Wherever He Zhen was, his girlfriend Rebecca was sure to be.
In the past, seeing He Zhen with Rebecca would have made Wen Ying panic and instinctively avoid them. Looking back, she realised she must still have liked him then.
Now, running into the couple again, all she felt was appreciation.
Rebecca’s legs were so long.
Amazing figure, beautiful face, eye-catching in any crowd, and a straight-A student to boot.
A first-love girlfriend like that, forget He Zhen being unable to let go; if Wen Ying’s gender were swapped, she wouldn’t be able to forget either!
He Zhen was still the same He Zhen. Nothing about him had changed. The one who had changed was Wen Ying.
She thought He Zhen hadn’t seen her, but he had. He just kept his arm around Rebecca and didn’t come over to say hello.
Wen Ying followed her tour guide east; He Zhen and Rebecca headed west.
Both sides assumed it was a fleeting encounter. None of them expected that after spending the day touring separately, they would end up staying at the same hotel that night!
Back at the hotel that evening, Wen Dongrong started grumbling about wanting fried rice again. Chen Ru pretended not to hear.
The tour guide, nearly driven to a nervous breakdown by Wen Dongrong, immediately promised that tomorrow he would definitely get the most authentic Chinese fried rice. Only then was Wen Dongrong reluctantly satisfied.
During the day, the excitement of sightseeing kept fatigue at bay no matter how far they walked. The moment they reached the hotel, everyone collapsed with exhaustion.
They returned to their rooms to freshen up. After her shower, Wen Ying took her laptop out to the balcony.
She wanted to write today’s email.
She was hesitating whether to mention running into He Zhen at the Old Town Square when a soft “eh?” came from the neighbouring balcony.
“Niliu de yu?” (Fish Swimming Against the Current?)
Wen Ying turned.
He Zhen and Rebecca were sitting on the next balcony, each holding a can of beer, enjoying the pleasant evening.
What kind of fate was this?
He Zhen recognised Wen Ying. After a brief hesitation, he still took the initiative to greet her.
With a clear conscience, there was no need to pretend not to see.
Rebecca tilted her head, looked at Wen Ying, and raised her beer. “Join us?”
“No need, I’d be disturbing you two…”
Wen Ying didn’t want to eat their dog food. But before she could finish, another person emerged from He Zhen’s room onto the balcony.
A young man, also Chinese-looking.
Rebecca burst out laughing. “See? You won’t be disturbing anyone.”
The couple already had one third wheel.
Wen Ying stopped being polite, put down her laptop, and went next door.
“Just call me Wen Ying. ‘Fish Swimming Against the Current’ is my pen name. At last year’s book signing in Shanghai, you helped stop the antis who were causing trouble.”
“No big deal. Anyone would have stepped in.”
At last year’s Shanghai signing, Zhao Qian had hired people to disrupt the event. Thanks to He Zhen’s sharp eyes, a bigger commotion was prevented. Wen Ying had known He Zhen for two lifetimes, but she couldn’t tell him that. She could only be grateful that the signing had given them a proper point of contact in this life.
Curiosity flickered in Rebecca’s eyes; she clearly hadn’t heard this story.
He Zhen briefly explained what happened, earning an enthusiastic toast from Rebecca. “To the brave knight!”
Rebecca didn’t mind at all!
Ever since He Zhen cut off financial ties with his parents, her feelings for him had grown deeper and more solid. She knew better than anyone how much her boyfriend loved her.
With that emotional confidence, hearing that He Zhen had stopped trouble at a signing only made her think: My boyfriend is so handsome and heroic!
Rebecca like this practically glowed.
No wonder in her previous life He Zhen could never forget her.
A few sips of beer loosened everyone up. While drinking, they introduced themselves.
He Zhen and Rebecca needed no introduction. The young man who had been the third wheel first said his name was Pang Jinglong, He Zhen’s childhood friend.
Wen Ying blinked.
Pang Jinglong?
She knew that name!
He really was He Zhen’s childhood friend.
The kind with an incredibly close bond. He could third-wheel He Zhen and Rebecca now, and in another ten-plus years, he would still be He Zhen’s good friend.
But the Pang Jinglong in Wen Ying’s memory looked nothing like the young man in front of her.
So Pang Jinglong had actually been quite handsome when he was young.
Wen Ying had somewhat forgotten what He Zhen looked like in her previous life, but her memory of Pang Jinglong was crystal clear.
In her previous life, she had met him in prison.
A man in his thirties is in his prime. Take He Zhen, for example; he had just fully taken over the He family business and was at his most confident and charismatic.
Pang Jinglong in his thirties had a crew cut and a knife scar that ran diagonally from his left eye across most of his face, making him look terrifying whether he smiled or frowned.
Pang Jinglong was a murderer.
At twenty-two, he had argued with his father’s new wife and, in a fit of rage, stabbed her more than a dozen times, killing her on the spot.
The scar on his face had been inflicted by his own father with a kitchen knife.
After Pang Jinglong killed his stepmother and dropped the knife, his father, fearing his son was in a frenzy might turn on him next, had hacked Pang Jinglong twice with the knife.
One blow to the shoulder, crippling one arm.
The other across the face, disfiguring him.
He Zhen had said Pang Jinglong was very handsome in his youth; the kind who received love letters from girls as soon as he started junior high. When Wen Ying visited him in prison, she really couldn’t see it.
He Zhen had taken her to visit because he wanted to help Pang Jinglong get a sentence reduction.
Pang Jinglong had killed his stepmother and been sentenced to death with reprieve, later commuted to life imprisonment.
His father had wounded his own son yet was ruled to have acted in justified self-defence. The man wept in court about how deeply he had loved his late wife and how brutally Pang Jinglong had murdered her, practically begging for his son to be executed at once.
Wen Ying had handled many cases.
She had seen selfish parents who didn’t care if their children lived or died, and she had seen extremely protective ones.
In fact, most parents were protective. Even when their child committed a serious crime, they would exhaust every means to get them off.
A father who wished his own son would die quickly was the first Wen Ying had ever encountered.
It was precisely because she had seen such an extreme case of a scumbag father that Wen Ying never dared to overestimate Xie Jinghu’s moral bottom line.
She and He Zhen had visited Pang Jinglong in the twelfth year of his imprisonment.
He Zhen wanted to help him get out earlier. Pang Jinglong himself didn’t care whether his sentence was reduced.
Because the one constantly blocking any reduction was his own father.
Twelve years earlier, the father had demanded the harshest punishment.
For the entire twelve years Pang Jinglong was inside, his father never stopped campaigning, insisting the original sentence had been too light.
Even after marrying a third wife in Pang Jinglong’s third year inside, he still hated his son, the “wife-killer”, with a passion.
Wen Ying had never understood the father’s logic. He Zhen explained it in one sentence: Pang Jinglong’s father wasn’t deeply in love with his second wife; he was simply terrified of Pang Jinglong.
Pang Jinglong had nothing left to lose and had already spent over a decade in prison.
The moment he got out, he would certainly find a chance to kill his own father.
The father, having done something unforgivable, was terrified of his son being released.
After many years, when the relatives who truly cared about Pang Jinglong had all passed away, the father finally relaxed a little.
With no family left, and as for friends… who would still have friends after twelve years inside for murder?
The father underestimated both his son and the weight of true friendship.
He Zhen had never abandoned Pang Jinglong.
When he couldn’t yet make decisions for the family, he kept writing letters, encouraging Pang Jinglong to behave well inside.
The moment he took full control of the He family business, he immediately began working on getting Pang Jinglong’s sentence reduced.
From Pang Jinglong’s case, Wen Ying had seen He Zhen’s loyalty and softness. That was why, after rebirth, even knowing Dai Chenglan was close to Sara Zhuo, she refused to believe He Zhen was a bad person.
Wen Ying wasn’t skilled in that area of law, but her teacher was.
After the prison visit, she had introduced her teacher to He Zhen.
Whether the teacher could successfully get Pang Jinglong’s sentence reduced, Wen Ying thought the chances were good.
She never learned the final outcome, because not long after the visit, she heard of Xie Qian’s death, and then she herself was reborn.
“Is there something on my face?”
Pang Jinglong had been listless for a long time.
Until He Zhen finally agreed to accept his investment.
Not only did He Zhen accept it, he invited Pang Jinglong to join the core team.
Having something meaningful to do improved Pang Jinglong’s mental state day by day.
Though he had received love letters since junior high, after years of depression, being stared at so directly by Wen Ying made him a little shy.
“No, no, I just feel like I’ve seen you somewhere before.”
Wen Ying mentally rewound the timeline and felt her stomach drop.
This year, Pang Jinglong was exactly twenty-two!
If nothing changed, very soon he would stab his stepmother to death.
Wen Ying frantically recalled the case file she had read.
National Day, 2007.
Yes: 1 October 2007 was the day Pang’s father held the wedding banquet for his second wife.
That very night, after the guests left, Pang Jinglong took a knife and stabbed his stepmother more than a dozen times!
Looking at Pang Jinglong flashing a mouthful of white teeth in a smile, then at the oblivious He Zhen and Rebecca, Wen Ying didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Actually, she didn’t have to get involved in Pang Jinglong’s business.
His killing of his stepmother was the explosion of years of accumulated resentment in the Pang family. If it didn’t happen on the wedding day, it would happen the next.
Wen Ying had no personal connection with him. Before He Zhen took her to visit him in prison, she hadn’t even known who Pang Jinglong was.
But… Pang Jinglong was He Zhen’s childhood friend.
Wen Ying had studied his file and understood why he killed his stepmother.
He wasn’t a bad person; on the contrary, he was actually very filial.
The new stepmother had been having an affair with Pang’s father for years and even had a child not much younger than Pang Jinglong.
For years, Pang Jinglong’s mother had been suppressed by her husband’s mistress. Pang Jinglong had been on the verge of exploding for a long time.
National Day 2007 was the day his stepmother officially “won”; her ultimate victory. As the triumphant party who came out on top, she publicly humiliated Pang Jinglong’s mother.
Unable to bear it any longer, Pang Jinglong finally took the knife and ended her life.
Killing is certainly wrong.
Breaking the law deserves punishment.
But right now it was only August 2007. Pang Jinglong hadn’t killed anyone yet!
As a former lawyer, with the chance to stop someone from committing a crime, to prevent Pang Jinglong from going to prison, how could Wen Ying not be tempted?
