GHLCS Chapter125

Shanghai was in chaos again.

 

Soldiers with guns were seen running around in the streets and alleys late at night, arresting people everywhere. They rushed into houses and shops without saying a word to search them and ran away again when they found nothing.

 

It was raining a little in the early morning, and the ground was wet. That made it difficult to tell which was rain and which was blood.

 

At the entrance of an alley next to a villa adjacent to the concession area, Xu Hang ran so hard that his knees weakened and he fell directly to his knees in the dirty water, his hands and legs shaking uncontrollably.

 

He coughed and spat out several mouthfuls of blood. The hole in his shoulder where the arrow had pierced it was still bleeding. He had broken the arrow and thrown it away.

 

He could still vaguely hear the sound of pursuit from behind, so he gritted his teeth and stood up, took two steps forward, and saw a patrol team appearing in front of him. There were wolves in front and tigers behind, and he would be trapped if he went out now. He had no choice but to hide in the sundries piled up nearby and cover himself with a straw mat.

 

He had just covered it, leaned his back against the wall, and slid to the ground when he heard the two teams of soldiers arguing.

 

“Did you guys find him?”

 

“No, we came from that side, so we think he is on this street.”

 

“There was blood in that alley just now, so he probably can’t run far. Search every house! I’ll start from the east, and you guys from the west, surround him from both sides, go!”

 

Then there were some chaotic noises.

 

“Cough, cough! Cough… Um…” Xu Hang panted lightly. Just now in the machine room, when the guards shot, he pulled Zhang Yaochen’s clothes to block himself. He took the opportunity to stab his neck with the golden hairpin, but was deflected by Zhang Yaochen’s struggle and only pierced an inch above the heart.

 

Taking advantage of the situation, he overturned the candlestick on the table, and the light suddenly became much darker. As expected, those people did not dare to shoot without authorization but came forward one after another.

 

Without any weapons, Xu Hang could only run to the window, break the glass, and escape in the cover of night. The guards fired several shots at him from behind and chased him relentlessly.

 

It didn’t hit his vital parts, but several of them grazed his body, leaving a big wound.

 

The more important reason for tonight’s defeat was that he was addicted to drugs, his hands and feet were numb and sluggish, and he couldn’t use any strength at all. Now he was suffering from external injuries and internal illness and was in great danger.

 

He looked up at the villa. The lights on the second floor were on. He swallowed, propped himself up, climbed over the low wall with difficulty, fell in the grass, and crawled towards the seemingly unknown door little by little.

 

He knocked on the door.

 

After a moment’s wait, a gentle female voice asked lazily, “Who is it?” And then the door creaked open.

 

There was a woman in a silk nightgown with long hair in the door. She pushed the door open and looked at the injured man in the doorway with a little surprise. She took several steps back and waited until she saw his appearance clearly before moving forward. Even her tone of voice rose slightly: “Xu… Mr. Xu?”

 

Xu Hang staggered two steps into the door, leaning against the door frame, looking as if he was out of breath: “Fangfei… help me.”

 

The person in the door was Gu Fangfei, who lived alone in Shanghai.

 

Xu Hang did not come here like a headless fly. He knew that Gu Fangfei lived here, and this place was the closest place to the concession area after running away from the Zhang family manor.

 

As early as when he was in Hezhou, he had found out Gu Fangfei’s address clearly, just in case of emergency.

 

Gu Fangfei had never seen Xu Hang in such a miserable state before. She was so frightened that she couldn’t speak. It was already a strange encounter to see Xu Hang in Shanghai, but she didn’t expect him to be in such a strange state.

 

Seeing him covered in blood, she felt that it must be a serious matter.

 

“You… you come in first! Why is there so much blood? I’ll take you to the hospital!”

 

“I can’t go to… the hospital…”

 

“Why? You… ah! This is a gunshot wound!”

 

“Cough, cough! Cough!”

 

She reached out to help him up and helped him to the sofa in the living room, then went to find the medicine box.

 

She put the medicine box on the cabinet in the entrance hall, and when she went to get it, she found that there was a commotion outside. She looked out and saw soldiers coming and going. She suddenly started to murmur in her heart, closed the door, and walked in, lowering her head and thinking, and when she looked up, she saw Xu Hang sitting on the sofa with his head down.

 

Snap!

 

The medicine box fell to the ground, and Gu Fangfei covered her mouth tightly.

 

It was because she saw Xu Hang’s right hand tightly grasping a golden hairpin. The hairpin was a little deformed, and blood was dripping from the tip. She knew what he had been through at a glance.

 

How could Gu Fangfei not know what kind of story this golden hairpin had? It was because she knew it too well that she could not believe it.

 

Seeing Gu Fangfei’s gaze, Xu Hang subconsciously pushed the hairpin into his sleeve, which made his attempt to hide something even more obvious.

 

“You… this hairpin, what’s going on?”

 

Gu Fangfei tried her best to calm herself, but her voice couldn’t stop trembling.

 

Four eyes looked back and forth, and the less Xu Hang explained, the more he proved something. In this dead silence, Gu Fangfei felt as if her heart had fallen into a deep well in the backyard, falling down continuously and unable to be lifted up.

 

It is said that one of the greatest joys in life is meeting an old friend in a foreign land, but today, she did meet an old friend, so where is the joy?

 

Gu Fangfei wanted to find an excuse for Xu Hang and laughed dryly twice: “You didn’t get injured because you helped Commander Duan catch that… golden hairpin killer, did you?”

 

Gu Fangfei herself felt that this excuse was very poor, not to mention that Xu Hang’s expression was unusually solemn.

 

Originally, Xu Hang had no intention of hiding the truth from Gu Fangfei. However, if he really wanted to speak, he still felt that he had hurt her. There were too many words to explain, and it would be embarrassing no matter how he spoke. So he only had five words left: “I’m sorry, Fangfei.”

 

Sorry, that includes everything.

 

Gu Fangfei felt as if someone had shot her in the heart several times. For a moment, she could only stare at Xu Hang with eyes wide open, not knowing what to do.

 

“I’m sorry? You’re saying sorry to me? What do you mean?”

 

The golden hairpin and Xu Hang, Xu Hang and the golden hairpin—two seemingly unrelated things—are now clearly tied together.

 

“Haha… You’re not going to tell me that you are the golden hairpin killer, right?”

 

Gu Fangfei’s smile was uglier than crying. Xu Hang closed his eyes as if admitting it. His hand loosened, and the golden hairpin fell to the ground. It only took one glance to see that the pattern was exactly the same as the golden hairpins at the previous two murder scenes.

 

It was a blow to the head! She took two steps back, her waist slamming heavily against the cabinet, before Gu Fangfei managed to steady herself.

 

“So… you killed Wang Ronghuo and Uncle Yuan as well… Yuan Ye left, and my wedding banquet was ruined. All of this was done by you?!” Gu Fangfei’s mind was tangled with all sorts of things, and she shook her head fiercely, “No, no! You are a physician, how could you kill someone? Aren’t you Yuan Ye’s friend. Aren’t you my friend?! Why did you hurt him?”

 

At the end of the sentence, Gu Fangfei’s voice broke a little. The stimulation made the veins on her neck bulge one by one, and it seemed that she was hoarse.

 

Due to the pain in his body, Xu Hang temporarily did not have the strength to respond to Gu Fangfei’s questioning. His lips were pale and his throat was hoarse: “Fangfei, there are some things you don’t understand. No one does things for no reason. Yuan Ye left because he knew my difficulties. Now… cough, cough… now is not the time to explain to you…”

 

“I must know your difficulties!” Gu Fangfei suddenly became stimulated. “No matter what your difficulties are, it can’t change the fact that you are a murderer, right?!”

 

“Fangfei…” Hearing her use the three cold words ‘murderer’ to describe him, Xu Hang actually felt as if thin golden needles were piercing his heart.

 

Knock, knock, knock! There was a rude knock on the door.

 

“Is anyone there? Open the door! The police station is searching for criminals!”

 

“Open the door quickly! If you don’t open it, we will force our way in!”

 

The pursuers outside the door came so quickly that they didn’t even have a minute to deal with their own affairs. Xu Hang’s heart tightened, and he grabbed Gu Fangfei’s sleeve: “Fangfei… help me first. I promise you, I will tell you everything.”

 

Gu Fangfei looked at Xu Hang’s pleading eyes with mixed feelings in her heart. She was almost soft-hearted, but when she heard the aggressive voices outside the door, she bit her tongue to calm herself down and shook off Xu Hang’s hand.

 

“No! I won’t help someone who deceives their own people! Besides, you are an unscrupulous murderer!”

 

Recalling the scene of the river of blood, Yuan Ye’s devastated expression, and her own lonely wait in the cold wind by the lamplight, the bitterness in Gu Fangfei’s heart surged like a rising tide.

 

Xu Hang felt that he was on the verge of a coma. He had lost too much blood and needed to stop the bleeding quickly. However, Gu Fangfei’s emotions needed to be taken care of for the time being, so he said, “So… are you going to hand me over?”

 

She turned her back and walked out, saying as she walked, “Shouldn’t it be? If your suffering is really worthy of forgiveness, then you should go to the police station and tell them. If the law can forgive you, then I can forgive you too.”

 

“If you hand me over now… cough… tomorrow will be my death anniversary…”

 

“That, that’s also you, you reaped what you sowed…”

 

That being said, Gu Fangfei was very hesitant when she took the next step. From the angle that Xu Hang couldn’t see, her facial features were all twisted together, full of reluctance.

 

Xu Hang certainly couldn’t lose here. When he was at the Zhang Family Manor, he was prepared to die together. He could even hold Zhang Yaochen and run into the gun muzzle at that time to end it all.

 

But at the critical moment, he thought of someone.

 

Before he left, he told Qiao Song that he would be back before Duan Yelin woke up. That person was waiting for him to return.

 

So the body took a step ahead of the soul and saved itself.

 

He sighed deeply and prepared to use the most tender card to impress Gu Fangfei. This was also the trump card that gave him the courage to ask Gu Fangfei for help.

 

He spoke helplessly and dotingly, calling out to Gu Fangfei, who was about to open the door: “Xiao Hua Meimei!”

 

It was a very strange name.

 

However, Gu Fangfei stopped and turned her head as if her joints were rusted.

 

Those four words that were said to her were familiar, but also unfamiliar. They were like a small green plant buried under the desert of distant memories, which had never been disturbed by anyone, but was blown out of the ground by the wind today.

 

“What did you… call me just now?”

 

“Xiao Hua Meimei[mfn]Meimei means little sister[/mfn],” Xu Hang’s eyes were slightly red. He seemed reluctant to mention this matter, but he couldn’t help but say it. “Don’t you remember me? When we were little, you called me…’Feng Zheng Gege’.”

 

Feng Zheng Gege, Xiao Hua Meimei.

 

Gu Fangfei’s eyelashes trembled, and she covered her mouth again.