The first person from the “Heaven-Measuring Ruler” Hao Le ever met was the Mr. Jin Yin Jingliu had mentioned. Under Yin Jingliu’s care, Hao Le’s condition gradually improved, but they were still hiding in the mountains, where conditions were far too poor. Mr. Jin appeared and took both of them to a private hospital in Luocheng. Hao Le remained there for more than half a month, and Yin Jingliu stayed by his side the entire time.
He did not understand why Mr. Jin had chosen that moment to save him, or how he had managed to get him admitted to a hospital that required detailed identity registration. Years of hardship had taught Hao Le to keep quiet. Only later did he learn that the “Heaven-Measuring Ruler” had deliberately refrained from rescuing him immediately because of a kind of superstition. They wanted to see whether he could survive on his own. Only someone who endured would be worth pouring the organization’s resources into.
After he was discharged, Mr. Jin’s next move shocked him even more: he took Hao Le and Yin Jingliu to a mountain village in Country K. There, Hao Le saw more than a dozen young people around his own age, all looking at him with hostility and wariness. At first he had no idea where their animosity came from, but Mr. Jin, in his usual gentle tone, told him he would have to compete with the others.
Mr. Jin asked, “What is your goal?”
Hao Le stared blankly for quite a while. A goal? Life seemed to have worn his future flat long ago. When his father was alive, he had wanted to study hard and give the man who had worked himself to exhaustion all his life a good life. After his father died, debt repayment consumed him, and his goal became paying everything off as quickly as possible. Now, he truly could not think of anything concrete.
Mr. Jin seemed somewhat disappointed. “Have you forgotten why you were injured so badly?”
In an instant, the agony that had seemed to soak his very soul in blood came rushing back, and he trembled all over in fear.
Mr. Jin said, “Don’t you want revenge?”
Revenge on Feng Feng and Zeng Yan? He hated them, certainly, but revenge had never occurred to him. He gave a bitter smile. “Mr. Jin, when someone has suffered too much and too deeply, their first thought isn’t actually revenge. It’s to get away and never meet those scumbags again.”
Mr. Jin looked thoughtful, but quickly corrected him. “That’s because you’re still too weak. In this world, the weak are the ones people with resources can torment to death. If you want to escape that fate, you have to rise above the people who humiliated you. Once you’re standing high enough, you’ll realize taking revenge on them is as easy as crushing an ant.”
Hao Le only half understood. He wanted to argue, but he was deeply wary of Mr. Jin, so he simply kept his mouth shut.
Mr. Jin pointed toward Yin Jingliu in the distance and smiled. “You and Xiao Yin went to the same school, and you’re even a year older than him. But Xiao Yin is far more determined than you. From the first day I met him, his goal has never changed.”
Hao Le knew Yin Jingliu’s goal: revenge on Feng Feng. Truthfully, he did not quite understand it. Yin Jingliu had failed to become a pilot, but becoming a doctor was still a good path. He also had such a wonderful family. Uncle Yin made delicious noodles, and Aunt Linglong was gentle and tolerant. If Hao Le had parents like that, forget becoming a doctor. He would have been willing to labor on construction sites every single day.
“If Xiao Yin gets his revenge, then mine will count as settled too,” Hao Le said. “Feng Feng was the one who did all of it anyway.”
But Mr. Jin looked at him strangely and said, with an unreadable undertone, “That depends on whether he qualifies to take revenge.”
Hao Le did not understand, and Mr. Jin offered no further explanation.
More than a dozen young people lived in the sealed-off village, studying foreign languages, medicine, and other subjects every day. Hao Le gradually understood that Mr. Jin was training them to become tools for the organization. The realization did not frighten him. He had no family left. This was as good a place as any to live, and if they eventually ordered him to commit crimes, so be it.
But things were nowhere near as simple as Hao Le imagined. Mr. Jin came to the house where he and Yin Jingliu lived and told them that the second-to-last course in their training was to form pairs and eliminate everyone else. Yin Jingliu looked almost excited. Hao Le asked uneasily, “What does eliminate mean?”
Mr. Jin smiled. “You’ll know when the time comes.”
There was no need to wait long. That very night, the village became a battle royale. Hao Le was stabbed in his sleep. If his attacker’s aim had been a little better, he would have died beneath the blade. He had no time even to register the pain before instinct made him fight back. Yin Jingliu woke as well, and the two of them subdued the attacker together.
Hao Le knew the man. They had even partnered up during foreign-language class. He had never imagined the other person would try to kill him without the slightest hesitation. In that moment, Hao Le finally understood what Mr. Jin had meant.
Suddenly, the dull sound of a blade entering flesh turned Hao Le’s blood cold. As the knife was pulled free, hot blood sprayed across his face. He stared at Yin Jingliu in shock. Yin Jingliu kicked the man on the ground aside and reached toward him. “What are you standing there for? Grab the gear. If you don’t, we won’t survive the night!”
“You… you killed him?” Hao Le’s voice trembled.
Yin Jingliu’s eyes were like those of a wild animal. “Obviously. He came to kill us. You think I’m supposed to let him go? Stop being naive, Hao Le. When Mr. Jin said eliminate, he meant death. Either they kill us or we kill them!”
The situation gave Hao Le no time to think. He had no goal for the future, but he did not want to die. If he was destined to be killed here by people he had known only a short time, then why had he not simply died on Xuebu Mountain? Why had he endured all this displacement and hardship?
“Ah!” With a roar, Hao Le became a killer just like Yin Jingliu. The other teams had been thrown together temporarily and did not trust one another, much less know how to cooperate. Hao Le, however, trusted Yin Jingliu completely, and he believed Yin Jingliu trusted him just as much.
By dawn, the smell of blood hung everywhere in the village. Hao Le and Yin Jingliu were both still alive. They had become the final victors of this “gu-refining” trial.
Elio’s Notes: “Gu-refining” draws on the traditional idea of placing venomous creatures together until only the strongest survives. Here it is being used as a metaphor for the organization’s brutal selection process.
But Hao Le had forgotten that there could only be one “Gu King,” and Mr. Jin had already said that eliminating the other teams was merely the second-to-last step.
Mr. Jin returned. Hao Le and Yin Jingliu were loaded into separate ambulances. Hao Le’s injuries were only superficial and not serious, while a tendon in Yin Jingliu’s left hand had been severed and would take time to recover.
Mr. Jin said meaningfully, “You’re a very lucky child. Your luck is exactly what we need most.”
It was the first time in Hao Le’s life anyone had ever called him lucky. It sounded almost like a joke. The words he had heard most often before were obedient, honest, unlucky. For a moment, he thought Mr. Jin was mocking him, and anger slipped onto his face before he could suppress it.
But Mr. Jin said, “Isn’t it true? You fell from that height and surviving at all was already a miracle. Those bad kids smashed your face, dug a pit, and buried you, yet Yin Jingliu still managed to dig you out and nurse you back. Not everyone has luck like that. Out of this group, you had the weakest physical condition. You were still asleep when someone attacked you, yet everyone else died. Even your partner injured his hand, while you came through almost unscathed.”
Hao Le said instinctively, “Xiao Yin protected me.”
Mr. Jin scoffed at the fact that Yin Jingliu had protected him. His gaze toward Hao Le, meanwhile, burned more intensely than ever. Hao Le felt uneasy without knowing why and said he wanted to go see Yin Jingliu.
Mr. Jin replied in the tone of someone waiting to watch a good show, “You can go. But I should warn you, he may not want to see you right now. Especially not you, looking so healthy.”
Hao Le could not understand what Mr. Jin meant. They had already won. All that remained was to wait for Yin Jingliu to recover. Perhaps the organization would then give them their first assignment. Hao Le and Yin Jingliu worked well together. They would surely complete it perfectly.
So how could Xiao Yin possibly not want to see him?
Yet when Hao Le entered the hospital room, Yin Jingliu’s reaction left him with an indescribable ache. Yin Jingliu was the person Hao Le was most grateful to. Without him, Hao Le would have died long ago. Whenever Yin Jingliu spoke, he looked directly into Hao Le’s eyes and never concealed his anger. Hao Le had to admit that Yin Jingliu had influenced him. For Yin Jingliu’s sake, he could kill Feng Feng and help him take revenge.
But now Yin Jingliu would no longer look him in the eye. His voice was quiet too, and he seemed reluctant to be around him. Hao Le looked at Yin Jingliu’s hand and assumed his low spirits came from the injury, so he hurried to reassure him. “Xiao Yin, you’ll get better soon. I was injured that badly, and look at me now. Your injury will heal even faster!”
Yin Jingliu suddenly looked at him. Irritation flashed in his eyes, something Hao Le could not understand at the time. Yin Jingliu seemed about to say something, but ultimately swallowed it and only said he was tired and wanted Hao Le to leave.
After that, Hao Le visited Yin Jingliu several more times and asked the doctor about his recovery. The doctor said he was improving, and ordinary life should not be a problem in the future, but because a tendon had been damaged, as far as the “Heaven-Measuring Ruler” was concerned…
Hao Le let out a breath of relief and did not pay attention to the rest. As long as it would not affect normal life, that was enough. Besides, the injury was to Yin Jingliu’s left hand. His dominant right hand was still fine.
Yin Jingliu was discharged. His injury looked harmless enough, but his entire spirit had sunk. For once, Hao Le tried using hatred to motivate him. “Xiao Yin, don’t be like this. Feng Feng is still alive and well. We still have to go kill him!”
Yin Jingliu frowned at him. “You…”
“What?”
After a long time, Yin Jingliu sighed. “Forget it.”
Another day, Mr. Jin returned. After examining Yin Jingliu’s left hand, he announced on the spot, “You have only one final trial left.”
Yin Jingliu’s eyes were lifeless, as though he already knew what the trial would be. Hao Le, meanwhile, instinctively clenched his fists, excited and uneasy. He hated this place and wanted to leave. Even if leaving meant he would have to take part in criminal activity, he still wanted out.
Mr. Jin gave a captivating smile. His index finger pointed first at Yin Jingliu, then moved toward Hao Le. “You two will eliminate each other. The one left standing is the person the organization wants.”
A shrill ringing filled Hao Le’s ears, and his mind went completely blank. What did that mean? Why did anyone still need to be eliminated? Hadn’t everyone else already been eliminated? He and Yin Jingliu… weren’t they the most perfectly matched partners? Why? Why?
Mr. Jin said, “Didn’t I tell you last time? That was only the second-to-last step. The final step, of course, is for the two winners to determine the true winner. But there’s no need to rush. You’ll have some time to say goodbye and think things over. If either of you has something you want to tell me, you can do so at any time.”
Without thinking, Hao Le asked, “Can I choose to withdraw?”
Mr. Jin said, “Withdraw? You mean voluntarily give up and let Yin Jingliu be the one who wins in the end?”
“Yes!” Hao Le’s heart pounded. “What would I have to do to withdraw?”
Mr. Jin looked troubled. “No one has ever asked me that before. I’ll have to think about it carefully.”
Only Hao Le and Yin Jingliu remained in the village, and the atmosphere between them became more awkward than ever. Yin Jingliu seemed guarded around him and refused to stay in the same place. At the time, Hao Le still held on to a sliver of hope that Mr. Jin would accept his request to withdraw. Yin Jingliu had always been better than him. Almost everyone eliminated in the previous trial had been killed by Yin Jingliu, and Yin Jingliu possessed a powerful desire for revenge, while Hao Le was someone who simply drifted with circumstances. Hao Le knew he could never return to society and live as an ordinary person, but perhaps he could remain with the organization and do menial work. Surely an organization like this needed people like that too?
Hao Le cooked a meal and called Yin Jingliu over to eat. Yin Jingliu stared at him coldly. “Are you trying to poison me?”
Hao Le was shocked. “Xiao Yin, I already told you I want to withdraw. Why would I hurt you?”
Yin Jingliu unconsciously reached toward his wrist, as though it had begun hurting again. “We should stay away from each other.” With that, he turned and left.
Mr. Jin did not return, and Hao Le had no idea what he had decided. Hao Le could clearly feel that something between him and Yin Jingliu was becoming more and more wrong. He longed for Mr. Jin to come back soon. Ideally he would agree. If he refused… Hao Le could repay Yin Jingliu with his life.
Hao Le wanted to live and did not want to be killed by strangers. But Yin Jingliu had saved him, and he could not repay kindness with betrayal.
A week passed like that, with Mr. Jin seemingly forgetting the two of them were still in the village. Hao Le had not seen Yin Jingliu for several days and worried something had happened to him, so he searched the village. That night, exhausted, he returned to the house. Before he could even turn on the light, he was attacked.
In the chaos, Hao Le fled like a rat. Somehow Yin Jingliu had gotten hold of a gun and fired repeatedly in his direction. Hao Le was hit in the arm and bled heavily. The metallic smell of blood snapped him fully awake. This Yin Jingliu was no longer the Yin Jingliu who had saved him. Yin Jingliu wanted him dead.
Anger, grief, the cowardice and kindness he had been born with, all of it was cast aside in that instant. Hao Le thought, Why am I always the one being trampled underfoot? Am I destined to spend my whole life as someone else’s stepping stone? If he wants to kill me, why can’t I kill him?
Killing and hiding unfolded through the little house that had once felt warm, while the people behind the monitors watched the brothers turn on each other with satisfaction. Luck stood on Hao Le’s side once again. Yin Jingliu had launched the attack and prepared for it thoroughly, yet the one whose heart was ultimately pierced by a bullet was still Yin Jingliu.
Step by step, Hao Le approached the man who had only one last breath left. Thick blood covered the floor and splashed against Hao Le’s boots like countless hands trying to drag him into hell. He looked down at Yin Jingliu with eyes gone cold. Yin Jingliu reached toward him, seemingly begging for help.
Hao Le crouched down. “Xiao Yin, I was willing to die for you. Why did you insist on trying to kill me?”
Yin Jingliu’s gaze was already clouding. He coughed blood from his mouth. “You… you don’t understand. From the very beginning… the one they chose… was you…”
At last, Mr. Jin appeared again. He congratulated Hao Le on becoming a member of the “Heaven-Measuring Ruler,” praising his luck in particular, along with how decisively he had responded to betrayal.
Hao Le’s thoughts were numb. It took him a long time to react before he asked woodenly, “Xiao Yin said you chose me from the beginning. What… what did he mean?”
Mr. Jin did not answer directly. But as Hao Le gradually emerged from the shock of having killed Yin Jingliu, he began to understand Yin Jingliu’s final madness and regret.
After injuring his left hand, Yin Jingliu had already understood that he was no longer what the “Heaven-Measuring Ruler” wanted. He envied Hao Le’s luck until that envy drove him mad. How could he compete for the one available place against someone so lucky? Kill Hao Le before he had time to prepare. Yet even after getting a gun first, Yin Jingliu still failed. This time, it was not only bad luck. His injured left hand had also limited his movements.
Yin Jingliu had known his own fate all along. Hao Le had not.
As they left the village, Mr. Jin asked Hao Le whether he had any wishes. Hao Le was surprised. Did he not have to begin carrying out missions immediately? Mr. Jin said he was still young and could spend a few years living the life he wanted, making up for the regrets of his first twenty years. “But you must remember this. You will always remain under the organization’s watch. Betrayers do not come to a good end.”
Hao Le later went back to Country K because he wanted to pay respects to Yin Jingliu, but he did not know the village’s exact location, much less where Yin Jingliu had been buried. The more time passed, the deeper his guilt toward Yin Jingliu became. Occasionally he returned to No. 2 Middle School, always choosing days when the school held parent meetings. He dressed like a parent, ate a bowl of noodles at Old Yin Noodle Shop, and pretended to chat casually with Yin Gaoqiang. Yin Gaoqiang never recognized him. Of course he could not. After facial reconstruction and an altered age on his identity, Hao Le was no longer Hao Le.
Yin Gaoqiang would ramble on about Yin Jingliu, saying that as long as he was alive, he would never stop searching for his son. More than once, Hao Le nearly told Old Yin everything. But then he would remember the “tightening headband” clamped around his head. He had consumed enormous resources from the organization and had to wait for the day they finally decided to use him.
Elio’s Notes: The “tightening headband” is an allusion to the magical headband in Journey to the West, which tightens painfully when its spell is recited. Here Hao Le uses it as a metaphor for the organization’s hold over him.
That day finally came at the end of the previous year. Mr. Jin told him his assignment was to throw Zhuquan City’s middle schools into chaos and select the “talent” the organization needed from among them. A new round of “gu-refining” began. The students harboring malice were the fresh blood the “Heaven-Measuring Ruler” was looking for.
Ever since leaving the village, Hao Le had played the role of a legitimate member of society. He studied diligently in the best experimental class at the best middle school, entered the university he had dreamed of, then returned to Zhuquan City as a teacher entrusted with educating young people and became well liked by his students. He had even deliberately approached Zhang Bin, wanting his former teacher to see that he had grown into someone successful.
When he finally peeled away the disguise he had worn for years and began planning the coming unrest, he suddenly felt again the exhilaration he had experienced when killing the others back then, Yin Jingliu included. The “Heaven-Measuring Ruler” had not judged him wrongly. He was born rotten. Evil had failed to kill him while he was still young, so he would become the one who created evil instead.
With pleasure, he thought he might as well deal with Feng Feng and the others along the way. Revenge? Of course it did not count as revenge. Ants were not worthy of that. Feng Feng’s blood would merely be an appetizer Hao Le served himself. If one insisted on calling it revenge, then at most he was fulfilling Yin Jingliu’s wish for him.
During this process, Hao Le suddenly remembered Wu Lianshan, the girl who had once seen him and Yin Jingliu on Xuebu Mountain. Her existence had always been a hidden danger. He did not know whether Wu Lianshan knew who he was. Could he get rid of her as well? He began investigating Wu Lianshan, and the idea of turning the police into his blade gradually took shape.
“But I didn’t guide her behavior. She was born rotten too, just like me,” Hao Le said. “All I did was get you to investigate her.”
“Using the coasters,” Chen Zheng said. “I suppose I should thank you. Without that lead, we still would have caught her eventually, but it undoubtedly would have taken much longer.” His tone sharpened. “You say you felt guilty toward Yin Jingliu, yet you still killed his father.”
Hao Le was silent for a long moment, pain spreading through his eyes. “He… Uncle Yin seemed to know who I was.”
“Why?” Chen Zheng asked.
Hao Le shook his head. “I can’t explain it. But the last time I went there, the way he looked at me was almost like he was looking at his own son. Actually… actually, killing him was helping him too. He had been exhausted for so many years. He had no family left beside him, and Yin Jingliu was never going to come back. What was the point of continuing to hold on? It would have been better to die quickly and cleanly. Once I finished this mission, I was going to leave Zhuquan City. There would be no one left to look after him. Elderly people with no family always end up miserable. Wasn’t dying in an explosion better? It was over in an instant. He would never suffer again.”
At the end of the recollection, Hao Le leaned back against the chair, exhausted and quiet, like a body with no life left in it.
Chen Zheng was even more tired, but beyond that exhaustion, Hao Le had given him something unexpected: the “Heaven-Measuring Ruler.” This was not the first time Chen Zheng had heard of the organization. Whenever it was mentioned, he thought of Han Qu.
“Who is Mr. Jin?” Chen Zheng asked. “Describe what he looks like.”
“I…” Hao Le looked troubled and shook his head. “I can’t describe him.”
“Why? You never saw his face?”
“No. But… I’ve met many Mr. Jins. They weren’t the same person.”
Hao Le’s interrogation came to a temporary end. Although he was a member of the “Heaven-Measuring Ruler,” he knew almost nothing about its upper levels. Mr. Jin was merely a symbol for someone above him, a designation shared by multiple people. Hao Le’s fear of and dependence on the organization far outweighed any sense of belonging. The organization had exploited the obedience born from that fear and controlled him for ten years.
A-Ping and the others were subordinates Hao Le had recruited on his own within the limits of the funding available to him. He controlled them just as Mr. Jin controlled him. Police had already obtained the communication devices they used, but the custom-built app inside had been completely destroyed, making it impossible to trace the other party.
Kong Bing was coordinating personnel for the follow-up work. Since this series of cases had exposed an organization no one in the Zhuquan police had ever heard of, Hao Le and the others would be transferred to Luocheng and handed over to the Provincial Department for further investigation. After finishing Hao Le’s interrogation, Chen Zheng took leave to go home and sleep. He looked preoccupied.
Kong Bing was somewhat worried. “What’s wrong with him? And what exactly is this ‘Heaven-Measuring Ruler’?”
Ming Han pulled up a slightly fake smile and patted Kong Bing on the shoulder. “It’s fine. Teacher Chen and I live close to each other. I’ll go check on him later.”
Kong Bing was still uneasy and pressed him. “Then at least tell me what the ‘Heaven-Measuring Ruler’ is.”
Ming Han turned back and sighed. “Captain Kong, have you ever wondered why you don’t know about the ‘Heaven-Measuring Ruler’?”
Kong Bing froze. “What? What do you mean?”
“Obviously, your superiors put access restrictions on the information,” Ming Han said. “Don’t overthink it. The case is being handed up. Figuring out how to investigate this ‘Heaven-Measuring Ruler’ is the Provincial Department’s headache now.”
Kong Bing stood there for a moment. Ming Han had almost reached the stairwell before Kong Bing kicked at empty air and cursed, “You’re saying my clearance is too low, aren’t you!”
Ming Han returned to Fengshu Residential Complex and bought two bowls of hot tangyuan from the snack alley. When he reached Chen Zheng’s door, he knocked, but no one answered. Ming Han frowned and called him directly. No ringtone sounded from inside.
Phone on silent? Sleeping that deeply? As he wondered, the call connected, and Chen Zheng’s voice came through the phone from somewhere other than behind the door.
“Bro, you’re not home?”
Chen Zheng asked, “You’re at my place?”
“I came to check on you and eat with you,” Ming Han said. “Where are you?”
Chen Zheng was at the hospital. He pulled the ward door closed and walked down the corridor as he spoke. “Yu Zhenxiao is in decent shape today. I came to talk to her.”
Ming Han let out a breath of relief, amusement entering his voice. “You really are…”
Chen Zheng said, “Hm?”
“You really are a workaholic!” Ming Han said. “I thought you went home to rest, and you ran right back out again. Fine. I’ll come to the hospital and find you.”