Those graves belong to Jin Hongchang’s family. Xu Hang had them buried here specially four years ago. Come to think of it, he hasn’t seen them for four years already.
The tomb is located deep in the beautiful garden, in a remote and desolate place.
Xu Hang stood a few meters away, observing with an icy gaze, unwilling to move even an inch forward, as if he was afraid of getting his feet dirty.
“Uncle ah, Uncle, I wonder if you have had a chance to reincarnate after so long?” He murmured to himself, “But I think it’s better for someone like you to be in hell.”
Jin Hongchang died on the day Xu Hang came out of Xiaotong Guan.
On that day, Duan Yelin gave Xu Hang two glasses of wine.
He said, “Here is a cup of life and a cup of death wine, I’ll give you the choice. The person I want will never be allowed to go back to be shown to other men, so you must either choose me or choose to be liberated.”
In fact, Xu Hang knew that Duan Yelin didn’t have to give him this choice. He could have been a bandit, like Jin Hongchang, and cut off his wings, making it impossible for him to escape. But he still had to do this.
It seems that it is just to give him a reason to be “willing”.
People are like this—they resist when coerced, but if given even the illusion of choice, it creates a sense of autonomy and helps mask the underlying inequality.
Xu Hang sat on the chair and took the life wine without any hesitation: “If I wanted to die, I would have died long ago after being with Jin Hongchang for so many years. But you want me to choose you, is your bargaining chip this glass of wine?”
Duan Yelin knelt on one knee and looked him straight in the eye, like a devout believer: “What do you want?”
“I have nothing but myself, so it’s not about what I want, but what you can give me.”
After hearing this, Duan Yelin’s eyes lit up with confidence. He stood up and dusted off the dust: “I understand.”
That night, the people of Hezhou City spoke of Commander Duan’s great generosity, saying he had arranged for the city’s most extravagant fireworks display for everyone to enjoy. So, during the whole night of fireworks that were as lively and deafening as the New Year, a team of soldiers with guns rushed into Jinjia Tang and carried out a massacre that no one knew about.
When Jin Hongchang was forced out by the soldiers at gunpoint, he had just come out of the bath, wearing only a large bath towel. When he entered the room, he saw corpses and blood everywhere and Xu Hang sitting in the hall drinking tea without changing his expression. He knelt down immediately and almost fainted.
He cried and screamed and crawled to Xu Hang’s feet. He slapped himself in the face, cursed himself, and begged for mercy desperately.
He was afraid of death, very, very afraid.
“Shaotang, Shaotang ah… I am your mother’s biological brother! I am your biological uncle ah! Uncle knows he is wrong, Uncle, Uncle will slap himself in the face! From now on, Uncle will listen to you and be your slave!”
It’s so ugly and disgusting.
Xu Hang watched silently for a while, then leaned forward slightly and softly said to Jin Hongchang, “Biological brother? I only remember that when your business failed and you came to Shucheng in poverty, she took out all her dowry without saying a word to help you get back on your feet so that you could build your family business today. She really treated you as a relative. But you did such a terrible thing to me.”
Jin Hongchang knocked his head loudly, with snot and tears flowing out: “It was Uncle who was confused! Uncle was wrong! You, you are a great person, and you should not bear grudges with a lowly person!”
“But I am a lowly person, and I don’t care about being a great person.” Xu Hang put down the tea and leaned back in his chair. “Uncle, do you still remember that Cousin fell into the water and died last year?”
Jin Hongchang was stunned for a moment. Xu Hang was talking about Jin Hongchang’s only child. Jin Wenxiang was just two years younger than Xu Hang, but he was excessively pampered and behaved like a tyrant both at home and outside. Naturally, he treated Xu Hang as his subordinate, ordering him around and punishing him as he pleased. Suddenly, one night, he drank too much and fell into the water and died.
“When Cousin died, I was on the shore. He kept calling your name, so I think he wanted you to go down and accompany him.”
Jin Hongchang was shocked. He was not wearing any clothes and sweating profusely. He felt cold. He had mixed feelings, not knowing whether it was the pain of losing his son or the hatred. In the end, he still succumbed to the desire to survive.
He trembled, “It’s all, all my fault. I’ll atone for my sins. Just treat it as your cousin atoning for my sins, is that alright? Let me go. I’ll never appear in front of you again in this life, alright…”
“Alright.” Xu Hang agreed.
Jin Hongchang was so overjoyed that his tears stopped: “Real, really?!”
“Of course I can forgive you, Uncle,” Xu Hang smiled brightly, like a gentle gentleman in an opera, but his words were extremely terrifying. “But whether my mother forgives you or not, please go and ask her yourself.”
“Bang”!
Without giving Jin Hongchang a chance to speak, Xu Hang waved his hand, and a soldier quickly loaded his gun and shot Jin Hongchang in the shoulder.
“Ah!!!!” He screamed like a pig being slaughtered.
Then, several more soldiers came and shot him several times in a row. After torturing him for a while, he finally died.
When the soldiers were cleaning up the mess, they asked Xu Hang what to do. Xu Hang leaned against the door, hugged himself with his hands, looked at the colorful and wanton fireworks in the sky, and lightly said, “Let’s bury him in Qiyuan.”
He wanted Jin Hongchang to watch as the family fortune he had earned ended up in the hands of others.
He wanted Jin Hongchang to see that everything that once belonged to him eventually became his grave.
He wanted Jin Hongchang to see how he fought back in the end, even though he was helpless and homeless.
But it’s been four years already, he thinks that he should have seen enough as well. There are not as many devils in hell as there are in the human world, it seems that he must find a few people to accompany him; otherwise, he will be the only evil person in the empty hell, it will be too lonely.
Xu Hang finally gave the gardener an order: “Raze this to the ground.”
——————
At night, Duan Yelin returned to Jinyan Tang. Xu Hang was sitting by the bed, soaking his feet and reading a medical book. Duan Yelin walked over, squatted down, and felt the water. It was no longer hot.
He grabbed a towel beside him, picked up Xu Hang’s feet from the basin, wrapped them up, and wiped them dry: “Don’t read medical books while soaking your feet in the future. You won’t even notice that the water have turned cold.”
He wiped for a while, then looked down and saw that Xu Hang’s toenails were uneven and angular, as if they had been chewed by a dog, and he couldn’t help but laugh.
Xu Hang doesn’t have many weaknesses, and cutting nails is one of them. He can cut thick grass roots as thin as paper, but he can’t cut his own nails well.
Duan Yelin then sat on the bed and spread a towel on his knees. He placed one of Xu Hang’s feet on it, then removed his coat and rested Xu Hang’s other foot against his stomach to keep him warm. He picked up the scissors beside the bed and began to trim it carefully.
The first time Duan Yelin trimmed his nails, Xu Hang felt awkward and nervous, but now he has gotten used to it. He didn’t trim his nails properly because he was afraid of cutting his own flesh, so he felt relieved when he let others do it.
Duan Yelin trimmed the uneven edges of his nails into a nice, arc shape and said, “If you want to trim them next time, just wait until I come back.”
“En.” Xu Hang responded softly, with a hint of sleepiness at the end of his voice. Duan Yelin then tucked him into the bed, covered him with the quilt, and lay down with his clothes on.
At this time, Xu Hang lazily said, “You are more familiar with dealing with foreigners, help me buy some jewelry.”
“What do you want the jewelry for?”
Xu Hang yawned. “Miss Gu has introduced a lot of business to my medical hall. If I don’t show any gratitude, it would seem too mean. I don’t know much about foreign things, so you can choose.”
Duan Yelin thought for a moment and said, “You don’t understand foreign things, and I don’t understand women’s preferences. I think I should ask Qiao Song to get some new jewelry styles, and you can pick them out for her.”
Xu Hang nodded slightly, closed his eyes, and seemed to fall asleep.
