Scheming for the World 001: No Death, No Respite

  Lan Yun was putting away the book in her hand, and when she looked up unintentionally, she happened to see the leaves of the phoenix tree outside the window falling slowly. She was a little distracted. When one leaf falls from the phoenix tree, everyone knows it's autumn. This year's autumn seems to have come especially early, and the Mid-Autumn Festival is still early, but the leaves have already started to fall.

  The footsteps came hastily, and a clear voice also rang out: "Aunt Lan."

  Lan Yun turned around, and the person who called her was Jin Xinran, a young girl who had just started working this month, with a bright and cheerful personality, fresh out of school. She was the niece of Lan Yun's good friend, Jin Yuan.

  "Aunt Lan, my younger aunt wants you to go to her office."

  Jin Xiran wanted to speak but stopped, with an expression of uncertainty whether to say or not, which fell into Lan Yun's eyes, making her slightly surprised and softly asked: "Xiao Xin, what's wrong?"

  Jin Xiran thought for a moment and shook her head: "I'm fine." Then she urged: "Aunt Lan, my younger aunt is looking for you urgently."

  Lan Yun nodded and handed over the book in her hand, turned around and walked towards the exit. As soon as she went downstairs, she bumped into Jin Yuan who was rushing upstairs to find her.

  Seeing her, Jin Yuan excitedly stepped forward and grabbed her hand, nervously saying: "Lan Yun, listen to me, wait a minute, don't panic, don't rush, this thing must not be true, there must have been some mistake somewhere..." His incoherent words suddenly stopped.

  Lan Yun followed her line of sight and saw four or five policemen walking towards her, with the person in front being someone she knew, Jin Fang, the older brother of Jin Yuan, the father of Jin Xinyan, and also the captain of the criminal police brigade.

  Jin Fang looked at the fragile woman in front of him with concern, and for a moment he couldn't bear to tell her the bad news, but...he had no choice: "Director Chen, he..."

  "Brother..." Jin Yuanyuan shouted, trying to stop him, but Jin Fang gritted his teeth and said, "Lan Yun, Chen Ju... no... Chen Bai was just arrested by the procuratorate on charges of murder and corruption."

  Lan Yun's face suddenly turned pale as paper, her hands instinctively clutching at her chest, and she collapsed to the ground. Jin Yuan, who was always by her side, hugged her and frantically shouted: "Quick, doctor!"

  The ambulance's ear-piercing siren wailed as it sped from the city library all the way to the First People's Hospital.

  ……

  A month later, Lan Yun met Chen Bai, her husband and former head of the tax bureau, who had been sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve, in hospital.

  In the intensive care unit, Lan Yun took a step closer, and she found it hard to associate the old, haggard and lifeless man lying in bed with her husband who was once so spirited and extraordinary.

  Her husband was only thirty-nine years old, and at a young age he had climbed to a high position, with power and influence, it was the golden age of a man. But now, she saw a dying patient who could not accept being sentenced to death and attempted suicide, rushed to the hospital for emergency treatment, and had just been declared dead by the doctor.

  The distance between clouds and mud is probably just like this!

  Seeing Lan Yun, Chen Bai shed tears of regret. He struggled to stretch out his hand, but found that even such a simple action was as difficult as climbing the sky for him now. Lan Yun took a step forward and grasped the hand he wanted to lift, gently pressing it against his cheek.

  Chen Bai was like a fish thrown ashore, gasping for air due to lack of oxygen: "I... I apologize to you, but... but I really didn't... kill Liu Dong's wife, I didn't, I didn't commit murder, I didn't kill him..."

  Lan Yun remained silent, quietly watching the man who was panting heavily and silently shedding tears as he spoke to her in a stuttering tone about his regret and grievances.

  This scene, these days and nights she had imagined countless times in her heart, her more than a year of endurance, was all for this day, facing this moment, she knew that her heart was truly calm.

  She was twenty-four when she married this man, and now it's almost ten years. She was deceived by him for eight years. The boy who pursued her in the university campus with deep love, turned out not to love her, but just wanted to marry her to make his career soar.

  She thought he loved her, when on their first wedding anniversary celebration day he made a heartfelt wish for a love child between them. She was moved and despite everyone's opposition, she became pregnant with his child. For ten months, she went through life and death struggles, spending most of that year in the hospital.

  After giving birth to her daughter, her father's illness broke out, but he almost exhausted all his connections and abilities to help him take three steps before dying.

  She thought, he assumed that her weak body would not survive the ordeal of childbirth, but he didn't know what kind of determination she had cultivated in order to live. A smile that remained unchanged no matter how bitter or painful it was, because this world had him and her most precious daughter.

  But what did he give her? Her daughter, whom she had devoted all her energy to protecting, died in a car accident. Everyone said that her daughter had mistakenly crossed the red light and encountered an accident, everyone believed it, but only she didn't believe it.

  Her daughter would never run onto the road for no reason, but she had no idea that the truth was so cruel.

  This man deceived everyone, and he was very cunning. He married his mistress to a man named Liu Dong and even made this man work as his driver under his nose. Who would have thought that he would be involved with the wife of a driver? Who would have associated the children born by the driver's wife were all his?

  But paper can't wrap up fire forever. Who would have known that Qiqi would see her father's car drive by on the road, and what shocked and disbelieved her was that in that instant she saw Liu Shu's wife sitting in the back seat rushing to kiss her father, while Liu Shu himself sat in the driver's seat.

  Her daughter was only seven years old and couldn't withstand such stimulation. She forgot that there was a big road in between, and she ran after her crazily...

  From the moment she knew the truth, strangely, her fragile heart like glass that would shatter with a single touch did not fluctuate at all. In the darkness, she sat quietly for a night and figured out what she had to do!

  "I know."

  Chen Bai, who was incoherently and intermittently expressing his regret and grievances, was interrupted by a soft and calm voice. He was taken aback, staring blankly at Lan Yun, and it was only then that he discovered his wife's eyes were so calm, calm to the point of making him... afraid.

  Lan Yun smiled and looked at him, saying softly: "I know you didn't kill Liu Dong, you were framed."

  Time froze at this moment, as if it had been a century long, yet as if it were just an instant.

  Chen Bai slowly opened his eyes wide and stared at Lan Yun's eyes, as if he had seen a ghost, with an unbelievable look of terror.

  Lan Yun slowly lowered her body, her face pressed against his chest, her voice still soft as water, but saying words that made Chen's heart shrink nonstop. The voice was soft as water, but it was icy and piercing to the bone.

  "Because Liu Dong was killed by me, you owe me, and this life of yours is not enough to repay my hatred. I want you to die with the label of 'death row inmate' on your back, and for those two bastards born to Wang Ying to live their whole lives with the stain that you've left on them. I want Wang Ying to spend the rest of her life living in misery."

  Chen Bai's pupils dilated to the limit as Lan Yun continued to mutter: "Without you, how will she survive? She is carrying in her belly the child she had always wanted to give birth to for your sake. You are no longer the all-powerful and wealthy Director Chen, but a man on the verge of death. The eight-month-old fetus in her belly will be born in just over a month, what's to be done now?"

  Chen Bai's whole body began to tremble like a sieve.

  "When I found out that my Qiqi died because of you, I vowed to kill you. Liu Dong should die, Wang Ying should die, but the one who should die more is you. You are the mastermind behind everything. You betrayed me and killed my daughter. She didn't even get to grow up, but because of a father like you, she left me early. Tell me, how can I forgive you? My dear husband."

  "No...no..." Chen Bai's body shook more and more violently, his breathing becoming increasingly labored, his face devoid of any blood color, pale as a ghost.

  Lan Yun closed her eyes, let out a soft sigh: "You're now hanging on by a thread and don't dare to die, is it because you're worried about your lovely daughter? Or are you worried about the son who's about to be born? Don't worry, Chen Bai, after all, we've been husband and wife for ten years. I've already helped take care of the three of them. It seems I forgot to tell you that the money in their hands and the house under Liu Dong's name have all been seized by the government. And on the day before your case was exposed, I donated all the money you secretly hid in the bookroom's hidden compartment in your name. The Red Cross will thank you for it. Oh, and those 'yanpin' you casually left lying around the bookroom? I burned them all. So, as it turns out, the three of them actually don't have any money left, not even a place to settle down. Poor Wang Ying is about to give birth with a big belly..."

  Chen Bai suddenly grasped her hand tightly, Lan Yun neither dodged nor evaded, quietly leaning against his chest, slowly opening her eyes and coldly staring at him.

  Chen's eyes rolled back and forth, but in the end, she still couldn't catch her breath. Her hand, which had been tightly grasping hers, fell limply to her side.

  The heartbeat in her ear had stopped, and Lan Yun slowly closed her eyes again.

  Chen Bai, I hate you to the bone, and will never rest until one of us dies. Only then can we be free from living under the same blue sky for eternity.

  Digression

  New article is out, take a look if you happen to pass by.