Moonlight in the Wilderness - Chapter 21
(He Zhou’s Perspective)
After receiving the intel, He Zhou and his comrades raced to the scene as fast as possible.
But the entire villa was already teetering, engulfed in roaring flames.
His face was pale, his heart pounding in his chest, wild and erratic.
The fire was put out, but everything had been reduced to ashes.
A comrade approached him hesitantly, taking a deep breath:
“We found a body in the ruins.”
It was like a heavy hammer smashing into his chest-He Zhou was suddenly dizzy, reeling.
That suffocating sensation swallowed him bit by bit, so much that it took him a long time to react.
It was the pain of something inside him shattering to dust.
He Zhou was nearly killed by this kind of pain.
Staggering, he walked over and saw Zhou Jing.
She lay curled up on the bathroom floor like an infant, her back arched, protecting her stomach as best she could.
The faint traces on the floor looked almost like a painting.
They had known each other for nearly twenty years-He Zhou needed no effort at all to understand the meaning behind the scene.
When they cut her body open to retrieve the evidence, a comrade gripped He Zhou’s shoulder tightly:
“We will bring every criminal to justice, and live up to her sacrifice.”
The files on the USB drive were thorough-most likely Fu Jun’s contingency plan.
A full list of everyone involved, detailed accounts, and the flow of funds.
Every identity, clear as day.
Fu Jun and Xu Wanning were captured when the ship reached the high seas.
In the face of irrefutable evidence, their defense was utterly feeble.
In these years, what they had done-smuggling documents abroad, selling out their own people-was enough for them to die a hundred times over.
Domestic upheaval lasted a full two months.
To the unknowing public, it seemed only a few companies had collapsed, a few new faces appeared in the news.
But He Zhou knew.
The clouds that had hung over for more than a decade had finally, completely dispersed.
Before this, he had imagined countless times that for this outcome, he would pay any price, even his own life.
But among those prices, Zhou Jing’s life could never be included.
When he was seven, on a rainy day-
Zhou Jing was abandoned at the orphanage’s door.
He was the one who brought her in to the deputy director, who then decided to take her in.
To He Zhou, she carried an extraordinary meaning.
That tiny, fragile bundle from childhood, after growing up, was like a reed in the wind, bathed in light.
Soft, yet incredibly resilient.
Later he learned that during those seven years when his own life hung by a thread at every moment-
Zhou Jing was suffering just the same.
In that moment, he almost wanted to ignore the law and kill Fu Jun and Xu Wanning himself.
Back then, they destroyed her hands, and after he left, they toyed with her like some plaything.
It was Director Lu who stopped him.
Director Lu pressed down on his shoulder, his tone low and uncommonly stern: “Another person has gone missing.”
“Now I suspect there’s something wrong with that Fu Family.”
Director Lu’s suspicions were right.
After the previous powers were wiped out, Fu Jun took advantage of the chaos, and-with Xu Wanning’s help-connected with foreign contacts.
In court, he and Xu Wanning were sentenced to death on the spot, with immediate execution.
“Additionally, the original plaintiff Zhou Jing is hereby granted divorce from the defendant Fu Jun. The marriage is dissolved in court.”
Fu Jun jerked his head up.
He saw He Zhou in the plaintiff’s seat.
In Fu Jun’s eyes was bone-deep hatred, and undisguised, chilling murderous intent.
On the day Fu Jun and Xu Wanning were executed, He Zhou bought a bouquet of white roses.
He brought Zhou Jing’s unfinished painting with him to the cemetery.
She was truly talented. Later, he bought the missing paints, studied the canvas for half a day, but still couldn’t connect any of the lines.
“Jingjing, you should have become a world-renowned artist.”
The little girl who used to be so afraid of pain-how did she endure gunshot wounds, the agony of fire, swallowing scalding metal into her stomach?
He Zhou could guess-it was because of those seven years.
While he searched for a way out in missions that were hell on earth-
She, too, was enduring the pain of repeated separations, of hope flaring up only to be crushed again and again.
Now-
She was a hero worthy of remembrance.
He Zhou placed the bouquet before her tombstone and set the painting alight.
He breathed softly, leaning against the gravestone, eyes lowered.
The pain inside him was sharper than ever, and he began to cough up mouthfuls of blood.
The remaining radium had shattered some of his bones, destroyed his blood and cell regeneration.
His body was pierced with countless supports, yet the surgical incisions never healed.
His life should have ended long ago.
“Jingjing, when you reach the other world, paint for me again.”
He Zhou closed his eyes.
The flames swept over the canvas-
Burning away the night sky, moonlight, ocean, and wind from ten years ago.
(The End)
