Chapter 169: It Is Revenge
Du Xiao's fingertip gently slid across his phone screen, as if caressing that family photo.
This was originally a photo kept in a frame. But in order to erase the evidence, after taking a picture of it, he had destroyed the photo.
He had once possessed a happy and complete family, a harmonious marriage, and a clever, well-behaved child. If that incident had not occurred, he and his family might have continued living that plain but happy life.
However, tragedy always strikes when it is least expected.
That day, he had bought his five-year-old son a small hydrogen balloon. His son, holding the balloon printed with a cartoon character, was overjoyed.
It happened to be a holiday, and the park was especially crowded. In a moment of inattention, Du Xiao lost sight of his son. He couldn't find him!
Du Xiao panicked instantly and hurriedly searched along the path. Then, under a tree, he saw a crowd gathered, looking anxious as they made phone calls, shouting to call an ambulance, and someone was yelling about whose child was lost.
Du Xiao's heart sank. He hastily pushed through the crowd and squeezed in. Then, he saw the most devastating scene of his life—
His son lay face down under the tree, his body and limbs twisted into a shape impossible for a normal person. Beneath the small form, a pool of bright red blood had spread out, even flowing along the cracks in the stone slabs and down the low steps to the roadside drain.
At that moment, Du Xiao felt as if his world had fallen apart.
In that instant, his five senses seemed to vanish. He could only frantically throw himself forward, kneeling beside his son, panicking and unsure if he should pick him up.
Because of the crowd, someone had seen that the child had fallen from the tree. At the very top of that tree, a hydrogen balloon with a cartoon pattern was stuck.
The cause of the tragedy seemed simple. The child had climbed the tree to retrieve the balloon that had floated up there, lost his grip, and fallen. Below this tree were several upturned paving stones. When the child fell, his head struck the sharpest edge of a stone, resulting in immediate death.
This was a tragedy triggered by a hydrogen balloon.
And this hydrogen balloon was a birthday gift Du Xiao had bought for his son.
That very day was also his son's fifth birthday.
Du Xiao was consumed by extreme remorse, and his wife, upon learning the terrible news, completely broke down.
His wife could not forgive him at all and filed for divorce.
She felt that if she continued to share a bed with this man, she might kill him one night to accompany their son in death.
Du Xiao also sank deep into agony. He quit his job and drowned his sorrows in bars day after day, thinking only of drinking himself to death to end it all.
Until one day, while getting drunk in a bar, he happened to overhear a conversation among a group of young people.
They were college students, sneaking out for a late-night drink. As they drank more, their mood lifted and they began to talk about all sorts of things, dream about the future, and ponder life itself.
This was nothing special, until someone started sharing what they thought was an amusing incident. One of the drunk male students said with a laugh, "None of your stories are interesting. Just take that recent holiday... ah, I forgot which one, but anyway, the park was really crowded that day. Xiaoxiao insisted on going there to play, so I had no choice but to go with her!"
"Spare us! We don't want to hear your lovey-dovey stuff! Not interesting at all!" someone immediately protested.
The young man was displeased: "Hey! I haven't gotten to the key part yet! When Xiaoxiao and I were at the park, she said she was thirsty and wanted milk tea. I went to buy it for her. On the way, I ran into a kid. The kid's balloon had accidentally flown into a tree, and he was crying anxiously underneath it. His parents were nowhere to be seen."
The young man took a sip of his drink, his speech slightly slurred: "I'm a public-spirited and courageous young man! Faced with that situation, of course I couldn't just stand by. I climbed the tree and got the balloon down for him."
The others: "Wow, you're so awesome! The kid must have been really grateful!"
Young man: "He was thankful, alright. But I figured I should teach the kid about self-reliance. So I let go again, and let the balloon fly back up into the tree."
The others: "Damn? That's a bit too much, isn't it?"
Young man: "How can that be called too much? This is called training, understand? You have no idea, after the balloon flew back into the tree, the kid's eyes welled up and he was about to cry. But then I, your big brother, stunned him with some deeply enlightening life advice, and he held back his tears!"
The others: "What did you say?"
Young man: "I said... ahem!" The young man cleared his throat, then put on an intentionally deep, solemn voice: "Kid, if you want to obtain something, you need to strive for it with your own two hands!"
The others, interested: "And then? And then?"
The young man puffed out his chest, looking immensely pleased with himself: "And then, of course, I patted his head, turned around, and left! I still had to go buy milk tea for Xiaoxiao."
"Ugh! So in the end, you still didn't help the kid get the balloon down. You're really mean!"
"What do you know? Maybe that kid was greatly inspired by my words, and from then on worked tirelessly, using his own hands to achieve great things!"
By the time he heard this, Du Xiao was trembling with rage. He slammed down his glass, wanting to charge over and beat to death the man who treated this incident as a joke, as an experience to embellish his own persona.
However, he had drunk far too much at the time. The moment he stood up violently, he felt dizzy and his legs went weak. He fell heavily to the ground, but forced his eyes to stay open.
In the last moment before losing consciousness, he deeply etched the face of that young man who had indirectly caused his son's death into his mind.
It was engraved into his very soul.
And that young man was Jiang Qing.
Therefore, that car accident was not an accident, but a long-planned revenge by Du Xiao.
Du Xiao's hatred ran too deep. So even after seeing Jiang Qing walking shoulder-to-shoulder with another young man, to ensure Jiang Qing was hit, Du Xiao still decided to step on the accelerator.
Du Xiao stepped on the gas with the intention of turning himself in to the police after killing Jiang Qing.
But what he didn't expect was that at the last moment, the man standing beside Jiang Qing actually pushed Jiang Qing away!
As a result, the innocent Jing Sheng was hit, bleeding profusely from his head, while the person Du Xiao truly wanted to kill survived.
Du Xiao saw that he had failed and knew it would be very difficult to turn the car around on such a narrow road to hit Jiang Qing again.
So he simply floored the accelerator and fled the scene.
He couldn't turn himself in yet, because the person he wanted to kill wasn't dead!
Du Xiao's original intention was to plan another attempt to kill Jiang Qing. But while tailing him, he discovered that Jiang Qing, saved by Jing Sheng's sacrifice, had fallen into deep guilt.
His state was exactly like Du Xiao's own in the period just after losing his son.
Guilt, endless guilt.
Everyone is blaming you, everyone is scolding you, and you yourself know that you were truly in the wrong, gravely wrong.
Because you cannot argue, you feel guilty. Because you cannot excuse yourself, you suffer. Because you cannot escape the guilt and suffering, your entire life sinks into darkness.
The person is alive, but the heart is soaked in immense grief.
Living in the world, yet akin to a walking corpse.
Wouldn't such pain torment a person more than immediate death?
Therefore, Du Xiao changed his plan.
He swiftly erased all evidence of him causing the fatal accident. Then, he used the grief of Jing Sheng's parents over their son's death to apply pressure on Jiang Qing.
Meanwhile, he himself approached Jiang Qing in the guise of a psychological counselor, providing him with psychological "treatment" for a full ten years.
Du Xiao's original profession was that of a psychological counselor. He knew very well how to enter a person's heart, and conversely, he also knew exactly how to torment and break a person's heart.
He spent ten years continuously hypnotizing and guiding Jiang Qing, even resorting to using banned psychiatric drugs as an aid, gradually constructing a "Jing Sheng" within Jiang Qing's mind.
Then he guided Jiang Qing to kill this "Jing Sheng."
But at the same time, he suggested to Jiang Qing that this "Jing Sheng" was extremely powerful because "Jing Sheng" had become a vengeful ghost, a red-clothed vengeful ghost at that. The slightest carelessness could lead to "Jing Sheng" killing him instead.
Du Xiao even vividly described to Jiang Qing what would happen if "Jing Sheng" killed him instead, and through continuous hypnosis and drug reinforcement, deepened this impression in Jiang Qing's mind.
Thus, over time, the image of "Jing Sheng" became increasingly solidified and powerful in Jiang Qing's mind. Jiang Qing subconsciously felt he was no match for this "Jing Sheng," and felt that the "Jing Sheng" living in his delusions could absolutely not be killed.
Just like in the first half of the story, every time Jiang Qing tried to assassinate Jing Sheng, Jing Sheng would narrowly escape in various ways.
When the moment was right, Du Xiao began to plant the suggestion in Jiang Qing's mind: "Living burdened by guilt is its own torture. Wouldn't it be more of a relief to simply die and end it all? So, if you truly cannot kill 'Jing Sheng,' then let 'Jing Sheng' kill you instead. That way, you can find complete liberation. That way, the one left living in pain and remorse will be 'Jing Sheng.'"
Thus, this time, Jiang Qing and "Jing Sheng" confronted each other directly in Jiang Qing's hallucination.
Jiang Qing's own consciousness believed he should "die" in this conflict, leaving the pain of living to "Jing Sheng."
And so, Jiang Qing died, and "Jing Sheng" opened his eyes.
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