Chapter 141
“But at least I can let you know that no matter what decision you make in the end, I will support it.”
At the foot of the mountain, the temporary headquarters
A row of single-story houses in the village and several Iveco police vans formed the command center of the Yaoshan anti-drug operation. The police were all disguised in plain clothes, and everyone was in a hurry. The forensic doctor lifted the corpses covered with white clothes from the car and carried them into the temporary dissection room.
Looking out from the car window with a single-sided viewing film, the village chief’s family and Gong A-Chi, whose head was bleeding, were being escorted by armed criminal policemen, staggering across the open space.
“Hey Captain Yan?”
“Captain Yan!”
Yan Xie nodded, waved his hand to signal the policemen on both sides of the door to get out of the way, and then got on the minibus.
Jiang Ting was wrapped in a blanket and was leaning against the corner of the last row of seats. His face was pale and his eyes were closed as he leaned against the car window, and no one could tell whether he was awake or asleep. Two plainclothes officers were vigilantly guarding this dangerous and unknown suspect. Seeing Yan Xie get onto the vehicle, they both stood up immediately: “Captain Yan? Do you have any orders?”
“Chief Lu asked me to take a look; you guys go down.”
Yan Xie’s rank here was very high. The two people did not doubt him and left in unison.
Bang!
The sound of the minibus door closing seemed to be a direct blow to his heart. Yan Xie strode forward and lifted the blanket, only to see a pair of handcuffs on Jiang Ting’s slender wrists; the bright reflection was dazzling. Yan Xie took off the handcuffs with a click of the key he had prepared earlier and asked hoarsely, “Why are you here?”
Jiang Ting didn’t answer.
He didn’t seem to know that Yan Xie was here. He had his eyes closed and he didn’t look, listen, or say anything.
The strangling marks on his neck were already bruised, and the compression of the trachea could be felt just from the hideous shape alone. It was a real life-and-death situation, and maybe just a few seconds later, the neck bone that was bent to the limit would be broken.
Yan Xie’s fingers trembled slightly, and it took him a long time to touch him lightly as if he was carefully touching a treasure that had cracks and might be smashed to pieces at any time. He finally managed to squeeze out a word after a long time:
“…How much do you hate me, Jiang Ting?”
Jiang Ting’s closed eyelashes trembled. The frequency was barely visible, and then he turned his face away slightly. This small movement almost instantly angered Yan Xie.
“You just want to use this method to make me worry every day and night and finally torture myself to death while thinking about you, right?!”
Jiang Ting slowly curled up, bent his knees, and buried his face in the narrow gap between his trambling arm and the car window. From Yan Xie’s angle, he could only see the head full of black hair and a small section of his eyebrows, which contrasted with the shocking paleness of the small side of his face exposed in the crook of his arm. He stretched out his hand to pull Jiang Ting’s face hard as if trying to drag him out of his hard, protective shell. He finally couldn’t hold back the volume and roared angrily: “Speak to me! Jiang Ting! Look up at me!”
Bang bang!
The car door was knocked twice from the outside, and the anxious voice of his subordinate came: “What’s the matter, Captain Yan? Are you okay?”
“……” Yan Xie panted heavily, and it took several seconds before he raised his voice: “Everything is alright!”
The subordinate hesitated for a moment before walking away.
Jiang Ting curled up even tighter. His fingers were interlaced, and his hands were hanging down, covering the small piece of his cheek and the tip of his ears that his arms couldn’t cover. It was as if his wrists were still bound by an invisible shackle, and the drug dealer’s blood that had already solidified snaked from the palm of his hand to the inside of his arm. Under the dust and mud, there were traces of scratches and bloodstains left by himself in his desperate struggle.
Yan Xie grabbed his hands roughly, separated them forcibly, grabbed his hair, and made him look up: “I know everything! I already know! What else do you want me to do, ah?!”
His unbearable low growl suddenly paused, and at that moment he saw something—
Jiang Ting’s eyelashes were wet, and his eye sockets were bloodshot.
As if being pierced hard by a red-hot steel needle, Yan Xie’s heart suddenly convulsed into a ball, and he even forgot to breathe. By the time he realized it, he had already pulled Jiang Ting’s chin and kissed those tight, cold lips.
At first, it was just an impulsive, rude, and painful kiss without any intimacy. Jiang Ting was forced to put his head on the car window and look up. Yan Xie stood by the seat, his upper body almost completely covering his scarred lover.
The last time their lips and teeth were so close together seemed to have happened in a previous life. The tsunami-like anger gradually faded away, and the uncontrollable longing and love emerged again. The bitterness and sweetness submerged every inch of taste buds and senses, pouring down the throat.
“Jiang Ting,” Yan Xie murmured over and over again, “Jiang Ting, Jiang Ting, Jiang Ting…”
He wrapped his strong and hot arms around Jiang Ting’s neck, inserted his five fingers into the black and soft hair on the back of his head, and muttered the spell that made him ecstatic while deepening the kiss. Jiang Ting’s tense body collapsed, and his shoulders and lips were trembling constantly. Yan Xie kissed from the corner of his wet lips to the wing of his nose, and then his eyelids, and finally he heard Jiang Ting’s hoarse voice slowly seeping out: “…Why are you here?!”
He had no strength left, and his voice was so weak that he lacked even the strength to question him.
Yan Xie pulled back a little distance, rubbing his messy temple hair vigorously, forcing him to meet his gaze: “Why can’t I be here?”
Jiang Ting shook his head, nervously saying nothing.
“You thought I would think, ‘Oh, Jiang Ting betrayed me; it turns out he has been lying to me all along,’ and then just stay at home and do nothing? You pointed a gun at my head, so I’ll just make a clean break and never miss you again?” Yan Xie approached even closer, and the tips of their noses were almost touching: “You love me. You’re dragging and struggling so much to protect me; don’t you think I want to protect you too?!”
“I want to return victorious from the battlefield hand in hand with you—or die on the battlefield side by side with you.
Don’t you understand Jiang Ting? Have I ever left you behind? Have I ever deliberately not told you the clues because the criminals were too vicious and the case was too complicated, or did I make you wait for me anxiously, sleepless, and unable to eat anything?!”
Jiang Ting seemed to have a bitter lump in his throat, which made his larynx even more painful. He raised his blood-stained hand, and with trembling fingertips and cold, stiff fingers, he vigorously stroked Yan Xie’s cheek. Then he pulled his face closer to himself and imprinted a hasty kiss.
Yan Xie lowered his head, pressed him completely against the back of the seat, and hugged him completely in his arms.
Jiang Ting’s eyes were slightly open when he kissed. He looked at Yan Xie’s well-defined neck and arms from under his eyelashes. It seemed as if he could draw Yan Xie’s body shape, skin color, breath, the straight angle of his nose bridge, and even the slight creases of his collar when his neck was turned—these were all branded down and engraved in his heart forever.
But he couldn’t say it. His language function seemed to be limited to matters related to the murder case by nature, and other gentle words and sentences were burned deep in his heart, fused with the perception of the seven orifices, and couldn’t be organized into words to express alone.
“It’s okay, it’s okay…” Yan Xie whispered in his ear to comfort him, “It’s all over, you can go home, you can go home…”
Jiang Ting collapsed back onto the seat, shaking his head.
Yan Xie went to the minibus door and opened it a little, asking Han Xiaomei, who was squatting not far away to pull weeds, for a hot towel. Then he closed the bus door again, came back and sat next to Jiang Ting, took his hand, and wiped it slowly. It wasn’t until the entire hot towel was dyed black and red that the blood on Jiang Ting’s hand was wiped off, revealing the mottled scratches and bruises on his arms.
It was all left by the impact and restraint in the fight. Compared with the two drug dealers who were killed by a knife and strangled to death, his could be said to be already very neat and clean.
Yan Xie held his hands into his arms: “Does it hurt?”
Jiang Ting looked at the air lazily and didn’t answer at first. After a long time, he asked blankly:
“…Why are you here?”
This sentence was exactly the same as before. Yan Xie was about to persuade him patiently, only to hear him murmur again: “I will be distracted and restrained if you are here. At a critical moment, my first instinct might not be to put all my eggs in one basket… In this situation, as long as I distract myself a little bit, I’ll definitely fail.”
Yan Xie was stunned.
“I didn’t appear here to protect you,” Jiang Ting said slowly, “not for you.”
He took a long breath, buried his face in his palms, and rubbed it.
That was all to hide his helplessness. But Yan Xie understood it in an instant. He stretched out his hand to wrap his upper body into his arms, kissed the black hair on the top of his head, and said in a low voice, “I understand. I’m also not here entirely for your sake, but at least to let you know that no matter what decision you make in the end, I’ll support you.”
Jiang Ting smiled wryly and was just about to say something when suddenly the single-sided visible minibus window in front was knocked several times: “Yan Xie! Yan Xie, open the door for me, hurry up!”
——It turned out to be Deputy Chief Wei.
“It’s too late! Yan Xie!”
The two were stunned at the same time and looked at each other. Yan Xie immediately got up and opened the door of the minibus, and sure enough, there was Deputy Chief Wei with Director Huang Xing outside. Before he had time to ask what happened and why he was so anxious, he immediately understood the reason for his anxiety—the mobile phone in Huang Xing’s hand, which was wrapped in an evidence bag, was ringing.
Yan Xie snatched it up and saw a string of unfamiliar numbers displayed on the screen.
Then the ringing stopped abruptly.
“……” The air was suddenly quiet, and the three of them looked at each other in blank dismay. Huang Xing rubbed his hands nervously, with an expression as if he was on the verge of myocardial infarction: “This mobile phone was found from the suspect, Gong A-Chi. I was just about to do data analysis when it suddenly rang. What should we do now? Do you want to call back?”
Deputy Chief Wei asked back: “You know whose number is this? Just calling back like this, what if it’s the King of Spades?!”
“I-I–I’ll investigate right away!”
Huang Xing was also shocked and immediately turned around and ran back. Deputy Chief Wei hurriedly grabbed him, almost dumbfounded: “Check what, is there still time? I think there’s something wrong with your head…”
In the midst of the confusion, a hand stretched out from behind him and pulled the evidence bag away from Yan Xie’s hand.
When Yan Xie turned his head, he saw that Jiang Ting had gotten out of the minibus at some point. He pressed a few times on the phone keypad through the transparent plastic bag and successfully unlocked the combination lock.
Jiang Ting’s focused side face was faintly reflected by the light of the screen. He seemed unaware of the strange atmosphere around him, and after opening the missed calls, he looked up and said, “It’s not the King of Spades, it’s Jin Jie. “
Deputy Chief Wei frowned, and at this moment, a text message came on the mobile phone with a ding:
[Why didn’t you answer?]
In the process of handling cases, the criminal police need to be extremely cautious when handling the messages sent by the accomplices on the seized mobile phone; otherwise, they would not only be unable to lure the snake out of the hole but would also startle it. Just as Deputy Chief Wei was about to take the phone, Jiang Ting paused for a moment, clicked on the text message, and typed two lines:
[Brother Jie, surname Jiang is causing trouble again and is hard to deal with. It’s not convenient to talk.]
Deputy Chief Wei opened his mouth and held back, watching Jiang Ting click send, but after thinking for a while, he added another sentence:
[Will call you back later.]
The message was sent successfully.
Several people’s eyes were fixed on the screen, but the phone fell into silence. There seemed to be a string in the air that was getting tighter and tighter. A few minutes later, just when Deputy Chief Wei couldn’t help but start to feel frightened, the screen lit up again!
A-Jie’s reply finally arrived belatedly. Deputy Chief Wei snatched the phone over to take a look and was instantly relieved after seeing two words on the screen:
[Hurry up.]
Five minutes later.
The door of the interrogation room was slammed open, and the cold wind howled in. Gong A-Chi raised his head tremblingly, only to see Deputy Chief Wei striding into the room and throwing the mobile phone in front of him with a “bang!”
Leniency in confession, imprisonment for punishment; strict resistance, and home for the New Year1. Gong A-Chi’s mouth was closed like a clamshell, and as soon as he turned his head angrily, he heard Deputy Chief Wei spit out a few words, coldly and harshly:
“Now there is still a chance to atone for your crimes!”
Gong A-Chi’s pupils couldn’t help constricting.
“Will you make the call yourself, or should I take it to your accomplice in the next room?”
………
“Go outside and guard. Except for Deputy Chief Wei, Captain Yu, and Director Huang of the Technical Investigation Team, no one was allowed to get close to this room. Do you understand?”
Han Xiaomei and Ma Xiang, who had already changed back to normal casual clothes, agreed, and Chief Lu closed the door.
The main house had been converted into a temporary command center, with a large map hanging on the wall, files, and materials piled on the table, and satellite communications and positioning instruments placed all over the ground. Jiang Ting was sitting in the sofa chair behind the big desk; his face was completely pale, and his shirt buttoned to the top couldn’t hide the terrible strangulation marks on his throat. Yan Xie stood beside him and held his hand tightly.
Chief Lu turned around to look at them with an extremely serious expression on his face. But he didn’t ask questions right away; instead, he made a cup of hot wolfberry tea with his own hands and put it in front of him before saying, in a deep voice, “Captain Jiang has been wronged. But there are many people with eyes and mouths, and I still have to handcuff you back; please forgive me.”
Jiang Ting waved his hands to indicate that it was okay, but his voice was hoarse and straight to the point: “Tomorrow, the buyer, Wang Pengfei, will go up the mountain with his people through Qiju Peak, and Qin Chuan will lead people to pick them up at Yunzhong village.”
Chief Lu and Yan Xie looked at each other, and they both saw the seriousness in each other’s eyes.
“Is it reliable?” Chief Lu asked.
Jiang Ting nodded.
“What have you seen and heard in this period of time? How much firepower do the drug traffickers in Yunzhong village have? Where is the specific location?”
Jiang Ting asked, without answering the questions, “Have you found out who the mole in the Provincial Party Committee is?”
Chief Lu didn’t say anything. He tore a piece of paper casually, wrote down a series of numbers with a pencil, and tapped it with the tip of the pencil: “This is his police number.”
Yan Xie knew this information a long time ago, but Jiang Ting couldn’t help but twitch his brows: this police number is actually within the top ten.
In all provinces and municipalities directly under the central government, the police number 001 was without exception assigned to the chief of the public security department, and then from the deputy chief to the leaders at all levels were 002, 003, and so on. The top ten police numbers were considered to be very important no matter where they were, so the seriousness could be seen from this.
“After you left Jianning, I was admitted to the hospital due to the stab wound, and then, as we expected, this person sent a trusted clerk to monitor our ward, which revealed the fox’s tail and was caught by Director Liu. However, this news is still highly classified. Before Wu Tun’s and Wen Shao’s drug trafficking group is completely eliminated, we still need to use this traitor to deliver false news to the other party.”
Chief Lu took a breath, took out a lighter, and burned the piece of paper to ashes before saying: “Don’t worry; not only Jianning but also the Gongzhou Municipal Bureau. After the operation is over, we will immediately arrest the moles hidden inside and wipe them all out!”
Jiang Ting’s eyes flickered with unknown emotions, and it took a long time before he tugged at the corner of his lips briefly and turned his face to look at the map: “…bring it to me.”
Chief Lu walked to take the map off the wall, and Jiang Ting drew a heavy point on it.
“Yunzhong village is located at this point at the pinnacle of Yaoshan. It is a three-hour drive from Qiju Peak. Every household is more or less involved in drug trafficking. Wen Shao came to Yunzhong village from Myanmar half a month ago. Finally, they established a security fortress locally and then contacted Wang Pengfei’s agent, Old Cai…”
The office was quiet except for Jiang Ting’s hoarse but steady narration.
“…What happened afterward was almost exactly what Old Cai told us. We tried all the methods we could think of, but we couldn’t determine the exact location of the underground factory, and we didn’t know where Wen Shao would take Wang Pengfei and his party for the final transaction. In addition, there are still some questions that have not been answered, such as how many drugs are in the underground factory, where Wen Shao hid the simplified synthesis formula after getting it, and—”
Jiang Ting’s voice paused slightly, and Yan Xie couldn’t help asking: “What?”
“…Wen Shao seems to be very anxious.” After hesitating, Jiang Ting still said: “He should have been very suspicious of me, and he also knows that the police are most likely to be watching. This is not in line with the general behavior pattern of drug traffickers.”
In the countries with the most stringent drug trafficking sanctions, drug traffickers rarely provoked the police, and the entire transaction chain was as low-key as possible; the fewer people knew about things, the better. Because the money in the lucrative drug industry was endless, and once you were caught, you would have nothing, the bigger the drug lord, the less willing he was to cause trouble, and those who dared to risk their lives were often low-level drug traffickers.
To allow a drug lord of Wen Shao’s level to take such a risk, how much blue gold was hidden in the underground factory?
Hundreds of millions? Billion?
Even tens of billions?
Even Chief Lu couldn’t imagine it, so he frowned and asked, “Can Wang Pengfei buy so much drug alone?”
Jiang Ting shook his head: “A few years ago, I caught Wang Pengfei’s men trading drugs in Gongzhou. According to my observation, this possibility is very small.”
Chief Lu took a breath; a suspicious look flickered behind his reading glasses.
“Chief Lu! Chief Lu!” Suddenly the wooden door slammed, and Ma Xiang said anxiously from outside: “Brother Yan! Are you still inside?!”
Chief Lu made a look, and Yan Xie stepped forward to open the door slightly: “What’s wrong?”
“Chief Wei persuaded ‘Ghost Seeking Sorrow’ to cooperate in calling Jack of Diamonds back. But after dialing, it was picked up by the King of Spades!” Ma Xiang anxiously pointed in the direction of the technical investigation office not far away: “They’re now at Director Huang’s place. The King of Spades wants Lu…the Queen of Hearts to answer the phone!”
Chief Lu and Jiang Ting suddenly stood up at the same time.
In the Technical Investigation Department, Gong A-Chi was handcuffed and sat on the interrogation chair, and Deputy Chief Wei held the mobile phone, sticking it to his ear. The faces of all the technicians around were not very good, and they only listened to the voice of the King of Spades coming clearly from the monitoring instrument:
“That batch of important goods is almost there. You call Jiang Ting, I have something to tell him personally.”
Chapter 141
“But at least I can let you know that no matter what decision you make in the end, I will support it.”
At the foot of the mountain, the temporary headquarters
A row of single-story houses in the village and several Iveco police vans formed the command center of the Yaoshan anti-drug operation. The police were all disguised in plain clothes, and everyone was in a hurry. The forensic doctor lifted the corpses covered with white clothes from the car and carried them into the temporary dissection room.
Looking out from the car window with a single-sided viewing film, the village chief’s family and Gong A-Chi, whose head was bleeding, were being escorted by armed criminal policemen, staggering across the open space.
“Hey Captain Yan?”
“Captain Yan!”
Yan Xie nodded, waved his hand to signal the policemen on both sides of the door to get out of the way, and then got on the minibus.
Jiang Ting was wrapped in a blanket and was leaning against the corner of the last row of seats. His face was pale and his eyes were closed as he leaned against the car window, and no one could tell whether he was awake or asleep. Two plainclothes officers were vigilantly guarding this dangerous and unknown suspect. Seeing Yan Xie get onto the vehicle, they both stood up immediately: “Captain Yan? Do you have any orders?”
“Chief Lu asked me to take a look; you guys go down.”
Yan Xie’s rank here was very high. The two people did not doubt him and left in unison.
Bang!
The sound of the minibus door closing seemed to be a direct blow to his heart. Yan Xie strode forward and lifted the blanket, only to see a pair of handcuffs on Jiang Ting’s slender wrists; the bright reflection was dazzling. Yan Xie took off the handcuffs with a click of the key he had prepared earlier and asked hoarsely, “Why are you here?”
Jiang Ting didn’t answer.
He didn’t seem to know that Yan Xie was here. He had his eyes closed and he didn’t look, listen, or say anything.
The strangling marks on his neck were already bruised, and the compression of the trachea could be felt just from the hideous shape alone. It was a real life-and-death situation, and maybe just a few seconds later, the neck bone that was bent to the limit would be broken.
Yan Xie’s fingers trembled slightly, and it took him a long time to touch him lightly as if he was carefully touching a treasure that had cracks and might be smashed to pieces at any time. He finally managed to squeeze out a word after a long time:
“…How much do you hate me, Jiang Ting?”
Jiang Ting’s closed eyelashes trembled. The frequency was barely visible, and then he turned his face away slightly. This small movement almost instantly angered Yan Xie.
“You just want to use this method to make me worry every day and night and finally torture myself to death while thinking about you, right?!”
Jiang Ting slowly curled up, bent his knees, and buried his face in the narrow gap between his trambling arm and the car window. From Yan Xie’s angle, he could only see the head full of black hair and a small section of his eyebrows, which contrasted with the shocking paleness of the small side of his face exposed in the crook of his arm. He stretched out his hand to pull Jiang Ting’s face hard as if trying to drag him out of his hard, protective shell. He finally couldn’t hold back the volume and roared angrily: “Speak to me! Jiang Ting! Look up at me!”
Bang bang!
The car door was knocked twice from the outside, and the anxious voice of his subordinate came: “What’s the matter, Captain Yan? Are you okay?”
“……” Yan Xie panted heavily, and it took several seconds before he raised his voice: “Everything is alright!”
The subordinate hesitated for a moment before walking away.
Jiang Ting curled up even tighter. His fingers were interlaced, and his hands were hanging down, covering the small piece of his cheek and the tip of his ears that his arms couldn’t cover. It was as if his wrists were still bound by an invisible shackle, and the drug dealer’s blood that had already solidified snaked from the palm of his hand to the inside of his arm. Under the dust and mud, there were traces of scratches and bloodstains left by himself in his desperate struggle.
Yan Xie grabbed his hands roughly, separated them forcibly, grabbed his hair, and made him look up: “I know everything! I already know! What else do you want me to do, ah?!”
His unbearable low growl suddenly paused, and at that moment he saw something—
Jiang Ting’s eyelashes were wet, and his eye sockets were bloodshot.
As if being pierced hard by a red-hot steel needle, Yan Xie’s heart suddenly convulsed into a ball, and he even forgot to breathe. By the time he realized it, he had already pulled Jiang Ting’s chin and kissed those tight, cold lips.
At first, it was just an impulsive, rude, and painful kiss without any intimacy. Jiang Ting was forced to put his head on the car window and look up. Yan Xie stood by the seat, his upper body almost completely covering his scarred lover.
The last time their lips and teeth were so close together seemed to have happened in a previous life. The tsunami-like anger gradually faded away, and the uncontrollable longing and love emerged again. The bitterness and sweetness submerged every inch of taste buds and senses, pouring down the throat.
“Jiang Ting,” Yan Xie murmured over and over again, “Jiang Ting, Jiang Ting, Jiang Ting…”
He wrapped his strong and hot arms around Jiang Ting’s neck, inserted his five fingers into the black and soft hair on the back of his head, and muttered the spell that made him ecstatic while deepening the kiss. Jiang Ting’s tense body collapsed, and his shoulders and lips were trembling constantly. Yan Xie kissed from the corner of his wet lips to the wing of his nose, and then his eyelids, and finally he heard Jiang Ting’s hoarse voice slowly seeping out: “…Why are you here?!”
He had no strength left, and his voice was so weak that he lacked even the strength to question him.
Yan Xie pulled back a little distance, rubbing his messy temple hair vigorously, forcing him to meet his gaze: “Why can’t I be here?”
Jiang Ting shook his head, nervously saying nothing.
“You thought I would think, ‘Oh, Jiang Ting betrayed me; it turns out he has been lying to me all along,’ and then just stay at home and do nothing? You pointed a gun at my head, so I’ll just make a clean break and never miss you again?” Yan Xie approached even closer, and the tips of their noses were almost touching: “You love me. You’re dragging and struggling so much to protect me; don’t you think I want to protect you too?!”
“I want to return victorious from the battlefield hand in hand with you—or die on the battlefield side by side with you.
Don’t you understand Jiang Ting? Have I ever left you behind? Have I ever deliberately not told you the clues because the criminals were too vicious and the case was too complicated, or did I make you wait for me anxiously, sleepless, and unable to eat anything?!”
Jiang Ting seemed to have a bitter lump in his throat, which made his larynx even more painful. He raised his blood-stained hand, and with trembling fingertips and cold, stiff fingers, he vigorously stroked Yan Xie’s cheek. Then he pulled his face closer to himself and imprinted a hasty kiss.
Yan Xie lowered his head, pressed him completely against the back of the seat, and hugged him completely in his arms.
Jiang Ting’s eyes were slightly open when he kissed. He looked at Yan Xie’s well-defined neck and arms from under his eyelashes. It seemed as if he could draw Yan Xie’s body shape, skin color, breath, the straight angle of his nose bridge, and even the slight creases of his collar when his neck was turned—these were all branded down and engraved in his heart forever.
But he couldn’t say it. His language function seemed to be limited to matters related to the murder case by nature, and other gentle words and sentences were burned deep in his heart, fused with the perception of the seven orifices, and couldn’t be organized into words to express alone.
“It’s okay, it’s okay…” Yan Xie whispered in his ear to comfort him, “It’s all over, you can go home, you can go home…”
Jiang Ting collapsed back onto the seat, shaking his head.
Yan Xie went to the minibus door and opened it a little, asking Han Xiaomei, who was squatting not far away to pull weeds, for a hot towel. Then he closed the bus door again, came back and sat next to Jiang Ting, took his hand, and wiped it slowly. It wasn’t until the entire hot towel was dyed black and red that the blood on Jiang Ting’s hand was wiped off, revealing the mottled scratches and bruises on his arms.
It was all left by the impact and restraint in the fight. Compared with the two drug dealers who were killed by a knife and strangled to death, his could be said to be already very neat and clean.
Yan Xie held his hands into his arms: “Does it hurt?”
Jiang Ting looked at the air lazily and didn’t answer at first. After a long time, he asked blankly:
“…Why are you here?”
This sentence was exactly the same as before. Yan Xie was about to persuade him patiently, only to hear him murmur again: “I will be distracted and restrained if you are here. At a critical moment, my first instinct might not be to put all my eggs in one basket… In this situation, as long as I distract myself a little bit, I’ll definitely fail.”
Yan Xie was stunned.
“I didn’t appear here to protect you,” Jiang Ting said slowly, “not for you.”
He took a long breath, buried his face in his palms, and rubbed it.
That was all to hide his helplessness. But Yan Xie understood it in an instant. He stretched out his hand to wrap his upper body into his arms, kissed the black hair on the top of his head, and said in a low voice, “I understand. I’m also not here entirely for your sake, but at least to let you know that no matter what decision you make in the end, I’ll support you.”
Jiang Ting smiled wryly and was just about to say something when suddenly the single-sided visible minibus window in front was knocked several times: “Yan Xie! Yan Xie, open the door for me, hurry up!”
——It turned out to be Deputy Chief Wei.
“It’s too late! Yan Xie!”
The two were stunned at the same time and looked at each other. Yan Xie immediately got up and opened the door of the minibus, and sure enough, there was Deputy Chief Wei with Director Huang Xing outside. Before he had time to ask what happened and why he was so anxious, he immediately understood the reason for his anxiety—the mobile phone in Huang Xing’s hand, which was wrapped in an evidence bag, was ringing.
Yan Xie snatched it up and saw a string of unfamiliar numbers displayed on the screen.
Then the ringing stopped abruptly.
“……” The air was suddenly quiet, and the three of them looked at each other in blank dismay. Huang Xing rubbed his hands nervously, with an expression as if he was on the verge of myocardial infarction: “This mobile phone was found from the suspect, Gong A-Chi. I was just about to do data analysis when it suddenly rang. What should we do now? Do you want to call back?”
Deputy Chief Wei asked back: “You know whose number is this? Just calling back like this, what if it’s the King of Spades?!”
“I-I–I’ll investigate right away!”
Huang Xing was also shocked and immediately turned around and ran back. Deputy Chief Wei hurriedly grabbed him, almost dumbfounded: “Check what, is there still time? I think there’s something wrong with your head…”
In the midst of the confusion, a hand stretched out from behind him and pulled the evidence bag away from Yan Xie’s hand.
When Yan Xie turned his head, he saw that Jiang Ting had gotten out of the minibus at some point. He pressed a few times on the phone keypad through the transparent plastic bag and successfully unlocked the combination lock.
Jiang Ting’s focused side face was faintly reflected by the light of the screen. He seemed unaware of the strange atmosphere around him, and after opening the missed calls, he looked up and said, “It’s not the King of Spades, it’s Jin Jie. “
Deputy Chief Wei frowned, and at this moment, a text message came on the mobile phone with a ding:
[Why didn’t you answer?]
In the process of handling cases, the criminal police need to be extremely cautious when handling the messages sent by the accomplices on the seized mobile phone; otherwise, they would not only be unable to lure the snake out of the hole but would also startle it. Just as Deputy Chief Wei was about to take the phone, Jiang Ting paused for a moment, clicked on the text message, and typed two lines:
[Brother Jie, surname Jiang is causing trouble again and is hard to deal with. It’s not convenient to talk.]
Deputy Chief Wei opened his mouth and held back, watching Jiang Ting click send, but after thinking for a while, he added another sentence:
[Will call you back later.]
The message was sent successfully.
Several people’s eyes were fixed on the screen, but the phone fell into silence. There seemed to be a string in the air that was getting tighter and tighter. A few minutes later, just when Deputy Chief Wei couldn’t help but start to feel frightened, the screen lit up again!
A-Jie’s reply finally arrived belatedly. Deputy Chief Wei snatched the phone over to take a look and was instantly relieved after seeing two words on the screen:
[Hurry up.]
Five minutes later.
The door of the interrogation room was slammed open, and the cold wind howled in. Gong A-Chi raised his head tremblingly, only to see Deputy Chief Wei striding into the room and throwing the mobile phone in front of him with a “bang!”
Leniency in confession, imprisonment for punishment; strict resistance, and home for the New Year1. Gong A-Chi’s mouth was closed like a clamshell, and as soon as he turned his head angrily, he heard Deputy Chief Wei spit out a few words, coldly and harshly:
“Now there is still a chance to atone for your crimes!”
Gong A-Chi’s pupils couldn’t help constricting.
“Will you make the call yourself, or should I take it to your accomplice in the next room?”
………
“Go outside and guard. Except for Deputy Chief Wei, Captain Yu, and Director Huang of the Technical Investigation Team, no one was allowed to get close to this room. Do you understand?”
Han Xiaomei and Ma Xiang, who had already changed back to normal casual clothes, agreed, and Chief Lu closed the door.
The main house had been converted into a temporary command center, with a large map hanging on the wall, files, and materials piled on the table, and satellite communications and positioning instruments placed all over the ground. Jiang Ting was sitting in the sofa chair behind the big desk; his face was completely pale, and his shirt buttoned to the top couldn’t hide the terrible strangulation marks on his throat. Yan Xie stood beside him and held his hand tightly.
Chief Lu turned around to look at them with an extremely serious expression on his face. But he didn’t ask questions right away; instead, he made a cup of hot wolfberry tea with his own hands and put it in front of him before saying, in a deep voice, “Captain Jiang has been wronged. But there are many people with eyes and mouths, and I still have to handcuff you back; please forgive me.”
Jiang Ting waved his hands to indicate that it was okay, but his voice was hoarse and straight to the point: “Tomorrow, the buyer, Wang Pengfei, will go up the mountain with his people through Qiju Peak, and Qin Chuan will lead people to pick them up at Yunzhong village.”
Chief Lu and Yan Xie looked at each other, and they both saw the seriousness in each other’s eyes.
“Is it reliable?” Chief Lu asked.
Jiang Ting nodded.
“What have you seen and heard in this period of time? How much firepower do the drug traffickers in Yunzhong village have? Where is the specific location?”
Jiang Ting asked, without answering the questions, “Have you found out who the mole in the Provincial Party Committee is?”
Chief Lu didn’t say anything. He tore a piece of paper casually, wrote down a series of numbers with a pencil, and tapped it with the tip of the pencil: “This is his police number.”
Yan Xie knew this information a long time ago, but Jiang Ting couldn’t help but twitch his brows: this police number is actually within the top ten.
In all provinces and municipalities directly under the central government, the police number 001 was without exception assigned to the chief of the public security department, and then from the deputy chief to the leaders at all levels were 002, 003, and so on. The top ten police numbers were considered to be very important no matter where they were, so the seriousness could be seen from this.
“After you left Jianning, I was admitted to the hospital due to the stab wound, and then, as we expected, this person sent a trusted clerk to monitor our ward, which revealed the fox’s tail and was caught by Director Liu. However, this news is still highly classified. Before Wu Tun’s and Wen Shao’s drug trafficking group is completely eliminated, we still need to use this traitor to deliver false news to the other party.”
Chief Lu took a breath, took out a lighter, and burned the piece of paper to ashes before saying: “Don’t worry; not only Jianning but also the Gongzhou Municipal Bureau. After the operation is over, we will immediately arrest the moles hidden inside and wipe them all out!”
Jiang Ting’s eyes flickered with unknown emotions, and it took a long time before he tugged at the corner of his lips briefly and turned his face to look at the map: “…bring it to me.”
Chief Lu walked to take the map off the wall, and Jiang Ting drew a heavy point on it.
“Yunzhong village is located at this point at the pinnacle of Yaoshan. It is a three-hour drive from Qiju Peak. Every household is more or less involved in drug trafficking. Wen Shao came to Yunzhong village from Myanmar half a month ago. Finally, they established a security fortress locally and then contacted Wang Pengfei’s agent, Old Cai…”
The office was quiet except for Jiang Ting’s hoarse but steady narration.
“…What happened afterward was almost exactly what Old Cai told us. We tried all the methods we could think of, but we couldn’t determine the exact location of the underground factory, and we didn’t know where Wen Shao would take Wang Pengfei and his party for the final transaction. In addition, there are still some questions that have not been answered, such as how many drugs are in the underground factory, where Wen Shao hid the simplified synthesis formula after getting it, and—”
Jiang Ting’s voice paused slightly, and Yan Xie couldn’t help asking: “What?”
“…Wen Shao seems to be very anxious.” After hesitating, Jiang Ting still said: “He should have been very suspicious of me, and he also knows that the police are most likely to be watching. This is not in line with the general behavior pattern of drug traffickers.”
In the countries with the most stringent drug trafficking sanctions, drug traffickers rarely provoked the police, and the entire transaction chain was as low-key as possible; the fewer people knew about things, the better. Because the money in the lucrative drug industry was endless, and once you were caught, you would have nothing, the bigger the drug lord, the less willing he was to cause trouble, and those who dared to risk their lives were often low-level drug traffickers.
To allow a drug lord of Wen Shao’s level to take such a risk, how much blue gold was hidden in the underground factory?
Hundreds of millions? Billion?
Even tens of billions?
Even Chief Lu couldn’t imagine it, so he frowned and asked, “Can Wang Pengfei buy so much drug alone?”
Jiang Ting shook his head: “A few years ago, I caught Wang Pengfei’s men trading drugs in Gongzhou. According to my observation, this possibility is very small.”
Chief Lu took a breath; a suspicious look flickered behind his reading glasses.
“Chief Lu! Chief Lu!” Suddenly the wooden door slammed, and Ma Xiang said anxiously from outside: “Brother Yan! Are you still inside?!”
Chief Lu made a look, and Yan Xie stepped forward to open the door slightly: “What’s wrong?”
“Chief Wei persuaded ‘Ghost Seeking Sorrow’ to cooperate in calling Jack of Diamonds back. But after dialing, it was picked up by the King of Spades!” Ma Xiang anxiously pointed in the direction of the technical investigation office not far away: “They’re now at Director Huang’s place. The King of Spades wants Lu…the Queen of Hearts to answer the phone!”
Chief Lu and Jiang Ting suddenly stood up at the same time.
In the Technical Investigation Department, Gong A-Chi was handcuffed and sat on the interrogation chair, and Deputy Chief Wei held the mobile phone, sticking it to his ear. The faces of all the technicians around were not very good, and they only listened to the voice of the King of Spades coming clearly from the monitoring instrument:
“That batch of important goods is almost there. You call Jiang Ting, I have something to tell him personally.”
