Chapter 33: Old Madam Gu’s Abnormality Before Death

Yu Wangxiao was an especially easy person to coax. At least, that was what Lin Jiangye currently believed.

The small frictions between them always disappeared in the blink of an eye, and they would once again stick together and chat without restraint. But at this moment, in the family waiting area outside the ICU, the atmosphere was nowhere near as good. 

Director Li’s expression was strange. When he saw the two of them come out, he did not say anything and silently stood beside the nurses’ station like a statue. One hand pressed against the bulge of the gun at the side of his white coat, still in a state of alert.

Gu Jiu’an’s “family members” had all arrived. At this moment, they were being stopped off to the side by security personnel. Aunts and uncles of all kinds had come late to put on a show, crowding around to ask after him with false concern. While wiping tears, they cried and begged Director Li, wanting to see the Gu family head one last time.

Gu Jiu’an sat in the chair expressionlessly, distant and cold. His refusal to communicate was obvious. Yet no one dared truly provoke him. After all, he was the person whose entire family had suffered today, and he also held the most shares…

The atmosphere was clearly becoming increasingly awkward, and the overlapping cries intensified that subtle feeling.

But Lin Jiangye did not know them, so he directly chose to ignore them. He lifted his chin at Gu Jiu’an. “Come with me. We’ll send you home.”

“Mm.”

Gu Jiu’an immediately stood up without asking a single extra question and squeezed out of the stunned cluster of relatives. He looked at Director Li and said quietly, “Thank you for your hard work, Director. Deduct all of my father’s expenses from my account. Send the bill to the Gu family as before. As for the matter of handling the body… let my cousin-uncle be responsible.”

He casually pointed at a middle-aged man wiping tears. Whether this cousin-uncle was willing or not did not matter, as long as Director Li agreed. Everyone looked at one another, and the crowded family area instantly quieted down.

Chen Ming drove. Lin Jiangye and Yu Wangxiao sat in the back row, so the only option left for Gu Jiu’an was the passenger seat. In reality, this made him quietly breathe a sigh of relief.

The headlights tore open the night. Gu Jiu’an leaned his head against the window and looked at his pale self in the rearview mirror, then softly spoke. “Don’t worry. I won’t say anything about what happened today. I don’t want to die. Is there anything else you need to discuss privately?”

Lin Jiangye turned his head and exchanged a glance with Yu Wangxiao. After receiving an affirmative look, he sighed. “I suspect there’s something wrong with your father, and there’s something wrong with your grandmother’s death too. It’s not simple illegal crime, but something like tonight…”

“I understand. If there’s anything I can help with, say it. I’ll fully cooperate with you.” Gu Jiu’an was still looking at the rearview mirror. He was already somewhat numb, and faint auditory hallucinations would occasionally surge beside his ears. “Those branch relatives of the Gu family didn’t steal anything. I had the butler and security help me keep an eye on them… But the house may be a little messy.”

“Alright. First, tell me, in your eyes, what kind of person was your grandmother?” Lin Jiangye asked without showing any change in expression. At the same time, he focused and listened to his heartbeat.

Human breathing rhythm and changes in heartbeat were useful. They could be used as good tools to judge whether the other party was lying.

Gu Jiu’an froze for a moment and fell into a long silence of thought. “She was very good. Ever since I was brought back to the Gu family, she was always the person who treated me best. Kind, gentle, and… she truly loved me from the heart. But I wasn’t very close to her, because she hated my mother and could almost never hide her contempt. I couldn’t stand it.”

Lin Jiangye listened carefully and blinked in some confusion. “Why did she hate her?”

Feeling the sincere confusion in his tone, Gu Jiu’an had complicated emotions, but still slowly explained. “Grandma hated her for hiding me away for so many years. She hated that she crazily monopolized me and insisted on relying on herself alone to raise me. I remember Grandma complained to me many times before. Every time, she would say she felt sorry for me, that she didn’t dare imagine the suffering I endured growing up, didn’t dare imagine the educational resources I lacked.”

“Oh… I can understand how she felt, but she shouldn’t have expressed it so obviously in front of you. It made it impossible for you to stand on either side.” Lin Jiangye looked thoughtful. Just thinking about this kind of complicated, tangled emotion gave him a headache.

At this moment, Yu Wangxiao, who had been lowering his head to handle company matters, put down his phone and suddenly said unhurriedly, “Student Gu, if you have family emotional issues that cannot be reconciled, you can try psychological counseling at Heye Clinic. The owner is an acquaintance of mine, a retired Ivy League doctoral advisor with rich experience and great professionalism.”

The car instantly became a little quieter. Only the engine’s presence inexplicably grew stronger, and the tires made light friction sounds against the cement road. Gu Jiu’an’s Adam’s apple moved, and he could not help swallowing.

He felt that Yu Wangxiao was being sarcastic, implying that he was saying too much nonsense. But Lin Jiangye would never be able to hear it.

“…Thank you, Mr. Yu. I’ll try it.”

Yu Wangxiao curved his lips. “You’re welcome.”

“Young masters, we’ve arrived.” Just as the atmosphere was about to become subtle again, Chen Ming cheerfully broke the deadlock.

He parked the car on the driveway outside the Gu family villa. Everyone got out one after another, and Lin Jiangye indeed had not noticed what had just happened. He walked straight toward the villa entrance with great enthusiasm.

When he had come last time for the birthday banquet, he had already felt something was off. Back then, Old Madam Gu had occupied all his attention. But now…

The faint suspicion had turned into a strong discomfort.

Lin Jiangye leaned close to the doorframe, narrowed his eyes, and carefully observed the soil on the soles of the shoes. Then he touched the dense vines wrapped around the gate, his fingertips lingering over the thick, soft leaves and petals.

After thinking for a moment, he picked a flower, put it into his mouth, and chewed.

“Tuantuan, don’t randomly eat things.” Yu Wangxiao had no time to stop him, so he could only pinch the back of his neck, both amused and helpless, trying to move this fellow away from the unfamiliar plant.

Lin Jiangye stiffened from being pinched, inexplicably feeling an electric current shoot up from the soles of his feet, warm and hot. He abruptly swallowed the flower petal and softly said, “Don’t touch such a comfortable place. I almost made a strange sound.”

“…My mistake.” Yu Wangxiao also lowered his tone and sincerely admitted his fault, but still did not let go. “Did you find something unreasonable?”

A faint woody fragrance wrapped around Lin Jiangye, and heat spread along the back of his neck. He was glad he had eaten especially full tonight and simply indulged in this act of being kneaded like a kitten.

“Mm. The soil is soft, the nutrition is too rich, and the texture is subtle. I think there are dead people in the shrub fence and the flowerbeds by the entrance, and not just one. Do you want to call the police later, or should we dig first ourselves?” Lin Jiangye hesitated.

“Let Gu Jiu’an dig. We’ll have one unified story—he wanted to turn over the villa he just inherited and dispel bad luck, but unexpectedly dug up bodies.” Yu Wangxiao arranged things methodically. “After digging up the bodies, let him inspect first, and then we’ll call the police.”

“You’re so bad, Yu Wangxiao.”

“Mm?”

“Nothing.”

Gu Jiu’an, who had inexplicably been assigned the task of digging up corpses, stood frozen to the side, hesitant to speak. He wanted to object, yet he also felt Yu Wangxiao’s idea seemed reasonable, so it seemed he could only pinch his nose and accept this job.

He dragged an iron shovel out from the gardener’s room and gloomily said, “Search whatever you want directly. The front door isn’t locked. I’ll dig here alone. The fewer people involved in tonight’s matter, the better.”

“Thank you for the hard work, Student Gu. Don’t forget your fractured wrist. Let Chen Ming help you.”

“Got it, Boss!”

As soon as Yu Wangxiao finished speaking, Chen Ming had already instantly put on gloves, taken off his suit jacket, and rolled up his sleeves, ready to go. It was only digging up a few bodies. To him, this was nothing unusual, and compared with the types that crawled around before, they were much cuter.

Clack—

Clack—

The iron shovel dug deep into the soft earth, moving so fast it was as if sparks could be rubbed out. Gu Jiu’an stared at the bulging, strong muscles on Chen Ming’s arm and once again fell into a daze.

“…Were the people from Yu Corporation all doing proper jobs before?”

“Haha, I used to be in the air force. After retiring, I didn’t know what I could do, so I simply went straight to applying as a security guard! These past ten years or so have been so peaceful.” Chen Ming was in quite a good mood, and he had not even shed a drop of sweat. Clearly, it really was very peaceful for him.

Lin Jiangye agreed. After all, beating humans really was too simple, much easier than beating leaders. He could not help speaking up. “Uncle Chen is really amazing. A very excellent career choice. If I can’t find work in the future, I’ll also become a security guard.”

Gu Jiu’an: …

Yu Wangxiao rubbed his brow. “If you can’t find work, it can only mean I’ve gone bankrupt. Understand?”

“Oh.” Lin Jiangye reacted, lightly coughed, and hurriedly brought the topic back to the right track. “Gu Jiu’an, I have another question. Did your grandmother believe in Buddhism? Was she the devout kind, or the type who believed in whoever was more useful?”

Gu Jiu’an hesitated for a moment, considering how to say it. It was as if he suddenly thought of something. “She should count as devout. But now that you ask… I think there are some things you may need to know. My grandmother did indeed become a little strange over the past year or two. She was silent for longer and longer periods. Sometimes, the way she looked at me was especially frightening, and even the nanny was scared by her.”

“I really do need to know. Say more!”

“Mm. At first, we suspected she had Alzheimer’s, but the hospital examination showed she was healthy. The nanny who specially took care of her was professional, and usually nothing happened. But her behavior really became more and more abnormal. Occasionally, when I came home from school and saw her, she would sometimes fall into a kind of… frenzied state.”

These matters counted as family secrets. The mental state of a major shareholder and their relatives was usually not disclosed to the outside world. Just like Yu Lin’s mother, if no one dug to the bottom of it, it would be strictly kept secret until the grave, to avoid being published in gossip news and affecting the group’s stock price.

Gu Jiu’an originally did not want to say it either, but things had reached this point, and for the sake of his life, he had no choice but to speak.

“What exactly did it look like? Was there a trigger? For example, some blow or stimulation…” Lin Jiangye looked thoughtful.

He had many guesses in his heart, but the direction of his suspicions still needed more verification.

Gu Jiu’an sighed. Listening to the clanging sound of the shovel digging soil, he said in a low voice, “I guess there was stimulation. My grandmother’s personality was rather conservative and feudal, but she was also upright. She never did anything that destroyed all conscience. Before, because my uncle was infertile and promiscuous, she was already quite shocked. Later, it seemed she also stumbled upon some bad things my father did, and the blow became even worse.

“She couldn’t believe that the children she had painstakingly raised had become like this. She couldn’t even find anyone to confide in, so she could only privately hold my hand and secretly cry. I can’t experience that kind of pain, but I understand. She must have been in great pain. She said she lived her entire life honorably and did business honorably, only for both of her sons to become the kind of people she looked down on most in her life…”

He stopped here, because Chen Ming had dug up an arm that was already nearly completely skeletal.

“Considering the weather has been cold recently, the time of death should be within two months.” Lin Jiangye also put on gloves, took the arm, and squeezed it. After speaking, he calmly looked at Gu Jiu’an. “It’s fine. Continue. Actually, you also need to find someone to confide in. These things shouldn’t be borne by you alone. It’ll make you psychologically abnormal.”

Gu Jiu’an: …

It was difficult for him to clearly describe his strange mood right now.

He had already experienced too much eeriness and bloodshed today, plus the nearly horrifying scene before his eyes. Especially when everyone was watching the corpse parts, and one or two of them had an extremely casual, calm attitude… all of this seemed even more traumatic than his own grandmother’s mental state.

But he was really almost numb, so he could only sigh lightly and continue speaking. “My grandmother did deeply believe in gods and Buddha, but when she fell into a frenzied state, several times she wanted to smash all the Buddha statues, and she would spit at them viciously and curse. Very strange, right? And after she returned to normal, she would become exactly the same as before, devoutly setting the Buddha statues up again, not remembering at all what she had done while mad.

“The reason I chose to live at A University is because the contrast before and after was too strange. Every time I saw it, I felt a little uncomfortable… Then one day later, the nanny told me she no longer went mad. I thought the psychiatric medicine she was taking had worked, but it wasn’t that at all—she became less and less like a living person. All day, she said nothing. It was simply as if she had completely stopped thinking.

“To be honest, in the days before her death, she was more like an empty divine statue, a symbol belonging only to the Gu family, a soulless shell.”

Lin Jiangye suddenly slapped the arm. Not his own, someone else’s.

The white bone made a crisp sound. Excited, he stepped forward. “That’s it! Gu Jiu’an, you described it especially correctly. That’s exactly the feeling… a soulless shell. I roughly know where they came from now. Thank you for your hard work. You really helped me a lot. Tonight, I’ll help you clean out all the dirty things in the Gu family. I’ll treat you to a meal next week.”

Gu Jiu’an was startled. He pressed his lips together and held his breath, carefully stepping back.

He really did want to agree, but he did not dare.

Because Yu Wangxiao was standing behind Lin Jiangye, looking at him, his expression as gentle as usual.

At the same time, the back of Lin Jiangye’s neck also quietly chilled. He inexplicably discovered that the temperature of the air was slowly dropping.

“Cough…”

He silently stuffed the severed arm in his hand into Chen Ming’s arms, took off his gloves, linked his arm through Yu Wangxiao’s, and walked into the villa. This whole little combo directly interrupted all strange atmosphere, flowing smoothly and extremely silkily.

Yu Wangxiao did not even have the chance to react. He only felt like he had been tied to a train that suddenly started moving, and with a whoosh, he was dragged away.

At the same time, Chen Ming, leaning on the iron shovel, hurriedly hugged the severed arm. He turned his face and looked at Gu Jiu’an, who was stiff in place.

“Well, Little President Gu, are you really not going to fight for it? Men still need to have a bit of backbone to be charming. If you don’t fight now, you really won’t be able to fight later.” He cheerfully broke the silence.

“Mr. Chen, I understand what you mean, but I have my responsibilities.” Gu Jiu’an stared at the intimate backs of the two of them, his voice very light. “If I really am a hard bone… Gu Corporation will expose a major scandal tomorrow and eventually go bankrupt and reorganize, bit by bit falling entirely into my uncle’s hands.”

“Ah, you can’t put it that way. Chairman Yu actually has a very good temper and isn’t petty at all. When I first became his bodyguard, I used his pocket money to buy a lot of ice cream and didn’t give him any. Hahaha… There were also a few times when my PTSD acted up, and I panicked in the middle of the night, woke him up, and made a huge fuss. I scratched up his car and crashed it to pieces, but he never got angry with me.”

Chen Ming paused here and said emotionally, “So don’t think of such frightening things. I hope Gu Corporation is yours, and Chairman Yu thinks the same. He won’t act emotionally on impulse. Little President Gu, I heard you talk about those things with Old Madam. I can tell that your thoughts are delicate, upright, and conscientious. A City is already chaotic enough. The people who control resources must have a conscience, or else things will only become even more chaotic.”

“Mr. Chen, thank you for saying this to me. I won’t act emotionally either.” Gu Jiu’an considered for a moment, lowering his eyes to stare at the rich soil beneath his feet, his voice becoming softer and softer. “But tell me, is it possible that his temper has always been good because he simply doesn’t care?”

“Mm?”

“What I mean is, except for Lin Jiangye, he doesn’t care about anything.”