Copycat - Chapter 41
Chapter 41
◎The Truth of That Year◎
There wasn’t a single window here. All four walls were yellow, and there were only a few books in the corner to pass the time. Unfortunately, the owner of the books never opened them.
The man was half-slumped against the wall. The unshaven stubble on his chin and cheeks grew wildly like weeds. His sunken cheeks made him look lifeless, and only a pair of piercing eyes looked like a hungry wolf at the person who opened the cell door.
“Ms. Wen, this is a death row inmate. I still suggest you don’t go in. It’s best to keep a certain distance from him,” the police officer advised.
“It’s okay,” Wen Jiao replied calmly. “I have something I want to talk to him about alone. Officer Zhang, please step away.”
Officer Zhang nodded worriedly.
Wen Jiao looked down at her former acquaintance. “You’ve changed a lot.”
With the passage of time, the once famous figure in A City had become a rat on the street that everyone hated. In a place where people die silently, having someone hate him might even be a good thing.
Cheng Junfeng sneered. “It’s all thanks to you.”
“CEO Wen certainly has a lot of free time. You’re not at the company, but you’re specifically coming to the prison to see me, a person who is about to die. Are you that concerned about me? Do you have to get your noble sense of superiority from me?”
Wen Jiao wasn’t angered by his provocation. She just stared at him. “I’m here to ask you one thing.”
“If you answer me properly, I’ll let you leave with some dignity.”
Cheng Junfeng looked up at her. The woman’s eyebrows were like distant mountains, and her eyes were full of indifference. Her drooping eyelashes hid all the emotions in her eyes, like an ink painting.
At that moment, he felt a little regretful. If he hadn’t provoked Wen Jiao, perhaps everything would have been different.
Wen Jiao squatted down and stared at his bulging, bloodshot eyes, her tone calm. “Cheng Junfeng, tell me what happened at the engagement banquet back then?”
The man was stunned for a moment, and his body, which had been curled up on the ground, stopped trembling. Cheng Junfeng’s expression began to change strangely. Wen Jiao wondered if there was something wrong with her eyes because she actually saw the word “sympathy” in the death row inmate’s expression.
“Cheng Junfeng, answer me,” Wen Jiao’s voice grew colder, and she ordered in a stiff tone.
A crazy laugh suddenly echoed in the silent cell, startling the police officer who was standing nearby. There were also rustling sounds from the cells in front, behind, and to the sides.
The bloodshot eyes of Cheng Junfeng were terrifying. He laughed hysterically. “Wen Jiao, you’re so pitiful, hahahahahahahaha!”
The sound of fingers tapping on the iron bars came from the next cell. Many death row inmates shushed him, and like they had found some fun to pass the time, they clapped and laughed, repeating, “So pitiful—”
“So pitiful—”
The police officer standing nearby quickly walked over to maintain order, but there was no way to stop the sound so quickly. In the end, the man lying on the ground was even holding his stomach and laughing so hard that he could barely breathe. Wen Jiao, wearing high heels, approached the ground where the man was rolling around.
Officer Zhang quickly tried to stop her. “Ms. Wen!”
Wen Jiao lifted the man on the ground. Officer Zhang was dumbfounded. He reached out his hand in midair and then silently pulled it back, subconsciously moving away from the woman in the middle of the cell.
Wen Jiao could no longer suppress her anger. She yelled furiously, “Cheng Junfeng, I’m asking you one more time, what exactly happened that night!”
Late night.
The prison cell door was locked, and the desolate moonlight shone on the woman’s staggering figure. Behind her was a short, chubby male police officer who was looking at her with a worried expression.
“Ms. Wen, are you okay?”
He didn’t get a response. When Officer Zhang was about to speak again, he saw the woman’s pale face and silently swallowed his words. Even a three-year-old child could tell that the person in front of him had suffered a severe mental blow and was in a terrible state.
“CEO Wen?”
A low-key Maybach stopped at the entrance of the prison where death row inmates were held. A man in a suit and tie got out. Officer Zhang’s pressure was greatly reduced when he saw that someone had come to pick her up. It was his shift tonight. If this influential person he couldn’t afford to offend fainted at the prison entrance, he wouldn’t be able to bear the responsibility even if he had ten thousand lives.
The night was cold. Li Xu quickly took a prepared cape from the passenger seat and placed it on the woman’s shoulders. However, the woman acted as if she didn’t recognize him and refused to speak, no matter how much he asked.
Li Xu had no choice but to turn his gaze to the male police officer who was standing to the side. “Hello, officer. Would it be convenient for me to have a word with you?”
Officer Zhang saw that this person was wearing a suit and tie and had some connection with the well-known new tech elite. His attitude was gentle, and he answered almost everything he was asked. By the time they were halfway through the conversation, Li Xu understood what Cheng Junfeng had told Wen Jiao, and he couldn’t help but feel a little guilty.
“Li Xu.”
A hoarse voice came from a distance. Li Xu shook off his distracting thoughts and quickly followed her. “CEO Wen, I’m here. Do you need me to take you home now?”
Wen Jiao shook her head. Her pale face showed no color, and she was as fragile as a thin piece of paper. Any gust of wind could tear the paper to pieces. Li Xu pursed his lips. “CEO Wen, I’ll take you to the hospital.”
The Maybach drove toward the hospital. Li Xu, who was in the driver’s seat, was a little distracted. He couldn’t help but check on Wen Jiao’s state through the rearview mirror. The woman was leaning against the car door, looking out the window, her eyes filled with complex emotions that he couldn’t understand.
“Li Xu.”
A car came from a curve ahead. Li Xu quickly turned the steering wheel. He was sweating profusely. He took a moment to recover before speaking. “What is it, CEO Wen?”
“If you confess now, I won’t take away your shares in the company.”
Wen Jiao’s gaze shifted from the window to the man who was driving the car. Her tone was cold, and there wasn’t a hint of extra emotion. Li Xu looked up and wiped the cold sweat from his forehead. “CEO Wen, I actually hid something from you about what happened back then…”
Wen Jiao had already guessed. Almost the moment Cheng Junfeng told her the truth, she pieced together all the events. Her expression was unchanged, but her eyes were even colder.
“But I was following Miss Zhou’s instructions!” Li Xu saw Wen Jiao’s expression suddenly turn cold through the rearview mirror, and he quickly turned his head to explain while driving.
Wen Jiao was stunned for a moment. Li Xu knew that if he continued to hide things, he would not only lose his job, but his family would also be in trouble. He confessed everything that had happened that year.
“This is what happened. The night you fainted at the entrance of the engagement banquet, I received a phone call…”
At the entrance of the engagement banquet, Li Xu walked out swaggering with a bunch of brand-name gifts in his wallet. Inside the banquet, the engaged couple was being cheered on to kiss. Outside the banquet, the sky was gloomy, and the rain was pouring down. He was about to open his umbrella and drive away, but when he looked down…
“Wen Jiao?!”
Li Xu’s eyes were filled with shock. He looked around. The security guards at the entrance of the banquet acted as if they were blind and ignored the person who was completely soaked. After some hesitation, he still walked down the steps and trembled as he checked for her breath.
“Still alive, that’s good, that’s good.” Li Xu breathed a huge sigh of relief, but he quickly realized that the woman in front of him was a huge problem.
The Cheng family was already on the rise in A City, and now that they were marrying into the Zhou family, they were even more powerful. Li Xu’s eyes darted around. Saving the person in front of him would only get him into trouble and bring him no benefits at all. Just as he was about to leave, his phone suddenly vibrated.
He held his umbrella with one hand and answered the phone with the other. “Hello?”
“I have evidence of your parents’ tax evasion in my hands. If you don’t want to wake up tomorrow and find that you’re the only one in your family who isn’t in prison, immediately take her to the hospital.”
Li Xu broke out in a cold sweat, but after he calmed down, he immediately recognized the voice on the other end of the line. Because of the urgent situation, Zhou Ziyan hadn’t used a voice changer, but Li Xu still asked, “Who are you?”
“You don’t need to know who I am. I’m watching you right now. If you don’t take her to the hospital, you’ll receive a subpoena from the prosecutor’s office tomorrow. Now, pick her up and take her to the hospital for treatment.”
At the engagement ceremony, after Zhou Ziyan had pretended to be okay for a while, she immediately made an excuse to change into a toast dress and went into a room with a window. She knew there was a high probability that Wen Jiao had already left, so she didn’t have much hope.
By the floor-to-ceiling window, Zhou Ziyan held up her skirt. As soon as she lowered her head, she saw the unconscious figure in the heavy rain. Tears welled up in her eyes. She covered her mouth, not wanting her sobs to disturb the makeup artist next door.
The security guards hired by the Cheng family looked straight ahead, completely ignoring the person who had fainted in the rain and could have hypothermia. At that moment, she wanted to rush down and slap every single one of them, but Zhou Ziyan eventually calmed down.
The Cheng family had connections to both the legal and illegal worlds. If she rushed down now, she would only cause endless trouble for Wen Jiao. Just as she was at a loss, she saw a familiar figure with a wallet at the top of the stairs.
The rain beat down hard on the front windshield. The windshield wipers could no longer withstand this level of a storm and were instantly overwhelmed, obscuring the view. Li Xu could only continue to drive forward based on the blurry shadows.
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” Wen Jiao’s voice trembled. Her tightly clenched fist had fingertips that had dug into her flesh, and drops of bl00d seeped out. She lowered her head, pressing her fist against her knee. She would suddenly stop and then violently pound it as if she were having an outburst.
“Why didn’t you tell me!” she yelled.
Li Xu turned the steering wheel to the right, avoiding a truck in front of them. He wanted to cry but couldn’t. “I’m sorry, CEO Wen. I…”
He was really too afraid of losing everything. After saving Wen Jiao, he didn’t think much of it and continued his day-to-day job in investment banking. One day, he received a call from across the ocean.
Wen Jiao invited him to become a shareholder of the company. Li Xu didn’t believe that such a good thing would just fall into his lap, but out of recognition for his former student council president’s ability, he reluctantly read the company’s IPO plan, which almost made his jaw drop.
He almost immediately resigned from his current job and went to M Country to join his former schoolmate, willing to be her general assistant at the company.
M Country had many talented people. There was no reason for Wen Jiao to invite him. The only reason could be…
Li Xu bit his lower lip tightly. “CEO Wen, I…”
A loud horn blared from behind. For a moment, the world spun.