Fu Cheng said, “Xu Tingsheng, I’m returning to Libei. I’m gonna kill him.”


  Xu Tingsheng said, “Alright. I’ll go with you.”


  Out of the four, only Song Ni remained in Jiannan City. Xu Tingsheng booked a motel room for her that was located just outside the hospital. Like this, she would be able to constantly check up on Fang Yunyao’s condition whilst also helping out a little if Fang Yunyao’s parents so required her assistance.

  Fu Cheng, Huang Yaming and Xu Tingsheng rushed over to Libei County without overnight rest.

  As the car sped along amidst the darkness of the night, its occupants remained silent throughout. There were those who didn’t feel like talking whereas also those who wished to speak yet knew not what to say.

  Xu Tingsheng focused on driving. He certainly wasn’t going to let Fu Cheng kill someone. If not pushed to the brink, Xu Tingsheng definitely wouldn’t go against the law like this, trying to solve the problem through such an extreme method.

  Bar limited unique circumstances, murder and violence were really almost always the most foolish and pointless reaction to a problem.

  However, Xu Tingsheng had not denied and tried to convince Fu Cheng otherwise back then. With how things had been then, with Fu Cheng already at the verge of losing control after having seen the comatose Fang Yunyao on her sickbed, he had known that there was nothing he could have said to stop him.

  Realistically, it was also not as though Fu Cheng was brandishing a knife and charging murderously towards his hated foe. Since that was so, there was really no need for Xu Tingsheng to force him to calm down and think straight.

  Sometimes, rational reason just cannot coexist with our mental states.

  In trying to ‘counsel’ or ‘persuade’ someone else, many are often prone to committing a simplistic error. They feel that they should give the other party the calmest, most rational analysis they can, feeling that as long as the correct, relevant logic is expressed by them, their advice should then be heard, accepted and abided by……whilst having completely overlooked the current mental state of that other person in doing so.

  Sometimes, in truth, having been overtaken by emotions, people are just innately unable to properly listen to anything regardless of how overwhelmingly correct the analysis presented to them is.

  Think of a man who has just lost his wife. Now, his relative comes along and counsels him: Your kids are still young; you’ll have to find a mother for them sooner or later. Is this wrong in principle? No. But saying this kind of thing at such a time, such a person could really only be considered goddamn sick in the head.

  Give the person caught in the throes of agony some time to himself, please……

  Reaching Libei, Xu Tingsheng did not let Fu Cheng and Huang Yaming go home. Instead, he stopped the car by the roadside right before entering the county, handing each of them a cigarette.

  After they had finished smoking the cigarettes, he gave them another.

  Then, he asked Fu Cheng, “Are you able to calm down a bit now? If so, we’ll go get some things done.”


  “What can we do?” Fu Cheng asked, having calmed down slightly over the three hour long drive.

  “There’re many things that we can do. We could find some people within the security division to get a better grasp of the current situation. We could try to find an alibi for Zhang Junming’s mother. We could……while it was during lesson time and Ms Fang exited through the back gate, there being so many people in the school, there might just have been some eyewitnesses present at the scene.”


  At this point, Xu Tingsheng rather missed the ‘Heavenly Net Surveillance System’ that would be established in the future. If this incident had happened ten years later, with the entire county under video surveillance, things would definitely not have turned out this way at all.

  “Shouldn’t all this be the job of the police?” Huang Yaming asked.

  “Let’s check whether they are doing it then, and how well they are doing it, “Xu Tingsheng said, “Comparing the backgrounds of Zhang Junming and Ms Fang, which of them do you feel they are more likely to be biased towards in Libei?”


  “Zhang Junming is a local of Libei and works in mechanics. The network that he has here, including former classmates, relatives, friends and colleagues, definitely isn’t something that a young teacher having come from aboard can compare to. In that case, you’re saying that there might be something fishy going on here?” Huang Yaming asked.

  “There shouldn’t be too much of a problem, or the Zhang Family’s mother would also not have had to take the rap for her son. However……we can’t rule out the possibility of someone trying to let things stand how they are and being negligent in the investigation of the matter,” Xu Tingsheng said.

  “What do we do then?” Fu Cheng asked in a panic, “I want him dead.”


  Xu Tingsheng threw the cigarette in his hand out of the window and said in a heavy tone, “Therefore, we’ve got to understand the situation first. If things are really that way, then……we’ll switch the background situation around, turning the matter into a standoff between Zhang Junming and our two families……In Libei, I don’t think that there are many people at all who can resist the joint pressure of our two families right now.”


  Not long after the Huang Family had fallen, a mass reshuffling had begun to take place in Libei’s bureaucracy. Many of those who had newly come into power were those who had been in opposition to or been suppressed by the Huang Family in the past. These people mostly all harboured goodwill toward the Xu Family. Adding on the power that the Xu Family had demonstrated in bringing down the Huang Family and Mr Xu’s competent leadership, the current Xu Family was already completely incomparable to how it had been in the past.

  Meanwhile, Fu Cheng’s father was the vice Chief of the Trade and Industry Bureau. If he were to act, there would definitely also be many resources that he could draw on.

  This manner of thinking was something that Xu Tingsheng had picked up from his interactions with Fang Yuqing. After the Xu Family’s matter had been settled at the beginning of the year, Xu Tingsheng had once had an open, honest discussion with Fang Yuqing.

  Back then, after having understood all that had transpired, Fang Yuqing had told Xu Tingsheng very directly, “Your manner of thinking isn’t right.”


  Where was it wrong? Fang Yuqing had explained that after Xu Tingsheng had suffered a setback at the hands of the Huang Family, even if he would have needed to play some dirty tricks in the process, he should have tried to blow up the matter such that the tensions between the Huang Family and the Xu Family appeared to be tensions between the Huang Family and the Fang Family, or at least between them and the connections the Fang Family had drawn on. In this way, he should have tried to manipulate the Fang Family into going all out against the Huang Family.

  “You should have done so even if you might have needed to swindle even me in the process. More than that, you could have been candid with me. We could have gone to swindle everyone else together, my grandpa included,” Fang Yuqing had even said such a thing at the end of it.

  “Swindle you?” Xu Tingsheng had asked him at the time.

  “Right, swindle me, causing me to feel furious at that whatever Huang Family. Afterwards, I would have thought of a way to evoke fury in those connections of my family who had also helped out. You know, this matter wouldn’t really have caused too much of a problem for me.”


  “I couldn’t have done that.”


  “Learn how to then. Remember, you can be a good person, an honest person, but you definitely cannot get used to thinking like a good and honest person. You especially cannot fall into the mindset of the weak. Sometimes, vicious people need to be dealt with by someone acting even more viciously. Against vicious people, you should play some tricks when necessary, definitely not abiding blindly by the rules. When you can pressure them with power, just do it if you can.”


  These words had inspired Xu Tingsheng very greatly. Fang Yuqing had told him: Remember, you can be a good person, an honest person, but you definitely cannot get used to thinking like a good and honest person. You especially cannot fall into the mindset of the weak.

  In Xu Tingsheng’s previous life, he had generally been a good, honest person. At the very least, he had been a normal person without any hidden, malicious sides. As compared to many others, he could even be considered as being amongst the weak.

  Therefore, Xu Tingsheng was used to that manner of thinking. An example of this was how after he had suffered a setback over with the Huang Family, he had felt that he should not trouble Fang Yuqing anymore as he had called him and told him that the matter was already resolved.

  The power that he had originally been able to draw on to resolve the matter with had ultimately been given up on by him on his own accord.

  While this manner of thinking could make a person kind and genuine, it would also sometimes render one helpless, especially when faced against real evildoers in which case it would only leave the person in question restricted in many areas, suffering a total defeat.

  Xu Tingsheng didn’t wish for himself to change so greatly. However, he was currently facing someone like Zhang Junming, someone who could act so viciously against Fang Yunyao for no rhyme or reason, someone who could ask his own mother to take the rap for him.

  Xu Tingsheng felt that he should indeed change his manner of thinking a little. If this matter could be solved through the fairest, most reasonable means, that would naturally be best. However, if that was not possible, pressuring others with their power in order to get the situation resolved in an acceptable manner was fine as well.

  Sometimes, a fair, reasonable result could only be achieved through unfair, unreasonable means. Such was the nature of reality.

  Fu Cheng considered Xu Tingsheng’s words for a while before saying, “If that’s the case, it’s all the more so that I should think of a way to find Zhang Junming first then.”


  Xu Tingsheng understood what he meant. Therefore, he said, “Right.”