Chapter 089: Not Every Thing Is Free of Regret

Prince Zhao and his colleagues were still anxiously waiting for my signal.

But all it took was the time to light a cigarette. When he looked up again, he saw me standing there with a backpack on my shoulders, one arm cradling Song Chao, the other holding a round object wrapped in yellow cloth.

He got out of the car, confusion written all over his face, and walked up to me with a cigarette pinched between two fingers.

He looked me up and down. “What happened to you?”

I opened my mouth slightly. “No need to wait anymore. The people from the Golden Cicada Society aren’t coming. The one who came was just a puppet. The body is inside.”

“The people from the Golden Cicada Society aren’t coming?”

Prince Zhao stared at me in disbelief. “Why didn’t you give the signal just now?”

I gave a bitter smile. Against Corpse Hound King Wang Sheng, even if I called Prince Zhao and the others over, it would be useless. In the worst case, it might only add more casualties.

I raised a hand and rested it on Prince Zhao’s shoulder, shaking my head as I looked at him. “The line with Song Chao is probably dead. I think we should start with Hong Liang, the man who brought Chen Hu into the business.”

“Damn it! Damn the Golden Cicada Society!”

Prince Zhao slammed his fist into the car.

I smiled bitterly. Such an ending was indeed hard for anyone to accept.

After all the manpower, material resources, and time they had poured in, Prince Zhao had thought this operation would net them a big fish. At the very least, someone on the level of He Chuan or Uncle Li. Yet in the end, all they got was a headless corpse.

Though unwilling, there was no better solution now that things had come to this.

After Prince Zhao dropped me off at the Song family home, he immediately went back to organize people to investigate Hong Liang and the rest.

When Song Baoguo saw me, he hurriedly took Song Chao from my hands and examined him carefully. Only after confirming the child was merely asleep did he finally relax.

Song Baoguo led me to the sofa, and I set Wang Sheng’s head wrapped in yellow cloth on the coffee table.

He seemed curious, but he said nothing, only looking at me.

I was looking at him too. Reaching into my coat, I took out my phone, opened a video, and handed the phone to Song Baoguo.

The video showed everything that had happened between Wang Sheng and me in that room.

It was a long video, and I did not urge him on. I simply drank tea and waited quietly.

The moment Song Baoguo clearly saw Wang Sheng’s face, he was utterly stunned.

“This... he is Wang Sheng... this... he isn’t...”

His speech had already begun to stammer. I waved him off. “Uncle Song, please finish watching first.”

He did not fast-forward even once through the dozens of minutes of footage.

Only when Wang Sheng was driven out of the shack by me, and the camera had not captured the rest, did the video end.

“Where is Wang Sheng? He misunderstood! They all misunderstood me!” Song Baoguo’s eyes were red, and tears fell uncontrollably down his face.

I said nothing. In front of him, I slowly untied the yellow cloth.

Wang Sheng’s head appeared before Song Baoguo. With no psychological preparation at all, he instinctively recoiled.

When he saw that it was truly Wang Sheng’s head, he dropped straight to his knees before it with a thud.

“Revenge... betrayed us...”

Wang Sheng’s head was kept alive only by a single breath of resentment and malice. By now, it was like a candle in the wind.

His eyes kept moving restlessly, and his mouth opened and closed, producing an eerie sound that made one’s scalp prickle.

He seemed to sense Song Baoguo’s presence. Desperately trying to fix his gaze, he strained to look at him, and from his mouth came again that strange voice: “Die... die...”

“Wang Sheng! Wang Sheng, it’s me! I’m Baoguo! It’s me! I... I never betrayed you! I never did!”

Over and over, Song Baoguo recounted to Wang Sheng’s head everything that had happened to him back then.

But Wang Sheng could give no answer. He only opened his mouth by mechanical instinct.

Panting hard, Song Baoguo looked at the familiar face before him and reached out to touch it.

Then he turned to me. “Why... why won’t he answer me? Why won’t he answer me!”

“Uncle Song, I’m sorry. He can’t answer you.”

The moment I decided to temporarily preserve Wang Sheng’s resentment and malice, I knew I would have to tell a lie.

“Uncle Song, the misunderstanding from those years ago was not only your knot of the heart, but Wang Sheng’s as well.”

I glanced at Song Baoguo and went on. “In truth, Wang Sheng has already been reborn. As for who he was reborn as, there’s no need for me to say it outright.”

After a brief pause, I pointed at Wang Sheng’s head and continued, “What you are seeing now is only the final trace of resentment and malice from Wang Sheng’s previous life.”

“It cannot answer you or tell you anything. What it needs is only the truth, only an answer.”

“You need to speak; he needs to listen. Only when he learns the truth and the misunderstanding in his heart toward you is resolved will his resentment and malice truly disperse. That will be good for his rebirth.”

Song Baoguo looked at me in disbelief. But by now, there was nothing more unbelievable to him than what he had already seen.

He firmly believed that Song Chao was Wang Sheng’s reincarnation.

And so, for Wang Sheng, for himself, and for Song Chao, Song Baoguo gathered his thoughts and told everything he knew from that year once more.

“Wang Sheng, my brother, we were all set up. That woman... why, all these years, did you never come find me yourself...”

The moment Song Baoguo’s words fell, I wasn’t sure if I had heard wrong, but it seemed that a faint sigh came from Wang Sheng’s mouth.

When I looked again at Wang Sheng’s head, I found that his eyes and lips had already ceased moving.

At the same time, the entire head was drying out at a speed visible to the naked eye.

“This...”

I looked at Song Baoguo and explained, “Uncle Song, Wang Sheng has believed everything you said. He...”

Song Baoguo held his breath. He looked at me, his eyes filled with hope, fear, and loss.

“He’s gone.”

I could think of no words more fitting than those three.

Wang Sheng was gone, utterly and completely gone. Even if he were to be reborn as another person, that would no longer be the Wang Sheng of before.

The flower that blooms at the keeping of age blooms differently each year.

The clouds seen today are no longer the same one as yesterday.

A lie, a knot in the heart—there are some things in this world that can never be without regret.

What I did was only to keep Song Baoguo from living forever in a vague and nameless guilt.

Song Baoguo was a hero, and he was also my client. Qin Ruo was too.

Song Baoguo did not break his word. He truly gave me a check for one million.

And he promised that one day, if I ever needed his help, so long as it was not against heaven’s principles, he would not refuse.

Holding that check for one million, my hands were trembling. The moment I stepped out of the Song family’s gate, everyone I saw seemed to be staring at the check in my hand.

“Wait!”

I had only just been about to head to the bank when I heard Song Baoguo’s voice behind me.

Had he changed his mind about giving me so much money? I subconsciously shoved the check into my pocket.

Song Baoguo jogged up to me, his face carrying an indescribable sense of relief.

Yet in the blink of an eye, he looked at me again with a face full of worry. “I just remembered there’s one more thing I may need to trouble you with...”