Chapter 70 - 61: Smashed

Afternoon.

1:06 PM.

The November air was chilly. The autumn wind was biting; even on a sunny day, it would make you shiver.

But at Lusen Eighteenth Academy...

Principal Feng Yi was drenched in sweat.

Sweat soaked through his shirt. He stood before the main hall, staring at the brown stains left on the ground, his breathing growing more and more ragged.

Bits of flesh were still stuck in the cracks of the pavement...

Minutes earlier, someone had fallen from the sky, smashing into a pulp on impact.

By the time the ambulance arrived, they had been dead for some time.

One of the gate guards had also fainted. At first, they thought he’d just passed out from shock, but after a quick examination, the paramedic’s expression changed, and he left at the speed of light.

"How could this happen? How could something like this happen..."

Feng Yi muttered, his vacant eyes scanning the faces around him.

The dean of students, the vice-dean, the heads of each grade level...

All the administrators had gathered here, their faces a mixture of shock, bewilderment, and panicked unease.

In a corner,

"Pick up... Please, pick up..."

Lv Guangjun’s forehead was beaded with sweat. He stood with his back to the crowd, staring at his phone as it dialed, his heart burning with anxiety.

With a BEEP, the call finally connected. A woman’s powerful, full-throated voice came through the speaker.

"Hello? Teacher Lv, what’s wrong? Is there a problem with that color TV, or..."

The woman didn’t get to finish.

Lv Guangjun’s face contorted, and he hissed in a low voice, "Something’s happened to Liu Jingqi!"

The other end of the line went silent for a moment before a shrill voice shot back.

"What happened to her? Did someone hit her!? My family gave you so much..."

Lv Guangjun gritted his teeth. "Liu Jingqi killed someone!"

"The person died on the spot. No saving them. The police are on their way. You need to get over here now!"

With that, Lv Guangjun hung up.

He turned back to look at the huddle of administrators, his heart in a panic. His hands and feet were trembling.

’Someone’s dead...’

’Yang Jiale, the one who came to me to complain, is dead!’

’He never imagined Liu Jingqi could cause such a disaster, or that his own attempt to curry favor could lead to something like this...’

In his daze, an enraged roar, tinged with a tremor, shattered the air.

"Lv Guangjun! Where is Lv Guangjun!?"

The dean of students stood in the crowd, his eyes wide with fury, bellowing as he scanned the area.

"I... I’m here."

Lv Guangjun snapped back to reality and, trembling inwardly, walked to the front of the group.

The moment he appeared, Feng Yi’s rage became uncontrollable. He stormed forward and grabbed Lv Guangjun by the collar.

"Is this how you fucking run your class!?"

"You tell me, what the hell is going on!!!"

Lv Guangjun’s legs went weak, but he still managed to put on a pitiful, innocent expression. He looked at the principal and stammered:

"I... I don’t know."

"You don’t know!?"

The blood rushed to Feng Yi’s head. He felt his blood pressure skyrocket, and his face twisted into a snarl.

Seeing this, the people beside him quickly restrained him.

"Don’t do anything rash!" The dean held Feng Yi back.

"How can I not be rash!? Someone is fucking dead, and this son of a bitch says he doesn’t know!"

Several people held Feng Yi, forcing him backward.

The dean gritted his teeth and said,

"The priority right now isn’t assigning blame."

"We need to secure the scene, contain the situation, and cooperate with the investigation!"

Hearing this, Feng Yi clenched his jaw so hard he felt his molars might shatter. He stared at Lv Guangjun, who was now covering his face, sobbing innocently.

Just then, a voice called out.

"The police are here! The police are here!"

The announcement was like a shot of adrenaline for the group.

"Where?" Feng Yi turned his head, looking around anxiously.

A young man was running toward them from outside, shouting as he ran,

"They’re at the main gate!"

Without a moment’s hesitation, Feng Yi left a few administrators behind and hurried toward the school gate with the rest of the key personnel.

The police had arrived.

However...

They weren’t the only ones.

...

Outside the gate of the Eighteenth Academy.

The blue and white police cruiser slowly came to a stop, its engine cutting out.

"Lusen City is getting more and more unstable, especially these past few years."

Li Xiang muttered from inside the cruiser.

There was a nationwide crackdown on gangs and organized crime, so it was normal to be busy. But... the cases in Lusen City were on a completely different level compared to elsewhere.

The nature was different. The cases weren’t even comparable!

"I hope no one’s dead."

Li Xiang took a deep breath, ready to jump out as soon as the car came to a complete stop.

Unfortunately...

Suddenly, Zhang, the detective in the driver’s seat, stared into the distance and exclaimed,

"Old Li, we’ve got a situation outside!"

’A situation? What situation?’

Li Xiang froze and looked up.

He saw...

On the road directly in front of their car, a vast, surging crowd of figures was approaching.

At first, they were just a mass of dark shadows. Soon, however, he could make out their cement-dusted clothes and the tools in their hands: iron shovels, steel rebar, and metal pipes.

A quick glance revealed at least a dozen people.

Leading them was Sun Zhigang, his face grim. At his side stood Wang Fen, sobbing uncontrollably.

’This is bad!’

Li Xiang’s heart jumped, and he quickly got out of the car.

At the security booth, the group of construction workers stopped at the gate.

Wang Fen pointed at the stunned security guards, her voice a tearful accusation:

"Foreman, this is the place! He’s the one who wouldn’t let me leave. Zhao fainted right here, too..."

When the incident happened, the security guards had received a phone call and wouldn’t let her leave.

If she hadn’t taken the opportunity to run while they were on another call... Sun Zhigang probably still wouldn’t know what had happened.

Sun Zhigang suppressed his fury, his eyes, burning with a desire to tear them apart, fixed on the guards.

"Get the person in charge out here!"

The guard’s legs felt weak as he looked at the group of laborers—men hardened by years of heavy manual labor, now holding an assortment of clubs and pipes.

Fortunately, before he could answer,

"Make way, make way!"

Li Xiang led his men out of the car and through the crowd. They immediately split into two groups—one heading into the academy, the other staying by his side.

He pushed his way to the center and felt the pressure of the dense, dark crowd surrounding him.

Finally, his gaze landed on Sun Zhigang’s snarling face.

"Let’s talk this out calmly. We can talk this out."

"How the fuck am I supposed to talk this out calmly!?"

Sun Zhigang screamed right in his face, then smashed the steel bar in his hand against the security booth window.

SMASH!

The glass shattered instantly.

"Someone’s dead! Someone’s fucking dead, and you want me to talk calmly!?"

Sun Zhigang pointed at the buildings inside the gate, his body trembling with uncontrollable rage as he roared at Li Xiang,

"The person fucking died in there!"

"And you fucking stop two women from leaving? You only pick on people who are easy to bully?"

"You’re picking on us! You see that we’re all just low-class construction workers and think you can push us around, is that it!!!"

His voice was like rolling thunder, ringing in everyone’s ears.

The faces of the other workers grew darker. They clenched their fists, looking ready to erupt into violence at any moment.

Li Xiang’s expression soured again. He softened his tone and tried once more,

"We don’t know the full story yet. Let’s just calm down and get things straight..."

"Otherwise, you’re making this very difficult for us."

This kind of siege was clearly illegal.

Especially one with armed men!

But unfortunately, Sun Zhigang wasn’t giving him any face, his eyes cold as ice.

"You’re Li Xiang, right?"

"Let me tell you, it wouldn’t matter even if your Captain Wu Kang himself came to see me!!!"

’Great. He knows the name. That means he’s got connections.’

’It’s true. You can’t run a construction crew these days without someone backing you.’

Li Xiang was completely out of options.

Fortunately, a few figures emerged from the gate just then, bailing him out.

"Let’s talk this out calmly, let’s talk this out!"

Feng Yi had seen the crowd gathering outside and knew it was bad, but he still forced himself to step forward and try to placate them.

The sight of this man sent Sun Zhigang’s anger flaring up again. He became agitated.

"Motherfucker, where did you hide her!?"

Feng Yi’s face was a mask of misery as he hastily explained, "We didn’t hide anyone, we didn’t!"

"The woman was sent to the hospital. If she has an ID on her, the hospital will probably contact you. The child... the child really did have an accident. The body has already been taken away."

Before the man could react violently, he quickly added,

"But blocking the gate like this isn’t going to solve anything."

"We still don’t know how it happened. Sir, if you keep blocking the gate, the police can’t get in. Won’t that do more harm than good for the family?"

"Rest assured, I will not show favoritism to anyone!"

Sun Zhigang stared at him, his eyes boring into Feng Yi as he fell into thought.

Seeing this, Li Xiang breathed a sigh of relief.

He knew things had happened too quickly; the construction crew probably didn’t know the whole story.

More than making a scene, what these people wanted was the truth and an explanation.

"I..."

After a long moment, Sun Zhigang slowly opened his mouth.

But just as he did...

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP~

An abrupt ringtone blared from Sun Zhigang’s pocket.

Sun Zhigang frowned, pulled out his phone, and, in front of everyone, answered the call on speaker.

BEEP~

"Hello?" Sun Zhigang said.

The other end was silent for a moment, then a young, crisp female voice came through.

"Hello, am I speaking with Mr. Sun Zhigang?"

"We’re from Lusen City First People’s Hospital. We’re calling the emergency contact number listed in Zhao Li’s medical records."

’Is this a nurse?’

"I’m her..."

Before Sun Zhigang could finish, the voice on the other end cut in.

"I’m very sorry, Mr. Sun."

"Zhao Li seems to have had a heart condition, ’cardiogenic thrombosis.’ The deformity and limp in her lower limbs were also caused by this condition."

"Twenty minutes ago, the thrombus suddenly dislodged. She died within three minutes of the embolism. By the time she was brought to the hospital... I’m sorry, we were unable to resuscitate her."

"Now we’d like to ask,"

"before she passed... did the patient experience any severe emotional distress?"

Every word came through clearly, reaching the ears of everyone present.

’She’s... dead? Zhao Li is dead, too?’

Two lives!

In that instant, the entire scene fell into an eerie silence. Not a single person spoke.

The phone slipped from his hand and fell to the ground.

CRACK!

From the fallen phone, the speaker continued to broadcast the voice.

"Hello? Mr. Sun, are you there?"

"Hello?"

Li Xiang closed his eyes, his heart sinking with a thud.

’It’s over.’

The next second...

"MOTHERFUCKER!!!"