The group of people dispatched by Gong Jin turned their car around and left the traffic crossing, leaving only two people behind to keep an eye on the situation at the central plaza. The two people slowly approached Ying Wan under the cover of the crowd.
Seeing the increasing number of bystanders gathering around to watch the show, an enforcement officer stepped forward and tapped Ying Wan on the shoulder from behind. “Hello–”
He was interrupted by a sharp, ear-piercing sound characteristic of tires scraping against the ground.
A black shadow rounded half the artificial fountain, skidding diagonally past the billboard in front of the handicraft store. Exhaust stirred up a wave of hot air, causing Ying Wan’s lapels to flap slightly.
A heavy-duty motorbike with the headlights on came to a stop on the lawn a short distance away from him.
“Bird,” Amidst the rumble emitted by the engine, Ying Wan heard a woman’s clear voice from beneath the helmet. “Get on!”
The enforcement officers soon found that the blind person who had been left all on his own by his accomplice was now suddenly moving.
Folding up the cane in his hands, Ying Wan pushed his way through the passersby standing in front of the lawn in a matter of seconds and rushed towards the motorbike!
The enforcement officers were hot on his heels. Ying Wan reached out and grabbed a hold of the gear cover at the back seat. He raised the handle of his cane to block the police batons heading straight at him.
Stepping onto the footrest, Ying Wan leaped onto the back seat and steadied himself by gripping onto the driver’s shoulders. The driver instantly twisted the motorbike handles, revving the engine in preparation to accelerate. “Let’s go!”
“…”
Seeing that the blind person was about to leave them behind in the dust, the enforcement officers were briefly stunned before hastily giving chase with batons in hand.
These sorts of heavy-duty motorbikes were not allowed on main roads in the city center, much less pedestrian streets. The traffic officers directing traffic at the road crossings had clearly also realized that something wasn’t right and were blowing their whistles while running towards the fountain.
The lively little plaza immediately became a chaotic mess. At the intersection the motorbike had just crossed, the two groups of law enforcement personnel glanced at each other in dismay before deciding to move separately.
The fierce sound of the wind screeched past Ying Wan’s ears. He glanced at the rearview mirror from the corner of his eyes in a bid to ascertain the surrounding situation. Through the mirror, he caught sight of two familiar figures on the road opposite.
Out of the two familiar figures standing at the zebra crossing, one of them was the vice-captain of the criminal investigation unit, Ruan Tianjie, while the other seemed to be surnamed Guan. Ying Wan had heard Yu Baiqing mention this person before – he was an incredibly young supervisory officer from the technical reconnaissance division, a top cybersecurity officer recruited by the police immediately after graduation.
The two of them were dressed in their police uniforms and waiting at the crossing for the light to turn green. From the looks of it, they were going to cross the road to have their dinner. Seeing the traffic police officers hurtling past them on their official motorbikes, their gazes shifted as well and landed on Ying Wan.
Ying Wan inwardly muttered a ‘no good’ upon noticing that Ruan Tianjie recognized him. Angling his head, he instructed the driver, “Take Five Metals Street beneath the flyover. It’s very hidden there, they won’t be able to catch up.”
Owl uttered a short ‘en’ in acknowledgement. She instantly leaned the motorbike to the side, making a turn on the spot and heading towards the flyover.
The sights around them gradually became unfamiliar. The motorbike had already left the vicinity of the snack street. Neither hide nor hair of the traffic police or the enforcement officers could be seen. Ying Wan opened his eyes slightly in the breeze. Composing himself, he asked doubtfully, “Where did you get this vehicle?”
“Secondhand from the black market,” Owl was focused on maneuvering the motorbike; she didn’t look back. “Grayback said we would be in Fan City for some time and not having a means of transportation would be inconvenient.”
Seemingly guessing Ying Wan’s next question, she gave a low laugh. Her voice carried a hoarseness from cigarette use. “This bike doesn’t have a plate, the cops definitely won’t be able to locate it. Relax.”
Ying Wan was speechless upon hearing Owl’s words.
It turned out Grayback had not secretly run over on his own. Owl, who always considered the big picture, had unexpectedly joined Grayback in his willfulness.
“You didn’t pick him up at the mission site?”
There could be no other explanation for Grayback’s wretched escape after failing midway in his mission.
Under normal circumstances, they would always come up with Plans A and B for their missions. The moment Plan A failed, Plan B would instantly take over. Grayback and Owl were both veterans with ample experience; Ying Wan didn’t believe they would make such careless mistakes.
“I still have another mission to complete,” Owl pushed up her helmet visor, brushing aside the scattered strands of hair dangling in front of her eyes. “How else do you think we could run over to find you? Those old fellows all think you’re dead.”
Grayback’s backpack was equipped with positioning equipment, allowing her to pinpoint his location in real time. When she realized that Grayback was rapidly moving towards the snack street after leaving his mission location, she also positioned herself nearby the snack street. Though she hadn’t expected to see her boss being the subject of all sorts of finger-pointing instead of Little Curly Hair fleeing in a panic.
Ying Wan nodded. He directed Owl, “Make a right turn.”
“This artificial navigation of yours is pretty good?” Glancing at Ying Wan’s face through the rearview mirror, Owl clicked her tongue. “How did you make it such that it can determine your location?”
Ying Wan pursed his lips without offering an explanation.
He interacted too much with this group of people on a normal basis. There would come a day when he would not be able to hide the fact that he had recovered his sight from them. But before he let them learn about it, he had to first fully uncover the truth behind the entire matter.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
The motorbike followed a few cars leaving the city onto a small road under the flyover, entering the desolate Five Metals Street. This neighborhood was situated on the fringes of the city and bordered a few large manufacturing sites. Due to this, there were many stores selling metal hardware and all sorts of machinery.
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The motorbike left a gust of dust in its wake. The shop owner rubbed his eyes and discovered that the two people on the motorbike were already far in the distance.
For some reason, he felt that the young man at the back seemed a little familiar.
After making a few rounds around the industrial district, the two people eventually arrived at a narrow alley with piles of metal scraps.
Ying Wan waited for Owl to cut the engine before jumping down. He tapped his cane against the ground. “We’re here.”
Owl took off her helmet and leather gloves, hanging them on the motorbike. She untied the rubber band on her head. Long back hair fluttered midair, lightly falling over her shoulders and swaying slightly with the evening breeze.
It was Ying Wan’s first time seeing Owl in person.
Similar to Grayback’s description, Owl was a tall mixed-race beauty. A single glance at her and anyone would know she was very proficient in fighting, the kind of ruthless character who could shoot down her target even in high heels.
“Grayback hasn’t replied to the message I sent him,” Owl took out a cigarette from the pocket of her leather jacket. As she lit it, she didn’t neglect to offer Ying Wan a stick as well. “Boss, what should we do next?”
Ying Wan supported himself with the cane as he led Owl into the depths of the alley. Midway, a short, sturdy steel bar blocked their path. With a kick of Owl’s foot clad in Dr. Martens, the steel bar was flung half a meter away.
As Ying Wan walked, he told Owl, “There’s a small food market behind the alley. There shouldn’t be many people there in the evening. I have a safe house here, Ah Bu will bring Grayback here to meet up with us.”
Owl looked up at the shabby stone wall at the end of the alley. “This is a dead end, we can’t go out.”
She had just uttered the last word when she saw her boss toss his cane to the side. He groped about with both hands, gripping the handle of the trash can at the corner of the wall, which he used to climb onto the trash can’s plastic cover.
Standing upright on the trash can, Ying Wan shook off the specks of white lime on his sports shoes. He turned and extended a hand to Owl. “You jump first, I’ll go next.”
“Help me catch my cane down there, make sure you don’t slip,” Ying Wan added.
Yu Baiqing had gifted him the cane, he didn’t want it to be damaged so soon.
Owl: …
Just yesterday, she had been applying a cucumber mask and opening a bottle of champagne at the penthouse suite at the topmost floor of the hotel. And today, she had to leap onto roofs and vault over walls with the boss in a desolate alley where even birds wouldn’t defecate. This was beyond the boundaries of her imagination.
Throwing her cigarette bud into the trash can, Owl took a few steps back, hopped a few times on the spot, and started sprinting towards the stone wall.
Having received professional escape training, she was much more flexible compared to the average person. In a matter of two or three steps, she leaped onto the trash can’s plastic cover and grabbed onto a protrusion on the wall. Bending down in a half-squat, she jumped up the wall lightly.
One hand grabbed onto the edge of the wall, and Owl gracefully vaulted over the top of the wall, vanishing over the other side.
Confirming that Owl had landed, Ying Wan enquired from his side of the wall, “I’ll toss it over then?”
He didn’t hear a response. Assuming that Owl hadn’t heard him, he simply threw his cane over the wall.
The cane drew an arc midair, but there was no sound indicating that it had fallen to the ground. Owl had probably caught the cane on the other side of the wall.
Very soon, his surroundings quietened again. As before, no one replied.
Slowly letting out a breath, Ying Wan swiftly gauged the height of the wall. After confirming that he wouldn’t fall flat on his back, he proceeded to grip the protrusion on the wall and flipped over the wall.
Both his legs landed steadily on the ground. Dusting off the dirt on his hands, he was just going to turn around when his movements took on an abrupt rigidity.
There was a person in the shadows at the corner of the wall. From their physique, it wasn’t Owl.
Holding his breath, Ying Wan gradually moved his line of sight downwards. He saw a short stick in their hands from the corner of his eyes. It was the folded cane that he’d just tossed over not long ago.
The person was standing upright in his police uniform, arms crossed over his chest as he leaned against the wall. The side of his inclined face hidden in the shadows was sharply defined. There was a fear-inducing, chilling solemnity to his handsomeness.
“Treating me like I don’t exist, huh?”
Yu Baiqing uttered faintly from behind Ying Wan.
–
The stalls in the food market had long since closed for the day. When the wind blew, only bits and pieces of vegetable leaves and scraps of meat left behind by butchers remained in the empty space.
The moment Owl jumped over the wall, she was intercepted by several police officers standing guard at the corner of the wall. They got her to produce her identification card and driving license. After proclaiming that she had violated quite a few traffic regulations, she was invited to the police station.
Owl’s first instinct was to inform her boss to withdraw as soon as possible. But when she turned back, she realized that her boss had just flipped over the wall and was blocked by a cop at the corner of the wall.
She realized then that the cops had outflanked them, waiting for them to show themselves.
She was led to a police car flashing with lights. An officer asked her, “Where did that motorbike come from?”
Owl’s red lips quirked up slightly. Flinging her hair behind her shoulders, a wide smile spread across her face. She attempted to launch her own type of attack on the police officers, just as she’d done on previous missions.
Unfortunately, the criminal investigators in the unit had undergone strict mental training by Captain Yu and Captain Zhang, and would never fall for such methods. “Speak, now!”
“?%@#&*–”
Owl spread out both hands and shrugged her shoulders. She started spouting gibberish, pretending that there was a language barrier.
At the same time.
Yu Baiqing held Ying Wan by the back of his collar. Ying Wan staggered along as they made their way to the police cars.
Yu Baiqing didn’t say a single word the entire time. His subordinates waiting in front of the police cars also sensed the icy aura emanating from Old Yu, so nobody dared to speak out of turn. All they did was silently open the car door and wait for Old Yu to bring his didi over.
The car door was half-open. Just as Ying Wan was about to be tossed into the police car, he saw several police officers leading two young men with complicated expressions out of the unrenovated room at the back of the food market.
Grayback’s handcuffed hands were motionless behind his back. As for Ah Bu, he was dejectedly following the police officers, head drooping like a chick. He was still a minor and wouldn’t be dealt with too roughly by the police officers.
Seeing that their boss had been captured by the cops, Grayback completely lost it. He was just going to call out to his boss when his gaze abruptly stiffened. His eyes widened.
His line of sight coincided with the face of the policeman behind his boss.
The policeman’s shoulder was heavily decorated. Clearly, his rank was not low.
Wasn’t this person–
The shock in Grayback’s heart could not be described in a mere few words. Before he could call out, the officer behind him had already opened the car door and was gesturing for him to quickly get in.
Yu Baiqing’s gaze lingered on Grayback’s face for a moment as well, though he very quickly withdrew his gaze.
The young man with a head full of curls gave him a feeling of familiarity. However, he had never seen the man’s face before and could not pinpoint the origin of this inexplicable feeling.
Ying Wan sat at the back of the police car. Yu Baiqing didn’t sit with him. Instead, he opened the door to the front passenger seat and sat in front.
He told Ruan Tianjie, who was in the driver’s seat, in a businesslike tone, “Old Ruan, tell the traffic police that we’ve caught them. Let them know the outcome after we’ve settled everything.”
Ruan Tianjie glanced at the silent youth with downcast eyes in the back row. Ruan Tianjie seldom did so, but he chastised Ying Wan now. “Little Wan, who was the person ferrying you on the road? They exceeded the speed limit in the city center without regard for traffic regulations. This sort of behavior is very dangerous.”
In the eyes of bystanders, this incident was actually very easy to understand. Yu Baiqing’s didi had first plotted with someone else to steal items at the snack street. After being abandoned by his accomplice, he then got onto another accomplice’s vehicle in front of the traffic officers and law enforcement officers to flee the scene.
None of this group was anything good. It was the typical style of hooligans.
But he understand the personalities of these two brothers, which was why he did not directly determine the nature of this entire incident and instead waited for Yu Baiqing to return and handle it himself.
The young man in the backseat gripped his wrinkled cuffs. He responded quietly, “Ruan-ge, I won’t do it again.”
Ruan Tianjie heard Yu Baiqing snort coldly.
Speaking of this, it was rather strange. After Old Yu received his call and understood the situation, he quickly identified this food market nearby the industrial district according to the route taken by the motorbike. They rushed to the location with their men and sure enough, managed to capture this group of people.
While on the road, he’d asked Yu Baiqing out of curiosity, “How did you know Little Wan would hide at this place?”
Yu Baiqing didn’t respond for a long time. He merely leaned against the front passenger seat and closed his eyes in rest.
When the car entered the dilapidated and shabby space, Yu Baiqing looked out the window at the numerous factory chimneys. Only then did he reply mildly, “I picked him up here.”
That was Yu Baiqing’s first time putting the investigation skills he’d learned in class into practice.
After bumping into the little blind person several times, Yu Baiqing chose not to inadvertently alert him. Instead, he silently surveyed the little blind person’s movements for a period of time. He pieced together different minute clues before eventually succeeding in identifying this place.
Every time the little blind person obtained money in the city center, he would return alone to this desolate food market in the industrial district and distribute the money to similarly destitute children staying in the unrenovated room.
One time, he’d spent over a hundred yuan in a toy shop on a set of dolls. Under the cover of the night, he’d placed the dolls in the delivery box of a district with high-end villas.
Yu Baiqing waited for the little blind person to disappear around the corner of the street. Then, he went forward and picked up the box of toys. There was a sticker pasted on the box, with a house number written on it along with a line of squiggly words: [Wishing my little sister a happy early birthday. Ying Wan.]
That was the moment Yu Baiqing learned that the little blind person was surnamed Ying. He had a name.
–
Ah Bu shot multiple glances at Grayback, who was seated beside him. Ever since getting into the police car, Grayback-ge had just been sitting there in a daze.
Stealthily inching towards the right, he confirmed that the policemen in the car had not picked up on his movements and then wrote on Grayback’s palm: [What’s wrong?]
Grayback seemed to still be embroiled in the throes of immense shock. He did not reply to Ah Bu, only furrowing his brows tightly.
Scattered memory fragments came together, and the figure of the policeman from earlier gradually overlapped with an old acquaintance.
He had the exact same appearance, equally severe gaze, and his silhouette was just as upright as that person when holding a gun.
An honorable spirit.
That was his and Robin’s first mission as partners. To infiltrate a base in South America and obtain the exact coordinates of Red-Tailed Fish’s plantation in the Saval Strait.
In his memories, that was a bitterly-cold snowy day.
Heavy gunfire sounded outside the window. That man was subjected to the fullest extent of torture. He hung from a dungeon wall, both hands tied behind his back and covered wholly in blood.
“You hear that? Your comrades have arrived,” The middle-aged man wearing a mask in the shape of a fish head said. “Tell us the police’s next step. We will withdraw and let them in to rescue you.”
The man’s dehydrated lips were peeling. Even though he was already utterly weak, his lips still parted slightly. He repeated the words he’d said countless times, “No…”
“…Kill me.”
–
“Did you hear? Little Wei accidentally let the cop escape last night. Mister is in a big rage now and is punishing him in the inner hall.”
The black youth at the adjacent table told him in a low voice when they were having lunch in the dining hall.
At a small detached courtyard behind the plantation.
A Japanese-style screen embroidered with red goldfish patterns blocked the spacious main hall from sight. A youth covered in sweat knelt on the chilly solid wooden floor. The youth’s fair back was bared and he bit tightly on the towel in his mouth.
The man in a mask took off his bulletproof vest and leisurely walked to the youth. He stood in the dark, his gaze behind the mask focusing on the youth’s slender nape that was exposed under the lights, as if admiring an exceptional work of art.
The man took out a handgun from his waist. The icy muzzle slid down the youth’s back, pressing against his tailbone. “If I shoot this place, you won’t die. You’ll just become a vegetable incapable of walking. You’ll never be able to leave this place.”
“Do you want to give it a try?”
The youth’s eyelashes trembled slightly. His eyes were closed tightly. He remained silent.
The man behind him laughed in ridicule. He put down the gun and picked up the stun baton on the table. He slowly pressed it against the youth’s shoulder blades.
“Wu–”
The youth craned his neck upwards in the dim lighting.
He bit his lower lip in extreme pain, breaking the skin. Crimson blood flowed down the corners of his mouth, staining the soft flesh between his teeth in an instant.
Two red scars were etched onto his fair skin. They resembled a fledgling’s outspread wings, its wings spread out in full flight on his back.
Goodness me.. Got the scars from saving yu baiqing huh 😔 why did he and the others like grayback and owl had to work under such a nasty person 😭