Sunset Boulevard

On December 29th of that year, at [-]:[-] a.m. local time in East Ninth District, a reporter from the Independent Republic of Thailand who was on vacation on a cruise took a risk to secretly record a video of soldiers from the Asian Union landing on the cruise in the early morning and arresting Chen Boqiao. Uploaded to the Internet, causing an uproar.

And this [-]-ton luxury cruise ship departing from the port of South Australia, detoured through the independent country of Thailand, and headed for North America became the focus of attention in the next twelve days.

In order to reassure people, the cruise company issued an apology statement. The president of the cruise line personally broadcast an apology to the cruise ship, promising that the ship will continue to sail to North America and will not return, and also promises that there will be specific compensation measures after landing.

After two or three days of panic, the guests in the center of the storm had another lively year on board.

On the night of the New Year's Eve, Zhang Jue and Cui Chengze stayed in the suite.

At zero o’clock, the countdown on the public deck rushed through the glass door of the balcony of the suite, and passed directly into their ears. The crowd was like a carnival, counting from ten to one. fireworks.

The sound of fireworks exploding, and the colorful light of fireworks reflected on the floor and railings outside the French windows herald the end of one year and the beginning of the next.

Cui Chengze and Zhang Jue spent nearly two weeks together in the same suite.

The TV in the living room is on 24 hours a day, and it is tuned to the news station most of the time. Cui Chengze suspects that the TV in Zhang Jue’s room is also the same, because when he passed by Zhang Jue’s room, he heard the same news from the TV in the living room through the door. sound.

Zhang never smoked or drank. He got up around six o'clock every morning and went upstairs to swim.

When he came back after breakfast, he opened the door of the suite at almost eight o'clock sharp. Cui Chengze, who had been in the army for many years, felt that he was too harsh on him.

Zhang Jue seldom talks, and his speech speed is slightly slow. Although he looks a little cold on the surface, after getting along for a while, it is easy to detect that Zhang Jue is just introverted, not arrogant.

When it's meal time, Zhang Jue and Cui Chengze sometimes go downstairs to find a restaurant to eat, sometimes order food, and almost stay in the room or living room the rest of the time, holding a hand-held computer, looking at something.

Zhang Jue has very little contact with the outside world, but if he receives a call, he will not avoid Cui Chengze.

He talked on the phone with a person named "Jiaxi" every day. Under Jiaxi's pressure, he told his daily itinerary like writing a running account diary. He would smile a few times, but he never mentioned Chen Boqiao.

According to Cui Chengze's judgment, two or three calls Zhang Jue answered were from his parents.

Seeing how Zhang Jue answered the phone, Cui Chengze felt that his parents seemed to have lost their temper.

Zhang Jue would listen patiently for a long time, then sit cross-legged on the sofa, and whisper something like "I didn't think of it" or "I'll think of a way" helplessly.

To be honest, Cui Chengze felt that although Zhang Jue sounded sincere, it was actually a bit perfunctory.

Zhang Jue's life was too regular, except for Chen Boqiao's slight emotional outburst on the day Chen Boqiao left, he had always been calm, so that Cui Chengze walked out of the room to pour water in the early morning of a certain day, and bumped into Zhang Jue who was sleeping in the living room. I don't know what Colonel Chen meant by Zhang Jue's "not caring" about him.

Zhang Jue had gone back to his room very early that night, but for some reason he came out again.

He didn't turn on the light, and lay on the sofa covered with a thin blanket. The volume of the TV was turned down, and he ordered a black and white song and dance movie from the Independent Kingdom of Thailand. The movie was nearing its end.

When Cui Chengze approached, he found that Zhang Jue was asleep, with his eyes closed quietly, curled up on the sofa.

Zhang Jue is very tall, and his posture lying on the sofa does not look very comfortable. His legs are bent, his waist is bowed, his lips are tightly pressed, and he looks old-fashioned and stubborn.

The TV screen is the only light source in the living room, and the cool-toned light changes according to the scenes in the movie, brightly and dimly illuminating Zhang Jue. His right hand hangs down from the sofa, with the back of his hand pressed against the floor, holding it loosely.

The temperature in the living room was low, Zhang Jue's blanket was too thin, and he was prone to catch a cold, so Cui Chengze turned on the light in the entrance, walked back, leaned over and gave him a gentle push: "Mr. Zhang."

Zhang Jue opened his eyes, but he didn't seem to be fully awake, his eyes were out of focus, Ben's hand loosened, and a small object fell out of his palm and landed on the floor.

Cui Chengze looked down, it was a small transparent plastic sealing bag, and a very small metal object was sealed in the bag, the shape was irregular, it seemed to be broken, some cracked.

He stretched out his hand, wanting to pick it up for Zhang Jue, but Zhang Jue was one step ahead of him, picked up the bag quickly, and then sat up.

Right at the end of the movie, the screen goes black and starts scrolling up the credits credits.

"Mr. Zhang," Cui Chengze said to him, "it's cold outside."

Zhang Jue sat blankly for a while, then nodded.He told Cui Chengze that the TV in his room was broken, so he came out, said good night to Cui Chengze, lifted the blanket covering his legs, and walked back to the room slowly.

During the more than ten days of the cruise, scandals about the president of the Asian Union, Zhao Kun, emerged one after another on land.

Videos and photos of the secret meeting between him and the judge who sentenced Chen Boqiao to death before the trial leaked out, and the huge unidentified account of a close friend of the opposite sex of Judge Mingming attracted the attention of the ICAC, and calls for a retrial of the Chen Boqiao case were loud.

On the day before arriving in North America, at [-]:[-] AM AFC time, the Congress passed the first presidential impeachment bill since the establishment of the AFC with a high number of votes, suspending Zhao Kun from his presidency and ordering him to undergo a special investigation.

In the afternoon of the same day, the Judicial Committee announced the resignation of the chief judge of the Chen Boqiao case, and the case will be retried in [-] days.

On the morning of the day they landed, they were already able to see the mainland from the deck.

In recent days, the weather at sea has not been very good, most of it is cloudy, but on the last day, the sun came out and radiated some heat from the cold air.

Zhang Jue opened the door of the deck balcony and went out to see the North American continent separated by a sea.

Cui Chengze sat on the single sofa and watched his back.Wrapped in a windbreaker, Zhang Jue stood flimsy in the wind, motionless, as if he wanted to stand on the dock of the cruise ship.

At ten o'clock in the morning, Cui Chengze's phone on the coffee table rang, it was a secret connection from Pei Shu.

Cui Chengze was shocked when he saw the caller number, because Pei Shu had told him before boarding the boat that they would not contact unless necessary.When he picked up the phone, Pei Shu's voice seemed a little tired, but full of energy.

He first asked Cui Chengze about the situation on the cruise ship, paused for a while, and then asked Cui Chengze: "Is Zhang Jue by your side?"

"Yes." Cui Chengze looked up at Zhang Jue and said.

"Let him listen to the call." Pei Shu said.

Cui Chengze called Zhang Jue, Zhang Jue turned his head, saw Cui Chengze holding the mobile phone, and immediately walked into the room.

His foot stumbled on the door frame of the balcony, and he reacted very quickly to support the glass door so as not to fall down. His eyes widened a little, he quickly pursed his lips, and looked up at Cui Chengze again.

"Do you want me to answer the phone?" he asked Cui Chengze.

Cui Chengze nodded, and Zhang Jue smiled slightly at him.

Zhang Jue took the phone from Cui Chengze's hand and put it to his ear. After a few seconds, the other party said, "Zhang Jue?"

Zhang Jue was taken aback for a moment, because it was not Chen Boqiao's voice on the other side of the phone.

The caller's pitch was higher, and his speech was more cadenced than Chen Boqiao's.He said, "I am Pei Shu."

Zhang Jue was stunned for a moment, and then said: "Yes. Hello."

"He's about to get out of prison," Pei Shu said again, "if there are no accidents."

Zhang Jue understood what Pei Shu said, and suddenly it seemed that new blood flowed in, and his limbs and bones became warm.

But Zhang Jue was not very good at answering conversations, so he asked Pei Shu, "Is that so?"

"Yes." Pei Shu said.

"I called you to tell you that although he will be released from prison soon, I can't contact you for the time being," Pei Shu spoke quickly, fluently, and straightforwardly, "The impeachment bill has just been passed, and it is still far away It's far from the end, and he can't be careless in his every move right now."

"Okay." Zhang Jue said. "It's okay," he said again.

Pei Shu paused for a while, and for some reason, he slowed down his tone a little."It's good that you understand," he said.

At this point, the two have nothing to say.

There was silence on both sides of the phone for more than ten seconds, and Pei Shu said, "That's how it is."

They said their goodbyes and cut off the phone.