Chapter 85: Was the Accomplice Shen Kaixing?

A few miles outside Bear Spring Town, Zheng Fan lived in what could scarcely be called a village. It was a place with only two or three households, too scattered to count as a true settlement, nothing more than a tiny hamlet.

Zhang Ye could hardly have walked there so openly. Fortunately, the world is full of strange coincidences. When the school had once required everyone to fill in their family addresses, he had happened to notice that one of his classmates lived in that very hamlet, which meant that the classmate was Zheng Fan’s neighbor.

And so Zhang Ye found a reason that was barely a reason at all, and went there without hiding anything.

His classmate was surnamed Zhou and was named Zhou Tingting. In school she had always been like the ugly duckling no one noticed: a child from a poor family, yet perhaps precisely because of that, she had always been diligent, patient, and unyielding. In the whole class, she was always the most hardworking.

As in all inspirational tales, her efforts were eventually rewarded. In the end she was admitted to Imperial City University, and among Zhang Ye’s classmates, she was considered one of the most successful.

And, like nearly every ugly duckling that one day becomes a swan, when Zhang Ye had once seen her in his previous life, he had almost not believed his own eyes. The girl who had once dressed plainly, with dark skin and even somewhat dry hair, had appeared before him as beautifully as a major star. This kind of miracle wrought by time left him stunned and speechless for a long while.

When Zhang Ye reached her home, he happened to see her holding an English book, reading while feeding ducks. Sunlight fell across her face. Though it was still dark, in Zhang Ye’s eyes at that moment it possessed a beauty that was almost startling. It was a beauty born of seriousness and hard work.

He suddenly felt a little embarrassed to disturb her.

“Zhang Ye... why are you here?” she was the one who first heard his footsteps and looked up to see him. Then her face reddened, and she somewhat awkwardly hid the book behind her back.

“No, nothing. I just happened to pass by and saw you.” Zhang Ye waved his hands awkwardly and walked over. Facing this hardworking girl, he felt a little ashamed. Since summer vacation began, he had not touched a single book.

Of course, novels did not count.

“Pass by?” Zhou Tingting looked at him doubtfully. This place was still two or three miles from Bear Spring Town, and the road between was nothing but fields and mountains. How much leisure would one need to pass by here?

“All right, I know you don’t believe me. Honestly, I don’t believe it myself either...” Zhang Ye gave a wry smile, then exchanged a few polite words with her, asked a lot of meaningless questions to change the subject, and began to inquire indirectly about the situation here, mainly about Zheng Fan.

He naturally had not forgotten his main purpose in coming. Knowing oneself and knowing the enemy always provided an advantage. And indeed, after a round of questioning, Zhang Ye really did learn some useful things.

People who lived in a place so far from town could hardly be wealthy enough to come here for the pleasure of fresh air. Zheng Fan had been raised by his elderly mother, and life had been very hard. A few years ago his mother passed away, and only then did he go out to work. Clearly, that had been the time when he met Liu Boqing.

From Zhou Tingting, Zhang Ye learned that Zheng Fan had a wife as well, but last year she could no longer bear the poverty, and with him away from home, she ran off with someone else. After that, his temperament became somewhat strange.

Petty, greedy for money.

That was the change he had undergone after that blow.

Zhang Ye could understand that much. In his previous life, if not for the encouragement and care of those close to him, the psychological shadow left by the ugly scar he had once borne might also have twisted his character into something warped.

But that could not be a reason for deceiving his own maternal uncle.

Just as Zhang Ye was about to ask about Zheng Fan’s current whereabouts, two figures, one tall and one thin, were walking toward them along the road in the distance. One of them was Zheng Fan, the very target Zhang Ye had come to see. But the other made him almost refuse to believe his own eyes.

Because they were still far away, and because the two men were chatting with such focus, they clearly had not noticed Zhang Ye yet. After thinking for a moment, he said a word to Zhou Tingting and stepped into a crude wooden outhouse nearby.

The outhouse was built in the most makeshift way imaginable. The wood was obviously poor quality, with holes gnawed by insects and grass-bugs, and there was even a narrow crack left from construction in the middle. Though small, it was still enough to let him see what was happening outside if he leaned close.

At that moment, Zhang Ye was not there because he needed to urinate. His mind was simply in turmoil.

Pressed against the outhouse wall, enduring the foul stench within, Zhang Ye watched the two faces draw nearer and grow clearer, and finally confirmed it.

“How can he be so familiar with him?” Zhang Ye’s pupils contracted, and he scarcely dared to think further.

Standing before him was none other than his maternal uncle by marriage, Shen Kaixing.

Thinking of the accomplices Zheng Fan had identified in the future, and then seeing how intimate Shen Kaixing was with him now, Zhang Ye could not help but suspect.

To be sure, Zhang Ye had always hated and despised this uncle by marriage. But he was, after all, family, the brother-in-law of Zhang Ye’s maternal uncle. If the man who swindled Zhang Ye’s maternal uncle’s family out of hundreds of thousands of yuan truly included him, Zhang Ye could not even imagine what expression his aunt would wear when the news reached her.

“So that’s it. No wonder in the future he had the money to compete with our family, and even opened a shop at the entrance of the Second Middle School that was nearly twice the size of ours. No wonder after my maternal uncle’s family was deceived, he never appeared. No wonder, five years later, when Zheng Fan was arrested, he was dragged into the police station with him, and my aunt soon after filed for divorce...” Seeing his uncle by marriage, Shen Kaixing, appearing not far away, Zhang Ye instantly understood, and many things that had once puzzled him now had an explanation.

In his previous life, Liu Meiju had said Shen Kaixing was arrested because of a fight, but now it seemed there had been another reason entirely.

“Even if I suspect him, I still need to confirm it!” What Shen Kaixing had done in the past was already enough to make a person loathe him, but for now everything was still only suspicion. Zhang Ye likewise did not want this to be true. After all, he was, at the very least, his aunt’s husband!

Thinking of this, Zhang Ye quickly took out a button-sized object from his pocket. Estimating the distance with his eyes, and waiting until the other man drew near, he flicked it out in one swift motion. It landed perfectly in the open pocket at the side of Shen Kaixing’s loose trousers.

He thanked the outhouse for being so crude, thanked Shen Kaixing for wearing trousers loose enough, and above all thanked the eyesight and accuracy Zhang Ye had honed in childhood while using a slingshot to shoot birds, which had not deserted him.

What Zhang Ye had taken out, naturally, was the listening device he had specifically bought last time in order to track Wang Mengzi. Since he had thought he might need it for an investigation this time, he had casually tucked it into his bag when leaving home.

Slowly exhaling, Zhang Ye knew the matter was done. Because the device was so small, when he tossed it into Shen Kaixing’s pocket, it had not drawn his attention. Instead, Shen Kaixing even smiled and greeted Zhou Tingting beside him, as if he came here quite often.