Cheng Chang’s instincts told him something was wrong. He called back at once and quickly gave his address.

Liao Zhuo seemed to be somewhere very loud. She relayed the address to someone beside her, then asked urgently, “Have you come down the mountain yet?”

Cheng Chang said, “Not yet. What’s going on?”

“It’s my uncle. He’s been lying to me—he never actually took out a loan shark debt, he’s been running a scam with a group of other men. I only just found out myself. This morning he called my mom’s phone, asking about you—I think he might really be heading your way. I’ve already called the police, but they can only confirm they’re in Huangshan City right now. Wait, let me hand the phone to the officer next to me.”

A police officer took the phone. “Hello, Mr. Cheng, I’m the captain of the criminal investigation team in Zhangxiang County. What’s the situation on your end right now?”

Cheng Chang asked, “How long until you can get here?”

“Under half an hour.”

Cheng Chang checked his watch—nearly five o’clock. Half an hour would put it at around five thirty.

He said, “I’m fine. The main concern is there’s still a group of children here.”

“It’d be best to let the students out early and send them home. You and the school’s teachers should also leave right away. We’ve already activated tracking on your location—”

Before the officer could finish, several burly men with dragon tattoos on their arms had already appeared at the school gate.

“No time for that,” Cheng Chang said.

He thought quickly, then added, “I’ll try to stall them as long as I can. I’m going to mute my phone and turn on speaker—record this on your end for evidence, and I’ll record on mine as well.”

“Understood.”

The old monk, seeing the men, walked over and seemed to ask them something—one of them just shoved him aside without ceremony.

They looked around, spotted Cheng Chang, and headed toward him.

Cheng Chang had already tucked his phone into his inner pocket. He walked forward and heard the man in front—dressed in black, apparently the leader—say, “You’re the boyfriend of old Liao’s niece?”

Cheng Chang didn’t confirm or deny it. “What’s this about?”

“Old Liao beat up one of our brothers a few days ago. He died this morning. What do you have to say for yourself? Care to cover the funeral costs?”

Thinking of stalling for time, Cheng Chang asked, “How did he die?”

“Got sick and died. Something like… oh, wound infection.”

“Didn’t you say before you had a hospital-issued injury report? Let me see it.”

The man in black looked impatient, frowned and clicked his tongue, then glanced at a man in a floral shirt behind him. The man opened a briefcase and handed over an injury assessment slip.

Old Liao and this group were clearly in league together—the injury report only showed the extent of the wound, which wasn’t severe at all, most likely the result of the thugs fighting among themselves somewhere.

Cheng Chang said, “This injury wouldn’t have been fatal.”

“Wound infection.”

“Shouldn’t an infected wound have been treated at a hospital afterward? If it was tetanus, that could also mean he wasn’t sent for treatment in time. You should look into it further and find out the actual cause of death.”

“Does the cause of death matter? All we know is our brother got beaten up by old Liao, and then he died. That’s all there is to it.”

“There’s a question of liability distribution involved here,” Cheng Chang said. “As for compensation and funeral costs, we’re not refusing to pay—the issue is which parties should be paying, how, and how much, and what should happen afterward once payment is made—emotional damages, consolation money, and so on—all of that needs to be settled clearly.”

The man in black stood there dumbfounded for a moment, nearly tied in knots by Cheng Chang’s reasoning.

Irritated, he snapped, “Cut the crap. Just give whatever we tell you to give!”

Then he suddenly seemed to catch on, a sharp look flashing in his eyes. “What, are you trying to stall for time? Trying to find a chance to call the cops?” He stepped forward several paces, reaching out to teach Cheng Chang a lesson.

The old monk, seeing this, rushed forward to block him. “Don’t push him, don’t push him! He has a heart condition, his pacemaker was just repositioned—he can’t take a fall, a fall like that could kill him!”

Hearing this, the man in black exchanged a glance with the others behind him and slowly drew his hand back.

He looked Cheng Chang up and down, then laughed. “You’ve got a heart condition? Then you don’t have long to live anyway. Why hang onto all that money so tightly, then? You can’t take it with you when you go.”

At that moment, from the second-floor classroom, the clear sound of children reading aloud suddenly drifted down—

“…within its simplicity carried such expectation, melting my small heart, so that I didn’t even notice dusk arriving. The setting sun’s last light dyed the window frame red, and the ivy covering that one wall in the courtyard was a deep, somber green, like a thick expanse of lake water…”

The man in black turned toward the sound of the teaching building, and after a moment, a sly glint flashed in his eyes. “You’ve got students in class here?”

Cheng Chang’s brow tightened.

“Come on, let’s go take a look.” The man in black waved a hand and led the others toward the second floor.

The old monk hurried to block their way, pleading, “The children are so young, whatever business you have with him, wait until class is over—”

“Get out of the way!” The man in the floral shirt, impatient, shoved the old monk to the ground without a second thought.

They went up to the second floor, kicked open the classroom door, and stood in the doorway calling out, “Hello there, kids—”

The elementary students in the classroom froze.

He Yuenan, sensing something was wrong, asked, “Who are you?”

The burly men ignored him entirely. The man in black walked to the first desk in the front row, pulled the book from a student’s hands, and looked at it. “Oh, you’re all having your Chinese class, are you?”

He smiled. “Don’t be scared, kids. Uncle here is a good person, come to do a good deed.”

He turned and looked at Cheng Chang, who had followed them to the doorway, jutting his chin at him. “So? Feeling generous? Look at these poor kids—you’ve got money, why not spend a little to buy them some good food and clothes?”

Cheng Chang stayed silent.

Just then, a little boy in gray cloth clothes suddenly stood up and said, “They’re not good people—they’re crooks trying to scam money—”

Hearing this, the man in the floral shirt crossed the room in three strides, grabbed the boy by his collar, and hauled him up, snarling coldly, “What did you just say? Say it again.”

Terrified, the boy’s lips trembled, and he burst into tears with a wail.

He Yuenan stepped forward to intervene. “Whatever your problem is, don’t take it out on a child—”

But before he could finish, the man in the floral shirt released the boy, turned, and swung a fist straight at He Yuenan.

The blow was brutally hard—He Yuenan toppled straight backward, crashing through several desks, blood gushing from his nose, his head ringing violently. It took him a good while to crawl back to his feet.

He wiped the blood streaming from his nose and forced out, “Kids… run…”

The students snapped into motion and made for the back door, but another burly man reacted quickly, cutting them off first with a cold, chilling grin. “Uncle’s a good man—no one’s allowed to run.”

At the same time, He Yuenan took another punch.

The man in black lounged idly on a desk, staring at the students huddled in the corner. “Is your teacher a bad person? Does he make you do homework all day long? How about we have Teacher Cheng donate some money to you, hm? Your Teacher Cheng’s got plenty of it—once he donates, you won’t need to study anymore.”

But hearing this, the students only cried harder.

The soft sobbing that had been held back before gradually rose into full wailing, cries overlapping one after another, grating and unsettling to hear.

Outside, the sky was slowly taking on a wash of sunset color. A round clock hung on the classroom’s blackboard—Cheng Chang glanced at it: five twenty.

The officer earlier had said they’d arrive within half an hour.

The criminal investigation team should be close by now.

Cheng Chang fell silent for a moment, and seeing there was no way to stall any longer, he took his phone from his inner pocket, ended the call with the police captain, and stepped forward. “How much do you want?”

The man in black raised an eyebrow in surprise, then grinned. “That’s more like it. If you’d been this reasonable from the start, none of this would’ve happened.”

“Flat rate. Three million.”

Cheng Chang said, “I don’t have that much in cash.”

“Sure, sure, understand completely, rich folks like you keep your money tied up in banks and stocks. Fine, transfer whatever you’ve got now, and we’ll count the rest as debt—write me an IOU, we won’t even charge interest.”

Cheng Chang knew that if he lowballed the amount, the men would likely take their anger out on the children in the class—these people were vicious and unpredictable, there was no telling what they might do—so he told the truth. “I can transfer you one million seven hundred thousand right now.”

“Fine.”

“Each bank card has a mobile transfer limit of five hundred thousand. Anything over that requires a computer, and there isn’t one here.”

Cheng Chang thought for a moment, then said, “Give me the card you want the money sent to. I’ll transfer five hundred thousand first. As for the rest, agree to one condition, and I’ll send the remainder.”

“Name it.”

“Let the children go.”

The man in black laughed. “Let them go, and how do I know you’ll still transfer the money? You’ve got a heart condition anyway—you’re going to die sooner or later regardless.”

Cheng Chang said flatly, “Fine, then. Since you already know I’m not afraid to die, we can just sit here and wait it out. Plenty of people know about this school. Once it gets dark and the parents come to pick up their kids and find something’s wrong, they’ll call the police—and it won’t be me who loses out in the end.”

Hearing this, the man in black couldn’t help glancing out the window.

For some reason, though the day had been neither sunny nor overcast, as dusk approached the sky had turned unusually vivid—as if all the light held back through the day had gathered and burst forth at once, wrapping the earth in a haze of dim gold.

Looking at that dark golden glow, the man in black felt an inexplicable flicker of unease creep over him.

He exchanged a glance with the other men, pulled out a card, and tossed it onto the desk. “Transfer the money, quick.”

Cheng Chang opened his banking app, scanned the card in front of him, and transferred five hundred thousand. “Done.”

The man in black nodded at the man in the floral shirt. The six of them split up—one guarding the back door of the classroom, two guarding the corridor, two guarding the top of the stairs.

The man in the floral shirt tilted his head toward the students. “Go on, get out.”

But the children, showing surprising loyalty, glanced first at He Yuenan, then at Cheng Chang, and not one of them moved to leave first.

The old monk urged them, “Go on, quickly. Your teacher’s having a talk with these… uncles. Once they’re done, they’ll come find you.”

He scanned the room and found the little boy who’d been brave enough earlier to call the men crooks. “You go first. Lead your classmates out.”

The boy stared blankly at the old monk for a long moment, then bit his lip and nodded, stepping forward and walking slowly toward the classroom door.

With him leading, the students filed out one after another, leaving the classroom.

From where Cheng Chang stood, he could see that Xixi—the little girl who’d asked him about the Song ci earlier—was trailing at the very back of the line.

She seemed terribly frightened, clutching a cloth bag tightly to her chest, her whole body trembling.

The students here mostly came from very poor households, and Xixi’s cloth bag was clearly made from worn-out clothing, small enough to hold only a few books.

But right now, that little cloth bag was stuffed absolutely full, bulging.

Something instinctively felt off to Cheng Chang. He was about to speak, meaning to draw the men’s attention elsewhere, when suddenly his heart lurched violently, a sharp pain tearing through him, and everything blurred for a moment.

He pressed a hand to his chest, waiting for the pain to subside.

By the time he’d recovered, Xixi had already made it out to the corridor outside the classroom.

These thugs, well-practiced in unsavory business, were sharply alert—the man in the floral shirt’s gaze landed on the cloth bag in Xixi’s arms, and as she passed by him, he casually stuck out his foot.

Xixi, already distracted, was tripped by the deliberate act of an adult and pitched forward.

The cloth bag flew from her arms, and along with it, several books and a tape recorder scattered across the floor.

The tape recorder was still running, a red button blinking on top.

Seeing this, Cheng Chang immediately stepped forward and helped Xixi up, murmuring low in her ear, “Run.”

The man in the floral shirt froze for a moment, then picked up the tape recorder off the ground and looked at it—beneath the blinking red button were the words “Recording.” He immediately burst out cursing. “God damn it, this little brat’s been recording us!”

He crossed the distance in a couple of strides, grabbed the back of Xixi’s collar, and hauled her up.

Seeing this, He Yuenan cried out urgently, “What are you doing, she’s just a child—”

The old monk added, “Take the tape recorder, take it! Just erase the recording, all right—”

Cheng Chang was closest to Xixi. Just as the man in the floral shirt lifted her, he stepped forward and grabbed hold of one of her arms, wrenching her back.

At that exact moment, the man standing guard at the stairwell below suddenly called out, “Boss, something’s wrong, someone’s called the police, looks like—”

Before he could finish, a voice shouted “Don’t move!”—the man had apparently already been subdued.

The man in the floral shirt swore viciously.

He glanced around and saw that Xixi was the only child left in the classroom. He lunged forward at once, trying to snatch her back from Cheng Chang’s arms as a hostage.

These men were vicious and desperate—anyone taken hostage by them was unlikely to fare well.

Cheng Chang shielded Xixi and refused to let go.

The sound of police officers coming up the stairs could already be heard. He Yuenan and the old monk rushed forward to help Cheng Chang, but the man in black caught and blocked them.

Cheng Chang, with his heart condition, was no match for the man in the floral shirt in a physical struggle. He carried Xixi toward the stairwell, meaning to hand her off to the officers coming up.

Seeing this, the man in the floral shirt’s eyes flashed with sudden viciousness. He reached out and shoved Xixi, then bolted quickly toward the other end of the corridor.

Xixi pitched forward, on the verge of tumbling straight down the stairs. Cheng Chang, with no time to react properly, reached out to grab her, and in that instant of losing his balance, he only just managed to pull her into his arms before he and she both went tumbling down the stairs together.

The teaching building was very old, and the stairs were narrow and steep.

Amid the violent tumbling, the world spun wildly, wave after wave of sharp, frantic pain surging through his chest.

His pacemaker had only just malfunctioned once before—it couldn’t withstand a fall like this.

A dull roaring filled his ears from every direction, and the pain was so intense it felt as though his entire body was being consumed by flame, scorching him from within.

In his daze, he thought he saw again the raging fire that had once run wild through the Imperial City Bureau.

He gasped for breath in great heaving gulps, yet it felt as though he were sinking underwater—each breath only deepened the suffocation gripping his heart.

That suffocation spread outward from his chest, gradually reaching into every limb, every joint, like two great hands seizing his very soul, dragging him down into the abyss.

“Cheng Chang—”

“Teacher Cheng—”

Muddled voices reached his ears from a distance, some already choked with tears.

Listening carefully, from somewhere impossibly faint and far away, he suddenly caught a soft voice: “Third Young Master, where are you?”

It was her, looking for him.

Cheng Chang’s vision dimmed. He took one last look at the person cradled in his arms.

The little girl was safe and unharmed, but terribly worried, tears streaming as she said something after something he could no longer hear clearly.

Her eyes were clear and bright, just like hers.

The slanting light of dusk burst forth in one final, dazzling blaze.

Cheng Chang closed his eyes and sank into the deepest chaos.