095 Deposit (Fourth Update)

Nicholas had not sent such a colossal sum of money into China in cash on a whim, nor because it was easier.

Quite the opposite—it was far more difficult.

But the money had not come by clean means, and in wartime Libya there was probably no bank capable of accepting such a fortune.

Of course, if Nicholas had been willing to pay a ruinous price, there would certainly have been men reckless enough to try.

For Nicholas, who clung to money as though it were his life’s blood, that was hardly an acceptable option. And so it turned out as expected: he would rather spend one hundred thousand dollars, or even more, to have the cash delivered to China than hand Li Changjiang a string of figures whose value had been cut by more than half.

“Where did this money come from?”

When Li Lin and Liu Fen saw the stack of bills in their son Changjiang’s hands, they immediately grew uneasy. It was no small sum.

When Li Lin returned to the country this time, Delong Construction Company had in fact given him a compensation payment, and it was no small amount—nearly one hundred thousand.

For a family whose annual income had hovered for years around ten thousand, one hundred thousand was indeed a fortune. Yet after being received, that money had not remained for long. In truth, only a few thousand were left, perhaps not even that much.

For people like them, ordinary for most of their lives and destined, as far as anyone could see, to remain ordinary for the rest of it, grief was important, yes—but life was still indispensable.

To go on living required courage as well, and no one could blame that.

So after some time had passed since their son’s funeral, Li Lin used the compensation money to settle many of the debts accumulated when they had built their house. But the largest expense by far had still been the funeral itself, which had cost roughly fifty to sixty thousand.

On the surface, that money seemed wasted. In truth, it was not.

If they had not spent it, husband and wife alike would never have known peace, day or night. Spending it was merely a form of solace. Fortunately, their son had come back.

So when Li Lin saw the money, his old habit of being cautious and unwilling to accept favors from others rose at once.

“Dad, this is the cash that was in that bag. The last person who came said it was something my brother asked him to keep for safekeeping. You and Mom just stood there crying and wouldn’t even speak to him, so I put it away.”

Li Changjiang glanced at his little sister, Li Ke.

Then he could not help reaching out to pinch her soft cheek, his face full of affection.

“Dad, I did hand that money to him for safekeeping, but I didn’t give him this much back then.”

“You need to return it to them.”

Li Lin spoke with great seriousness.

He and Liu Fen had no real idea what exactly their son Li Changjiang had gone through in Libya. Back then in Benghazi, when he and Li Changjiang had been separated, it had happened without warning. The moment the gunfire began, the rebels stormed Benghazi, and everyone had only one thought: run for their lives. No one had any room to care about anything else. The number of people who had been scattered was surely not small. That both father and son had managed to come back alive, despite many twists and turns, was in the end still a kind of luck.

Li Changjiang had previously told Li Lin that after they were separated, he had been detained by the rebels in Benghazi, and afterward had remained imprisoned with other foreigners until being released not long ago.

At first glance, that explanation seemed perfectly reasonable and gave no obvious opening for suspicion. The only thing that made Li Lin vaguely uneasy was that Li Changjiang seemed to have changed a great deal. But Li Lin and Liu Fen had both, in their own way, explained that away as the aftermath of surviving catastrophe.

In their view, anyone who had lived through something so immense would surely change.

What they did not know was that the change was far more than “some.”

If they had learned that more than two hundred people had already died by Li Changjiang’s gun, they would likely have collapsed on the spot.

“Dad, don’t worry. I’ll return it to him.”

Li Lin nodded. After a moment’s thought, he did not say anything more.

In truth, he did not want to ask too much about where the money had come from.

Back then, amid bullets and fire, it was possible that his son Li Changjiang had encountered something else entirely. On the road back, Li Lin had seen more than his share of vile, abhorrent acts. But at such a time, no one had the right to accuse anyone else, because whatever happened, all of it had been voluntary in the end. It was one of humanity’s instincts for survival.

Wealth.

Beauty.

Even dignity.

All became worthless before the chance to stay alive. Death was certainly not to be feared, but worse still was the ending that brought a despair beyond death. Human beings were strange that way: if they knew they were doomed, they might well throw caution to the wind. What was terrifying was the cruel gift of being made to feel a thread of hope—so faint it was nearly invisible, yet undeniably real.

That sliver of hope was enough to erase all humanity. Good and evil, right and wrong, all turned murky in that instant.

After the meal, Li Changjiang said a few words and went into his room, where he did not come out again.

Li Lin and Liu Fen did not think much of it. In the more than ten days since they had returned, Li Changjiang had been in almost exactly this state every day.

To die and return to life was a blessing, but life still had to go on.

After everything that had happened, Li Lin had also come to terms with many things. He no longer thought of going out to work elsewhere; instead, he would stay home, tending his patch of land and raising his son and daughter.

If nothing unexpected happened, the road ahead for Li Changjiang would likely be the same: work, marriage, children, then, over tea and conversation after dinner, speak of this experience that most people would never in their lives have.

But what had already happened could not be undone by imagining otherwise.

“Dad, how about this? Come with me to the provincial capital tomorrow to take care of something, and on the way we’ll return this money to them.”

At dinner that night, Li Changjiang could only propose a fairly reasonable plan, and Li Lin agreed without much thought.

The next morning, father and son got up early, went to the county seat, and caught the long-distance bus to the provincial capital.

Li Lin had to spend a bit of breath trying to persuade his son, who stubbornly carried that bag that did not smell very good, but when the two of them arrived directly at the headquarters of the state bank’s South River Province branch in the provincial capital, he realized that something was not quite right.

The tiles on the floor were bright, even a little reflective.

Since father and son had reached the provincial capital at around one in the afternoon, there were already dozens of people queueing in the bank lobby, and no one knew how long Li Lin’s numbered ticket would take to be called.

“What’s the minimum deposit required to handle business here with Manager Gui?”

Under Li Lin’s somewhat stunned gaze, Li Changjiang went straight to the lobby manager and asked one blunt question that left the people waiting around him visibly taken aback.

Truly crude.

Very direct.

But satisfying, too.

The woman wearing a badge marked “Lobby Manager” was clearly not hearing this question for the first time. So when she gave a number that would stop most people in their tracks, many in the lobby immediately turned to look, their expressions varying wildly.

Two hours later.

When Li Changjiang and Li Lin walked out of the bank, each of them was holding several brand-new cards.

Li Lin, meanwhile, followed behind Li Changjiang with a dazed look on his face.

He was still trying to count how many digits the number the bank manager had given him actually contained.

Twenty-two million.

That was the figure, in renminbi, after Nicholas’s U.S. dollars had been exchanged.

Clearly, neither Li Lin nor Li Changjiang had ever seen such a vast fortune.

War, without a doubt, is a catastrophe.

But for Li Changjiang, it seemed to be something more than that.

Now the money had arrived, and a brand-new story was about to begin. As for whether Li Changjiang would enlist, I can tell everyone now: no. Because he has always been a soldier. A soldier does not need the name of a uniform to become one; wherever there is war and blood, there they are. For ordinary people like us, that is only a world of fantasy.

If you have read this far, brothers, please give me a monthly ticket.

To be continued.