Chapter 133
Crazy joy and extreme pain
Han Xiaomei was hiding outside the corridor. She looked around furtively and finally sneaked into the trace inspection department while no one was paying attention.
A few minutes later, with a bag on her shoulders and her hands in her coat pockets, she walked out of the Municipal Public Security Bureau in her high heels with her head held high.
The hour hand was close to 12 o’clock. Yan Xie, who was sitting in the living room, suddenly raised his head, and the next second, the doorbell rang.
“I was scared to death. When I came out, I ran into Director Gou, who was working overtime. He asked me why I went to the trace inspection department in the middle of the night. I had to say that I forgot to submit the inspection box I brought to the scene yesterday, so I sneaked over at night to submit it when no one was there!” Han Xiaomei took several bottles and spray bottles out of her bag one by one, and said without tears: “Director Gou scolded me a few times; what if he tells Captain Yu? My great career has just begun; will it be marked with a stain?!”
Yan Xie said nothing. He went to the kitchen to get half a cup of distilled water, put on trace inspection gloves when he came back, mixed the powder of luminol and potassium hydroxide with water, and poured it into a spray bottle filled with hydrogen peroxide.
“Brother Yan, what the hell are you doing?” Han Xiaomei finally felt scared belatedly and asked in a low voice, “You…you cut your wrists at home and got blood on the ground?”
“……”
Yan Xie looked at her up and down, came to the door of the bathroom, and took a breath.
Han Xiaomei followed on her tiptoes and saw Yan Xie take a spray bottle and spray dozens of times on the floor, corners, and washbasin. Then he exited the bathroom and turned off the light.
“Huh—” Han Xiaomei covered her mouth.
The washbasin in the darkness was dotted, and a palm-sized patch of faint blue-green light slowly lit up on the ground, which was a blood reaction!
“Do you know what this is?” Yan Xie asked.
“I-I-I didn’t see anything, I don’t know anything!” Han Xiaomei covered her eyes with both hands: “Captain Yan, Brother Yan, Lord Yan! I beg you, I promise I won’t say anything after I go out! “
“You should have learned in your police academy textbooks that luminol solution, when catalyzed by iron ions in the blood, emits blue light after oxidation. Therefore, it is used to detect bloodstains at crime scenes. But if there are other strong oxidants present at the scene, luminol still emits light, so if you use hypochlorous acid bleach or excrement to smear the scene, the strong fluorescence will interfere with the criminal investigators’ judgment on the bloodstains.”
“W—we-we have memorized it before,” Han Xiaomei said tremblingly, “The strong fluorescence catalyzed by hypochlorous acid lights up very quickly, and the fluorescence catalyzed by blood iron ions lights up slowly, which can be differentiated by taking pictures…”
“But what we used to do when crime scene photography was not so common?” Yan Xie asked back.
Han Xiaomei’s mind was spinning desperately, but the strong aura from Vice-Captain Yan made her mind chaotic.
“It’s actually quite simple.” Yan Xie sneered and said slowly: “As long as the site is sealed off and kept dry, the oxidant will volatilize when it is tested again in a few days. But the iron ions will not disappear for a long time; even after a few years, it will still make the luminol shine.”
Han Xiaomei said silently: “Oh—”
“I haven’t been here for three weeks, and no matter how much bleach I used that day, it should have evaporated after drying. That is to say, the fluorescence is not hypochlorous acid but blood.”
The fluorescence was very weak. On the one hand, the blood had been cleaned with bleach, and on the other hand, the amount of bleeding itself was not much, and after being washed away by water, the area of blood spread very much. Han Xiaomei, who was pondering about it seriously, subconsciously asked, “Whose blood?”
As soon as the words came out of her mouth, she wanted to bite her own tongue off.
“Whose else could it be?” Yan Xie looked at the fluorescent dots on the ground and the washbasin and said grimly, “Of course it’s that bastard, surnamed Lu.”
Han Xiaomei: “…”
……….
Evening.
The red flag car was parked downstairs. Chief Lu got out of the car, declined the driver’s offer to help him carry his bag upstairs, and staggered into the corridor gate alone.
Then he turned the corner, immediately straightened his back, and strode into the elevator with light, nimble steps.
“I’m back!” Chief Lu opened the door amid the clatter of keys, shouted loudly, put the leather bag under the creaking nest in the entrance, and lowered his head to take off his shoes. The sound of his wife’s cooking came from the kitchen, and he turned around comfortably to loosen his shoulders, but then his movements stopped in mid-air.
Yan Xie sat in the middle of the sofa in the living room, looking at him expressionlessly.
“This child just came here and brought something.” Chief Lu’s wife brought out a ruddy and shiny braised pork with mushrooms and eggs from the kitchen and babbled with a smile on her face: “It’s not even a festive season, and he gave an old woman like me some skin care products—I told him where I would apply that. It would be a waste to apply them on this old face…”
Chief Lu’s wife went back to the kitchen to fry egg enoki mushrooms, leaving only Chief Lu and Yan Xie, one standing and one sitting, in the huge space, facing each other.
“Back then, Jiang Ting visited Yue Guangping without permission, and only half a year later, Yue Guangping died, and Jiang Ting was finished.” Chief Lu finally sighed and murmured, “The country really should have a regulation that forbids the division leader to visit the home of the chief of the Public Security Bureau as a guest. This sign is really ominous…”
Bang!
A glass full of rock sugar chrysanthemum and wolfberry tea was placed on the desk by Chief Lu. He put his big butt into the swivel chair with a “hey” and asked while wearing his reading glasses: “What’s the matter with you? Let’s talk about it in advance. You are still in the suspension review period and are not allowed to spy on the city bureau’s daily affairs and case-related information, otherwise, it will be dealt with as a violation of discipline.”
“You came to my house that night; what did you want to plan with Jiang Ting?”
Chief Lu’s hand paused: “What plan?”
Yan Xie’s face remained calm.
“……” Chief Lu picked up his teacup and said, “I’ve told you everything I need to say, and there’s no point in asking if I can’t tell you the rest. I’m not Old Wei, who can soften his heart if you plead. Rules and regulations are rules and regulations…”
Snap——Yan Xie took out a mobile hard disk from the inner pocket of his coat and slammed his hands on the desk.
Chief Lu almost choked on his tea: “What is this?”
“The surveillance video of the back door of the lakeside community from the night when you were stabbed by Jiang Ting.”
There was a sudden silence in the study, and both of them focused their eyes on the small, unattractive silver mobile hard disk. Neither of them knew what they were thinking. After several minutes, Chief Lu said slowly:
“The surveillance video has been taken away and sealed in the Municipal Bureau. According to the confidentiality regulations, the property management company is not allowed to restore the original video and leak it to any unrelated people except for the case handlers; otherwise, they will bear serious criminal responsibility…”
“But the company’s internal leaders can see it.” Yan Xie interrupted him and said, “I’m sorry, but my dad has now become the new boss of that property company.”
Chief Lu: “……”
Chief Lu’s always chubby and smiling face finally showed an indescribable expression, as if he was holding back something. Judging from the shape of his mouth, what he forced back should be the sentence: “Fvck, you rich people!”
“The night three weeks ago, you came to my house to visit Jiang Ting and proposed an undercover plan to him. Unlike the rumors you released later, Jiang Ting didn’t reject you; he agreed.”
Yan Xie leaned back in the chair, the eyes under the sword eyebrows icy and cold.
“You discussed that Jiang Ting would stab you and then escape from Jianning overnight. But here was a very dangerous point, which was that Jiang Ting needed at least several hours to get to a place where the police couldn’t find him for a while, and even if the main blood vessels and internal organs were avoided, it would be difficult for you to survive for several hours in the cold and rainy night without rescue—so you agreed to make a time difference.”
Chief Lu supported his forehead and remained silent.
“Jiang Ting did leave the house around nine o’clock, but you stayed at my house until early in the morning. After the cleaners on the street started to go to work, you probably stood in the bathroom of my house, carefully looked in the mirror to find the knife edge, and shallowly stabbed yourself. You were a forensic doctor in your early years, and you have handled hundreds of corpses over the past few decades. You know the structure of the human body and the distribution of blood vessels like the back of your hand. The reason why you did not stab yourself outside was that it rained that night and the early morning of the next day, and the “assassination site that you found in advance was very dark and remote; if your hands slipped and you stabbed crookedly due to low visibility, it might have really caused an accident.”
“You left my house after carefully tidying up the bathroom. When you came to the assassination site, you squeezed the small blood bag prepared in advance. Then you were naturally found by the sanitation workers and sent to the hospital.” Yan Xie said lightly: “Being stabbed is different from self-stabbing. It should have been discovered. But Chief Hu, who is in charge of the injury appraisal at the Provincial Technical Department, is like Gou Li of our city bureau. As long as you hint in advance, he will not rush to seriously examine it.”
Chief Lu wanted to refute, but Yan Xie didn’t give him this opportunity: “The other thing that could be used as physical evidence was the community surveillance, but the video was not clear — when I was monitored by Fang Zhenghong a few months ago, he followed me downstairs one night and was discovered. Jiang Ting and I checked the video from the property management company together afterward. It was at that time that Jiang Ting remembered the blind spots of surveillance in the community.”
Chief Lu pressed his pulsing forehead and said seriously: “Yan Xie, I understand that you don’t want to believe that Jiang Ting is a traitor. But can you sometimes reluctantly, condescendingly, trust your leader a little bit?”
“Leader?” A sneer appeared in Yan Xie’s eyes, and he said, “Chief Wei and Captain Yu knew about your plan from the very beginning; otherwise, the small blood bag that was busted at the ‘crime scene’ would have been exposed once the serum chloride penetration test was done.”
Chief Lu: “……”
Chief Lu finally looked up at the sky and let out a long sigh.
“Yan Xie, Supervisor Yan, Vice-Captain Yan.” He asked helplessly, “Why don’t you think that Jiang Ting stabbed me at your house and then took advantage of the chaos to escape, while I lied about being assassinated outside to protect you?!”
“Because you are the one who used bleach to clean the blood stains in the bathroom.” Yan Xie said coldly, “Jiang Ting will never mistake my face towel for a rag.”
Chief Lu, who was old and experienced, probably could have never imagined that the final flaw came from here. He sat silently in the big swivel chair, his big round face, which had been raised in just a few days, drooping; only his eyelids kept twitching, and he couldn’t stop it.
“Do you have anything else to say?”
“…Yes.”
Yan Xie made a mocking gesture of invitation.
Chief Lu finally couldn’t help asking this sentence: “You are a man in your thirties, and you still dry your face with an old pink towel?!”
Yan Xie raised the corners of his lips without smiling, “The old towel has good water absorption; otherwise, how could the smell of hypochlorous acid stay until now?”
The two looked at each other for a long time, and Chief Lu’s expression was complicated. He didn’t know whether he should praise Yan Xie’s outstanding investigative awareness, or regret that he used an old towel in the end. He didn’t use his coat to wipe off the last bit of bleach that night, because he was afraid that the fibers of the woolen cloth would be left in the cracks of the tile floor, leaving suspicious clues. But he didn’t expect his overcaution would lead him in a blunder
“—I’m old, I’m old!” After several minutes of stalemate, Chief Lu finally shook his head and expressed heavy emotion: “It’s useless, alas!”
Yan Xie leaned on the back of the chair, crossed his legs, and clasped his hands in front of his chest: “So Jiang Ting really didn’t stab you?”
“……” Chief Lu nodded.
“And he also didn’t take the initiative to seek refuge with the King of Spades?”
Chief Lu nodded helplessly.
It seemed that something was pinching Yan Xie’s throat, making him choke, but he stared straight at the other side.
“Jiang Ting deployed according to the plan and sneaked into Wu Tun and Wen Shao’s drug gangs as an undercover agent, preparing to wait for the opportunity to uproot the entire underground drug trafficking route on the China-Myanmar border and even Jianning.” Chief Lu said slowly: “This matter is highly confidential, and there are very few people involved. It has been approved by Director Liu of the Provincial Public Security Bureau. We have promised Jiang Ting that if he completes the task satisfactorily, his reputation will be restored, and the truth about the 1009 explosion three years ago will be revealed to the public.”
“If Chief Lu hadn’t come, I could still have maintained the illusion for you for a while…”
“Do you still believe me? Just don’t believe me.”
“…When we meet again in the future, we will already be life and death enemies, and death is the best filter…”
“—Yan Xie,” The sea of clouds in the sky was reflected in Jiang Ting’s eyes. He only looked at the figure of his lover who was close at hand, and said, “I love you.”
………
Countless voices vibrated in his eardrums at the same time. Yan Xie lowered his head, covered his mouth tightly, and panted heavily. Crazy joy and extreme pain tore through his chest at the same time, tearing apart the liver and intestines inch by inch and wringing out the excruciating pain of suffocation.
Chief Lu crossed his hands and fingers, lowered his head slightly, and shot a sharp gaze through the gap in his reading glasses:
“You should be proud of Jiang Ting, Yan Xie; he has sent us the first very important tip.”
Chapter 133
Crazy joy and extreme pain
Han Xiaomei was hiding outside the corridor. She looked around furtively and finally sneaked into the trace inspection department while no one was paying attention.
A few minutes later, with a bag on her shoulders and her hands in her coat pockets, she walked out of the Municipal Public Security Bureau in her high heels with her head held high.
The hour hand was close to 12 o’clock. Yan Xie, who was sitting in the living room, suddenly raised his head, and the next second, the doorbell rang.
“I was scared to death. When I came out, I ran into Director Gou, who was working overtime. He asked me why I went to the trace inspection department in the middle of the night. I had to say that I forgot to submit the inspection box I brought to the scene yesterday, so I sneaked over at night to submit it when no one was there!” Han Xiaomei took several bottles and spray bottles out of her bag one by one, and said without tears: “Director Gou scolded me a few times; what if he tells Captain Yu? My great career has just begun; will it be marked with a stain?!”
Yan Xie said nothing. He went to the kitchen to get half a cup of distilled water, put on trace inspection gloves when he came back, mixed the powder of luminol and potassium hydroxide with water, and poured it into a spray bottle filled with hydrogen peroxide.
“Brother Yan, what the hell are you doing?” Han Xiaomei finally felt scared belatedly and asked in a low voice, “You…you cut your wrists at home and got blood on the ground?”
“……”
Yan Xie looked at her up and down, came to the door of the bathroom, and took a breath.
Han Xiaomei followed on her tiptoes and saw Yan Xie take a spray bottle and spray dozens of times on the floor, corners, and washbasin. Then he exited the bathroom and turned off the light.
“Huh—” Han Xiaomei covered her mouth.
The washbasin in the darkness was dotted, and a palm-sized patch of faint blue-green light slowly lit up on the ground, which was a blood reaction!
“Do you know what this is?” Yan Xie asked.
“I-I-I didn’t see anything, I don’t know anything!” Han Xiaomei covered her eyes with both hands: “Captain Yan, Brother Yan, Lord Yan! I beg you, I promise I won’t say anything after I go out! “
“You should have learned in your police academy textbooks that luminol solution, when catalyzed by iron ions in the blood, emits blue light after oxidation. Therefore, it is used to detect bloodstains at crime scenes. But if there are other strong oxidants present at the scene, luminol still emits light, so if you use hypochlorous acid bleach or excrement to smear the scene, the strong fluorescence will interfere with the criminal investigators’ judgment on the bloodstains.”
“W—we-we have memorized it before,” Han Xiaomei said tremblingly, “The strong fluorescence catalyzed by hypochlorous acid lights up very quickly, and the fluorescence catalyzed by blood iron ions lights up slowly, which can be differentiated by taking pictures…”
“But what we used to do when crime scene photography was not so common?” Yan Xie asked back.
Han Xiaomei’s mind was spinning desperately, but the strong aura from Vice-Captain Yan made her mind chaotic.
“It’s actually quite simple.” Yan Xie sneered and said slowly: “As long as the site is sealed off and kept dry, the oxidant will volatilize when it is tested again in a few days. But the iron ions will not disappear for a long time; even after a few years, it will still make the luminol shine.”
Han Xiaomei said silently: “Oh—”
“I haven’t been here for three weeks, and no matter how much bleach I used that day, it should have evaporated after drying. That is to say, the fluorescence is not hypochlorous acid but blood.”
The fluorescence was very weak. On the one hand, the blood had been cleaned with bleach, and on the other hand, the amount of bleeding itself was not much, and after being washed away by water, the area of blood spread very much. Han Xiaomei, who was pondering about it seriously, subconsciously asked, “Whose blood?”
As soon as the words came out of her mouth, she wanted to bite her own tongue off.
“Whose else could it be?” Yan Xie looked at the fluorescent dots on the ground and the washbasin and said grimly, “Of course it’s that bastard, surnamed Lu.”
Han Xiaomei: “…”
……….
Evening.
The red flag car was parked downstairs. Chief Lu got out of the car, declined the driver’s offer to help him carry his bag upstairs, and staggered into the corridor gate alone.
Then he turned the corner, immediately straightened his back, and strode into the elevator with light, nimble steps.
“I’m back!” Chief Lu opened the door amid the clatter of keys, shouted loudly, put the leather bag under the creaking nest in the entrance, and lowered his head to take off his shoes. The sound of his wife’s cooking came from the kitchen, and he turned around comfortably to loosen his shoulders, but then his movements stopped in mid-air.
Yan Xie sat in the middle of the sofa in the living room, looking at him expressionlessly.
“This child just came here and brought something.” Chief Lu’s wife brought out a ruddy and shiny braised pork with mushrooms and eggs from the kitchen and babbled with a smile on her face: “It’s not even a festive season, and he gave an old woman like me some skin care products—I told him where I would apply that. It would be a waste to apply them on this old face…”
Chief Lu’s wife went back to the kitchen to fry egg enoki mushrooms, leaving only Chief Lu and Yan Xie, one standing and one sitting, in the huge space, facing each other.
“Back then, Jiang Ting visited Yue Guangping without permission, and only half a year later, Yue Guangping died, and Jiang Ting was finished.” Chief Lu finally sighed and murmured, “The country really should have a regulation that forbids the division leader to visit the home of the chief of the Public Security Bureau as a guest. This sign is really ominous…”
Bang!
A glass full of rock sugar chrysanthemum and wolfberry tea was placed on the desk by Chief Lu. He put his big butt into the swivel chair with a “hey” and asked while wearing his reading glasses: “What’s the matter with you? Let’s talk about it in advance. You are still in the suspension review period and are not allowed to spy on the city bureau’s daily affairs and case-related information, otherwise, it will be dealt with as a violation of discipline.”
“You came to my house that night; what did you want to plan with Jiang Ting?”
Chief Lu’s hand paused: “What plan?”
Yan Xie’s face remained calm.
“……” Chief Lu picked up his teacup and said, “I’ve told you everything I need to say, and there’s no point in asking if I can’t tell you the rest. I’m not Old Wei, who can soften his heart if you plead. Rules and regulations are rules and regulations…”
Snap——Yan Xie took out a mobile hard disk from the inner pocket of his coat and slammed his hands on the desk.
Chief Lu almost choked on his tea: “What is this?”
“The surveillance video of the back door of the lakeside community from the night when you were stabbed by Jiang Ting.”
There was a sudden silence in the study, and both of them focused their eyes on the small, unattractive silver mobile hard disk. Neither of them knew what they were thinking. After several minutes, Chief Lu said slowly:
“The surveillance video has been taken away and sealed in the Municipal Bureau. According to the confidentiality regulations, the property management company is not allowed to restore the original video and leak it to any unrelated people except for the case handlers; otherwise, they will bear serious criminal responsibility…”
“But the company’s internal leaders can see it.” Yan Xie interrupted him and said, “I’m sorry, but my dad has now become the new boss of that property company.”
Chief Lu: “……”
Chief Lu’s always chubby and smiling face finally showed an indescribable expression, as if he was holding back something. Judging from the shape of his mouth, what he forced back should be the sentence: “Fvck, you rich people!”
“The night three weeks ago, you came to my house to visit Jiang Ting and proposed an undercover plan to him. Unlike the rumors you released later, Jiang Ting didn’t reject you; he agreed.”
Yan Xie leaned back in the chair, the eyes under the sword eyebrows icy and cold.
“You discussed that Jiang Ting would stab you and then escape from Jianning overnight. But here was a very dangerous point, which was that Jiang Ting needed at least several hours to get to a place where the police couldn’t find him for a while, and even if the main blood vessels and internal organs were avoided, it would be difficult for you to survive for several hours in the cold and rainy night without rescue—so you agreed to make a time difference.”
Chief Lu supported his forehead and remained silent.
“Jiang Ting did leave the house around nine o’clock, but you stayed at my house until early in the morning. After the cleaners on the street started to go to work, you probably stood in the bathroom of my house, carefully looked in the mirror to find the knife edge, and shallowly stabbed yourself. You were a forensic doctor in your early years, and you have handled hundreds of corpses over the past few decades. You know the structure of the human body and the distribution of blood vessels like the back of your hand. The reason why you did not stab yourself outside was that it rained that night and the early morning of the next day, and the “assassination site that you found in advance was very dark and remote; if your hands slipped and you stabbed crookedly due to low visibility, it might have really caused an accident.”
“You left my house after carefully tidying up the bathroom. When you came to the assassination site, you squeezed the small blood bag prepared in advance. Then you were naturally found by the sanitation workers and sent to the hospital.” Yan Xie said lightly: “Being stabbed is different from self-stabbing. It should have been discovered. But Chief Hu, who is in charge of the injury appraisal at the Provincial Technical Department, is like Gou Li of our city bureau. As long as you hint in advance, he will not rush to seriously examine it.”
Chief Lu wanted to refute, but Yan Xie didn’t give him this opportunity: “The other thing that could be used as physical evidence was the community surveillance, but the video was not clear — when I was monitored by Fang Zhenghong a few months ago, he followed me downstairs one night and was discovered. Jiang Ting and I checked the video from the property management company together afterward. It was at that time that Jiang Ting remembered the blind spots of surveillance in the community.”
Chief Lu pressed his pulsing forehead and said seriously: “Yan Xie, I understand that you don’t want to believe that Jiang Ting is a traitor. But can you sometimes reluctantly, condescendingly, trust your leader a little bit?”
“Leader?” A sneer appeared in Yan Xie’s eyes, and he said, “Chief Wei and Captain Yu knew about your plan from the very beginning; otherwise, the small blood bag that was busted at the ‘crime scene’ would have been exposed once the serum chloride penetration test was done.”
Chief Lu: “……”
Chief Lu finally looked up at the sky and let out a long sigh.
“Yan Xie, Supervisor Yan, Vice-Captain Yan.” He asked helplessly, “Why don’t you think that Jiang Ting stabbed me at your house and then took advantage of the chaos to escape, while I lied about being assassinated outside to protect you?!”
“Because you are the one who used bleach to clean the blood stains in the bathroom.” Yan Xie said coldly, “Jiang Ting will never mistake my face towel for a rag.”
Chief Lu, who was old and experienced, probably could have never imagined that the final flaw came from here. He sat silently in the big swivel chair, his big round face, which had been raised in just a few days, drooping; only his eyelids kept twitching, and he couldn’t stop it.
“Do you have anything else to say?”
“…Yes.”
Yan Xie made a mocking gesture of invitation.
Chief Lu finally couldn’t help asking this sentence: “You are a man in your thirties, and you still dry your face with an old pink towel?!”
Yan Xie raised the corners of his lips without smiling, “The old towel has good water absorption; otherwise, how could the smell of hypochlorous acid stay until now?”
The two looked at each other for a long time, and Chief Lu’s expression was complicated. He didn’t know whether he should praise Yan Xie’s outstanding investigative awareness, or regret that he used an old towel in the end. He didn’t use his coat to wipe off the last bit of bleach that night, because he was afraid that the fibers of the woolen cloth would be left in the cracks of the tile floor, leaving suspicious clues. But he didn’t expect his overcaution would lead him in a blunder
“—I’m old, I’m old!” After several minutes of stalemate, Chief Lu finally shook his head and expressed heavy emotion: “It’s useless, alas!”
Yan Xie leaned on the back of the chair, crossed his legs, and clasped his hands in front of his chest: “So Jiang Ting really didn’t stab you?”
“……” Chief Lu nodded.
“And he also didn’t take the initiative to seek refuge with the King of Spades?”
Chief Lu nodded helplessly.
It seemed that something was pinching Yan Xie’s throat, making him choke, but he stared straight at the other side.
“Jiang Ting deployed according to the plan and sneaked into Wu Tun and Wen Shao’s drug gangs as an undercover agent, preparing to wait for the opportunity to uproot the entire underground drug trafficking route on the China-Myanmar border and even Jianning.” Chief Lu said slowly: “This matter is highly confidential, and there are very few people involved. It has been approved by Director Liu of the Provincial Public Security Bureau. We have promised Jiang Ting that if he completes the task satisfactorily, his reputation will be restored, and the truth about the 1009 explosion three years ago will be revealed to the public.”
“If Chief Lu hadn’t come, I could still have maintained the illusion for you for a while…”
“Do you still believe me? Just don’t believe me.”
“…When we meet again in the future, we will already be life and death enemies, and death is the best filter…”
“—Yan Xie,” The sea of clouds in the sky was reflected in Jiang Ting’s eyes. He only looked at the figure of his lover who was close at hand, and said, “I love you.”
………
Countless voices vibrated in his eardrums at the same time. Yan Xie lowered his head, covered his mouth tightly, and panted heavily. Crazy joy and extreme pain tore through his chest at the same time, tearing apart the liver and intestines inch by inch and wringing out the excruciating pain of suffocation.
Chief Lu crossed his hands and fingers, lowered his head slightly, and shot a sharp gaze through the gap in his reading glasses:
“You should be proud of Jiang Ting, Yan Xie; he has sent us the first very important tip.”
