Seeing that no one paid attention to her, Baozi frantically grabbed everyone around her, asking, "What happened?"
Hu Sanniang put her arm around Baozi's shoulder and said, "Don't be too sad. He was going to leave today anyway. We... are just like him."
Li Shishi wiped away her tears, grabbed Baozi's hand, and said, "Yes, sister-in-law, I'm leaving too... the day after tomorrow."
Baozi froze for a moment, then gripped Li Shishi's hand tightly and asked loudly, "Where are you going?"
Li Shishi shook her head sadly.
Baozi suddenly rushed to me, grabbed my hand, and shook it frantically: "What do you mean they're leaving? Where are they going?" Seeing that I didn't answer, Baozi shook me even harder, "Say something—"
I shoved her away roughly, yelling, "Stop asking me! They each only have one year to live!"
Baozi stood there for a long time, then suddenly sat on the ground and burst into tears like a child who had lost a toy. As she cried, she stubbornly glared at me, as if I had only given everyone a year to live.
The door opened a crack, and Liu Laoliu walked in unhurriedly, muttering to himself, "Isn't it not time yet? Why did I receive Jing Ke's return signal?" He glanced at Ersha's wound, wanting to ask us something, but seeing our expressions, he quickly shut his mouth, did some calculations with his fingers, and looked up at the heavens, "So that's how he died. What a pity."
I grabbed Liu Laoliu's arm and shouted, "Is there any way to make an exception? As long as Kezi doesn't die, I'll do anything. Besides, am I not a god? I still have a lifespan of several hundred years, right? I'll divide it among everyone here, thirty or twenty years for each person, that's fine too!"
Liu Laoliu shook off my hand and sighed, "What do you think this is? The cycle of heaven, a law that even gods must abide by. I'm willing to break the rules to help you, but I really don't have the power—I'm taking him away." As Liu Laoliu spoke, he opened his palm, and a faint light emanated from it, enveloping Ersha's corpse. Ersha gradually blurred in the light and finally slowly disappeared into thin air.
I said sadly, "Can't I even say a few last words?"
Liu Laoliu said, "Dead is dead, there's nothing we can do about it. Besides, are you all so unable to let it go? In a year, everyone here will be gone. And in another thirty or fifty years, won't ordinary people also face the same fate?"
Everyone seemed to understand. Li Shimin's face was ashen, and he said, "I never thought I would see through life and death twice in one year. Now, even if you gave me the throne for free, I wouldn't take it."
Liu Laoliu glanced at him and said, "It would be good if it were true!"
After Liu Laoliu left, some time passed before the people in the room began to recover. Just as Li Shimin had said, they were all people who had faced death twice within a year, so they were much more accepting of things. I helped Baozi up from the ground, but before I could say anything, Baozi suddenly hugged Li Shishi tightly and pleaded, "Xiaonan, don't go!"
Li Shishi smiled faintly, "Didn't Immortal Liu say that everyone has their day? But Brother Ying... it'll be his turn tomorrow."