Grayback heard someone opening the iron door to the detention room from outside. He crossed his arms and welcomed the other party with the back of his head. “I’m not going to argue with you anymore, there’s something wrong with you.”
“Who wants to talk about that nonsense with you?”
Tossing the key onto the windowsill, Guan Xingwen waved the A4 papers in his hands. “Time’s up, sign this and get lost.”
Grayback turned around and leveled a vicious stare at Guan Xingwen. He grabbed the discharge papers from Guan Xingwen, uncapped the pen with his teeth, and scribbled a line of indecipherable characters in the signature box.
“I’m done,” Grayback placed the discharge papers into his pocket and stood up. He bent his waist slightly at the young man in police attire, miming a fake gentleman’s bow with bravado. “Officer Guan, please step aside. This lowly one shall get lost right this moment and never see you again.”
Grayback was just about to slip out of the detention room when he suddenly heard Guan Xingwen’s voice behind. “Stop.”
“Oh!” Grayback raised a brow. He turned around to face Guan Xingwen. “Wasn’t it you who asked me to get lost?”
Guan Xingwen’s lips twitched, as if hesitating to say something.
Shortly after, after appearing to have finally convinced himself of something, he turned his head to the side awkwardly and said huffily, “Come upstairs with me to sign a non-disclosure agreement. There’s a source of intrusion that I need your help to locate.”
After holding the words in for the whole day and finally getting them out, Guan Xingwen didn’t feel relieved at all but conversely felt even more upset.
He and Curly Hair had spent the last two days arguing from morning to night. Both of them refused to admit that the other’s technical skill was higher than theirs. Now that he was asking this fellow for help, wasn’t it equivalent to admitting defeat?
However, the surveillance recording currently being processed by the technical reconnaissance team had had two anti-tracking codes added to it after being invaded remotely. The IP had also been forcefully modified. They could only identify the physical location of the domestic server. The path to the foreign section had been artificially cut off and subsequently underwent two rounds of shielding. They could not find anything of use, much less pinpoint the location of the remote invader.
This fellow named Denis might be young, but a lot of his professional background could be found online. Moreover, he seemed to know Yu Baiqing’s didi. Perhaps he would be able to discern something from it.
Old Yu gave his permission before going on leave. In the end, Guan Xingwen reluctantly decided to work with this condescending fellow for once.
The moment Guan Xingwen finished speaking, Grayback immediately pulled his hood over his head. “I. Decline.”
He followed the corridor along the detention zone and sauntered off. As he walked, he even looked back, making faces at Guan Xingwen as if rejoicing in his misfortune.
Half an hour later.
The heavy sound of the door closing came from outside a room. The technical reconnaissance officers looked up from their computers and saw their boss dragging an unfamiliar young man into the room by his hoodie.
The young man was covering his head while calling their boss ‘ancestor’ and pleading with him not to be so rough.
Pulling over a chair, Guan Xingwen shoved Curly hair in front of his computer. He gestured for the technician beside him to switch on the screen. “Bring up the surveillance recording’s path of invasion.”
The technician stepped forward and got to work with a lowered head. Shortly after, the screen displayed the image of a surveillance recording that was currently being automatically analyzed. Source codes of the surveillance routes being exported out filled the screen next to the image in an endless stream.
Grayback was stunned upon seeing the familiar figure in the recording standing in front of a window and making a call on his phone.
“Don’t you know Ying Wan?” Guan Xingwen stood behind him, pointing at the person on the screen. “This surveillance camera is located in the living room of a household opposite their house. It was originally used to monitor the pets in the house during working hours. Some time back, his ge, our team’s Old Yu, realized that someone had operated this camera remotely and used it to surveil Ying Wan’s bedroom.”
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.
Grayback stared blankly at him. The words that came out of his mouth had nothing to do with the current topic. “The police officer that day…is Old–Ying Wan’s ge?”
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Grayback’s expression finally turned serious upon hearing Guan Xingwen’s explanation. He dug out a pair of black gloves from his pocket and put them on. He sat up straight and started smoothly typing out code.
Guan Xingwen’s gaze moved down the changing black code that covered the screen, eventually stopping on Curly Hair’s nimble fingers.
This person had the same habit as Yu Baiqing’s di of wearing gloves before touching someone else’s things.
He didn’t know why…it was just pretty strange.
Window after window popped up on the screen. Curly Hair’s finger hovered above the ‘enter’ button on the keyboard without making contact for a long time.
Inching closer to the screen, Guan Xingwen stared at the blinking cursor at the end of the long line of letters. His brows gradually furrowed. “It’s a trap?”
“En,” Curly Hair bit the cap of a pen. “The other party has removed the interference program preventing their location from being identified. The moment we get a lock on their location, they will simultaneously identify our location as well.”
A situation from which there would be no return.
It was clear that the other party had dug a new pit after the misfiring incident and was just waiting for the investigators to jump into it.
Curly Hair asked despite knowing the answer, “Should I still proceed?”
“Stop here for now.”
Guan Xingwen hesitated for a moment. He stooped over and rapidly input a few lines of code, putting a halt to Curly Hair’s infiltration operations. “This is the police’s internal network. Our tracks will be exposed if we’re discovered, the risk is too high.”
Curly Hair crossed his arms behind his head. He leaned leisurely against the office chair, turning a circle on the spot. He raised a brow at Guan Xingwen, who wore a grave expression. “Not bad, Officer Guan. You’re close to identifying the other party’s nest, as expected of a genius that EPI took fancy to.”
Guan Xingwen was expressionless. He strode to the entrance and opened the door to the technical reconnaissance team’s office, indicating that Curly Hair could take a hike for real this time.
He didn’t know how Curly Hair had gotten inside information about himself. Apart from Chief Gao and the colleagues in his team, very few people knew about his past.
He was different from policemen like Zhang Yu and Yu Baiqing who graduated from this branch of study. Neither was he a young master like Ruan Tianjie who aspired to join the police force after studying abroad.
He was a former cybersecurity agent recruited by the police, commonly referred to as a ‘blackhat’.
As one of the best blackhats in the EPI organization, he turned traitor right before an operation to infiltrate the bank account of a crime syndicate and provided the most crucial piece of evidence to the police force. It was through this operation that he had attained great merit.
He had gotten to know Yu Baiqing through the same operation. Old Yu had helped him to break away from EPI and join the technical reconnaissance team in Fan City after undergoing some cosmetic changes. After aiding the police to solve multiple major cases, he officially became a technician with ‘trump card’ status in the police force.
Later, he heard through the grapevine that the information he leaked had dealt a heavy blow to EPI as an organization. As a result, the ringleader was apprehended by international law enforcement. In the end, the whereabouts of this individual remained unknown.
He had no interest in knowing how Curly Hair had obtained this information. This was all in the past, he had already started his new life.
Moreover, this individual’s identity was shrouded in haze and his relationship with Yu Baiqing’s di still remained unclear. He would not say even one extra word before having thoroughly investigated this individual.
Guan Xingwen was urging Curly Hair to leave, but it wasn’t as if Curly Hair wanted to remain either.
Whistling, he casually picked up an apple from the snack box on the desk, biting into it as he walked out.
Curly Hair glanced left and right on his way out, seemingly very interested in everything about the technical reconnaissance team. Just before he stepped through the door, he suddenly came to a stop. He turned and made his way behind a technician, staring with rapt attention at the image on the technician’s computer.
He jabbed a finger at the surveillance recording currently being analyzed frame by frame. Chewing on the flesh in his mouth, he posed a question inarticulately at Guan Xingwen a short distance away, “–Where is this?”
Seeing that Curly Hair was sneakily looking at the surveillance records of the Qin Gulf construction site, Guan Xingwen stepped forward with a dark expression and dragged him towards the door. “It’s classified information, nothing to do with you.”
“Oh,” Curly Hair nodded.
He followed Guan Xingwen to the corridor. They were the only people in the vicinity. He took a bite out of the apple in his hand. He unhurriedly came closer to Guan Xingwen. “Officer Guan, you didn’t hear this from me…”
“The time in that surveillance tape of yours seems to have been altered by someone.”
–
It was absolute silence in the corridor.
The two men stood shoulder-to-shoulder, blocking the doorway to the dressing room. Their knuckles were pressed tightly against the trigger, yet they remained still.
The incandescent lights above them flickered. The atmosphere in the corridor tensed up abruptly.
Yu Baiqing didn’t have any guns on him now and the rest of his things were in the dressing room. His gun usually never left his side, and he rarely ever encountered situations where he was completely unarmed, let alone having a powerless blind person standing in front of him.
Sensing that the two men had no intention of opening fire immediately, Yu Baiqing swiftly analyzed the current situation and quickly came up with various ways in which this situation could develop.
“He’s blind and can’t see what you guys look like. He won’t expose you.”
A while later, he lifted his head slowly, staring intently at the two men across from him. “Open the door to the dressing room and let him go. Deal with me as you wish.”
Yu Baiqing didn’t expect one of them to quickly respond in a cold voice, “We won’t kill you.”
“You can leave,” He raised his gun, aiming it at Ying Wan in his arms. “Leave him behind.”
The surrounding air stilled. It was so quiet the drop of a pin could be heard.
The arms wrapped around his shoulders stiffened. Ying Wan’s chest started heaving slightly in an uncontrollable manner.
Yu Baiqing controlled his breathing. He didn’t utter a word, merely staring fixedly at the small opening between the two men.
He was calculating which would be faster – the speed at which they fired or his own movements.
As long as he caught them off guard, he would be able to protect the person in his arms and run in the opposite direction. If he evaded properly and had a good grasp of timing, he would be able to send Ying Wan to the corridor they came from even if he was shot in the back.
A wall was the only thing standing between them and the raucous betting venue. Since the two men had chosen to wait here, they wouldn’t dare run into a public setting and pursue Ying Wan.
Yu Baiqing wasn’t certain he could hold them off for long, but one thing he was certain about was that they dared not open fire at Ying Wan.
Taking a few steps back, Yu Baiqing firmly grasped the person in his embrace by the collar. He swapped their positions at an exceedingly fast speed, protecting the child with his back.
He took hold of Ying Wan’s wrist tightly. Without any time to swipe the cane at the corner of the wall, he charged towards the corridor on the other end with Ying Wan!
Evidently, the two men across from them had not expected him to try escaping with the target despite having a gun aimed straight at them.
The higher-ups merely instructed them to capture the target alive. There had not been any talk of refraining from killing or injuring unrelated persons.
Both men were criminals whose hands were stained with the blood of many people. For the sake of completing their missions, they had never cared if it was by fair means or foul. Concerned that their mission target would use this chance to escape, they simply chased after them, simultaneously aiming their guns at the man’s back.
Yu Baiqing paused upon hearing the sound of their guns loading from behind.
They would not be in time.
Bullets were far faster than humans.
He laid a hand against the child’s back. Angling his head slightly, he spoke at a volume only the two of them could hear. “Little Wan.”
“When I count to three, you run straight ahead.”
Warm breath brushed across the side of Ying Wan’s ear. Yu Baiqing’s voice was low yet gentle. “Listen to ge. Don’t look back.”
Although Yu Baiqing said that he would count to three, he didn’t give the child any time to react.
He gave Ying Wan an abrupt push towards the corridor behind them. Then, he turned around and steeled himself to stand his ground and block the pursuit of the gun-wielding men.
Before the child left the corridor and was in a place of safety, he would not fall.
Three seconds passed.
[Bang–]
[Bang–]
The silence was broken. Bullets swept past Yu Baiqing’s ears and streaked across the air. The sound of gunfire resounded through the corridor.
In the center of the corridor a few meters away from the corner, two tall bodies fell backward onto the ground with a dull thump.
Yu Baiqing’s entire body stiffened.
Behind him, the person he was protecting with his body raised his head from the shadows. His eyes drooped lightly, and his face was devoid of emotion.
The person’s cuffs were pulled up slightly, and in his hand was a small pocket pistol. The dark muzzle of the gun was raised in the air, from which white smoke drifted upwards.
OH MY GOSH OH MY GOSH OH MY GODH OH MY GOSHHENEJEKSKDKDJEEJJSNFJEJDN
THANK YOU FOR THE UPDATE TRANSLATOR
OH BOY!
Thank you!
Oooh~How is his ge going to react to this? Also, I lowkey ship Grayback and Guan Xingwen lol
Ying wan you badass little thing you 😭