China-Myanmar border.
Outside Kutkai Town, mountains.
Under the scorching sun, an off-road vehicle crossed the mountain road, bumped up and down, and finally stopped at the gate of the temple. Several Burmese people jumped out of the car, took out several large cardboard boxes from the trunk, containing various kinds of drinks and tobacco, and carried them skillfully across the courtyard on their shoulders.
The driver came under the yew tree in the front yard and bowed respectfully: “Uncle Wu Tun.”
An old monk with a thin body and slightly hunched back was wearing a yellow monk’s robe, sitting on a reclining chair in the shade of the tree, puffing out clouds of smoke. He slowly hummed and pointed to the mountains outside the courtyard wall: “Still there?”
The driver nodded: “Yes.”
Wu Tun was actually not yet seventy years old, but the flesh on both sides of his cheeks was drooping. There were deep wrinkles running down on the corners of his eyes, and the slightly cataracted eyes were yellow and blurred, making him look as if he was in his eighties. Maybe it was because he fought and killed too much in the Golden Triangle in his early years that his appearance had changed a lot compared with the average old person, always with a bit of cunning and fierceness.
“I’ve already given the order and talked to them, but it’s useless.” Wu Tun flicked the cigarette ash and said, “The police in Shan State have never been so difficult as this time!”
The driver said in a low voice: “It is said that a lot of pressure was exerted by the border defense…”
Wu Tun said nothing, and half of his body was covered by the clouds of opium smoke. The driver waited for him eagerly. After a long time, the old man finally moved, got off the couch, stretched, and then pointed to his subordinates who came out of the temple one after another after moving all the things:
“Tell them, they don’t have to bring anything when they come next time.”
The driver was stunned for a moment, and then he took the hint: “Understood!”
Wu Tun “hummed,” waved his hand, and the driver carefully retreated with his subordinates.
The yard became quiet again, and only the insects’ chirping could be heard far away in the green shade. This big drug lord, who had been running in South Asia for decades, put the opium in his mouth and looked at the mountains in the distance:
“These trash in Shan State…”
Surveillance by the local police and Burmese military police surrounding him would cause a little trouble at most and was not the most difficult problem for him. As long as that d@mn son who burned down three temples in a row was not there, as long as those b@stards didn’t know where he was…
Wu Tun narrowed his old eyes and let out a sneer.
………
Jianning.
Yan Xie finally removed his hand from his face and coughed to suppress his boiling emotion. Two red marks had already been pinched by him on the center of his brow, “What tip?”
Chief Lu said, “Wu Tun’s hiding place. “
—Wu Tun!
The sound of rushing water came from outside the door; it was Chief Lu’s wife washing dishes in the kitchen. In fact, such trivial matters were usually done by part-time workers, but today a pressure cooker was used to make braised pork. His wife couldn’t bear to leave a big pot in the sink and wait for the part-time workers to come. Chief Lu had already fled into the study with Yan Xie, so his wife had to do it herself, angrily.
The familiar sound of washing dishes made Yan Xie feel distracted. He rubbed his nose to hide the soreness in his nasal cavity and asked, “Jiang Ting told you which temple Wu Tun is hiding in?”
“Jiang Ting told me that when preparing for the start of Operation 1009, he once reported various developments to Wu Tun, who was far away in Myanmar, through encrypted emails. This is also consistent with the confession you gave to the provincial department when you just returned from Yuanlong Gorge. Remember?”
Yan Xie’s heart sank slightly: “I remember.”
This was what Jiang Ting told him in front of the King of Spades in the valley, and it was precisely because of this that Operation 1009 had changed from an unfortunate failure of an anti-drug operation to a fight among drug dealers.
Yan Xie didn’t know what others would think of him, but he couldn’t deceive his own feelings and conscience—that was an unbearable deception and blow for the more than a dozen anti-drug policemen who died that year, as well as for those police officers and their families who were implicated.
“According to the data restored from Jiang Ting’s used computers and mobile phones, we did find these emails. However, one thing Jiang Ting didn’t tell you was that a virus program was inserted into some of the emails when they were encrypted. So once these emails were decrypted, the virus would be automatically implanted in the recipient’s computer. As long as Wu Tun replied, the virus would pass through several layers of proxy servers and would lock the geographical location of the email.”
“……” Yan Xie was stunned: “That means…”
“Wu Tun and his group have been wealthy landlords in the Golden Triangle for decades. They are all old-fashioned quack drug dealers, and it was easy for them to fall for this new thing.” Chief Lu saw through Yan Xie’s thoughts and said, “All the locations that Wu Tun returned to Jiang Ting were all concentrated in the mountains near Kutkai Town, Myanmar, and these addresses were recorded by Jiang Ting and sent to Yue Guangping.”
The breath choked in his throat fell back into his chest along with his heart in an instant. Half of Yan Xie’s back was numb, and he could only hear Jiang Ting’s narration mixed in with the mountain wind in his ears: “Every step of the preparation for the 1009 operation was reported to Wu Tun through encrypted emails, and at the time he also… cough cough cough cough cough cough!… He expressed his understanding…”
He was coughing so violently that the King of Spades looked back at him, but no one knew at the time why he stressed the word “expressed”.
Until the most life-or-death and most isolating moment, he was still struggling to get his message across. How did he feel at that time?
Was he feeling disappointed with his lover?
Yan Xie’s lips trembled, but he was unable to speak. Chief Lu blinked his small eyes and pushed the big tea mug forward: “Would you like to drink some water to calm down?”
“……” Yan Xie waved his hand to indicate that he didn’t need it and asked hoarsely, “That means the temple where Wu Tun is hiding is near Kutkai?”
“Kutkai Town is one of the most drug-infested areas in Shan State. Not long ago, a truck driving from Kutkai to Mandalay was found to be loaded with methamphetamine worth 190 million yuan. There was just a truck, nothing more. This shows the rampant nature of the local drug dealers.” Chief Lu shook his head and said, “After learning of this precious information, our public security department quickly communicated with the Burmese side, and the local government is very grateful to us. Since last week, the Burmese military police and local anti-drug police in Shan State have already locked eyes on a Buddhist temple in the Kutkai mountain area. Although no one has been arrested for a long time, they are sure that Wu Tun is hiding inside.”
Yan Xie grasped the point keenly: “Are they waiting for an opportunity?”
Chief Lu said solemnly, “They are waiting for the King of Spades.”
Although they didn’t know what the specific motive was, the King of Spades’ intention to kill Wu Tun was very obvious. The people on Wu Tun’s side must have heard about the burning and looting of three temples in Myanmar before. Now that he had Jiang Ting, he would definitely ask about Wu Tun’s hiding place immediately. Even if Jiang Ting deliberately delayed the time, it would definitely not drag on for three weeks. It was possible that the King of Spades already knew about the Kutkai Mountains.
So, why did the King of Spades delay till now?
Chief Lu said: “The best guess is that Wen Shao is afraid of the Burmese police and dare not act rashly…”
But this possibility was indeed too small. If the largest police command center in Myanmar was located in China, it would have been a county public security bureau at most. If Han Xiaomei went to Myanmar, her level would be equal to that of a police investigator.
“What about the worst guess?” Yan Xie asked.
“Maybe…” Chief Lu hesitated for a moment but still swallowed the words “according to the informant” and said, “Jiang Ting is ill.”
Yan Xie’s expression changed at that moment.
“This is just my guess,” Chief Lu immediately added, “The Kutkai mountain area is more than 200 kilometers away from the border, and the jungle environment is very complicated, so other factors such as terrain are more likely.”
“……” Yan Xie stared straight at him.
“All in all, Wen Shao is bound to strike at the temple in the near future. As soon as he shows up, the Shan state police, who have long been prepared, will take action immediately.” Chief Lu patted Yan Xie on the shoulder and said earnestly, “I know you want Jiang Ting to come back. Alas, we old people don’t understand and don’t want to interfere with your young people’s love and other such feelings. But there is no doubt about one thing: we all hope that Jiang Ting can come back alive and clear his name.”
Yan Xie was silent for a long time. His eye sockets were deeply sunken due to the exhaustion of running around for days, which made his brow bone and bridge of nose look even more sharp, like a rigid golden knife.
“I understand,” he finally said, “I believe you.”
Chief Lu nodded heavily.
It was getting late. Yan Xie got up to leave, and Chief Lu, who had been delayed by him for almost an hour to play chess, waved his hand at him to leave quickly, but suddenly remembered something: “Hey wait, this. Put this thing in your hand down.”
Yan Xie lowered his head, only to see the silver mobile hard disk in his hand: “For what?”
Chief came over with his big belly and grabbed the hard disk: “For what? I have to go to the property management company to take responsibility. Procedures are procedures. If they are told not to leak secrets, so they shouldn’t. Are they treating public security discipline as a game?”
Yan Xie’s eyebrows twitched, and his face was a little weird.
Chief Lu took out the envelope and was about to put the hard disk in when Yan Xie forced a smile and said, “Well… Chief Lu, the contract law stipulates that there must be a cooling-off period for the acquisition of a company…”
Chief Lu: “?”
Yan Xie tapped the hard disk with a finger and said with a smile: “I didn’t expect you would be fooled by this bluff.” Then he hurried out of the study immediately.
“……” Chief Lu’s forehead was full of question marks. His eyelids twitched, and finally he couldn’t help but connect the hard disk to the computer and click on the video file.
The next moment, exciting music played, and colorful lights shone on the screen. Three animated lolitas with big heads, big eyes and small bodies jumped up, and then a line of characters lit up—
Powerpuff Girls, all 52 episodes.
Chief Lu: “……”
A few seconds later, Chief Lu opened the door of the house with a huff and said, “Surname Yan, you bastard!!”
Yan Xie immediately ran away from the corridor.
………
Kutkai mountain area, vast wild forest.
Hundreds of villages were scattered across the mountains, most of which rely on logging, animal husbandry, and poppy cultivation. This was the largest drug production and processing site in Shan State. Every household was equipped with shotguns. Whenever the local government sent people to ambush, the locals would fight back with firepower. If they couldn’t beat them, they would simply flee into the deep mountains and old forests. After the government troops withdraw, they would come back to continue planting yew and poppy fields, continuing to repeat the same thing from generation to generation.
Cattle and sheep were strolling in the village, the dust was rising on the mud road, and a large area was covered with dark green fields on both sides of the road. One of the most common pickup trucks was parked among the hillsides, with a telescope sticking out of its window.
At noon, the smoke rose, and the village gradually became empty.
The telescope was finally taken away, and Qin Chuan casually threw it onto the back seat.
“Tell your boss, it’s not time yet. The people going to and from the field at nine, half past nine, half past ten, and eleven in the morning are not locals; the police haven’t given up on monitoring this place.”
The two henchmen in the car looked at each other.
The henchman in the driver’s seat was unconvinced by him and said in his Southwest dialect with a strong accent, “Why do you say that?”
“I have been a policeman for more than ten years, and no one knows the flaws of plain clothes better than me. Sleeves, buttons, shoelaces, and belt buckles are all exposure points.” Qin Chuan said lazily, “The clothes and trousers of these people look ordinary, but the buttons on the back pockets are all the same, which is a uniform code. So they are not locals; they are plainclothes policemen.”
The driver was stunned.
“Let’s go back,” Qin Chuan said flatly under the obvious change in the eyes of the henchmen, “A plainclothes just turned his head secretly when he turned the corner; they began to have doubts.”
……….
The truck traversed a rough road with rolling hills on both sides. After more than half an hour, people finally appeared on the edge of the jungle under the heavy cover, and the front window of the car suddenly opened.
A small village with only a few dozen households was scattered halfway up the mountain, with tiled houses and wooden buildings scattered here and there. Off-road vehicles surrounded the village in the thick green. The truck finally turned off in front of the village. Qin Chuan got out of the car door, squinted his eyes and looked up, and couldn’t help saying “Yo”,
“A rare visitor.”
——On the second floor of the wooden building in front of him, Jiang Ting stood by the railing, holding a cigarette in one hand, looking down at him.
In the distance, the deep and shallow green of the distant mountains overlapped together. The sound of insects rising and falling, and the wind from farther away, brought the faint sound of a waterfall. Jiang Ting took out the cigarette box. Qin Chuan leaned back against the wooden railing, finally lit one, and said with a smile, “I haven’t smoked one for several months, and I’m about to quit.”
“Why?”
Qin Chuan exhaled a long breath of enjoyment before saying, “Maybe it’s because I’m not like you, who is bold enough to take out a cigarette from his pocket in an environment surrounded by all kinds of drugs every day without feeling uneasy.”
Jiang Ting glanced at him mockingly, but Qin Chuan didn’t even move his eyebrows.
This was the first meeting between the two of them since the night Qin Chuan was arrested at his home. However, even if the mortal enemies met in such a turbulent exile, it was inevitable that there would be a strange sympathy for each other.
“How’s it going?”
“It’s okay.”
“You don’t look like a patient who just recovered from pneumonia,” said Qin Chuan, raising his chin at the half-cigarette in Jiang Ting’s hand.
Jiang Ting said, “You don’t look like a policeman who has just finished his more than a decade-long anti-drug career.”
“Hey,” Qin Chuan laughed for a while: “You and me both, isn’t it?”
Qin Chuan didn’t care about the vague sharpness in Jiang Ting’s words. He changed the subject and asked, “Hey——since you’re here, does it mean that everything is prepared now and your boss is ready to make a move on his father?”
Jiang Ting smoked silently. Layers of smoke turned the sunlight into a slightly emerald green color, making his complexion even colder. No one could see what he was thinking. After a while, he pointed at the distant mountain with his cigarette butt and asked, without answering, “Do you know what I was looking at just now?”
“……”
“The border.”
Qin Chuan turned his head and looked in the direction he was pointing.
“The China-Myanmar border is 2,184 kilometers long, with 402 boundary posts and countless checkpoints. However, the extremely complex jungle terrain makes it very convenient to smuggle drugs, jade, and wild animals, making it more difficult to curb smuggling. Many ferry crossings can cross the Muse border area by rowing a small boat. Chinese people are deceived by “high-paid labor” to go to Myanmar trying to make a fortune, and Burmese people secretly come to China to sell fake jade and jadeite. In the end, most of these people are tricked into working in underground casinos, taking drugs, being beaten, and sharing a small packet of heroin mixed with lime powder with drug friends from various countries in Southeast Asia. Sharing drug needles to infect them with HIV, giving birth to children with Chinese and Burmese ancestry, born with HIV, becoming ill when they were a few years old or in their teens, their whole body festering, then dying. Both the Chinese and Burmese governments provide free AIDS drug treatment, but it is useless. Many people who do not take drugs in the village are considered heretics and will use mixed tobacco, alcohol, food, etc. to drag people into the water. AIDS is rampant throughout the village, and it has been passed down from generation to generation without end.”
Jiang Ting lowered his head and knocked on the cigarette butt. Qin Chuan squinted his eyes and asked, “Are you familiar with these things?”
“Because this kind of situation also exists in the southwest region. Daliang Mountain, Yuanlong Gorge…” Jiang Ting paused, and after a while, he smiled self-deprecatingly: “…Yongkang Village.”
Qin Chuan raised his eyebrows and nodded in silence, took the last few puffs of the cigarette, and then switched hands to extinguish the cigarette butt on the wooden railing.
“I sympathize with the current situation in Yongkang Village.” He got up and said, “But some things are better not to force.”
He put his hands in his trouser pockets and walked in. Just then the wooden stairs creaked, and he saw A-Jie coming up: “What were you talking about so happily?”
Just as Qin Chuan turned his head, Jiang Ting also turned his back to them and said nothing.
“Inquire about wages and benefits.” Qin Chuan smiled, “When will we be able to leave this ghostly place with amazing mosquitoes?”
A-Jie narrowed his pupils slightly and suddenly heard Qin Chuan think of something: “Oh, yes.” He stepped forward and pulled out a Type 92 from the holster on A-Jie’s lap, shaking it: “At last, it should be returned to its original owner, right?”
“……”
A few steps away, Jiang Ting’s hand holding the cigarette suddenly paused lightly, and his pupils constricted.
Qin Chuan pointed the gun without pulling the safety bolt at A-Jie’s forehead and said with a smile, “—Bang!” Then he stuck the gun into his lower back, smiled, and walked away under A-Jie’s psychotic gaze.
China-Myanmar border.
Outside Kutkai Town, mountains.
Under the scorching sun, an off-road vehicle crossed the mountain road, bumped up and down, and finally stopped at the gate of the temple. Several Burmese people jumped out of the car, took out several large cardboard boxes from the trunk, containing various kinds of drinks and tobacco, and carried them skillfully across the courtyard on their shoulders.
The driver came under the yew tree in the front yard and bowed respectfully: “Uncle Wu Tun.”
An old monk with a thin body and slightly hunched back was wearing a yellow monk’s robe, sitting on a reclining chair in the shade of the tree, puffing out clouds of smoke. He slowly hummed and pointed to the mountains outside the courtyard wall: “Still there?”
The driver nodded: “Yes.”
Wu Tun was actually not yet seventy years old, but the flesh on both sides of his cheeks was drooping. There were deep wrinkles running down on the corners of his eyes, and the slightly cataracted eyes were yellow and blurred, making him look as if he was in his eighties. Maybe it was because he fought and killed too much in the Golden Triangle in his early years that his appearance had changed a lot compared with the average old person, always with a bit of cunning and fierceness.
“I’ve already given the order and talked to them, but it’s useless.” Wu Tun flicked the cigarette ash and said, “The police in Shan State have never been so difficult as this time!”
The driver said in a low voice: “It is said that a lot of pressure was exerted by the border defense…”
Wu Tun said nothing, and half of his body was covered by the clouds of opium smoke. The driver waited for him eagerly. After a long time, the old man finally moved, got off the couch, stretched, and then pointed to his subordinates who came out of the temple one after another after moving all the things:
“Tell them, they don’t have to bring anything when they come next time.”
The driver was stunned for a moment, and then he took the hint: “Understood!”
Wu Tun “hummed,” waved his hand, and the driver carefully retreated with his subordinates.
The yard became quiet again, and only the insects’ chirping could be heard far away in the green shade. This big drug lord, who had been running in South Asia for decades, put the opium in his mouth and looked at the mountains in the distance:
“These trash in Shan State…”
Surveillance by the local police and Burmese military police surrounding him would cause a little trouble at most and was not the most difficult problem for him. As long as that d@mn son who burned down three temples in a row was not there, as long as those b@stards didn’t know where he was…
Wu Tun narrowed his old eyes and let out a sneer.
………
Jianning.
Yan Xie finally removed his hand from his face and coughed to suppress his boiling emotion. Two red marks had already been pinched by him on the center of his brow, “What tip?”
Chief Lu said, “Wu Tun’s hiding place. “
—Wu Tun!
The sound of rushing water came from outside the door; it was Chief Lu’s wife washing dishes in the kitchen. In fact, such trivial matters were usually done by part-time workers, but today a pressure cooker was used to make braised pork. His wife couldn’t bear to leave a big pot in the sink and wait for the part-time workers to come. Chief Lu had already fled into the study with Yan Xie, so his wife had to do it herself, angrily.
The familiar sound of washing dishes made Yan Xie feel distracted. He rubbed his nose to hide the soreness in his nasal cavity and asked, “Jiang Ting told you which temple Wu Tun is hiding in?”
“Jiang Ting told me that when preparing for the start of Operation 1009, he once reported various developments to Wu Tun, who was far away in Myanmar, through encrypted emails. This is also consistent with the confession you gave to the provincial department when you just returned from Yuanlong Gorge. Remember?”
Yan Xie’s heart sank slightly: “I remember.”
This was what Jiang Ting told him in front of the King of Spades in the valley, and it was precisely because of this that Operation 1009 had changed from an unfortunate failure of an anti-drug operation to a fight among drug dealers.
Yan Xie didn’t know what others would think of him, but he couldn’t deceive his own feelings and conscience—that was an unbearable deception and blow for the more than a dozen anti-drug policemen who died that year, as well as for those police officers and their families who were implicated.
“According to the data restored from Jiang Ting’s used computers and mobile phones, we did find these emails. However, one thing Jiang Ting didn’t tell you was that a virus program was inserted into some of the emails when they were encrypted. So once these emails were decrypted, the virus would be automatically implanted in the recipient’s computer. As long as Wu Tun replied, the virus would pass through several layers of proxy servers and would lock the geographical location of the email.”
“……” Yan Xie was stunned: “That means…”
“Wu Tun and his group have been wealthy landlords in the Golden Triangle for decades. They are all old-fashioned quack drug dealers, and it was easy for them to fall for this new thing.” Chief Lu saw through Yan Xie’s thoughts and said, “All the locations that Wu Tun returned to Jiang Ting were all concentrated in the mountains near Kutkai Town, Myanmar, and these addresses were recorded by Jiang Ting and sent to Yue Guangping.”
The breath choked in his throat fell back into his chest along with his heart in an instant. Half of Yan Xie’s back was numb, and he could only hear Jiang Ting’s narration mixed in with the mountain wind in his ears: “Every step of the preparation for the 1009 operation was reported to Wu Tun through encrypted emails, and at the time he also… cough cough cough cough cough cough!… He expressed his understanding…”
He was coughing so violently that the King of Spades looked back at him, but no one knew at the time why he stressed the word “expressed”.
Until the most life-or-death and most isolating moment, he was still struggling to get his message across. How did he feel at that time?
Was he feeling disappointed with his lover?
Yan Xie’s lips trembled, but he was unable to speak. Chief Lu blinked his small eyes and pushed the big tea mug forward: “Would you like to drink some water to calm down?”
“……” Yan Xie waved his hand to indicate that he didn’t need it and asked hoarsely, “That means the temple where Wu Tun is hiding is near Kutkai?”
“Kutkai Town is one of the most drug-infested areas in Shan State. Not long ago, a truck driving from Kutkai to Mandalay was found to be loaded with methamphetamine worth 190 million yuan. There was just a truck, nothing more. This shows the rampant nature of the local drug dealers.” Chief Lu shook his head and said, “After learning of this precious information, our public security department quickly communicated with the Burmese side, and the local government is very grateful to us. Since last week, the Burmese military police and local anti-drug police in Shan State have already locked eyes on a Buddhist temple in the Kutkai mountain area. Although no one has been arrested for a long time, they are sure that Wu Tun is hiding inside.”
Yan Xie grasped the point keenly: “Are they waiting for an opportunity?”
Chief Lu said solemnly, “They are waiting for the King of Spades.”
Although they didn’t know what the specific motive was, the King of Spades’ intention to kill Wu Tun was very obvious. The people on Wu Tun’s side must have heard about the burning and looting of three temples in Myanmar before. Now that he had Jiang Ting, he would definitely ask about Wu Tun’s hiding place immediately. Even if Jiang Ting deliberately delayed the time, it would definitely not drag on for three weeks. It was possible that the King of Spades already knew about the Kutkai Mountains.
So, why did the King of Spades delay till now?
Chief Lu said: “The best guess is that Wen Shao is afraid of the Burmese police and dare not act rashly…”
But this possibility was indeed too small. If the largest police command center in Myanmar was located in China, it would have been a county public security bureau at most. If Han Xiaomei went to Myanmar, her level would be equal to that of a police investigator.
“What about the worst guess?” Yan Xie asked.
“Maybe…” Chief Lu hesitated for a moment but still swallowed the words “according to the informant” and said, “Jiang Ting is ill.”
Yan Xie’s expression changed at that moment.
“This is just my guess,” Chief Lu immediately added, “The Kutkai mountain area is more than 200 kilometers away from the border, and the jungle environment is very complicated, so other factors such as terrain are more likely.”
“……” Yan Xie stared straight at him.
“All in all, Wen Shao is bound to strike at the temple in the near future. As soon as he shows up, the Shan state police, who have long been prepared, will take action immediately.” Chief Lu patted Yan Xie on the shoulder and said earnestly, “I know you want Jiang Ting to come back. Alas, we old people don’t understand and don’t want to interfere with your young people’s love and other such feelings. But there is no doubt about one thing: we all hope that Jiang Ting can come back alive and clear his name.”
Yan Xie was silent for a long time. His eye sockets were deeply sunken due to the exhaustion of running around for days, which made his brow bone and bridge of nose look even more sharp, like a rigid golden knife.
“I understand,” he finally said, “I believe you.”
Chief Lu nodded heavily.
It was getting late. Yan Xie got up to leave, and Chief Lu, who had been delayed by him for almost an hour to play chess, waved his hand at him to leave quickly, but suddenly remembered something: “Hey wait, this. Put this thing in your hand down.”
Yan Xie lowered his head, only to see the silver mobile hard disk in his hand: “For what?”
Chief came over with his big belly and grabbed the hard disk: “For what? I have to go to the property management company to take responsibility. Procedures are procedures. If they are told not to leak secrets, so they shouldn’t. Are they treating public security discipline as a game?”
Yan Xie’s eyebrows twitched, and his face was a little weird.
Chief Lu took out the envelope and was about to put the hard disk in when Yan Xie forced a smile and said, “Well… Chief Lu, the contract law stipulates that there must be a cooling-off period for the acquisition of a company…”
Chief Lu: “?”
Yan Xie tapped the hard disk with a finger and said with a smile: “I didn’t expect you would be fooled by this bluff.” Then he hurried out of the study immediately.
“……” Chief Lu’s forehead was full of question marks. His eyelids twitched, and finally he couldn’t help but connect the hard disk to the computer and click on the video file.
The next moment, exciting music played, and colorful lights shone on the screen. Three animated lolitas with big heads, big eyes and small bodies jumped up, and then a line of characters lit up—
Powerpuff Girls, all 52 episodes.
Chief Lu: “……”
A few seconds later, Chief Lu opened the door of the house with a huff and said, “Surname Yan, you bastard!!”
Yan Xie immediately ran away from the corridor.
………
Kutkai mountain area, vast wild forest.
Hundreds of villages were scattered across the mountains, most of which rely on logging, animal husbandry, and poppy cultivation. This was the largest drug production and processing site in Shan State. Every household was equipped with shotguns. Whenever the local government sent people to ambush, the locals would fight back with firepower. If they couldn’t beat them, they would simply flee into the deep mountains and old forests. After the government troops withdraw, they would come back to continue planting yew and poppy fields, continuing to repeat the same thing from generation to generation.
Cattle and sheep were strolling in the village, the dust was rising on the mud road, and a large area was covered with dark green fields on both sides of the road. One of the most common pickup trucks was parked among the hillsides, with a telescope sticking out of its window.
At noon, the smoke rose, and the village gradually became empty.
The telescope was finally taken away, and Qin Chuan casually threw it onto the back seat.
“Tell your boss, it’s not time yet. The people going to and from the field at nine, half past nine, half past ten, and eleven in the morning are not locals; the police haven’t given up on monitoring this place.”
The two henchmen in the car looked at each other.
The henchman in the driver’s seat was unconvinced by him and said in his Southwest dialect with a strong accent, “Why do you say that?”
“I have been a policeman for more than ten years, and no one knows the flaws of plain clothes better than me. Sleeves, buttons, shoelaces, and belt buckles are all exposure points.” Qin Chuan said lazily, “The clothes and trousers of these people look ordinary, but the buttons on the back pockets are all the same, which is a uniform code. So they are not locals; they are plainclothes policemen.”
The driver was stunned.
“Let’s go back,” Qin Chuan said flatly under the obvious change in the eyes of the henchmen, “A plainclothes just turned his head secretly when he turned the corner; they began to have doubts.”
……….
The truck traversed a rough road with rolling hills on both sides. After more than half an hour, people finally appeared on the edge of the jungle under the heavy cover, and the front window of the car suddenly opened.
A small village with only a few dozen households was scattered halfway up the mountain, with tiled houses and wooden buildings scattered here and there. Off-road vehicles surrounded the village in the thick green. The truck finally turned off in front of the village. Qin Chuan got out of the car door, squinted his eyes and looked up, and couldn’t help saying “Yo”,
“A rare visitor.”
——On the second floor of the wooden building in front of him, Jiang Ting stood by the railing, holding a cigarette in one hand, looking down at him.
In the distance, the deep and shallow green of the distant mountains overlapped together. The sound of insects rising and falling, and the wind from farther away, brought the faint sound of a waterfall. Jiang Ting took out the cigarette box. Qin Chuan leaned back against the wooden railing, finally lit one, and said with a smile, “I haven’t smoked one for several months, and I’m about to quit.”
“Why?”
Qin Chuan exhaled a long breath of enjoyment before saying, “Maybe it’s because I’m not like you, who is bold enough to take out a cigarette from his pocket in an environment surrounded by all kinds of drugs every day without feeling uneasy.”
Jiang Ting glanced at him mockingly, but Qin Chuan didn’t even move his eyebrows.
This was the first meeting between the two of them since the night Qin Chuan was arrested at his home. However, even if the mortal enemies met in such a turbulent exile, it was inevitable that there would be a strange sympathy for each other.
“How’s it going?”
“It’s okay.”
“You don’t look like a patient who just recovered from pneumonia,” said Qin Chuan, raising his chin at the half-cigarette in Jiang Ting’s hand.
Jiang Ting said, “You don’t look like a policeman who has just finished his more than a decade-long anti-drug career.”
“Hey,” Qin Chuan laughed for a while: “You and me both, isn’t it?”
Qin Chuan didn’t care about the vague sharpness in Jiang Ting’s words. He changed the subject and asked, “Hey——since you’re here, does it mean that everything is prepared now and your boss is ready to make a move on his father?”
Jiang Ting smoked silently. Layers of smoke turned the sunlight into a slightly emerald green color, making his complexion even colder. No one could see what he was thinking. After a while, he pointed at the distant mountain with his cigarette butt and asked, without answering, “Do you know what I was looking at just now?”
“……”
“The border.”
Qin Chuan turned his head and looked in the direction he was pointing.
“The China-Myanmar border is 2,184 kilometers long, with 402 boundary posts and countless checkpoints. However, the extremely complex jungle terrain makes it very convenient to smuggle drugs, jade, and wild animals, making it more difficult to curb smuggling. Many ferry crossings can cross the Muse border area by rowing a small boat. Chinese people are deceived by “high-paid labor” to go to Myanmar trying to make a fortune, and Burmese people secretly come to China to sell fake jade and jadeite. In the end, most of these people are tricked into working in underground casinos, taking drugs, being beaten, and sharing a small packet of heroin mixed with lime powder with drug friends from various countries in Southeast Asia. Sharing drug needles to infect them with HIV, giving birth to children with Chinese and Burmese ancestry, born with HIV, becoming ill when they were a few years old or in their teens, their whole body festering, then dying. Both the Chinese and Burmese governments provide free AIDS drug treatment, but it is useless. Many people who do not take drugs in the village are considered heretics and will use mixed tobacco, alcohol, food, etc. to drag people into the water. AIDS is rampant throughout the village, and it has been passed down from generation to generation without end.”
Jiang Ting lowered his head and knocked on the cigarette butt. Qin Chuan squinted his eyes and asked, “Are you familiar with these things?”
“Because this kind of situation also exists in the southwest region. Daliang Mountain, Yuanlong Gorge…” Jiang Ting paused, and after a while, he smiled self-deprecatingly: “…Yongkang Village.”
Qin Chuan raised his eyebrows and nodded in silence, took the last few puffs of the cigarette, and then switched hands to extinguish the cigarette butt on the wooden railing.
“I sympathize with the current situation in Yongkang Village.” He got up and said, “But some things are better not to force.”
He put his hands in his trouser pockets and walked in. Just then the wooden stairs creaked, and he saw A-Jie coming up: “What were you talking about so happily?”
Just as Qin Chuan turned his head, Jiang Ting also turned his back to them and said nothing.
“Inquire about wages and benefits.” Qin Chuan smiled, “When will we be able to leave this ghostly place with amazing mosquitoes?”
A-Jie narrowed his pupils slightly and suddenly heard Qin Chuan think of something: “Oh, yes.” He stepped forward and pulled out a Type 92 from the holster on A-Jie’s lap, shaking it: “At last, it should be returned to its original owner, right?”
“……”
A few steps away, Jiang Ting’s hand holding the cigarette suddenly paused lightly, and his pupils constricted.
Qin Chuan pointed the gun without pulling the safety bolt at A-Jie’s forehead and said with a smile, “—Bang!” Then he stuck the gun into his lower back, smiled, and walked away under A-Jie’s psychotic gaze.
