Chapter 196 The Fallout (2)

"Sorry," Jingwei said shamefacedly. "I never thought it would bring you both so much trouble."

"Did you ever think?" Tianwei asked, not expecting an answer. "Father nearly had a heart attack when the news broke. For your own sake, you'd better hope you don't get into any trouble in America. If you do, you're on your own."

"Yes Ge," Jingwei agreed obediently, before remembering something important. "But what about the victims? Those women in the videos? The kids that were trafficked? What happened to them?"

"Dead." Tianwei's voice echoed in his ears."Not all of them, but some."

Jingwei felt faint and he fell against the pillows in shock. "How… why… what happened?"

"The police didn't get to them in time," Tianwei said regrettably. "That bastard and his cronies decided to get rid of their evidence the moment they realised they got found out. For others, once they realised that the world knew about what happened to them, they couldn't live with the shame and took their own lives."

Jingwei remained silent. There was nothing he could say.

"Anyway, for now, just keep your head down and keep out of trouble. Listen to Captain Mu. Brush up on your English. If we don't catch Wu Shang Jing anytime soon, you'll be staying there for good." Tianwei instructed. "Do you understand?"

"..."

"Jingwei? Are you still there? Do you understand?"

"Yes Ge. Got it." Jingwei said quietly, mind reeling with shock.

"Good. Goodbye." And then he hung up, leaving Jingwei to stare at the phone blankly, thoughts whirling in his mind. Captain Mu sensed that Sun Jingwei wasn't in his right mind, and simply took back his phone.

"I'll get you a laptop so you can do your research on all that happened," Captain Mu offered, feeling pity for his charge. He was learning the hard way that the road to hell was paved with good intentions, and Captain Mu had no idea how to counsel him.

"Captain Mu…" Jingwei said weakly. "Did I cause all these people to die?"

"Who knows?" Captain Mu shrugged. "If not you, perhaps some other person, item or natural disaster might have done the job. Don't blame yourself kid."

,m "... Okay." Jingwei finally muttered, but it didn't sound like he believed Captain Mu at all. His head continued to hang low in defeat, and Captain Mu detected the faint tremors in his shoulders.

He sighed. Why had he been the assigned babysitter?

=====

While Captain Mu got one of his team members to purchase a new laptop and completely debug it and encrypt it for Jingwei, Jingwei was internally cursing himself for his actions.

Why had he bothered to play hero?! Someone as stupid and useless like him should have done kept his mouth shut like what Shang Jing said!

Look at what happened the moment he tried to do something good - Wu Shang Jing was still on the run, his family's business empire was suffering, giving more trouble to his family members, and worst of all, the people he wished to help by putting Wu Shang Jing behind bars were dead, or wished they were dead.

No matter what, he didn't manage to help anyone! He was such a failure that his family literally sent him to the other end of the world to wait out the storm, because they knew he'd cause more trouble if he remained.

He quickly wiped away the tears that were threatening to fall. Stupid. How dare he cry? At least he was alive and well, not like all those people who died because of his actions. He still got to wake up in a fancy hospital with a team of bodyguards.

There was nothing to do but wait.

And wait he did.

A month passed, then two. Then five.

And finally, after he had successfully brushed up on his English and a whole bunch of other languages, learnt how to cook from various Youtube videos and seasons of Masterchef, and pissed off his neighbors once or twice by setting off the fire alarm, he received life-changing news from his older brother.

"You can come home now." Tianwei said in relief on Captain Mu's speakerphone. "Everything is finally over! He can't do anything to our family now."

"Wait! Really? How? Did they finally catch him?" Jingwei exclaimed excitedly, nearly dropping his phone onto his pizza.

His brother had called in the wee hours of the morning back at home, which meant that it was late at night in the United States. Jingwei had ordered two whole pizzas for a late night snack to accompany his wine, since no one (except Captain Mu) could stop him from eating as unhealthily as he liked.

It wasn't as though he didn't exercise - he went for long jogs around the park with a hoodie on so that he could pet dogs while Captain Mu hovered around him like a helicopter.

Best of all, there weren't any paparazzi here to take pictures of him, unlike back home.

"Even better," Tianwei said smugly. "According to the coast guard, he jumped off the pier and died. We think he was trying to cross the ocean to Hong Kong during a storm, but he couldn't swim to his boat in time. He drowned, and good riddance to that bastard."

Jingwei paused. Shang Jing was dead? "I… that's good news." He said, trying to believe his own words. It was good news, Shang Jing was a criminal, a terrible human being, he was the one responsible for making sure Jingwei had to hide away in a whole different country for his safety.

So why did his heart ache at the news? He should have been happy that a psycho like Shang Jing got what he deserved, for the sake of all the people he hurt.

Yet when he thought about Shang Jing, the first memory that appeared wasn't him strangling Jingwei, it was of him teaching Jingwei how to code, and how his face split with joy when Jingwei finally, after multiple setbacks, successfully hacked into a website.

To his horror, he felt tears threatening to fall. He hurriedly wiped them away, not wanting Captain Mu to see.

Shang Jing was dead, and Jingwei indirectly caused his death. So much for being brothers for life!

Now that Shang Jing was dead, he didn't need to hack into computers again. He wasn't going to hack into computers again. He had enough. He was just going to live his life to the fullest as a wastrel, eating pizza and drinking wine and petting dogs at the dog park.

"Ge," Jingwei started, breathing deeply to calm himself down. He didn't feel up to going back home, where everyone and their mother had an opinion about his life decisions.

"Can I stay here a while longer? Just a little while more. Didn't you want me to study here? I can do that!"

"No," Tianwei replied. "It's time for you to come back home for good."