The four street hooligans were brought to the municipal bureau in three police cars.
The little blind person followed his ge to the office for tea. The beggar was merely a half-grown child and was sent to a room for questioning. Seeing his large eyes staring at them pitifully, his accompanying officer even specially went to the canteen to get takeaway for him.
As for the female motorbike rider and the curly-haired thief, they were given the bureau’s ‘VIP treatment’ and arranged to be interrogated separately.
Road crossings had traffic police on duty, while law enforcement officers were always patrolling the streets. Any random passerby in the crowd could be a plain clothes policeman from the municipal bureau out for lunch. As a result, the vendors along the snack street often joked that there was no safer place in the whole of Fan City.
Anyone who chose to commit crimes in this area was either brave or stupid.
The policeman writing the transcript had not expected these two people to be neither of the two.
Not long after they entered the interrogation room, the officer in room number one on the left opened the door and sought assistance from Ruan Tianjie, who was listening in from the observation booth behind the one-way mirror. “Captain Ruan, we need a translator. That woman keeps saying she doesn’t understand us.”
Young Master Ruan, who’d studied abroad, furrowed his brows. “…I’ll do it.”
Ruan Tianjie was just about to enter the interrogation room with the officer when the neighboring door to room number two opened as well..
Old Liu hastily walked over with a piece of transcript paper in his hands. He pointed at several phrases written on the piece of paper, shaking his head. “Readings, infiltrate – what does he mean by all that? I understand what they mean individually, but I don’t get it when they’re put together.”
Ruan Tianjie took a glance at the transcript paper and felt the throbbing at his temples worsen. “Call Guan Xingwen over. These are all specialized terminologies in his line, he should be able to understand.”
Yu Baiqing came downstairs. When he walked into the observation room, more than half an hour had already lapsed since interrogation commenced in both rooms.
The female rider in room number one had asked Ruan Tianjie for a cigarette and was slowly puffing out white swirls of smoke. She had taken off her leather jacket and casually tied it around her waist, revealing a tattoo on her shoulder.
In room number two, the thief Little Curly Hair had both hands cuffed behind the chair. However, he faced the two officers opposite him with a perpetual lazy smile. Seated beside Old Liu, Guan Xingwen seemed somewhat restless. He maintained a tight grip on the transcript paper and his entire face was as black as iron.
Seeing that Yu Baiqing had arrived, Chen Anyang, who had been on standby outside the glass wall, told Yu Baiqing in a low voice, “Yu-ge…the situation’s a bit complicated now.”
Chen Anyang shot a glance at the two people being interrogated. His tone was complex. “These two people are both foreigners. The curly-haired one holds a visiting scholar pass and claims to be attending some international cybersecurity conference in Fan City. The woman holds a commercial business pass and has a legitimate letter of introduction from a well-known foreign enterprise.”
Chen Anyang paused, but couldn’t help asking, “Yu-ge, how did your di get to know them?”
Yu baiqing didn’t reply and merely pulled out a seat in the observation room, sitting down. He stretched out both legs and leaned backwards, his back resting against the chair. He continued to listen to the conversation currently happening in both rooms.
Interrogation room number one–
Ruan Tianjie gestured for the assisting policeman to switch on the recorder. He asked the female rider in English, “Since you’re here to film a commercial, why did you purchase a vehicle with a plate for use on the road? Do you know that it’s illegal?”
The female rider held a cigarette in her mouth. Smoke slowly drifted upwards towards the incandescent lights. “It’s a personal hobby of mine. Do you guys also control hobbies?”
“In that case, what relationship do you have with Denis?”
The female rider’s lips quirked up in a smile upon hearing the policeman mention Curly Hair’s name on his visa. “He’s my man.”
She was a head taller than Curly Hair next door and radiated a much more mature aura. Ruan Tianjie’s throat moved. He made two marks on the transcript paper. Clearly, he didn’t believe her.
Interrogation room number two-
Guan Xingwen’s heart itched with hatred, but he squeezed out a wisp of a smile. “Let me ask you once more – scholars below the age of thirty are not allowed to participate in the CSC Conference, this is the industry practice. This visa of yours must be fake?”
“Cough cough…”
Old Liu couldn’t stop himself from making a warning sound. They were currently interrogating someone suspected of theft, so Guan Xingwen should give thought to his choice of words and stick as closely to the main topic as possible.
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.
Guan Xingwen stopped speaking after hearing Old Liu’s hint. He capped his pen and tossed it heavily onto the desk in an attempt to scare Curly Hair.
Po cba obg tlr lvfcalas jr j qbilmfwjc, tf kbeiv tjnf ibcu rlcmf gertfv obgkjgv jcv obeuta klat atlr ralcxs ygja ktb vlvc’a xcbk ktja kjr ubbv obg tlw.
“Ktja’r pera j qgjmalmf, cba j geif,” Jegis Ljlg gjlrfv j ygbk lccbmfcais. “Qlat ws dejilolmjalbcr, P wbgf atjc oeiolii atf mbcvlalbcr obg qjgalmlqjalbc, rb atf bgujclhfgr cjaegjiis lcnlafv wf.”
“Oh…” Curly Hair leaned forward slightly. A look of realization spread across his face. “Could it be? You were rejected by them on the basis of age?”
This youngster had hit the nail on the head. Guan Xingwen’s face darkened even further out of fury.
A colleague from the interrogation division had called him down, saying that the criminal suspect they’d just arrested was a IT engineer who’d entered the country on a scholar’s visa. Since they couldn’t get anything out of him, they requested that Guan Xingwen aid them in the interrogation.
When he saw that the other party in the interrogation room was not too far off from him in age, he had assumed that this person was similar to him – a shut-in who occupied himself with technology out of boredom. But he hadn’t expected the other party’s scholar visa to indicate that he had been specially invited to participate in the CSC.
CSC was a famous international cybersecurity conference that just happened to be held in Fan City this year. Every year, several internationally-renowned or influential technicians and engineers would be invited to the conference for networking and to share their experiences.
Guan Xingwen had always yearned to attend the conference. His qualifications and background met the prerequisites, but unfortunately his age did not.
It had not even occurred to him that this stinky brat who had stolen bracelets in the city center would be participating in the CSC as an exception and had even been personally invited by the organizers!
Guan Xingwen took a few sips of warm water from his thermos. He calmed himself down as best as he could.
Pinning the nonchalant-looking Curly Hair with a death stare, he swore internally that he would not by any means allow this person to lead him along by the nose.
Guan Xingwen put down his thermos, his voice brimming with mockery. “A visiting scholar’s pay shouldn’t be low, no? And yet you still need to take advantage of others?”
“I’m a collector, I like to walk the streets and steal things, okay?” Curly Hair didn’t even spare him a single glance. He turned towards the transparent glass wall on his right and raised his voice, “And those policemen outside, just give me a fine or detain me. Why so many nonsensical questions?”
Seeing that there was no real progress in both interrogations, Yu Baiqing put his feet down and turned towards Chen Anyang beside him. “Have you asked them about Ying Wan?”
“Yes yes,” Chen Anyang replied. “Ruan-ge and Little Guan-ge asked them how they got to know Ying Wan and when they got to know him. They asked them both directly and indirectly, but both of them gave unusually identical answers – that they were not at liberty to disclose.”
Yu Baiqing nodded slightly.
Their answer was within his expectations.
The two people inside were fully aware of the principle of ‘not lying unless necessary’ when being interrogated. They knew that their companion was also being questioned by the police next door or somewhere else. Therefore, when asked questions that had to be aligned, they did not deny anything but instead gave answers like ‘I don’t know’, ‘I’m not sure’, or ‘I’m not at liberty to disclose’.
Because they understood that the more they made up, the more distorted the loop would be. After lying, the process of maintaining the lie would make it easier for loopholes to be revealed.
Yu Baiqing retrieved his phone from his pocket, sending Ruan Tianjie and Guan Xingwen a photo along with a short message.
On the other side of the glass wall, Ruan Tianjie and Guan Xingwen took a look at their phones. They held up their phones simultaneously, asking the person opposite them, “Do you recognize this person?”
The female rider: “No.”
Curly hair: “Yup.”
Yu Baiqing had an unlit cigarette in his mouth. His gaze slowly shifted towards Curly Hair.
He’d sent Ruan Tianjie and Guan Xingwen a screenshot of an image from LEON’s surveillance camera. The image was of Otto walking towards the car park last night after leaving the VIP zone, surrounded by bodyguards.
Before this, he himself had also once appeared in the surveillance cameras a corridor away from Ying Wan, who had been leaning against the wall with his clothes in disarray.
The interrogation room quietened. Everyone was waiting for Curly Hair’s response.
“…”
“This is Mr Otto, the person who sponsored my university studies,” Curly Hair stared at the photo for a while before looking up at the two policemen facing him. His voice was laced with emotion, “God bless the kind-hearted Mr Otto. If it weren’t for him, I’d still be in the slums of Rio waiting to be shot.”
The moment he finished his statement, he curved the corners of his eyes at the glass wall. He made a ‘V’ sign using his handcuffed hands.
He was telling the people on the other side of the glass wall.
That this meticulously-planned interrogation had ended in his victory.
–
The time shown on the wall was midnight. Ying Wan had yet to receive any news on Owl and the rest.
He’d thought that Yu Baiqing would get to the bottom of what had happened during the day, and was already prepared with a few different responses. But contrary to his expectations, Yu Baiqing never appeared again after leaving him alone in the office. Only a few traffic police officers came by midway to verbally criticize him.
And now, a policeman on night duty had knocked on the door and informed him that he could leave first as Yu Baiqing was still dealing with another case on hand.
The policeman told him that though he was a participant in the two incidents that had occurred during the day, he could not be considered an accomplice till the nature of the incidents had been determined.
As Ying Wan was leaving the reception room, his line of sight landed once more on the corner beside the window in the office opposite. It was Yu Baiqing’s desk.
The two photo frames in front of the computer had caught his attention the moment he came out of the lift.
The more old-fashioned frame of the two held a photo of three people. The young Yu Baiqing and his parents stood together with bright smiles on their faces. The young couple standing at the back row had both hands on Yu Baiqing’s shoulder. Both of them were dressed in the white uniforms of an inspector. The police ranks on their shoulders sparkled under the sunlight.
The other photo frame contained his and Yu Baiqing’s sole photo together.
The photo was taken at Yu Baiqing’s university graduation ceremony. Yu Baiqing was clad in a well-ironed police uniform. A brand-new silver medal hung at his chest as he accepted the Outstanding Graduate commendation on stage. Fifteen-year-old Ying Wan stood beside Yu Baiqing with a bouquet of baby breaths. Yu Baiqing had one hand raised in a formal salute to the audience off-stage, while his other hand rested gently on Ying Wan’s shoulder.
He remembered everything that happened that day.
The MC standing off-stage noticed a blind youth tapping his cane while making his way in their direction, a large bouquet of fresh flowers in his arm, and hurriedly approached him to ask if he needed any help.
Ying Wan had told the MC quietly that he wanted to offer the flowers to Yu Baiqing, who was about to go on stage as the representative of the Investigation and Police Command students.
Warm applause erupted from the audience as the MC slowly helped the blind youth onto the stage. Yu Baiqing had just stepped onto the podium covered in red carpet. Seeing Ying Wan approach him with the flowers, he stood rooted to the ground in shock.
Ying Wan remembered that he ran the last ten meters to the podium.
He had tiptoed slightly and placed the bouquet of flowers into Yu Baiqing’s arms. He gave Yu Baiqing a shy smile. “Ge, you must be very handsome in the police uniform.”
As Ying Wan gazed at that person’s face in the photo frame, there was an imperceptible pause in his footsteps.
He had just noticed that the tips of Yu Baiqing’s ears in the photo were red.
–
Ying Wan went home and fell asleep. At 5am, he received a message from Ah Bu informing him that Owl had already been released after paying a fine. As Grayback had stolen, he would be kept in custody at the bureau for two days.
According to Ah Bu, Grayback had accepted this fairly quickly. He and the technician surnamed Guan from the technical reconnaissance team had spent the whole of last night debating over technical paradoxes. As if injected with chicken blood, the two of them had vowed to fight to the death. Even after arguing till the sun rose, there was still no outcome.
Ying Wan went back to sleep and woke up again at noon. The sound of chopsticks knocking against bowls could be heard from outside the bedroom.
He opened the door and saw Yu Baiqing, who should have left a long time ago for work, with his back to him, head lowered as he arranged the bowls and chopsticks on the dining table.
Ying Wan hesitated for a moment at the bedroom door. He eventually called out to the figure in front in an uncertain tone, “…Ge?”
The person in front of the dining table paused for a moment before quickly putting down the plate containing a fried egg. Turning around, Yu Baiqing told Ying Wan mildly, “Come eat.”
Ying Wan felt his way along the wall, slowly walking towards the dining table barefooted. He was just about to pull out the chair as per usual, but the person standing at the side was one step faster, pulling out the dining chair for him.
Ying Wan watched Yu Baiqing make his way around the dining table and sit opposite him. He blinked slowly at the air. “Does ge not need to go to work today?”
“I took leave today.”
Yu Baiqing replied.
It had been nearly a month since the two started living under one roof, but the number of times they’d eaten together could be counted on one hand. When Ying Wan woke up every morning, his ge had already driven off to work. By the time he packed up his stall and went home at night, Yu Baiqing had already eaten his dinner at the canteen.
Sometimes when Yu Baiqing returned home late after overtime, he would bring Ying Wan supper from the bureau’s canteen.
He would sit at the table in the dead of the night, taking small sips of the soup. Yu Baiqing wouldn’t return to his bedroom either and simply smoked his cigarettes under the pale yellow lighting. Smoke shrouded the face with an indiscernible expression across from him. His ge’s gaze looked past his head to the night sky outside the window. He had no clue what was going through Yu Baiqing’s mind.
After finishing the hot milk in his cup, Ying Wan got ready to tidy up the utensils and put them back in the kitchen cabinets. All of a sudden, his ge spoke, “Forget about washing them up. Change your clothes, I’ll bring you somewhere.”
Since Ying Wan couldn’t see, he never cared much about the color or design of his usual clothes. His wardrobe was full of solid blacks and whites.
He picked out a white top that he frequently wore from his wardrobe. Buttoning it up, he walked out of the bedroom with his cane and found his ge standing in the living room. Yu Baiqing’s gaze flitted lightly across his chest near the collarbone before he silently averted his gaze.
It suddenly dawned on Ying Wan that his ge was probably looking for kiss marks on his neck.
Ying Wan discovered a plastic bag at his feet upon getting into Yu Baiqing’s car. The bag contained several bottles of mineral water, chocolate, and his favorite childhood potato chips.
Yu Baiqing started up the jeep and then left the residential district, heading in the direction of the suburbs.
The car windows were rolled down halfway. The early Autumn wind carried a slight chill as it brushed against the bits of hair lying against Ying Wan’s forehead. Yu Baiqing moved to press the button for the car windows when suddenly, the person seated in the front passenger seat asked him a question, “Ge, where are you bringing me?”
The jeep mounted the Island Ring Road. The city’s skyscrapers gradually disappeared. The vast cerulean sea stretched as far as the eye could see. Sailboats on the sea had their sails open. Seagulls rode the updrafts generated by yachts and slanted their wings midair, creating ripple after ripple.
Yu Baiqing gripped the steering wheel tightly with both hands. He stared straight ahead at the highway. “Does ge usually show little care for you?”
After his graduation, he joined Fan City’s police force and worked his way up from the most ordinary officer to become the outstanding commander of the criminal investigation unit.
During his first few years in the unit, it wasn’t uncommon for him to receive urgent notice to go on missions in the middle of the night. At the beginning, he could still find time to pick Ying Wan up from the School of the Blind after school ended and cook for him. But after that, the number of cases on hand increased and he became so busy that not being able to eat on time was the norm. All he could do was wake up early every day to prepare Ying Wan’s three meals and place them in the fridge for him to heat up on his own.
Knowing that he had no way of making it to the school every afternoon to pick him up, Ying Wan managed to identify the route from the school to the municipal bureau. Every day when he walked out of the municipal bureau, he would spot in one glance the little child carrying his small school bag, quietly waiting for him in the security booth at the gate.
Ying Wan leaned against the car window, seemingly listening earnestly to the cries of the seagulls outside the window. “Ge is very busy at work, I know that.”
A long while later, Yu Baiqing called out to him lightly, “Wanwan.”
The child’s head rested against the car window, his eyelashes lowered in silence. He seemed to have fallen asleep.
Sunlight broke through the layers of clouds, illuminating the endless sea. The jeep continued towards the coast.
The landscape outside the window gradually disappeared. Ying Wan opened his eyes under the unlight, his line of sight involuntarily landing on the rearview mirror outside the jeep’s window.
That person was always watching him through the rearview mirror.
His ge’s gaze was calm and placid. That pair of eyes shone with the afterglow of the warm afternoon sun that spilled through the windows.
He thought of the moment Yu Baiqing aimed his gun at him.
The only teardrop that pair of eyes had ever shed was for him.
😭😭💔 So much heartbreaks… When will we taste the sweetness between this two 🤧