Kacha… Bang—

Flames blazed, circuits crackled, and his vision blurred as he crawled out of the overturned car. Searching: [End of Book God Station] to read quality literature for free.

Beneath the night sky, by the riverside park, the city's dense lights flickered like fire across the water, resembling a colossal city floating on the surface. That prosperous scene contrasted with the park's seclusion and solitude. He remembered spearheading the park's development project more than a decade ago.

"It was a failed development..."

The wind blew. He sighed, staggering towards the shimmering water. A tremendous explosion suddenly erupted from the car behind him, flames surging and heat sweeping from his back as if to engulf him. The sound of a helicopter filled the air, followed by a bright beam of light illuminating the scene. Someone shouted from above, and vehicles pursuing him from both sides of the park arrived, mostly police cars, a chaotic array of lights.

His head still spun, blood trickling down his forehead. He wiped it away, tightened his windbreaker, and saw hovercraft and speedboats swarming along both sides of the river, preventing him from escaping by jumping into the water.

"Honestly... I'm not some kind of assassin..."

The dense encirclement by land, sea, and air made him feel a bit annoyed. His vision wasn't clear. He understood that there might not be much chance of escape this time. The cold wind blew, and inconsequential things came to mind. This was the city where he had grown up. Back then, the city wasn't so nice. Standing on this side of the river, you couldn't see the entire city's magnificent palace-like prosperity, but it felt warm. This side of the river was all dirt slopes, a dirt path. When going to school from home, he often rode his bicycle along here with a few friends.

"I'm going to build a park here in the future, make it more beautiful, fill the city with skyscrapers, and we'll all live in them..."

He was young then, after visiting the prosperous provincial capital, he made this grand aspiration. What a spirited age! For the next two or three decades, he was like a primitive man who had just invented stone knives and axes, forging ahead with astonishing courage, overcoming countless dangerous obstacles beyond anyone's imagination, and building a huge financial empire that was one of the best in the world. Sometimes he thought it felt like a dream.

In the eyes of others, he was an invincible financial giant. He thought so too. But now, returning to his old haunt, he gradually realized that this park had ultimately failed.

Its initial purpose was to make everyone happy...

The failed development project could have been remedied later with a large investment—which wasn't much for him now—but why hadn't it been done? He wanted to do it when he wasn't well-off, and now he deliberately bypassed it because it wasn't profitable. Now that he thought about it, many things he thought he remembered were forgotten, and many things he thought he'd forgotten were remembered...

The friends, partners, the desire to make the world a better place, the promises made, the roads travelled. He sat down on a stone bench on the riverbank. The lights were dazzling, his mind complicated. He reached into his pockets, looking for something. At this moment, he really needed a cigarette, even though he had quit a long time ago...

Someone handed him a cigarette.

The man stood beside him wearing a suit and gold-rimmed glasses. He didn't need to look up to know who it was. He took the cigarette, and the man with the gold-rimmed glasses took out a lighter, shielding the wind with his hand, and lit it for him.

"Remembering the old days, we used to ride our bikes here to school together, you, me, Qingyi, Akang, Ruoping… Qingyi died a couple of years ago, right? I couldn't attend his funeral..." He took a puff of the cigarette, and the cold wind immediately dispersed it as he exhaled. "How is Ruoping?"

"She has two children, doing quite well." The man with glasses sat down.

"Ah… you told me, I almost forgot…" He thought for a moment, then laughed, "She was the prettiest of the girls. I remember I always had a crush on her, didn't dare to confess."

The man beside him was silent for a moment, then took out a lighter and lit a cigarette. "I knew you liked her. I confessed to her before you did, but I was rejected... She said she liked you."

"I never heard you mention that..."

"What else could I do? We were all striving for the future. You forgot about her. She couldn't always wait for you. You didn't confess, so she got married."

"Yeah, missed out on a lot of things..."

"You always strive for perfection."

"You know? When you reach a certain point…" He thought, raised his hand to indicate a height, "When you get there, you'll find that besides a moment of achievement, there's really nothing. You'll always feel... regret... The path you're walking now might not be what you originally wanted..."

"Yeah," the man with the glasses said.

After a moment of silence, he looked at the cigarette in his hand, which was very short: "The loss of over one hundred million, dealing with it will be a lot of trouble. I was clear about it a few months ago. I have already made a plan in my computer... I just didn't expect you to react so strongly. A change of dynasty in the company can indeed transfer the deficit to some people’s head to ease the situation. You revise the plan to avoid affecting too many people, after all, everyone has worked together for so long."

"I..." The man hesitated for a moment, as if wanting to explain something, but in the end, he only said, "Sorry."

"It's nothing, we've come this far together. I'm always standing in front. We're brothers. It's your turn to try... This plan is well-conceived. The company is yours, it won't collapse, but... in the future, take some money and really develop this park. I always wanted to do it, always thought I remembered, but when I think about it, I don't feel rushed, always procrastinated..."

"I told them over there, that after this matter, you can still live very well..."

"Cutting grass without removing the roots, the spring breeze will blow again. Releasing a tiger back to the mountain..." He turned his head, his calm gaze carrying a sternness, "What do you think you are?"

"As long as I'm alive, I can threaten you!" He paused, threw the cigarette butt on the ground and stamped it out. "It's lonely at the top. It's enough to get to this point in my life. Even if I had to start over, I would want to be unburdened, to start over clean. Those messy, dirty things, backstabbing... If I could do it again..."

He smiled and stood up: "If I could do it again, I think I would confess to her..."

The helicopter hovered in the sky, ships sped across the water, and the park was surrounded by vehicles. On the riverbank focused by the lights, the man standing up suddenly drew his gun and aimed it at the man with the glasses beside him. Seeing his movement, the man with the glasses also stood up at the same time, raised his hands, and waved at the people around him: "Don't shoot—"

Gunshots rang out densely, blood blooming on his back. After a long while, he turned around, looked at the body lying in a pool of blood, took off his glasses in a daze, wiped them a few times, then put them back on, and picked up the gun held in the body's hand.

"I said don't shoot... it's not loaded..."

In the night wind, he murmured.

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