South of Chutian

When they were less than ten meters away, Tang Heng almost stopped.

He was sure that it was Li Yuechi, but suddenly he didn't know whether he should rush up or not.It wasn't until now that he realized that when they were blocked in the alley by Ah Zhu's men that day, Li Yuechi didn't use [-]% of his strength at all—probably not even half of it.

He had never seen Li Yuechi so ruthless, four men surrounded him, but they could barely fight him - they couldn't suppress him at all.That was a desperate way to fight, I saw Li Yuechi strangled a tall and thin man's neck, and swung him hard—boom!It was the sound of a body hitting the ground.Two more people rushed forward at the same time, one twisted Li Yuechi's arm, the other raised his fist and went straight to his face - but Li Yuechi swayed away, and the person who twisted his arm was strangled by his throat.

Of course, there were still countless fists and feet falling on him, he was like a steel plate integrated with the ground, even though he staggered, he never fell.Until a man pounced on him from behind, there was another muffled sound, and he knelt on the ground with his hands cut behind his back.

"You're a cousin, hit me again! Hit me!" The tall, thin man kicked him, "I can't kill you today!"

The tall and thin man took out something from his pocket, and there was a flash of silver light in the night. At this moment, Tang Heng rushed forward, imitating Li Yuechi, with his arms around someone's neck, and dragged him back quickly—without the restraint behind him, Li Yuechi jumped up suddenly, and snatched the tall and thin man's dagger!

Jiang Ya yelled: "It's on the side! Yes, yes, drive your police car forward! You will see it soon!"

At this time, three or two passers-by stopped to watch, holding up their mobile phones, not sure if they were recording or calling the police.Tang Heng received two punches, and when the tall and thin man cursed in Wuhan dialect, the four men immediately retreated, and quickly ran away without being seen.

"Hey, okay, thank you for your help," Jiang Ya rushed to the people on the road, "Thank you, thank you!"

Li Yuechi sat on the ground, not moving.

Tang Heng walked over and saw that his face was covered with blood.

"Don't be afraid," Li Yuechi said in a low voice, "it's nosebleed."

Jiang Ya also came over: "Hey! I'll call 120!"

"No need," Li Yuechi lowered his head, as if he didn't want to be seen in his distress, "I'll go directly to the central hospital, thank you for today."

"Ah, we are all buddies, but you..." Jiang Ya turned to look at the pale girl behind her, and asked Li Yuechi, "Can you be alone?"

Li Yuechi said, "Yes."

"Oh, then we—"

"Jiang Ya, you go first," Tang Heng said, "I'll go with him."

"That's right, Tang Heng, you go with him, multiple people will take care of you."

Li Yuechi should not, as if he had acquiesced.

The onlookers dispersed, and Jiang Ya got into the taxi with her arms around the girl.Tang Heng handed over a pack of napkins, Li Yuechi tore out a few randomly, and blocked his nose.He was still sitting on the ground, his body was covered in blood and muddy water, his head hung down like a mess of dirty waste paper.

After a while, Li Yuechi removed the blood-stained napkin.Tang Heng said, "Stop streaming?"

"Well," Li Yuechi's voice was very soft, probably out of strength, "thank you."

Tang Heng stood in front of him and held out his hand to him: "Can you get up?"

Li Yuechi smiled briefly, grabbed his hand, and stood up.

Tang Heng's hands were stained with his blood, a little sticky.

"Go to the hospital." Tang Heng said.

"It's really unnecessary," Li Yuechi tugged on his T-shirt, "Does your phone have power?"

"What?"

"I'm looking for something, you can put a light on for me."

Tang Heng knew that it was useless to say what this person was unwilling to do.He had no choice but to turn on the phone's light and asked Li Yuechi, "What are you looking for?"

"A bag," Li Yuechi walked forward, "follow me, it shouldn't be hard to find."

The two walked together like this, bending over and bowing their heads, one lighting up the lamp and the other searching.Li Yuechi was so focused on finding it that even if there was a puddle, he stepped in without even looking at it.There are many shops in this area, and the signboards of various colors are reflected on the water, one by one, like a colorful and trance dream.The oncoming passers-by along the way were all frightened by Li Yuechi's bloodstained body, and turned their heads frequently.

After turning two intersections, at the end of a certain alley, Li Yuechi picked up a white plastic bag.

The big characters "Wuhan Central Hospital" were printed on the bag. Li Yuechi shook the water on it, and carefully took out an X-ray film from it.He held up the photo, looked at the street lamp, and suddenly cursed: "Fuck."

Tang Heng didn't seem to have heard him swear, even when he was turned away by the interviewee, or when he was beaten until he was covered in blood.

It was an X-ray of a human bone, and it was impossible to tell where the bone was.

"??broken?"

"Well," Li Yuechi still gently wiped off the water stains on it, then turned to look at Tang Heng, and said seriously, "Don't tell me what happened tonight, okay?"

"Okay, but—why?"

"Fighting outside the school," Li Yuechi said, "you will be punished."

"I'm not asking that."

"Then what are you asking?"

"Li Yuechi."

"Okay," he smiled again, with a helpless tone, "find a place to sit and talk."

Naturally, they couldn't enter the restaurant like this. Tang Heng walked into a small supermarket and bought alcohol wipes and two bottles of iced coke.When he was checking out, he suddenly saw Li Yuechi standing at the door of the supermarket, with his waist slightly bent, as if he was distracted.He suddenly remembered that night, Li Yuechi's back was scratched by a wine bottle, so he was bent like this.Is Li Yuechi often injured?

The boss slowly bagged and handed over a few coins for change.

"Li Yuechi," Tang Heng shouted, "come here."

Li Yuechi stood still, pointing to his T-shirt, meaning that I should forget about it.

Tang Heng shouted again: "Come here."

Li Yuechi lifted the curtain and walked in. The boss stared at him with a vigilant expression.Tang Heng ignored him and only asked Li Yuechi, "Are you hungry?"

"good."

That is hungry.

Tang Heng walked to the shelf for snacks. Apart from puffed food and dried fruit, there were only two meat floss bread left.Tang Heng said, "Do you want to eat bread?"

Li Yuechi nodded, the incandescent lights of the supermarket shone on him, and Tang Heng realized that his face was very pale.

In the end, I bought two meat floss breads, a bag of beef ham sausage, and a pack of cigarettes.Tang Heng himself didn't smoke, so he thought Li Yuechi didn't either—he probably couldn't bear to spend money on cigarettes.

However, Li Yuechi took out a five-yuan note from his pocket, plus a copper-yellow five-cent coin: "Come to wrap Huangguoshu."

The two walked out of the supermarket, and Li Yuechi lit a cigarette.When he smoked, his head was lowered slightly, his eyelashes were drooping, he inhaled slowly and exhaled slowly, with a focused expression.Tang Heng still had lingering fears when he thought of the silver dagger shining in the night.

Go all the way to the Yangtze River, walk down the embankment, and sit on the wet steps.A few steps down, is the black river.Li Yuechi seemed to be extremely exhausted. He put his elbows on his knees, his left hand supported his chin, and his right hand held a cigarette. The scarlet cigarette butt flickered slowly with his breathing.

"At that time...it was very dangerous," Tang Heng said hesitantly, "They brought knives."

"I know, but they dare not really kill people."

"why?"

"They are here to ask for money, who will pay me back when I die?"

"Are you asking for money? You borrowed money?"

"Well," Li Yuechi was silent for a moment, "Usury."

"But why do you..."

"Cure, you saw that film."

"Who heals?"

Li Yuechi stopped talking. After a while, he put out the cigarette butt in his hand and said softly, "My girlfriend."

On the pitch-black river, a freighter was moving slowly, honking its horn like a whimper.It's too slow, the freighter is so slow in the middle of the night, even the flow of the river becomes slow, as if everything slows down, every second, like this for a century.The air smelled of damp water and dry smoke, and there seemed to be some iron smell coming from Li Yuechi's body, which was the smell of coagulated blood.

Tang Heng turned his face to look at Li Yuechi, but couldn't see his face clearly, only saw him lighting another cigarette, the cigarette butt was scarlet, and blurred into a halo with the lights of the Yangtze River Bridge in the distance. At this moment, Li Yuechi seemed to be far away from Tang Heng. Very far away, like the Yangtze River Bridge, far in sight.

"You have a girlfriend," Tang Heng said, "I haven't heard you mention it before."

"She's been hospitalized and there's nothing to mention."

"What's the disease?"

"Cancer," Li Yuechi's voice was almost covered by the whistle, "has spread."

Tang Heng was speechless.He has too many questions to ask, such as how did he get cancer at such a young age, how did Li Yuechi find a girlfriend with cancer, how long have they been together?But there is no need to ask these questions anymore. It turned out that Li Yuechi worked like crazy to earn money to treat her illness. He did not hesitate to borrow usury loans and be beaten to save her.He must love her very much.

After Li Yuechi smoked his second cigarette, he took out the meat floss bread from the plastic bag, and began to eat it in big mouthfuls.He also ate cold bread and iced Coke very quickly, Tang Heng thought, he must not have had dinner.

After he finished eating, he smiled and said to Tang Heng, "Thank you very much today."

"Are you going back?"

"Ok?"

"Go back to the hospital with your girlfriend."

"No... her family is with her."

"Oh."

"Don't talk about today's affairs, okay?"

"I promised you just now."

"Thank you."

"How much did you borrow?"

"……how?"

"how much is it?"

"Eighty thousand."

"I thought it was 80." Tang Heng looked at the pitch-black river, not knowing what he was thinking for a while, "I'll give you the money, you go and pay back the usury."