In an ordinary residential complex somewhere in Linwan, the heavy iron gate stood half open at an awkward angle. The gap was not exactly narrow, but it was nowhere near wide enough for even half a car to squeeze through. The elderly gatekeeper sat motionless inside his booth, his head dropping once, then dropping again. After several valiant rounds of battle against sleep, he finally gave up completely and plunged into dreamland, leaving a tenant waiting outside in his car.
The man inside the car removed his sunglasses. The pale circles around his eyes only made the exhausted red veins in them more obvious. Truthfully, he was no less sleepy than the old gatekeeper. He had been going nonstop for more than twenty hours and had yet to touch a pillow.
After returning from Luancheng, Xue Qian had gone directly from the airport to the municipal bureau, reporting upward and assigning tasks downward. Only after everything was finished did he finally head home. Resting his cheek on one hand, he stared through the window at the sleeping gatekeeper for a while before honking once. The old man did not even wake up. Captain Xue did not have the heart to honk again, so he got out, pushed open the iron gate himself, dragged his exhausted body back into the car, and slowly drove into the complex.
At that moment, a certain young master called to check on him. Judging by the timing, Liang Youhui had probably set an alarm and called precisely when he calculated Xue should be home. “Brother Xue, you home?”
Xue Qian simply collapsed against the driver’s seat. “Mm…”
“You’re exhausted, aren’t you? When you’re free, let’s go riding sometime. There’s a stable right beside Red Square in Linwan!”
Xue Qian’s voice came out almost like a groan. “Mm… no time…”
Young Master Liang had never heard Officer Xue sound like this before. Extreme fatigue combined with a mildly congested nose from a slight cold gave his voice a husky, nasal quality that was strangely sexy, like a man lingering lazily beneath the blankets after an energetic morning in bed.
Liang Youhui unilaterally decided the date. “Ge, then I’ll pick you up outside your bureau this weekend!”
Xue Qian frowned faintly. “Ride what horse? …I don’t have the strength to ride anybody right now… I’m dead tired… And I don’t have riding gear…”
Liang Youhui immediately began flattering him. “Helmet, vest, breeches, boots, gloves, gaiters, knee guards, I bought everything for you. Had it delivered to your place. It should’ve arrived today. Did you see the package?”
Xue Qian’s heavy eyelids flew open. “What?”
By then he had reached his apartment door. Still on the phone, he looked around. “What delivery? There’s nothing here.”
Liang Youhui sounded astonished. “It definitely should’ve arrived!”
Xue Qian said, “Fuck, how much did you spend on the stuff?”
“More than thirty thousand, I think.”
Xue Qian exploded. “You spent over thirty thousand and just mailed it like a normal fucking parcel? What did you think you bought, mantis shrimp? Spicy snack sticks? Are you stupid?! I’m quitting criminal investigation. From now on I’m becoming your family’s full-time courier!”
The young master’s package of love was nowhere to be seen.
Still cursing Liang Youhui for wasting money, Xue Qian took out his key and opened the door. The boxed meal he had left on the living-room table before going on his business trip was actually still there. At this point, had it grown fur and maggots?
Xue Qian wrapped the food container and the entire mess on the table in newspaper and dumped everything into the trash. He was thoroughly fed up with the crude life of a bachelor.
He rented a tiny one-bedroom apartment. He had once lived here with his partner, but after their breakup, the other man’s belongings disappeared overnight, instantly making even this modest one-bedroom place feel empty and lifeless, with bare walls and not the slightest warmth of a home. He had once mocked Mr. Ling’s Hanhai House for looking like a morgue, but Ling He’s Republican-era villa was valuable and elegant. The place that truly resembled a morgue was Xue Qian’s cheap rented apartment, receiving his walking corpse every night.
He rarely wanted to come home anyway. Home was simply somewhere to collapse and grab a few hours of sleep. When his love life went badly, he numbed himself by throwing nonstop stimulant-like energy into work, forcibly wringing some meaning and pursuit out of an otherwise bland everyday existence. While he was still young enough to work, he might as well earn more overtime pay and collect a few more model-worker banners. Other than solving cases, there was not much he wanted from life.
While his thoughts wandered, Liang Youhui started rambling again. Xue Qian unexpectedly softened his tone. “Youhui, stop sending me things from now on. That looks like a suspect bribing a police officer. No more gifts.”
Liang Youhui’s voice practically transformed into an adorable creature surrounded by pink bubbles through the phone screen. “If it’s from your boyfriend, then it isn’t a bribe. It’s a contribution of love!”
Xue Qian smiled silently, unexpectedly touched and softened inside.
He entered the bedroom without even bothering to take off his trousers and threw himself headfirst onto the bed. Liang Youhui’s nonsense was still pouring into his ear when, in the instant he bent down, something unusual on the bedside table caught the corner of his eye.
A cop’s eyes were notoriously sharp. Years of digging through scenes for clues and evidence had conditioned him so thoroughly that he knew every scrap of paper and speck of dust in his own home. Nothing foreign escaped his notice.
Captain Xue delicately pinched a sheet of stationery from the bedside table between two fingers, his face immediately changing.
The instant he saw what was written on it, he sprang upright from the bed. Every nerve and blood vessel in his body seemed to explode awake as his hand expertly drew the pistol holstered at the back of his waist.
“Youhui, I’m going to sleep. We’ll talk later.” Without revealing the slightest trace of anything wrong, Xue Qian first got Young Master Liang off the phone.
For one moment, he unconsciously held his breath and listened in every direction. He clicked off the pistol’s safety and scanned the bedroom.
In the dim apartment, he could hear only his own heavy breathing and deliberately softened footsteps. Xue Qian’s expression was grave, his eyes dark red with anger. Gun in hand, he searched the bedroom, then meticulously swept the living room, kitchen, and bathroom.
In one corner of the bedroom sat a small leather case packed neatly with crisp new hundred-yuan bills. Compared with Young Master Liang’s “contribution of love,” this gift was vastly more generous. There was roughly three hundred thousand yuan inside.
Apart from that, there were no other traces. He found no camera, listening device, or anything similar.
“F*** your mother.” Xue Qian spat the censored curse through clenched teeth. Fury carved itself deeply into the lines of his forehead and mouth. For perhaps two seconds, confusion flickered across his face, but every emotion connected to cowardice, fear, hesitation, or indecision showed only the briefest corner before a much stronger force swept it clean away. A surging tide drowned everything else.
The letter was written in neat imitation-Song typeface, deliberately regular enough to conceal the writer’s natural handwriting:
【Captain Xue, you’ve been solving cases very efficiently lately and have worked hard enough to earn plenty of credit. When it’s time to rest, you should learn to rest.
After all, the people who died were unrelated outsiders. Your own life is what matters.
Know when enough is enough. Stop here. When you can spare someone, spare them. Sparing others is also sparing yourself!
We hear your predecessor, Captain Lu, Officer Lu, was careless in dealing with people and failed to understand the times, and unfortunately met an unnatural death. What a pity.
Captain Xue, surely you don’t want to follow Captain Lu down the same road. We hope you live long enough to enjoy wealth and rank, rise steadily in your career, and keep your entire family safe and healthy. We have plenty of time ahead of us!】
……
It was an unmistakable written threat ordering him to stop investigating.
Stop, and the three hundred thousand became his bribe. Continue, and they would take his life.
Xue Qian stood beside the bed and quietly lifted one corner of the curtain. Below him lay the so-called garden lawn, half of it nothing but exposed dirt. Their residential complex was ordinary and run-down, and the developer had treated landscaping as a nuisance, scattering a few holly trees around merely to satisfy requirements before washing their hands of it. The property company had left the lawn patchy ever since. Whenever strong northern winds blew, dust filled the air like a construction site.
The security guard at the iron gate might as well not exist. He spent twenty hours out of every twenty-four dozing, so there was no point questioning him. The corridor cameras were decorative props installed for appearance and had never actually recorded anything.
Xue Qian saw nothing abnormal wherever his gaze swept, yet the threat itself was painfully real. His arrogant opponent had entered his bedroom while he remained completely unaware and left the note there simply to tell him: Captain Xue, we can enter and leave your bedroom whenever we please. Flattening your home would be effortless.
Xue Qian rapidly sorted through the people he had been watching most closely lately.
First, Qi Baoshan, head of Baoding Group, with Master Qi’s godson Yan Xiao reluctantly included along with him.
Second, Ling Huang, who had a history connected to a molestation case and whose life or death remained unknown.
Third, Zhang Tingqiang, “Bald Ting,” the leader of the Three Rivers gang who still had not been found despite repeated investigation.
Who had left this note?
Or… were all three somehow connected, secretly colluding as members of the same hidden group?
……
Only one street away from Xue Qian’s apartment complex, a black car with brown-tinted bulletproof windows sat concealed beneath the trees. From its position, the occupants had clearly watched Xue Qian drive home earlier, yet Xue Qian could not see the vehicle from upstairs.
Two silent, cold-faced bodyguards sat in the front. One glance was enough to tell they were professionals. Bodyguards hired by major businessmen were generally retired military personnel or former martial-arts and combat-sports athletes.
The man in the back seat had his hair slicked perfectly into place with pomade. A black Zhongshan jacket with a standing collar covered his neck and lower face, making his already thin, vigorous features seem even sharper. Efficient, capable, and wrapped in a layer of dark cloud, he looked completely inscrutable.
The man was none other than Liang Tong, president of the Liang family corporation in Yandu. Still, for someone who ran an entire corporate group to appear personally in a place like this and handle such trivial dirty work seemed a little excessive, like using a butcher’s knife to kill a chicken. Wouldn’t sending some underling have been enough?
Liang Tong dialed a number and said hoarsely, “I handled it according to your method. Xue Qian should’ve seen the note and the case of money by now, but whether he’ll obey is hard to say. I doubt it. Xue Qian is difficult.”
A rough laugh from the other end tore open the suffocating silence inside the car. “If he’s human, he values his life, and everybody likes money. Are there really people in this world who want neither money nor their lives? Impossible to teach fools.”
Liang Tong’s expression darkened. “He’s even more troublesome than that former Captain Lu. One Judge leaves and a Yasha takes his place.”
The person on the other end sounded utterly unconcerned. “More troublesome than Captain Lu? Then send him off to meet Captain Lu.”
Liang Tong: “…”
Heavy with thought, Liang Tong ended the call and immediately dialed another number. “Youhui?”
“Ah… Dad…” The little mouse had encountered the old cat and instantly snapped to respectful attention. “I didn’t go out playing. I’m sleeping at the hotel!”
“That’s enough. Stop sleeping too.” Liang Tong issued his order in a tone that allowed no argument. “Pack your luggage. Meet me at the airport. You’re coming home with me.”
“I still have business here. I’ll go back after my meetings.” How could Little Mouse Liang bear to go home? He had planted himself permanently at the Linwan Grand Hotel precisely so he could remain near Brother Xue. Every few days, he invented an excuse to visit the municipal bureau, deliver flowers or gifts to Officer Xue, flirt shamelessly, and inch toward tangible progress. With the perseverance of an iron pestle ground into a needle and dripping water wearing through stone, he was determined to pierce the righteous, proper mask worn by that tough man Xue, expose the flirt hiding underneath, and eventually coax him into bed.
“I’ve assigned the branch-company work to somebody else. You don’t need to stay there for business anymore. I have another assignment for you. Get your ass home today!” Liang Tong coldly shattered every piece of his son’s wishful thinking.
Business? The only “official business” occupying that brat’s mind was the cop surnamed Xue.
Spending the money his father had supposedly earned through years of praying to gods and Buddhas and enduring every hardship, fooling around with men and women outside every day, and of all the people he could chase, the boy actually had the nerve to pursue Xue Qian?! One day he would die without even knowing how, and drag his own father into the grave along with him.
On the back seat beside Chairman Liang sat an enormous confiscated courier package, heavy with expensive goods. The shipping label was perfectly clear: recipient, “Officer Xue Qian.” Sender, “Youhui.”
……
At the same time, Yan Xiaodao’s group landed and raced toward his hometown, Huima Town in Nanjiao County.
Life was indeed unpredictable. Such an abrupt upheaval had descended on a remote village town that had once been peaceful and quiet.
Heavy trucks and earth haulers thundered constantly between villages, making the narrow roads increasingly congested and filling the air with dust. The once-bustling market and crowds had been squeezed into forgotten corners until ordinary people barely had room to live. Peace had been shattered. Even the bell of the century-old Christian church sounded heavy and obscure, as though helpless before the unexpected changes gathering over the town.
The convoy sped across the uneven suburban road.
Immortal Mao drove the SUV with the sweeping momentum of a great saber cleaving mountains and opening rivers. All four wheels nearly left the ground, as though she intended to flatten every ravine and pothole through sheer determination to kill gods if gods blocked her way.
Yan Xiaodao clutched the overhead handle with one hand, his entire digestive tract practically rearranged by the shaking. He complained, “Young lady, the way you drive, you’re practically ascending to immortality. The car in front sprays exhaust. Your car sprays immortal qi out of its ass!”
Beside Mr. Yan, Boss Ling’s long, slender body rocked forward and backward in time with Mao Zhixiu’s insane driving, swaying loosely in every direction. Ling He was already thin enough that Yan Xiaodao worried several bones might shake apart if this continued. Yet Ling’s waist seemed remarkably flexible. Every time centrifugal force nearly flung him away, he calmly used the strength of his core to pull himself back.
Outside the windows, yellow dust covered everything and blurred near and far alike. The vendors who once sold chickens, ducks, sheep, and dogs had vanished. Along the rural market that had once been packed shoulder to shoulder, only a few lonely stalls now dotted the roadside like scattered goat droppings.
The place beside Ling He that had remained empty for so many years was finally occupied by the person he wanted, yet he still felt something was missing.
“Where’s that candied-hawthorn stall?” Ling He suddenly turned and asked Xiaodao.
“Even if it’s still around, you couldn’t eat the hawthorns now.” Yan Xiaodao laughed. “Look at all this dust. They wouldn’t be coated in sugar anymore. They’d be coated in dirt.”
In the limited portion of Ling He’s consciousness reserved for warm memories, even the gritty coating on those candied hawthorns tasted sweet. Disappointment appeared in his eyes. Yan Xiaodao patted his hand. “Fine. I’ll make them for you at home someday. Clean ones.”
Ling He gave him no face at all. “Since when can Mr. Yan cook? Aren’t you only good at eating?”
Yan Xiaodao laughed with broad, shameless confidence. “I only ate a few meals you cooked. I wouldn’t even bother with anyone else’s.”
The two bickered idly all the way, merely using it to conceal the tight urgency in their hearts. Neither had taken his attention from the murky chaos gathering on the road ahead.
Mao Zhixiu drove too aggressively. At one turn, she cut across the straight lane and swung right, directly blocking another vehicle moving alongside them. Caught off guard, the other car clipped Miss Mao’s right side mirror crooked. Someone inside immediately roared, “How the hell do you drive?!”
The tires of both vehicles fought sparks from the road, leaving several intertwined tire tracks behind them, passionately tangled together.
A round head popped out of the driver’s window. The man stared more carefully. “Yo, it’s a woman! Figures. People without balls all drive like this. Can’t afford to mess with them!”
The remark struck Immortal Mao directly on a sensitive nerve. “What’s wrong with women? Who the hell are you? So people with balls all drive like cowards like you, dithering around, refusing to pass and refusing to yield?!”
The two men with balls sitting in the back could not endure any more. Yan Xiaodao reached forward helplessly and gently tugged the back of Immortal Mao’s collar with two fingers. “Young lady, perhaps we…”
The car on their right was packed with sturdy men. Someone suddenly noticed the people in Mao’s back seat and shouted in shock, “…Boss!!”
By sheer coincidence, while both groups were racing toward Huima Town in Nanjiao County, Yan’s brothers had run into them on the same road. The sharp little brat driving the other vehicle was none other than Yang Xifeng.
“And that demon surnamed Ling!” Yang Xifeng glared furiously at the venomously beautiful man sitting upright inside the other car, practically a serpent transformed into human form.
Yan Xiaodao’s entire group of brothers poured from their vehicles and surrounded Mr. Ling’s car with a formation tight enough to block every exit. Every face shone with ecstatic gratitude at finally rescuing their boss and united fury at finally catching the culprit responsible for his suffering. If Mao Zhixiu had not locked the doors and windows from inside quickly enough, the whole group might have dragged the great demon out of the car, beaten him with bricks, chopped off his serpent tail, and sacrificed it to their banner before their hatred could possibly be satisfied.
Neither Yan Xiaodao’s eyes nor his hand gestures could stop Fengfeng, Kuanzi, and the others from charging forward with righteous fury. Their indelible final image of their boss remained Yan lying covered in blood at the edge of a cliff after being ambushed, all thanks to this beautiful great demon who bewitched people with his face.
Ling He sat with one leg crossed over the other, completely calm. In situations like this, he never explained himself. He simply tossed the problem straight to the handsome and socially gifted Mr. Yan.
For the first time in his life, Yan Xiaodao discovered the exquisite sensation of becoming the pork patty trapped between two halves of a sandwich. Even if he slapped the crown of a foolish ruler onto his head right now, it could not hide the embarrassment spreading across his thick-skinned old face. Quietly, he pressed a hand over Ling He’s wrist and reassured him, “I’ll find a chance to explain everything clearly to Fengfeng and the others. Don’t feel bad, and you’re not allowed to hold a grudge!”
Ling He had already stopped insisting on the cold, inhuman cruelty he had displayed when he briefly lost himself that night. The only thing he refused to do was bow his head and apologize in front of everyone. As long as Yan Xiaodao forgave his little evils and mistakes, he did not care how thoroughly everyone else cursed him bloody.
Having obtained both Xiaodao’s body and heart was, to Ling He, equivalent to obtaining the whole world. He had finally gotten what he wanted and tasted mutual love. Why would anything else matter? Many things had gradually become easier for him to release. If he had never stabbed Yan Xiaodao that day, the resentment in his heart would always have remained unresolved. Once he stabbed him, even that hatred scattered with the clouds. Step back one pace, and the sea and sky opened wide.
Yang Xifeng sniffed miserably and firmly demanded that their boss change cars. How could he possibly ride in the same vehicle as this scheming fox spirit? Boss, whose side are you even on?!
Yan Xiaodao leaned toward Ling He and murmured, “I’ll ride with them. You head back first. Once I’m finished, I’ll see you tonight?”
A trace of disappointment and unwillingness trembled at the ends of Ling He’s lashes. Without thinking, he threw out a nasty threat. “Fine. Get out of the car now, and tonight I’m taking it back three times.”
“Pfft!” Immortal Mao had been rinsing her throat with homemade rock-sugar mint-and-lotus-leaf tea and sprayed a mouthful of hot liquid over the windshield. She possessed the bittersweet mentality of an older sister who had finally managed to marry off a grown child. Now that her mission was accomplished, she wiped the spit from the glass with a blissful expression and offered an explanation that only made matters worse. “My throat itched. Tea was too hot.”
“Stop fooling around.” Yan Xiaodao could not even be bothered insulting Ling He. They had already gone far beyond three times the previous night. The man of the house had simply been indulging him, so the brat had better stop getting arrogant.
After coaxing the difficult Mr. Ling into behaving, Yan Xiaodao strode away with the energy of a dragon and tiger and called his own brothers back into their vehicles. A battle that had been poised to erupt like an arrow already on the string ended with a surprisingly quiet whimper. Both groups were family now. There was no reason to draw swords and injure one another.
Ling He told Mao Zhixiu, “Let their convoy go first. We’ll follow behind.”
……