Chapter 542: Chapter 267: 10 Years of Regret, Sins Difficult to Redeem

Jiang Yanbo’s home.

The phone kept ringing, a figure was making dumplings in the kitchen. With the year-end approaching, it was time to have a good meal.

Realizing someone was calling, Jiang Yanbo rushed out quickly. After answering the phone, urgent sounds and a burst of noise came through.

A bit puzzled, Jiang Yanbo brought the phone closer to his face.

After closely checking the caller ID and phone’s origin, his expression instantly tightened.

"Old Zhao! Old Zhao, is it you? What’s happening?"

"Old Jiang... he’s here, they’re all here... ugh."

The voice sounded extremely distressed, and you could hear the person on the other line start to sound pained, nearly suffocated by fear.

"Old Zhao! Old Zhao, speak!"

Jiang Yanbo’s voice grew louder and louder; the other end became increasingly noisy too, with sounds of things being cut and sharp inhalations, making one very uneasy.

Jiang Yanbo kept shouting into the phone, but it was no use; there was almost no response.

Finally, after a few minutes, a voice came slowly from the other end.

"Jiang Yanbo, stop shouting."

"Who are you? Who exactly are you? What did you do to Old Zhao?"

"Stop shouting and don’t ask questions, hurry and call the police. It’s not just Zhao Yihua, no one else will escape, including you..."

The voice on the other end was very leisurely, with a hint of disdain for life and an unbothered arrogance.

"Alright, see you later."

With that, the call was hung up.

An utterly drained Jiang Yanbo collapsed onto the nearby sofa. At this moment, his throat felt tight, and he couldn’t speak. He took a big gulp from the water cup beside him, feeling a slight relief.

With a weathered gaze, he looked toward the bedroom where incense was slowly rising, and the statues shrouded in the mist.

The Buddha was smiling at him, a smile full of compassion, yet at this moment, it seemed to mock his fate.

After all, no one can just lay down the butcher’s knife and instantly become a Buddha.

When sins and consequences intertwine, it is time for them to pay the price.

Water was still boiling on the stove; the meat stuffing and dumpling wrappers on the board hadn’t been touched, and he had already left first.

Without telling his partner who had gone out to buy fruits.

Without informing his children on their way home.

This sixty-something-year-old man slowly went downstairs, having just called his driver Xiaoni, who was driving over. But in the other direction, an imported pickup truck was racing toward his residence as if carrying the fire of vengeance.

Sun Bo’s home.

Luo Fei and Zhao Donglai finished reading the thousand-word narrative, their hearts sinking to a valley at this unexpectedly horrifying truth, and when all illusions were pierced, the naked truth hit them deep.

The contents of those thousand words were scattered, giving a very chaotic feeling, yet when pieced together, it appeared truly terrifying.

Ten years ago, it was midnight.

The mine started to shift, and they were about to start the third tunnel excavation project. There were less than two hours until dawn.

At the time, Sun Bo, serving as the project manager, immediately sent people down. Regardless of the situation, they had to report back first.

Assistant Liang Deng and Captain Feng Jianyi immediately arranged for staff to go down.

An eight-person team was working the night shift at that time.

The eight of them, under Feng Jianyi’s arrangement, went deep into the mine. Meanwhile, the seepage problem’s structure was starting to weaken, the oppressive environment accompanying them.

With a loud bang, rocks started falling, the inner walls began collapsing, and lots of mud and water flowed down from the duct above.

As the weight increased, the forces deep in the mine could no longer support the adjacent earthen barrier.

Eventually, all sounds were buried under the ruins.

After it happened, Feng Jianyi, who was ready to go for rescue, was stopped; the distraught Liang Deng did not take initiative, and Sun Bo called the two of them together, telling them they were facing a complex situation.

The incident happened already, and whether anyone survived in the dozens of meters underground was unknown.

But if they dragged this matter on for a while, even if less than a week... no one was destined to be alive anymore.

Feng Jianyi was very panicked, and Liang Deng almost peed himself in fear.

It’s a matter of human lives, eight lives!

If they rushed down to save people now, everyone present would have to take responsibility for the collapsed mine and poor seepage monitoring.

Sun Bo would lose everything.

Liang Deng would be directly fired and blacklisted in the industry.

Feng Jianyi would end up in prison, ruining the rest of his life.

These were the fates they could foresee, terrifying yet utterly real.

By then, going to jail would be the lightest consequence, with all the money and achievements going down the drain, and all the benefits accumulated on that damned mine over the years would be sacrificed publicly, who could endure this?

But now, nobody knew whether the eight people below were dead or alive.

If they stayed down there forever, their lives and money would become everyone’s hush money.

By then, no matter how authorities investigated, they would insist those eight people were not there.

Let those destined to die carry the blame.

The assistant forged the attendance records, claiming they ran away.

Feng Jianyi fabricated evidence that those people’s seepage tests were poorly done.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by lotustale.com