Chapter 496
第496章 476迟飘往事（10）（2合1）
Chapter 496, Section 476: The Past of a Late Journey (10) (Two-in-One)
Xu Huan wouldn't have been able to answer this question before.
He was perplexed for a long time, like standing at a foggy crossroads, unable to find any road signs to guide him.
But the continuous observation during this period was like a pair of hands slowly wiping open a crack in his dusty vision.
Some blurry outlines began to emerge, and certain broken threads seemed to be quietly connecting in unseen places.
He caught a glimpse of "something," an indescribable conjecture that quietly took root in his heart.
But this conjecture is so uncertain, like peering through frosted glass, everything shrouded in an ambiguous shadow.
He tried to describe this vague "seeing".
My thoughts are churning, searching for words to put them into practice.
Xu Huan gazed into the distance and slowly spoke:
"The line where the yellow and black of the setting sun meet, the steps that appear on the sea, that's the road to heaven..."
As soon as he said it, he was stunned.
This description unexpectedly overlapped with the ramblings he had previously heard from that madman in the Fools' Society.
A moment of disorientation, like a belated bolt of lightning, cleaved through the last patch of chaotic darkness in his mind.
Some stubborn and incomprehensible fragments were welded together by this sudden light, forming a complete picture.
So that's how it is...
The color seemed to have faded from his face, and a complex expression welled up in his eyes, a mixture of realization, absurdity, and a sense of relief as if the dust had settled.
"So that's how it is, that person...she saw it..."
His lips parted slightly, as if a crucial name, or a decisive conclusion, was already pressed against the tip of his tongue.
The word that was about to be uttered seemed to carry too heavy a burden of truth, so he ultimately chose to remain silent, swallowing it back slowly and heavily, turning it into a silent sigh in his throat.
Finally, he shook his head, then suddenly realized:
"No wonder, no wonder, this is the future."
These words were disjointed and fragmented, incoherent and like a dream.
Standing to the side, Chi Piao listened in confusion, her eyes filled with bewilderment.
She wanted to ask, but Xu Huan had already stopped explaining.
He no longer looked at anyone, but simply immersed himself in the vast and desolate truth that had just been fully revealed to him.
At this moment, as he approaches the end of his life's journey, in his final moments, the ultimate door to the essence of the world, which had always been tightly closed to him, finally slowly opens.
He saw the "road," understood the "madness," and realized his own place, and the place of everything else, within this grand picture.
Then, a strange calm enveloped him.
The intense emotions receded like the tide, leaving behind a clear and calm acceptance.
As you hear the news, you can die in the evening.
At this moment, he may have truly understood the weight of those words.
……
When Xu Huan was lying in her hospital bed at the end of her life, it was her last moment of peace.
Knowing that he was undergoing emergency treatment, the Crown Prince rarely came to disturb him, and the only person around him was Chi Piao, who acted as his bodyguard.
Chi Piao is a very good person. Although her knowledge is not as good as his, Xu Huan always feels relaxed when he is with her.
It seems that he has finally escaped the deceit and intrigue at the card table and left behind the scheming in the arena of power, and has finally found a little piece of life of his own.
It's peaceful and stable here, without any complicated probing.
Chi Piao knew that he had fallen in love with nature, and would occasionally bring up topics about lush grass and vibrant life. Xu Huan could sense her sincerity.
He also hopes to repay the kindness he received at the end of his life.
The strategist had considerable insight into what constitutes truly good behavior for others.
In the world of ordinary people, feelings can be conveyed through a greeting card, a gift, or a bouquet of flowers; the emphasis is on the sentiment itself.
However, in the survival rules of strategists, any action involving the word "intention" is likely to be a calculated move, a prelude to getting something for nothing.
They don't believe in that.
In a strategist's value system, being good to someone means giving them the capital to establish themselves, rise in rank, and avoid being trampled upon.
It is power, it is status, it is a smooth road with a visible future.
So, Xu Huan used his analytical mind to start planning for Chi Piao.
He needed to find a force large enough and deeply rooted that even an entity like the "Prophets" would find difficult to shake in the foreseeable future.
Only by completely removing Chi Piao from that perilous game of the times and finding her an absolutely safe corner can we prevent her from becoming a casualty of the era.
After careful consideration, Rose Group emerged as the best and only option.
However, the financier of the Rose Group had a past grudge against Xu Huan.
Writing a letter of recommendation under his reputation as a "schemer" is tantamount to blocking Chi Piao's path in advance; that letter will only be thrown straight into the trash.
Xu Huan had no choice but to take a roundabout approach and ask the Parallel Scholar for a letter of recommendation.
To be fair, as a fellow professional, he didn't admire that financier. He found her obsessive and greedy, her methods carrying an unsettling, viscous quality, like a mosquito sucking blood—targeting a single point, silently piercing, until the target is completely drained. That slow and thorough exploitation was not to his liking.
But setting aside opposing stances and methods, he must admit that the financier himself is highly cultured and refined, with a vision and perspective that are top-notch.
The finance department she led had an even more transparent and ethical atmosphere.
In that environment, Chi Piao received not only protection, but also genuine attention, systematic training, and an elevated social status.
The youth of war, seemingly intense and brilliant, is actually short-lived; its golden period may be no more than ten years.
Xu Huan knew very well that this recommendation letter, which she had worked so hard to obtain, would at least save Chi Piao three years of struggling and wasting time.
In her limited professional life, these three years may be enough to propel her to a height that was previously unattainable.
This was the last thing he could do, and the most profound act of kindness a strategist could offer.
Everything was finally arranged perfectly, with no further oversights.
At this moment, Xu Huan, lying on the emergency table, was being slowly eroded by intense pain, and her heartbeat was getting weaker and weaker with each beat.
In the ebb and flow of consciousness, he thought he would see a revolving lantern of his more than ten years as a strategist—those thrilling chess games, those intricate schemes, and the faces of his opponents, some whom he hated to the bone, and others whom he feared greatly.
But no. As the flame of life was about to burn out, those scenes that were once thought to be unforgettable faded away silently, like ink stains in water.
Finally, what stubbornly emerged before my eyes were two scenes that had nothing to do with power struggles.
One of them was from a long time ago, back at Radiant Academy. On a night when he couldn't remember the exact date, but it seemed to be filled with the scent of grass and books, someone with a bright smile familiarly put their arm around his shoulder.
That person's voice, despite the passage of time, remains as clear as if it were yesterday:
"Wow, this genius skipped another grade! At this rate, will I have to call you 'senior' from now on?"
The laughter was hearty, without a trace of gloom or scheming, only pure warmth and joy for him.
The other image, taken many years later, depicts a seaside bathed in the brilliant afterglow of the setting sun.
The girl, dressed somewhat extravagantly, gazed at the fiery sunset where the sea met the sky, her eyes reflecting the radiant glow of the heavens, and simply sighed softly:
"The sunset is so beautiful."
Throughout his life, he had navigated the complexities of human nature for far too long, receiving very little genuine kindness in return—only from these two individuals.
One has returned to dust, but for the other, he wishes her a future free of gloom.
……
Everything went just as Xu Huan had planned, and Chi Piao entered a new stage of life with a brighter future.
Her more than ten years of grueling work at Black Eye Pharmaceuticals felt like a dream, especially when colleagues peeked out from their cubicles after get off work and asked her if she wanted to eat spicy hot pot from one restaurant or Haidilao from another. This sense of disorientation was even more profound then.
She seemed no different from other office workers; there was no dungeon, no psychotropic drugs, no limbs scattered everywhere, and no trace of the terror she once felt. All she had were mortgage payments, car loan payments, and a sundae on the table to reward herself.
Time does indeed possess a slow yet powerful force; it gradually smooths away the scars of the past and pushes that bloody history into the depths of memory, packaging it as a distant and vaguely detailed nightmare.
It made her more and more like a "normal person".
Objectively speaking, Chi Piao certainly didn't want to recall the years at Black Pupil Pharmaceuticals.
She was not a masochist and did not have a morbid addiction to drawing sustenance from pain.
Being able to completely escape that kind of life was a stroke of luck she earned after giving it her all.
However, some people and events leave such a deep imprint that they cannot be completely erased by subjective will.
Those people who shone with faint starlight that she had met in the abyss of despair, their faces would always appear before her eyes in some unexpected moment, quietly crossing the high wall built by time, bringing a brief moment of disorientation.
One evening while working in the finance department, Chi Piao went to the beach alone again to watch the sunset.
The sunset was still the same sunset, hanging at the horizon where the sky meets the sea, burning the clouds into a magnificent crimson and golden orange, slowly sinking below the horizon.
The angle of the light, the intensity of the colors, and the sense of quiet farewell—all these are almost identical to the image in my memory.
But the seawater is no longer the same seawater.
The once clear, azure waters that could reflect the entire sky are now shrouded in an indescribable gray haze.
Pollution has subtly and profoundly altered its texture. When the waves near the shore roll up, they no longer have the translucent, jade-like luster of my memories, but appear somewhat sluggish.
Just like in this world, there are always some things that seem constant, but inside they have already undergone earth-shattering changes.
And those past events that she was unwilling to look back on, yet could not truly erase, those people and things that had once gazed at the same sea and the same sunset with her, have, like this polluted seawater, forever lost their original color and warmth.
"I never imagined your story would be so sad."
After listening to Chi Piao recount his entire life story, Jiang Jianxin felt that it was unexpectedly full of twists and turns.
From an unwanted burden born for umbilical cord blood to a fallen ruler of a war giant, she was a woman who had experienced many vicissitudes.
Chi Piao wore a black coat from the finance department today, with black clothes underneath that she had put together herself. She looked much more composed, and her demeanor was indeed more refined than when they met before.
Jiang Jianxin actually sensed a scholarly air about this warrior; he didn't seem stiff, but rather refined and composed.
“I can feel it. You’ve changed a lot, you could even say it’s been a complete transformation.”
Jiang Jianxin was generous with his praise.
"People eventually have to grow up."
Chi Piao said calmly.
She recounted many details about the former Black Pupil Pharmaceuticals' systems, and while Jiang Jianxin listened, he didn't forget to highlight the key points:
"Xu Huan said that what's behind the scenes is related to the world behind the steps where the setting sun's yellow and black hues meet?"