The cold wind from London Heathrow Airport, wrapped in drizzle, penetrated the open collar of Lin Aotian's suit. He raised his hand to loosen his tie and looked at the driver holding a "Mr. Lin" sign outside the airport reception area. Half of the dark red tattoo was exposed on the other party's sleeve, which was the totem commonly used by the thugs raised by Xingyao Capital.
"Mr. Lin, Mr. Zhou is waiting for you in Cambridge." When the driver took the luggage, the threat was hidden in his deliberately lowered voice. Lin Aotian glanced at the calluses on the other party's palm, which were the marks left by years of holding a gun, and couldn't help but sneered: "Please tell Zhou Mingxuan that I prefer freshly ground Blue Mountain instead of whiskey with additives."
The black Bentley sped in the rain, and the sparkling waves of the Thames flickered through the car window. Lin Aotian stroked the jade bracelet in his pocket, and the gold thread at the broken part caused a slight pain in his palm. Zhou Jianbang's voice on the phone still lingered in his ears: "Aotian, Qingqing went to London this time... I'm afraid she was used as a gun." He remembered the scene he saw in the hospital three days ago. The wilted red rose on the old man's bedside was exactly the same as the one Su Qing always pinned in her hair when she was in college.
The Gothic spire of Trinity College, Cambridge University pierced the rain clouds. When Lin Aotian pushed open the carved wooden door of the coffee shop, the rich aroma of coffee mixed with the familiar freesia perfume on Su Qing's body hit her face. She sat by the window, and the patchwork jade bracelet on her wrist glowed strangely under the warm light. Zhou Mingxuan opposite was pouring whiskey into her glass. The sound of ice cubes hitting the wall of the glass was very similar to the sound of the bracelet breaking at the engagement party.
"Long time no see." Su Qing's voice trembled, and her nails dug deep into her palm. Lin Aotian noticed the dark circles under her eyes and the faint bruises on her collarbone - they were traces of being treated roughly, exactly the same as the place where he was injured by his second uncle's bodyguard when he was sixteen.
"30 million, buy out all your transactions with Xingyao Capital." Lin Aotian threw out a check, which landed accurately next to the whiskey glass, and the splashing liquor soaked Zhou Mingxuan's cufflinks. The young man stood up suddenly, and the outline of the holster on his waist was faintly visible under his shirt. This action reminded Lin Aotian of Zhou Jianbang secretly hiding a gun in the office of Zhou Group.
"Lin Aotian, don't think you can do whatever you want just because you have money!" Zhou Mingxuan's roar startled the student sitting next to him, but Su Qing suddenly grabbed his wrist: "Mingxuan, don't be impulsive..." Her fingertips tapped quickly on the back of the other person's hand. That was the "danger signal" they agreed on in college, but Zhou Mingxuan shook it off.
Lin Aotian's cell phone rang at the right time, and Chen Mo's voice was filled with electric noise: "Boss, Tang Wei's private plane just landed in London, and your second uncle's personal bodyguard is among the entourage." Before he finished speaking, the glass of the cafe suddenly exploded, and the bullet flew past Lin Aotian's ear and shattered the portrait of Queen Victoria on the wall. He even smelled the burning smell of the bullet passing through the air, which was surprisingly similar to the smell from the crematorium on the day of his mother's funeral.
"Get down!" Su Qing didn't know where she got the strength from, and suddenly pulled him under the table. Lin Aotian smelled the mixed smell of gunpowder in her hair, and then he realized that she was holding a small Browning in her hand - it was the one he used when he taught her to shoot three years ago, and the initials of their names were engraved on the handle of the gun. "Go out the back door!" She pointed her gun at the black-clad burly man rushing in, her voice choked but firm, "I left you at the engagement party that year, not because I was materialistic... Someone threatened me with the safety of the Zhou family and your mother!" The explosion shattered the last tranquility of the coffee shop, and Lin Aotian dragged Su Qing into the fire escape. Zhou Mingxuan roared from behind: "Catch them! I want to see them alive or dead!" The emergency lights in the stairwell flickered, and Su Qing's jade bracelet broke again in the melee, and the fragments scratched Lin Aotian's back of the hand. Blood dripped on the dragon-patterned jade pendant and strangely seeped in, just like the pattern of blood dripping on the family tree before her mother died.
"Aotian, your mother's death... is related to Tang Wei's father." Su Qing wiped the blood off her face, rain dripped from the broken skylight, wetting her hair on her forehead, "Back then, he teamed up with your second uncle to forge evidence of the housekeeper's corruption..." Before she finished speaking, the roar of a helicopter suddenly came from the top floor, and the beam of the searchlight penetrated the rain curtain, casting a huge shadow on the wall, which looked very much like the giant dragon in the "Dragon Flying Over the Four Seas" painting in the ancestral hall of the old house.
Lin Aotian ripped open his shirt, revealing the dragon tattoo on his chest - it was secretly tattooed when he was 18 years old in memory of his mother, and the ink color was blue-black under the rain. He pressed the jade pendant against the wound, and the cool touch instantly cleared his mind: "Chen Mo, notify the East China Sea Fleet to block the English Channel. In addition..." He stared at the broken bracelet on Su Qing's wrist, "Check all the jade transaction records on the black market for me, especially the old pit species with ice cracks."
When they broke out of the underground parking lot, Lin Aotian's Maybach had been converted into a bulletproof model. Su Qing curled up in the back seat, looking at the flashing positioning system on the dashboard: "Zhou Mingxuan hid a batch of arms at the dock, he wants..." "I know what he's going to do." Lin Aotian stepped on the accelerator, the tires splashed half a person's height on the flooded road, and the wipers swung rhythmically from side to side, just like the lullaby his mother sang to him when she coaxed him to sleep, "Second uncle wants to take advantage of my stay in London and join Blackstone Fund to short Huading's stock price. And Zhou Mingxuan is just a chess piece that can be discarded at any time." He suddenly turned his head, and the rain dripped down his angular jaw, "Su Qing, this time I won't let anyone hurt you again - just like you blocked the knife for me in the alley that year."
Su Qing's tears fell on the broken bracelet, and she was in a trance and returned to college. At that time, Lin Aotian rode a second-hand bicycle to take her to the beach. The sunset stretched his shadow very long. She put her arms around his waist and could clearly feel his strong muscles from working part-time. Now, the boy who always wore discounted suits was wearing a custom-made suit with a pistol with the family emblem on his waist, but he still looked at her with the same firm eyes as before.
The phone vibrated on the shelf, and Chen Mo sent an encrypted file: The autopsy report of Tang Wei's father showed that the ingredients of the secret poison of the East China Sea Lin family remained in his body - the symptoms of the butler's bizarre death that year. Lin Aotian's mouth curled up dangerously. In the rearview mirror, dozens of black SUVs were chasing him relentlessly, and the headlights formed a blood-red dragon in the rainy night, reminding him of the "Wolves Surrounding" painting in his second uncle's office.
"Hold on."
He turned the steering wheel sharply, and the Maybach rushed into the dock warehouse by brushing the container. Zhou Mingxuan stood on the deck of the freighter, with the container behind him full of AK47s, and a crazy smile on his face: "Lin Aotian, today is your death!" He raised the RPG in his hand and aimed the muzzle at the approaching Maybach.
Lin Aotian unbuttoned his suit, revealing the pistol on his waist - it was the old man who gave him the pistol before he left. The family emblem on the pistol handle was particularly clear under the illumination of lightning.
Su Qing clenched the Browning in her hand, and the broken diamonds of the jade bracelet flickered in the smoke, just like the meteor shower they watched together in college. "Aotian, this time I will protect you." Her voice was full of determination, just like when she deliberately broke the bracelet to protect him at the engagement party.
The heavy rain poured down, turning the entire dock into a battlefield. Lin Aotian looked at Zhou Mingxuan's twisted face, and suddenly remembered Zhou Jianbang's sigh on the hospital bed: "Mingxuan, this child, has been spoiled by me since he was a child." He raised his gun and aimed the crosshairs at the other's eyebrows.
Rain dripped down the muzzle and hit a small puddle on the ground: "Zhou Mingxuan, you think you are a hunter, but you don't know..." The moment he pulled the trigger, the roar of the helicopter came from behind him. The clan flag of the East China Sea Lin family fluttered in the rain, and the nine-clawed golden dragon on the flag seemed to come alive. "In this jungle of capital, only dragons are worthy of standing at the top of the food chain!" The bullet accurately hit the RPG in Zhou Mingxuan's hand, and the violent explosion set off a huge air wave, which blew up the ammunition container on the freighter.
Lin Aotian took the opportunity to drag Su Qing to the private helicopter parked at the dock. The airflow of the propeller blew away the rain curtain, revealing the eye-catching gilded dragon pattern on the fuselage - that is the exclusive logo of the main line of the East China Sea Lin family.
"Master, the clan has come to support us." Chen Mo's voice came from the headset, "Tang Wei and your second uncle have been surrounded in the VIP lounge of Heathrow Airport." Lin Aotian looked at the pier that was getting smaller and smaller below. Zhou Mingxuan was being pinned to the ground by the anti-explosion police. Suddenly, he found that the fragments of the jade bracelet he dropped had formed a complete dragon pattern in the firelight.
When the helicopter flew into the night sky of London, Su Qing fell asleep on his shoulder. The blood on her face had not been wiped clean, but she showed her first peaceful smile in three years. Lin Aotian touched the broken bracelet on her wrist and suddenly remembered the words in his mother's letter: "The dragon's scales exist to protect oneself and the people he cares about." He looked out the window. The lights of the Thames River were connected in the rain and fog, like a winding dragon, flying towards the dawn in the east.