FS-novel Chapter 324: The River Covered Its End
Chapter 324: The River Covered Its End
Chapter 324: The River Covered Its End
After a brief silence came confusion.
Lei Zhong slowly blinked his eyes.
He couldn't understand the meaning of those words.
Or perhaps, he refused to understand.
His face, covered in bulging muscles, showed a childlike bewilderment.
Immediately, the bewilderment was torn apart, and a surging rage erupted from within.
"Say that again?"
Lei Zhong's throat was dry.
Jiang Ci did not repeat himself.
Those bloodshot eyes looked back at him quietly.
The gun muzzle was steadily aimed at Lei Zhong.
Lei Zhong understood.
He suddenly began to laugh.
The laughter echoed through the empty factory and the howling canyon wind.
"Acting..."
He pointed at Jiang Ci, then at himself.
"These past two years... it was all an act?"
Jiang Ci's lips moved slightly, a scalding breath mixed with the smell of blood escaping.
"Two years and three months, seven hundred and sixty days and nights."
"Every second, I remembered who I was."
Lei Zhong's laughter stopped abruptly.
The color drained completely from his face.
Betrayal.
A tangible and real betrayal.
This young man, whom he had personally pulled from the mire, treated as his own son, and even planned to entrust with his entire legacy, was a poisonous snake that had been lying in wait beside him all along.
"Good... good..."
Lei Zhong muttered to himself, staggering back and leaning against the rock wall.
"A dog I could never tame, in the end, is still a cop."
He suddenly stopped laughing, his tone becoming extremely calm as he began to list them off.
"That bowl of chicken soup, was it fake?"
"Taking the knife for me in the woods, was that fake?"
"You kneeling on the ground eating that cake, was that fake?"
"You breaking your back from a falling beam to save me, was that fake too?"
With each question he asked, Jiang Ci's body trembled.
Those weren't scripted scenes.
They were the reality Jiang He had endured, inch by inch, with his own flesh and blood.
Jiang Ci's hand holding the gun was clenched very tightly.
He wanted to speak.
But as Jiang He, he couldn't say anything.
Cha Cai didn't need a police officer's explanation; he only needed the answer from "Ah He."
Lei Zhong looked at Jiang Ci's face, flickering in the firelight, twisted with pain, and laughed again.
It was an uglier laugh than a cry.
"Ah He, look at yourself now. Can you even tell who you are anymore?"
"You and I, we're the same kind of people!"
He tried to use emotion to shatter the last line of defense of this young man before him.
But Jiang Ci simply closed his eyes.
When he opened them again, the last bit of an actor's struggle within them had been completely crushed.
Only the police officer's resolve remained.
Lei Zhong saw it clearly.
This "masterpiece" he was most proud of had completely spiraled out of control.
The warmth faded from his face, leaving only the ferocity of a man backed into a corner.
"A cop?"
"Fine!"
He pulled out the palm-sized remote control from his chest and raised it high.
"Then let your comrades-in-arms be buried with us!"
At that very moment, dozens of beams from powerful flashlights projected into the factory entrance.
Accompanied by uniform tactical footsteps, countless flashing red dots covered Lei Zhong's forehead, the space between his eyebrows, and his heart.
"Don't move!"
"Drop your weapon!"
Warnings came from all directions.
The assault team had already surrounded the entire platform.
But because of that remote control, no one dared to fire.
Lei Zhong looked around at those dark, gaping gun muzzles, the madness on his face intensifying.
He looked at Jiang Ci, his eyes now holding a strange, paternal affection.
It seemed he wanted to give this "most accomplished disciple" one final lesson.
A lesson about death.
"Ah He, watch closely."
The moment his words fell, Lei Zhong suddenly turned and, using all his strength, charged toward the cliff behind him!
He was going to jump down, taking the mutual destruction switch with him!
There was no time to think.
Jiang Ci made the most instinctive reaction.
The pistol symbolizing the end of his undercover life was thrown to the ground without hesitation.
He lunged forward.
Just as Lei Zhong's body, suspended by wirework, was about to cross the edge of the cliff, Jiang Ci grabbed him around the waist!
Momentum carried them both, crashing heavily into the mud and pool of blood at the cliff's edge.
"Let go of me!" Lei Zhong roared, jabbing his elbow backward.
Jiang Ci grunted, but the arm wrapped around Lei Zhong's waist tightened even more.
"Give me the remote!"
Jiang Ci's face pressed against Lei Zhong's sweat-and-filth-covered back as he roared.
The two men wrestled frantically on the ground.
There were no graceful moves, only the dull thuds of fists hitting flesh, the sharp pain of teeth sinking into shoulders.
This was the most primitive, most savage kind of fight.
Jiang Ci's eyes had only one target: the remote control clenched tightly in Lei Zhong's hand.
He used his knee to press against Lei Zhong's abdomen, his whole body pressing down as he reached to pry open the other man's fingers.
Lei Zhong's hand was like an iron clamp, unmoving.
In the chaos, Lei Zhong groped for a rock and smashed it down on the back of Jiang Ci's head.
A sharp pain shot through the back of Jiang Ci's head, his vision went black, but he didn't let go. Instead, using the force, he opened his mouth and bit down on Lei Zhong's wrist!
"Ah!"
Lei Zhong cried out in pain, his fingers subconsciously loosening.
This was the moment!
Jiang Ci exerted force abruptly, wrenching the remote control from his hand!
Without a second thought, he flung the remote control with all his might toward the cliff!
The black object traced a parabola through the air, disappearing into the bottomless darkness.
The crisis was averted.
The assault team members on the platform were about to move forward.
But Lei Zhong, pinned beneath Jiang Ci, suddenly stopped moving.
He stopped struggling, just lying in the muddy water, breathing heavily.
He looked at Jiang Ci, who was also exhausted and covered in blood and grime, pressing down on him. An oddly peaceful smile appeared on his blood-stained face.
"Ah He," he called softly.
Alarm bells screamed in Jiang Ci's mind. The muscles throughout his body, having relaxed after retrieving the remote, hadn't fully regained sensation.
Only the sharp pain at the back of his head and the taste of blood in his mouth were clear.
And in that fraction of a second of dulled senses, he saw Lei Zhong pull a hand from his military boot.
That hand was holding a grenade whose safety pin had already been pulled.
The striker lever was being pressed down firmly by his thumb.
All he had to do was let go.
Lei Zhong looked into Jiang Ci's eyes and said softly:
"Ah He, Uncle will take you home."
Time stopped.
The sound of the wind, the guns, the shouts, all vanished.
In Jiang He's world, his vision focused infinitely, narrowing down to only that striker lever being pressed down by Lei Zhong's thumb, and the man's blood-stained face with its eerie, childlike smile.
He made the final, and most resolute, decision of the entire film.
Looking down at this man he had called 'Uncle' for two years, there was no script in Jiang Ci's (Jiang He's) mind, no police officer.
There was only a vague, broad back also wearing a police uniform.
Then, he smiled.
A smile more composed, more liberated than Lei Zhong's.
He released all his strength, ceasing to press down.
He resolutely covered the grenade.
Covering the endpoint of his undercover life.