A Chan – CH 128

Chapter 128: Men’s Schemes (1)

Time needed to rewind to the morning of the previous day.

When Zhang Jingchan woke up, he found himself in a familiar place: the office of the Furida factory. He was wearing an iron-gray suit, his head resting on one arm.

Liu Ying, dressed in a blue suit dress, walked towards him. “Ah Lan, why are you asleep? Are you alright?”

Zhang Jingchan slowly sat up straight and said, “It’s nothing; I just didn’t sleep well last night.”

Liu Ying placed a cup of tea in front of him, sat down beside him, and said, “They’ll be here soon.”

Zhang Jingchan lowered his head to drink his tea. Liu Ying looked at her “younger brother” with gentle eyes and said, “You’re so clever. Yesterday, they went to Boss Zhang and knelt down to apologize, and Boss Zhang actually believed them and didn’t submit the evidence he had. But I’m still unsure about tonight’s matter. Do we really have to be so ruthless? That involves several lives. What if the police find out?”

Zhang Jingchan pushed up his glasses. Xu Yi’s prescription wasn’t high, only about 150. Zhang Jingchan simply took them off, placed them on the table, rubbed his brow bone, and said, “I know what I’m doing.”

Liu Ying remained silent, only noticing that her “younger brother” was unusually quiet today, probably because he hadn’t had enough rest after working so hard for everyone these past few days.

She didn’t see the sharp glint in Zhang Jingchan’s eyes beneath his hand. In a few moments, a multitude of thoughts raced through his mind; he decided to call Li Weiyi immediately.

Just one phone call was enough for him to determine if the person on the other end was truly Li Weiyi.

However, at that moment, Zhang Fengming and Cheng Chuan stormed in. Cheng Chuan stared at him like a hawk: “Is everything prepared for tonight? Don’t let anything go wrong, or we’ll all be in deep trouble!”

Zhang Jingchan stared at him, detecting no unusual emotion.

For the four-man gang, nothing was more urgent or important than tonight. If Zhang Jingchan avoided making a phone call at this time, it would inevitably arouse their suspicion.

Zhang Jingchan put down her phone and said, “Don’t worry about me. Everything’s arranged with Liu Guizhi and Li Yilin.”

Liu Ying, naturally siding with her brother, gave them a reproachful look: “Li Yilin’s move was planned by Ah Lan a long time ago, more thoroughly than we thought. What’s there to worry about? After tonight, we’ll split the money, go our separate ways, and have nothing to do with Fuming anymore.”

The four discussed some details of tonight’s operation. After a while, Zhang Jingchan stood up and said, “That’s about it. Think about anything else you might have forgotten. I’m going to the restroom and have a smoke.”

The other three didn’t pay any attention.

Zhang Jingchan walked towards the door.

At the same time, Liu Ying’s phone rang. Seeing the number, her expression changed. She answered, “Hello.” The other person said something, and her expression grew increasingly serious. She looked up in the direction her “brother” had left.

As soon as Zhang Jingchan stepped out the door, he took out his phone and called Li Weiyi. It rang seven or eight times, but she didn’t answer. Zhang Jingchan was about to strike again when he suddenly heard hurried footsteps behind him. He turned around and saw several workers wielding iron bars running out of the factory building to his side.

Zhang Jingchan took off running.

Liu Ying’s voice rang out behind him: “Catch him!”

During the last night raid on the factory, Xu Yi hadn’t shown up, and those thugs and hooligans were completely obedient to Liu Ying. Zhang Jingchan understood that Xu Yi’s usual tactic was to stay behind the scenes, while Liu Ying was the de facto head of Furida. Therefore, now that Liu Ying had ordered the workers to capture their “brother,” the workers had no objections. Zhang Fengming and Cheng Chuan, however, probably hadn’t figured out the situation yet.

Zhang Jingchan guessed that Xu Yi must have tipped off his sister. Liu Ying, that woman, was truly decisive.

…

“Then how did you escape?” Li Weiyi asked, extremely nervous.

“Luckily, Xu Yi’s car wasn’t far away, so I drove off. I was stopped by two workers, and my phone fell.”

No wonder no one answered when she called back.

“Were you hurt?”

Zhang Jingchan lowered his head, rolled up one sleeve, and showed her his slender, pale wrist, revealing a thick, purplish-black swollen welt.

No wonder the phone fell.

Li Weiyi avoided the wound, gently took his hand, and blew on it. Such a childish gesture; she did it earnestly, and he watched intently.

“And then?”

“At that time, I hadn’t realized Xu Yi planned to replace me. The first thing I did was go to your yard and dig up the third piece of evidence.”

Li Weiyi was taken aback, then her eyes lit up: “You mean…”

Zhang Jingchan finally couldn’t help but pat her fluffy head, saying, “No matter what my identity is now, no matter what Xu Yi wants to do, as long as the evidence is given to the police, they won’t be able to escape.”

Li Weiyi was shaken.

Zhang Jingchan’s choice was exactly the same as the choice she had predicted Xu Yi would make after he impersonated him. Both of them submitted the evidence to Ding Chenmo alone.

However, Xu Yi hadn’t expected the existence of a third piece of evidence.

She sighed and said, “He and you are indeed on the same wavelength.”

Zhang Jingchan pinched the back of her head, and Li Weiyi, meeting his cold gaze, fell silent.

“Did Old Ding believe you?”

“At first, he was skeptical. But Xu Yi did something unnecessary.” Zhang Jingchan smiled sarcastically. “He deleted some of the most damaging information from the evidence.”

Li Weiyi froze, then felt a chill run down her spine.

She remembered yesterday at the villa, waiting for Ding Chenmo and the others to arrive. That “Zhang Jingchan” had asked her to counsel Wu Xinhui. Later, she thought it was just him trying to make Zhang Jingchan’s image more believable and gain everyone’s trust. She also remembered seeing that person personally hand the USB drive to Ding Chenmo when she went back upstairs.

Since he had gotten rid of her, he could naturally find a reason to get rid of Zhang Moyun.

“Fortunately…” Li Weiyi murmured, “He’s too terrifying…”

Fortunately, Zhang Moyun had prepared a third piece of evidence; fortunately, she hadn’t mentioned this evidence to that person.

And fortunately, Zhang Jingchan made such a crucial and firm choice immediately—to submit the evidence.

Before she could speak, Zhang Jingchan understood her unspoken thoughts. He stroked her hair and said, “You did very well. If he got more information from you, I’d be in a more passive position. When did you realize something was off about him?”

“The first time I saw him, something felt off. I started to suspect him after he came to this house. So, because he deleted some evidence, comparing the two sets, Old Ding believed you were Zhang Jingchan?”

So that’s how it was.

When she first met Ding Chenmo at the Zhang family home, she felt so awkward. Ding Chenmo examined the USB drive repeatedly—because he had just received a set of evidence from Zhang Jingchan, informing him of unbelievable time travel and soul swapping. Then, that “Zhang Jingchan” gave him the same evidence. No wonder Ding Chenmo was confused!

But as soon as Ding Chenmo saw the difference in the evidence, he understood who the real one was.

It truly was fate; Xu Yi’s clever scheme backfired.

Zhang Jingchan nodded: “Actually, Old Ding probably sensed something when I was in a vegetative state last time. But this time, he accepted it faster than I expected. He seems to have become quite familiar with me; I think the timeline is also influencing him.”

Li Weiyi sighed.

The timeline—the timeline that gave them hope of survival, the timeline of the uncontrollable butterfly effect, the timeline whose interference and overlap with each participant became increasingly apparent.

She felt even more urgently that this time, the loop had to end, and the overlap had to stop. Otherwise, she didn’t know what would happen to these people—whether it would be the complete merging of countless parallel lines or an even more severe distortion and chaos.