Chapter 268: THE ONE WHO GOT AWAY
Guiying’s hands shook as he dialed Liuxian, the news headline still glowing on his screen.
"He’s missing?" His voice came out sharp the moment the call connected. "How did he escape? What’s happening?"
"He hasn’t escaped anything." Liuxian’s tone stayed calm, measured. "It’s a controlled story, a ruse. We’re keeping him in our custody for now, off the official record, before handing him over to the police properly. The public narrative just needed to move faster than the truth could."
Guiying exhaled slowly, some of the panic in his chest easing, though something colder took its place almost immediately.
"I want to see him." His voice hardened. "I want to see the bastard, one last time, before this is all over."
Silence stretched on the other end.
"Guiying, I don’t think that’s—"
"I need this." He cut him off, his resolve steady despite the tremor still running beneath it. "Please."
Liuxian exhaled slowly, clearly wrestling against every instinct telling him to refuse. "I’ll send the location to Haiyan. He’ll take you there."
Guiying ended the call and turned back toward the hospital room, finding Ren Junning and Ren Xiaohe still seated by the bed. He bowed slightly toward them both.
"I have to take my leave." His voice softened. "If you have any issues at all, my men are here with you, please ask them for anything you need. No one will harm you here, and I swear on my life, Shen Zihao will get the justice he deserves."
Neither sibling answered, though Ren Junning gave a small, tired nod as Guiying turned and left the room.
By the time he reached the hospital entrance, the crowd of reporters had already been cleared away, leaving the path to the car empty. Haiyan stood waiting by the open door.
"I received the location." Haiyan’s expression stayed carefully neutral. "We’ll head there now."
Guiying slid into the back seat, and it was only now, watching the road behind them through the rear window, that he truly registered the trail of black cars following at a careful distance. Security he hadn’t fully noticed before, stationed and moving in tandem with them the entire way.
One might have mistaken it for a presidential escort.
They arrived within the hour, and Guiying’s stomach turned the moment he stepped out of the car. Alphas surrounded the property in numbers he’d never seen gathered in one place before, their combined pheromones thick and overwhelming in the open air, layered so densely he could barely distinguish one from another.
He steadied himself against the sudden press of it, though the discomfort didn’t last long. Liuxian appeared moments later, his own pheromones rolling out immediately, warm and grounding, cutting cleanly through the chaos surrounding them.
"There you are." Liuxian crossed to him quickly, studying his face. "You look stressed. Are you okay?"
Guiying nodded, though Liuxian still pressed a palm briefly against his forehead, checking anyway.
Satisfied, Liuxian took his hand and led him inside, walking him through every detail of the operation as they moved. The stock manipulation had done its job, drawing Ruijie’s board into open panic. The tip to Weiyun Media had spread faster than anyone anticipated. Now all that remained was processing the arrests already underway across the city, and deciding exactly how much longer Shen Zihao would remain here before officially entering police custody.
Finally, they stopped outside a closed door.
"There are instruments in the room, if you need them." Liuxian’s voice stayed low. "In case you want to vent physically."
"I don’t want to be watched." Guiying met his eyes directly. "No recording, no listening. Whatever happens in there stays between him and me."
Liuxian’s jaw tightened immediately. "Absolutely not. What if something happens to you in there? I can’t agree to that."
"I need my closure." Guiying’s voice cracked slightly, though his resolve didn’t waver. "You have to let me do this on my own. Please."
Liuxian exhaled hard, unable to argue against something that plain, that honest.
"Stay the hell away from him." His grip on Guiying’s hand tightened once before releasing. "Don’t get close, not even for a second. He’s unstable, and I mean that in every sense of the word."
After a long, worried string of warnings, each one repeated twice for good measure, Guiying finally stepped through the door alone, the sound of it clicking shut behind him louder than it had any right to be.
Shen Zihao sat chained to a metal chair in the center of the room, wrists and ankles strapped down, his once immaculate appearance reduced to something hollow and unkempt.
In his past life, this man had been a god to him, a demon, the devil, some inescapable, all-powerful force that had governed every waking moment of his existence for five long years, dictating what he ate, how he moved, whether he was allowed to speak at all. Now he was nothing more than a man, restrained and pathetic beneath fluorescent light, stripped of every ounce of power that had once made him untouchable.
Fury rose fast in Guiying’s chest, tangled tightly with grief, every memory of his own suffering colliding with the faces of every other victim this man had left broken in his wake. Kong Siying’s trembling hands. Ren Hao’s motionless body in that hospital bed. Every name buried in that file Liuxian had shown him days ago.
Because of one man. One single man had caused all of it.
"You shouldn’t even be alive right now." Guiying’s voice shook with the force of it. "With everything you’ve done, the ground should have opened up and swallowed you whole."
Shen Zihao laughed, low and rasping, bloodshot eyes finding Guiying’s face with something between contempt and delight.
"The one who got away." His voice carried a mocking edge. "How dare you lecture me? You handed Ren Hao your spot the second you slipped free. I never hurt you. So why exactly do you think you’ve earned the right to stand there and vent at me?"