Chapter 57

At this moment, thousands of thoughts flashed through An Xiaohai’s mind, but it was only for an instant, and the answer he had already prepared slipped out of his mouth:

“Does this even need to be said? Of course, I was set up! I’m innocent! But that idiot dared to bully my girl—sooner or later, I’m going to get back at him!”

“‘My girl’ means girlfriend or wife, a term picked up from Hong Kong and Taiwan films.”

“That’s right,” Guo Xiangshui said, “if you can’t even protect your own woman, what kind of man are you? If it were me, I wouldn’t swallow that. But you’re too impulsive. There are plenty of ways to deal with him. You shouldn’t have done it in front of so many people—it was bad luck. But, you’re young, being impulsive is normal. That little beauty is pretty lucky to have you treat her like that. If a man would kill for my daughter and go to jail, I’d be reassured. It’s a shame though, she’s hanging out with a bunch of shady characters, none of them have any backbone!”

Guo Xiangshui continued to speak to himself.

For a moment, An Xiaohai couldn’t grasp Guo Xiangshui’s true intentions and could only respond with silence.

“By the way, Ah Hai, that Lai Donglin is clearly a sucker. Why are you helping him? Can you tell Uncle Shui the truth?”

“Sucker” means someone who is easily deceived.

“Because he’s an actuarial accountant.”

“An actuarial accountant? Is that just a fancy type of accountant?”

“Well… not exactly…” An Xiaohai explained the difference between an actuarial accountant and a regular accountant to Guo Xiangshui.

“I see, so it’s like that! Didn’t expect this sucker to actually be someone important! We all misjudged him, lucky for us that you know so much, hehe!”

Guo Xiangshui chuckled, but An Xiaohai couldn’t tell what he was plotting.

An Xiaohai was sure that Guo Xiangshui would be interested in Lai Donglin, after all, Lai had significant assets. If someone like Lai could offer him advice or even help manage things, it would be a huge advantage for Guo.

Guo Xiangshui probably wanted to continue the conversation, but just then, there was a soft knock on the iron door of the cell, indicating that the guards had noticed their conversation and were signaling them to be quiet.

Guo Xiangshui immediately shut up, and after a short while, he began to softly snore.

The prisoners had to get up at 6:30 AM every day, and most had to participate in heavy labor, so by now, they were all quite tired.

Though An Xiaohai kept his eyes closed, he couldn’t fall asleep.

Guo Xiangshui had circled around the conversation, and it was clear that he had some goal, but An Xiaohai couldn’t figure out what that was yet.

Before he knew it, six months had passed since An Xiaohai had been imprisoned.

Though the time had been incredibly tough, the experiences he had gone through were far more exciting and enriching than his life on campus.

It was ironic!

In another time and place, during his period of despair, An Xiaohai had come across a saying that the meaning of life lay in experiences.

Each life, originally the same, differed only in the experiences lived. The more experiences one had, the richer the content of life became, and the more valuable that life would be.

In short, life was about experiencing.

Experience itself had no inherent good or bad; it was simply about whether something was fresh or not. Therefore, whatever a person experienced, it was a gift of life and a part of it, to be accepted and enjoyed.

When An Xiaohai had read this, it felt like a drowning person finding a lifeline, and this theory had helped him through the last few years, until Lin Xuan’er left.

“No! This is not how life should be!” Lying in bed, with his eyes closed and still, An Xiaohai’s consciousness was shaking its head lightly.

“Life belongs to me, it only comes once, and it’s precious. I don’t want bad experiences; I want to live my life according to my own will!”

This was how life should be!

“Since heaven gave me a second chance, I must grasp it!”

The person secretly plotting against him, An Xiaohai was now almost certain—there was more than a 90% chance it was Jian Long from the neighboring Xia Chong Village!

Although An Xiaohai hadn’t seen that person’s face, after peeling back all the layers, he recalled a faint, distinctive scent on the man.

It would be easy to confirm whether it was Jian Long—once An Xiaohai got out, he could try to get close to him and see if he had that same scent.

However, the mastermind who had bribed the guards and tried to harm him might not be Jian Long; it was very likely that the real culprit was Zhou Tie, the man he had killed.

Zhou Tie’s father, Zhou Weiguang, though the village head of Shatoujiao, likely didn’t have that much power. There had to be a deeper reason behind this.

Either Zhou Weiguang had happened to meet some big shot, or Zhou Tie’s background was more complicated than it appeared.

It could only be one of these two reasons.

An Xiaohai had already sent Pan Zhuangzhuang to secretly investigate.

Wang Tiejun thought Pan Zhuangzhuang was a bit of a fool, but in reality, he wasn’t. The clumsiness was just his cover. An Xiaohai knew exactly how clever Pan Zhuangzhuang was.

It wasn’t just beautiful women who could deceive people—seemingly loyal men could be just as deceitful!

An Xiaohai had no worries about Pan Zhuangzhuang handling this matter.

Though it seemed likely that things were as they appeared, An Xiaohai still felt that there were many things wrong, and many things that couldn’t be explained rationally.

For example, why did Xu Tianyou call him “idol bro”? Why did he show him so much goodwill and trust? The most inexplicable thing was why he set fire to An Xiaohai’s original house.

At first, An Xiaohai thought Xu Tianyou was just taking the opportunity to take some satisfaction for himself, while also helping An Xiaohai get revenge.

But the more he thought about it, the less sense it made.

The key was in Xu Tianyou’s personality.

Xu Tianyou could accept being beaten or cursed, but he absolutely wouldn’t tolerate being called foolish!

Burning someone’s house wasn’t foolish, but burning the wrong house was definitely a stupid move. With Xu Tianyou’s character, he shouldn’t have done something that would undermine his reputation.

What Xu Tianyou would more likely do was lead a group and directly kill Zhou Weiguang—this was more his style.

An Xiaohai didn’t buy the idea that Xu Tianyou was doing it to protect him and pretend to be enemies with him. When Xu Tianyou went mad, what couldn’t he do?

Xu Tianyou was too considerate of An Xiaohai’s feelings, and that in itself was very strange!

And then there was that Jia Laer. What was his deal? How did he die? Who killed him?

An Xiaohai knew his mother, Chen Shuifen, very well—she was soft-hearted and had never had a serious conflict with anyone in her life. This was both her most lovable trait and the thing that worried An Xiaohai the most.

If someone claimed that Chen Shuifen was responsible for Jia Laer’s death, An Xiaohai would never believe it.

Besides that, there were many things that raised suspicion, like the business tycoon Hu Haikong, or the man lying above him, Guo Xiangshui.

At first glance, these things seemed unrelated, but An Xiaohai felt that they were all subtly connected!

“Motives… it’s still all about the motives!

All of these events—what are their true motives?” An Xiaohai’s brows furrowed tighter and tighter.

Damn it, forget it, time to rest! An Xiaohai forced himself to clear his mind.

If he kept overthinking like this, he’d just start going in circles, a feeling he knew all too well.

If it didn’t make sense now, he’d think about it tomorrow.

“By the way, speaking of which, that Qiu Peng seems to be doing alright recently. Damn it, seeing you so comfortable, I’m not happy about it!”