Just as several groups were closing in from all sides to surround and capture the fugitive, the final whistle happened to sound and the match ended.
The national team had won. The cheers shaking the stadium and the mighty national anthem drowned out the sudden gunshot. Most of the people celebrating inside had no idea what terrifying events were unfolding outside the stands.
Spectators began filing out in order and descending the stairways. A few fans stepped into the corridor and froze in shock at the fight before them.
A suspect fleeing for his life naturally had no reason to hold back, but police officers could never abandon the bottom line of their duty. Uninvolved civilians suddenly entering the scene became a dangerous interference, and the unexpected confusion made Xue Qian realize how complicated the situation had become. Even as he drew his weapon, he had never intended to fire. That brief hesitation gave Gu Yaoting the opening to turn and escape through the doors right under his eyes.
A black armored luxury van rushed to the stadium entrance. A group of underlings had come to retrieve Young Master Gu. He climbed aboard, leaving a sparse trail of blood drops behind him.
“The suspect has exited through the main stadium entrance and entered a black van! All units outside, search for and intercept a black Mercedes van with license plate 【Yandu A8XXXX】!”
“Teams Four and Five, lock down every major road and intersection nearby. Distribute a clear frontal image of the suspect. Check every car and every person!”
“He’s not getting away today.”
The suspect was not getting away today. Every major road, intersection, and route in or out of Linwan New District had already been blocked in advance. Captain Xue had laid the net twenty hours earlier. Tonight they were closing it by force, shutting the gate and beating the dog inside the yard.
Linwan New District was not actually very large. On a map it was a narrow strip generated along the blue coastline, roughly twenty kilometers long and only three kilometers wide. Within that corridor, Captain Xue’s word ruled the roads. The entire district was locked down, and nobody would stop until the suspect was caught.
The target black van swerved madly through the crowded, narrow streets, ramming vehicles ahead, behind, and beside it and forcing a path through by brute impact. Police officers along the route moved civilians away to prevent accidental injuries.
More police cars switched on their sirens and converged from every direction, joining the righteous force driving out the demon and destroying evil.
Seen from the air at that moment, the long strip of Linwan New District would have been dense with flashing headlights while sirens wailed without pause. The lights joined into a winding river that flowed quickly through the streets.
The national team’s once-in-a-lifetime upset over their longtime South Korean nemesis triggered an overwhelming release of emotion online. The internet nearly collapsed at the final whistle.
Victory did not stop certain “wise-after-the-event” exposé posts from exploding across social platforms. They dissected the match from beginning to end, exposed supposed inside information, and tore the cover from Yandu’s massive football-betting scandal.
“BEI JIAHONG RECEIVED DEATH THREATS BEFORE THE MATCH. AFTER SCORING, HE WAS FORCED TO FAKE VOMITING AND COLLAPSE SO HE COULD LEAVE EARLY!”
“BEI JIAHONG MYSTERIOUSLY DISAPPEARED AFTER THE MATCH AND HAS STILL NOT REJOINED THE TEAM. SUSPECTED KIDNAPPING BY AN UNDERGROUND BETTING SYNDICATE!”
“BOOKMAKERS ORIGINALLY FIXED A 0–3 DEFEAT. XIAO BEI’S GOAL CAUSED CATASTROPHIC LOSSES. MORE THAN A BILLION YUAN IN MATCH-FIXING FUNDS SUSPECTED OF MONEY LAUNDERING…”
It looked as though nobody would sleep tonight. The police had not even had time to announce the identity of a suspect in an old case before someone online began exposing him impatiently. Whoever was feeding the leaks understood perfectly how urgently the public chased hot stories. One piece of hard material followed another, from “see you at nine tonight” to “see you at ten,” then “see you at midnight,” and finally “see you at eight tomorrow morning,” pushing the storm of public opinion higher one step at a time.
The police already understood the rough outline of events. Gu Yaoting’s participation in football betting and money laundering was only one of the scattered side businesses he used to make a little money. He probably never imagined that he would stumble over this particular match, end up trapped by the police because of it, and become the big fish thrashing to death inside their net.
Sure enough, photographs of Gu Yaoting and several secretly taken images connected to football betting were thrown online.
Previous final-round home defeats to Iran and Syria were suddenly assigned a mastermind as well. The internet erupted in fury. There were limits to what anyone could tolerate.
Even Yan Xiaodao could see that the way somebody was pushing the scandal forward from behind resembled what had happened in Mai Yunliang’s case.
Bureau Chief Bao probably saw it too. He had been waiting for an opportunity like this, and it appeared someone else behind the curtain had been waiting for the same opportunity. Whoever it was had struck ruthlessly.
Someone sat behind the scenes directing everything, deliberately making the scandal thunder through public opinion. They seized a topic guaranteed to ignite ordinary people, detonated the truth in public, and threw out a target whose identity could be recognized. Words such as “billionaire,” “privilege,” “cover-up,” and “death threat” were perfectly designed to hit the public’s sensitive nerves and drive a tidal wave of attacks.
Compared with Gu Yaoting’s actual crimes, these patched-together revelations were almost trivial scraps from the edges. But scraps were enough to peel back the devil’s skin, expose the festering flesh beneath, and reveal his ugly face to the world.
……
Night had already fallen over the harbor. Yan Xiaodao was driving his own car, volunteering in the citywide search as an “auxiliary officer” with no official post and not even a boxed meal for compensation. One elbow still hurt. Old injuries had accumulated into chronic muscle damage, and the arm was nearly ruined. One day he would have to ask Miracle Doctor Zhang to examine it again.
Yan Xiaodao watched every direction as he searched the dense traffic for the target. At the same time, he looked for the car Ling He was driving. He and Ling He had become separated in the rush out of the stadium while chasing the suspect. At that moment his phone vibrated softly.
Many people’s phones made the same vibration alert at almost exactly the same instant as they received a message containing an image.
Xue Qian, sitting inside the command vehicle, lowered his head to look at his phone.
Bureau Chief Bao, hurrying out of the stadium’s central monitoring room with a bag in hand, lowered his head to look at his phone.
Ling He, driving through the river of headlights, lowered his head to look at his phone.
Deputy Captain Fang, who had already transferred Bei Jiahong to a safe location, secured his protection, and successfully acquired an elaborate Bei Bear autograph and photograph, also lowered his head to look at his phone.
Yan Xiaodao picked up his phone from the passenger seat and gave the image a casual glance. The photograph, steeped in the blood of years past, struck his vision with such brutal force that it shattered his awareness and stopped his breath in an instant.
Streaming wounds formed a horrifying net around a person struggling at the edge of death, still trying to preserve dignity in the final moment of despair. The distinctive long black hair and shattered gleams of green were heartbreaking. Red lines seemed to run from the corners of the eyes and mouth. For one terrifying instant, Yan Xiaodao thought he was looking at a photograph of Ling He.
His mind and heart broke apart without warning, and the car suddenly veered out of control in his hands.
Fortunately his foot found the brake. Just as the front wheels jumped the curb, he managed to stamp the pedal down completely, leaving the car angled crookedly against the roadside.
Yan Xiaodao felt as though his entire body had been hung at an angle, his heart torn loose and suspended in midair. He forced himself to search the photograph for every tiny clue and finally determined that the person in it was not Ling He.
Mr. Ling was his bedmate, after all. Yan Xiaodao had touched and kissed every part of Ling He down to every strand of hair and knew him intimately. He forced himself to identify the tiny differences in body and skin. The problem was that the person in the photograph looked far too much like Ling He. Even the color of the irises was almost identical, and the long hair was the same.
A tide washed over him. White foam surged up and vanished again. Only after some time did Yan Xiaodao manage to retrieve his usual calm and composure.
There had been many things he did not know or understand before.
At this moment, he suddenly understood.
The identity of the victim in the photograph was practically self-evident. If he still could not see it, he would have to be an idiot.
The Twelve Young Masters of Yandu recorded in the Golden Brick Codex, the loss and exile Ling He had suffered when he was young, the hidden hand behind the threats that never stopped, and the entire revenge plan Ling He had built and pursued at any cost… At last everything connected from beginning to end, revealing an unmistakable chain of cause and effect.
Ling He would never personally tell him the truth about the past. Would Ling He ever say it? No. Ling He would never say it.
Who had sent this photograph? Obviously someone was trying to use it to threaten Ling He.
Where was Ling He now?!
……
Inside the command vehicle coordinating the citywide search, Captain Xue suddenly barked, “Pull over.”
“All units continue searching and checking. Do not let a single vehicle in the jurisdiction pass without inspection. Continue blocking every route out of the city and coordinate with neighborhood committees for joint searches. If anyone finds the suspect, do not act rashly. Report to me first!” After issuing the orders, Xue Qian stared again at the photograph on his phone.
He knew part of the background, but this was the first time even he had seen this photograph. It was genuinely horrifying.
Xue Qian quickly opened a private channel to the chief.
Bao Zhengwei immediately demanded, “You got the photograph?”
Xue Qian answered, “I got it.”
Bao Zhengwei said, “This should be the central incident Jian Mingxun confessed to last time, the one we still don’t have conclusive physical evidence for.”
Xue Qian cursed under his breath. “Did that fucking Gu Yaoting deliberately send this to us? Sending it now is a threat? Son of a bitch.”
“Of course it’s a threat.” Bao Zhengwei analyzed the situation simply. “The entire city is locked down. He can’t get out tonight. On our territory he’s a turtle in a jar, and Yandu is too far away to save him. If he doesn’t threaten us now, he won’t get another chance.”
Their units were closing around the target vehicle. Gu Yaoting’s capture was only a matter of time. It might happen in ten minutes, thirty minutes, or two hours. In any case, he could not escape the net or get out of the harbor.
And now, at this exact moment, everyone had received mocking, threatening photographs.
It was the opponent’s last desperate attempt to strike the ox beyond the mountain.
Bao Zhengwei remained calm. “Keep closing slowly. Tighten the perimeter. Don’t let him escape. Watch and wait.”
In that brief interval, another series of vibrations sounded from everyone’s phones as two more similar images arrived. They clearly belonged to the same set, though apparently they had not been taken continuously at the same time.
The malicious sender followed them with a message: 【Stop the arrest. Otherwise, there is a full seventy-two-hour video covering three days and three nights of spectacular material. The public would love something this heavy, wouldn’t they?】
Xue Qian stared at the message and cursed. “Fucking human trash.”
The sender continued: 【I want to meet little Ling. Ling He, I want to talk to you face to face. Little friend, you still don’t know how your mother died back then. It’s a wonderful story. Heh heh.】
Driving along the coastal road, Ling He finished reading the messages, lifted his gaze from the phone screen, and looked expressionlessly through the windshield. A purple mist seemed to rise from the far end of the road.
The hazy mist became clearer and clearer. They were approaching the end of this road, the place where everything would finally come into the light.
Ling He drove quietly while the Texas country music he often listened to played inside the car. He generally disliked rock, punk, and those unconventional avant-garde styles. His car always carried country music, relaxed and soothing melodies with husky, indifferent vocals, almost carrying the fresh scent of pasture grass and cornflowers from rural North America. It relaxed both his mood and his muscles.
Yan Xiaodao’s call came exactly as expected.
Ling He glanced at the number and sighed. “Tch.”
If it had been anyone else, he would not even have bothered answering. It saved him from all the tedious explanations and from having a crowd of people rush to shower him with their so-called sympathy, comfort, pity, and concern. He had no interest in admiring people wrapped in saintly halos dispensing benevolence over the mortal world. All he needed was the satisfaction of tearing his enemies apart with his own hands and ending everything.
Ling He answered. “Xiaodao.”
Hearing Ling He’s voice, Yan Xiaodao audibly relaxed, though his breathing remained rough. “Where are you?”
Ling He said, “On the road.”
Yan Xiaodao said, “Which road? Wait for me. I’m coming to find you.”
Ling He said, “You don’t need to find me. Follow Captain Xue and find the suspect. Why are you looking for me?”
Yan Xiaodao wanted to reach a hand through the phone and rip away the mask of excessive calm from Ling He’s voice. “Where exactly are you?!”
Ling He sighed helplessly. “I’m heading south on Bay Road Number One. Just passed the bus stop, almost at Tide-Watching Villa. This place looks familiar. Makes me a little nostalgic for the last time we fought and crashed a car here.”
Ling He’s voice carried a faint smile over the phone. He still had the leisure to joke.
Yan Xiaodao’s voice was hoarse. “Wait there. I’m coming to find you!”
Ling He said, “…Fine. Come.”
The road served both as a seaside sightseeing route and an ordinary traffic artery. Congestion was common because many drivers deliberately crawled along while enjoying the view. Beneath the lights, the traffic was heavy and slow.
Ling He was trapped in the flow, inching forward at a turtle’s pace, and had the feeling Yan Xiaodao was about to catch him. Then he raised his head and stared in surprise at a bus stop on the sidewalk ahead. Someone was standing on top of the shelter with the expression of a man about to ignite a bundle of explosives.
Ling He stared blankly for a moment at the perfectly upright silhouette planted on the roof. It was Xiaodao.
Yan Xiaodao knew Ling He would pass along this coastal road and feared that in the darkness he might fail to see the car and miss him. So he had simply climbed on top of the bus shelter. Sure enough, from there he spotted Ling He’s vehicle at once.
Yan Xiaodao jumped down cleanly, cut through the traffic, opened the door, and climbed into Ling He’s car.
He did not have much to say to Ling He. What was there to say? He reached across the seats, took Ling He’s right hand, and gripped it tightly. Their ten fingers intertwined, and Yan Xiaodao used the strength of every finger to hold Ling He firmly inside his grasp, terrified that one day he would turn around and find this man gone among the distant lights, harmed by some villain and impossible to find again.
The communicator opened. The normally rough-tempered Captain Xue actually coughed politely before speaking. “You two together?… Current situation: the suspect vehicle is trapped near Pier Five. It’s inside our sniper range. Both sides are holding position. We still want him alive, so we’re trying to avoid unnecessary gunfire.”
“Arrest him, Captain Xue,” Ling He said.
“We don’t know whether Gu Yaoting is holding important evidence. To prevent something unexpected, I haven’t ordered an assault yet. The negotiator will be in position soon,” Xue Qian explained quickly.
“Arrest him. Don’t worry about unexpected consequences,” Ling He repeated firmly, understanding that Captain Xue was in fact asking the victim for his view.
Bao Zhengwei said thoughtfully, “If he gets desperate, he may throw out material harmful to certain people as revenge or leverage. To avoid unnecessary chaos, we’re trying to handle this carefully.”
Ling He said, “If he has something to say, there’s no need for a negotiator. I’ll go talk to him.”
The other three men answered in perfect unison, “You cannot go. Absolutely do not show yourself now.”
Yan Xiaodao tightened his fingers around Ling He’s hand and kept speaking in a low voice. “He’s trying to lure you into showing yourself so he can hurt you. Work out the timeline. When your parents died, Gu Yaoting was still using the name Zhang Tingqiang and making money through loan-sharking in Sanjiang with You Jinglian. He hadn’t even gone to Yandu yet. If your parents died in Yandu back then, it had nothing to do with Gu Yaoting. He wasn’t the killer. What truth do you think he can tell you?”
“Exactly. He’s trying to drag things out,” Xue Qian agreed. “A suspect in this position may deliberately create chaos, look for a chance to run, take hostages, or even try to die together with somebody and drag another person down with him. We’ve seen every version of that routine. Neither of you should show yourselves under any circumstances. Don’t give him a target.”
Bureau Chief Bao abruptly changed his tone. “Ling He, don’t rush. We’ll handle it. And you, what are the two of you still doing wandering around outside? The whole district is locked down. Take Ling He home. You can even stay at my place for now. Both of you watch yourselves!”
Everyone avoided saying it aloud, but all of them were thinking about the same thing, the opponent’s most vicious threat.
Ling He’s mouth moved. He tore away the taboo for everyone and exposed the wound crusted in old blood. “He wants to threaten me with that? What a joke. I was both a witness and a participant in those three days and three nights, all seventy-two hours of it. So many years have passed. You think I’m afraid to watch the recording again? Heh. Let him bring it.”
The communications channel fell into a collective silence lasting nearly two full minutes.
Ling He never stopped the car. With Yan Xiaodao holding one hand, he drove steadily with the other.
Yan Xiaodao’s hand was damp and cold, sweat produced by his own agitation and tension. Ling He’s palm held not a trace of moisture. He sat as firmly as a rock, his braid and hair ends almost motionless, and drove with extraordinary steadiness.
Ling He’s words were ice-cold. A river of freezing light ran through his eyes, and the “heh” in his laugh sounded eerily similar to Gu Yaoting’s, enough to send a chill even through Yan Xiaodao. Perhaps the best way to face a devil was to become colder and crueler than the devil. After all these years, Ling He had become impervious to blades, bullets, and poison. Nothing could break him.
……
……
The perimeter tightened through the night. SWAT officers, negotiators, outer cordons, and snipers positioned above had all taken their places. The brilliantly lit Linwan Harbor was headed for a sleepless night.
Captain Xue and Bureau Chief Bao were not alone in working through the night. Plenty of people probably could not sleep. In Yandu, too, someone was certainly tossing and turning in fear.
As expected, Bureau Chief Bao’s phone began receiving all kinds of harassing calls. The callers spoke through clouds and fog, circling indirectly around the real purpose: they wanted Bao Zhengwei to let Gu Yaoting go.
Linwan was indeed Old Bao and Yaksha Xue’s home ground. Anyone who fell into this pit was bound to lose a layer of skin. But as long as the truth had not been exposed publicly, all sides could lay out their interests and trade concessions. There was still room to swap beams and pillars in the dark and make something disappear.
One “intermediary” said over the phone, “Chief Bao, this should be considered carefully over the long term. There’s no need to make things so ugly.”
Bao Zhengwei answered slowly, “We’re also following the principles and requirements from above. Homicide cases must be solved. Are you suggesting we break the law for personal reasons and disobey superior regulations?”
The intermediary laughed ingratiatingly. “Chief Bao, name your price. Give me a number.”
Bao Zhengwei snorted. “Why don’t you give me a number? How much power does this Gu Yaoting really have behind him? What official rank are we talking about?”
The intermediary sounded displeased. “Chief Bao, if you put it that way, you’re being deliberately difficult and refusing ordinary human consideration, aren’t you?”
Even Bao Zhengwei found the whole thing perverse. A favored male plaything under the gate of princes and nobles could apparently stand above the law. It was contemptible. Even the famous male favorites Zhang Changzong and Zhang Yizhi had hardly enjoyed more extravagant protection at the height of their influence.
Elio’s Notes: The supplied raw prints 張宗昌 here, but the historical male favorite paired with Zhang Yizhi was Zhang Changzong (張昌宗). The English follows the clearly intended historical name while preserving this source quirk in the note.
The truly important people would never appear themselves. All they needed was a mediator to deliver the meaning in a few sentences.
From the voice and manner, Bao Zhengwei suspected the other party was someone within the Yandu special investigation task force. These people had no interest in solving the case. They meant to shrink a shocking major crime into a manageable little matter.
The intermediary threatened him with a false smile. “Chief Bao, you’re already approaching retirement age. Why create trouble for yourself?”
Bao Zhengwei smiled too, neither hurried nor angry. “Exactly. I don’t have many years before retirement. While these old arms and legs are still in office, I might as well guide the young people through a few major cases.”
The people on the phone bluffed and feinted around each other. Bao Zhengwei spent the night performing several complete sets of verbal taiji, putting every year of his cultivated inner strength to use.
“Motherfucker.” Bao Zhengwei ended one call with an unusually direct curse, his expression dark.
“Xue Qian, have our technical unit do some work,” Bao Zhengwei suddenly ordered over the channel.
“Tell me,” Xue Qian said, unsure what new move the chief had invented.
Bao Zhengwei sat squarely in his office smoking. “Those videos we recovered last time from Mai Yunliang’s belongings. Have Technical pick several important moments and extract still images.”
Bao had deliberately kept one hand hidden and had not shared everything with Yandu. They currently held Jian Mingxun, an important witness, along with physical evidence supplied by both Jian Mingxun and Mai Yunliang. Their opponents still did not know how much this side possessed, nor how much ironclad evidence might already be in their hands.
In Mai Yunliang’s secretly recorded videos, one shameless face after another belonged to people of high rank and reputation, their flabby flesh trembling in bed. Those images were among the heaviest bargaining chips in the police’s hands.
“…What are you planning?” Xue Qian asked. “Put all of it online?” Tonight he felt as though he had encountered a counterfeit version of his chief, though personally he would have loved to unleash something spectacular and vent some of his disgust.
“Not online. Leave them a little face. No need to make it too ugly.” Bao Zhengwei’s expression was stern. “Send it directly to the people on the special task force. Use their phone numbers. Everyone gets a copy. You think everyone on that task force is as eager to solve the case as we are? Once these people receive it, somebody will ‘voluntarily’ pass the news farther upward. Let them feel ashamed.
“Use a fresh SIM. Don’t let them identify who sent it.
“Take several stills from the important parts of the videos. Mosaic Mai Yunliang, but leave everybody else’s faces visible. I want them to recognize those faces. I want them to understand that some crimes are backed by conclusive evidence and are too monstrous to bury. Add two photographs from the Golden Brick Codex too. Use Mai Yunliang and Yi Han, the two victims who are already dead. Have Technical send everything now.”
Xue Qian grinned over the channel and praised him sincerely. “Chief. Beautiful.”
Bao Zhengwei bit down hard on his cigarette holder. “Add one more line after the pictures. There are dozens of hours of recordings in total. If they want to see more, I’ll be waiting anytime.”
Xue Qian had no words. Even a rabbit bit when cornered. The chief was a tiger who simply did not show his claws often.
Bao Zhengwei stood before the window and blew out a ring of smoke. Return the other side’s own method to them. Fuck. You want to fight me?
The long night was almost over. Purple light gathered in the east as dawn settled over the harbor after its night of terror.
Old fox Bao Zhengwei’s strategy of “besieging Wei to rescue Zhao” worked beautifully and immediately silenced the surrounding mouths. That ugly pile of secret evidence disappeared into the recipients’ phones like mud oxen entering the sea. No splash came back. Nobody exploded in anger, nobody replied, and nobody dared make a sound.
Elio’s Notes: “Besiege Wei to Rescue Zhao” (圍魏救趙) is the name of a classic Chinese stratagem: instead of confronting pressure directly, strike at something the opponent must protect and force them to relieve that pressure. Bao uses the same logic here by threatening the interests of the people shielding Gu Yaoting.
Who could fail to recognize those prestigious, famous faces? Who could fail to recognize the ugly flesh exposed once those people stripped away their robes of public virtue? Whether they had known the truth before or had just discovered it, everyone made the same choice: play stupid. At the critical moment they invoked officialdom’s universal rule of protecting oneself, pretended they had received and seen nothing, and even the “intermediary” stopped making harassing calls on Gu Yaoting’s behalf.
Many people were probably secretly guessing whether this was Bao Zhengwei’s counterattack and threat, and whether he had another chain of moves behind it. Impossible to know. If the powerful figures behind Gu Yaoting could no longer protect their own innocence and were themselves swaying on the verge of collapse, who would still care about Gu Yaoting’s worthless life?