From the moment Ying Wan wrapped his arms around Yu Baiqing’s waist, he had already decided how he would fire his gun.
The tall, skinny guy was the leader of the two. His positioning was slightly further back, clearly setting up the short fatty in front as cover for himself. Shorty was probably a rookie who’d just joined not long ago. He was also the first one to mess up his footing and reveal himself.
Yu Baiqing’s back just happened to be within the two men’s blindspot. When Ying Wan pressed his head against Yu Baiqing’s shoulder, he simultaneously used his other hand to draw out the pocket pistol hidden inside his cuffs.
Have an escape route for everything – this was the code of operation he always abided by. The only thing he would need to consider was how he should explain this to Yu Baiqing.
Leaning against Yu Baiqing’s shoulder, he steadily moved the pistol further up his chest. Before he could ponder over his countermeasure, he heard his ge’s low voice.
Yu Baiqing’s breathing was very close to his ears. His voice was as gentle as a lover’s whisper.
At that moment, Ying Wan guessed what Yu Baiqing intended to do.
As he expected, Yu Baiqing shoved him towards a corner out of firing range and turned around to face their enemies’ guns.
Nothing had changed. No matter the circumstances, he always prioritized other people’s safety.
Under the cover of darkness, Ying Wan faced the two people dashing towards Yu Baiqing and raised the gun in his hands.
F*ck you, Yu Baiqing.
Ying Wan thought.
I paid for your life, who gave you permission to waste it?
–
The gunshots that rang out in the corridor startled quite a few people in the hall outside. In a mere half a minute, panicked shrieks came from the betting venue on the other side of the wall.
The person leaning against the corner of the wall slowly lowered the hand that gripped the gun. His expression was indifferent, as if he wasn’t the one who had just fired those two bullets.
Ying Wan didn’t see what kind of expression Yu Baiqing had the moment he fired the gun.
The two men collapsed onto the floor with a dull thump. The tall, straight figure a short distance away stiffened. He didn’t move for a long time.
Just then, Ying Wan suddenly heard an unusual, subtle sound coming from the overhead incandescent lights. Squinting upwards, he found that the tungsten wires in the lights had started gradually distorting. What seemed to be a silver thread lengthened increasingly and transformed into all sorts of strange forms.
[Spark–]
The incandescent lights hanging from the roof beams flickered and then went out. Everything went dark once more.
Moonlight shone into the room through the full-length windows, illuminating the wooden floorboards in the room.
The bed, cabinets, and floor was covered entirely in blood. The boy held his breath as he cowered behind a pile of clothes in the washing machine. He hugged his knees tightly, revealing only a pair of bright eyes.
The two corpses, eyes still open, had been dragged away right in front of him. All that was left were the two streaks of blood on the floor. The man leading the group ordered his subordinates to leave and close the door before he sat alone in front of the old-fashioned rocking chair beside the fireplace.
He casually pressed down the stylus of the turntable placed on a low cabinet. Elegant classical musical notes filled the vacant room. The man tapped his brightly-polished leather shoes against the wooden floorboards according to the beat, looking out of place with the bloody footprints all over the floor.
Back facing the washing machine, the man lit a cigarette. He leaned his head against the rocking chair, enveloped in elegant swirls of smoke. His eyes were half-closed as if he were taking a breather.
The suffocating smoke floated through the small crevices and into the washing machine’s drum. The boy hastily held up a dirty article of clothing and pressed it tightly against his mouth and nose to prevent himself from making a sound.
That group of tattooed people had already left. He didn’t know why this man was still in his house.
As the tune from the turntable came to an end, the man ferociously ground his lit cigarette butt where the vinyl and stylus touched. The originally beautiful melody changed in tone the next instant. The smooth-flowing sounds of a violin turned jerky and shrill, like the wails of a woman in the throes of despair. There was an eerie quality to this strangeness.
A honk sounded from outside the window. The man slowly sat up straight in front of the rocking chair. Picking up the hunting gun lying at a corner, he walked across the bloody floor towards the door.
The boy thought to himself.
That he would contact the police the moment this group of people left his house.
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.
Pc j ofk rafqr, atf wjc kbeiv ifjnf atf gbbw.
Mlnf wfafgr, akb wfafgr, bcf wfafg–
Ktf wjc rabqqfv ja atf vbbgkjs. Vevvfcis, tf aegcfv yjmx, uijcmlcu lc atf vlgfmalbc bo atf kjrtlcu wjmtlcf ja atf mbgcfg. Ktf ybs tfjgv atf wjc’r ijeutafg. Llr ijeutafg kjr vlrpblcafv sfa oliifv klat vfiluta.
The boy shrank his body deeper beneath the heavy clothes. He closed his eyes tightly. Cold sweat slowly ran down his forehead.
The sound of leather-clad feet came closer and closer. A tall, dark silhouette hunkered down outside the glass door, blocking the only trace of light from the window.
The person standing outside the washing machine took his time to squat down. He knocked lightly on the glass door.
The man uttered unhurriedly in a gentle tone, “Knock, knock–”
This was the ‘door-knocking game’ that he frequently played with his mother during hide-and-seek. He had to conceal himself in a secret location within a fixed amount of time, and wait for his mother to find him and knock on the door. He would stealthily ask who they were and that would start off an exchange of jokes.
The man seemed to be perplexed by the lack of response from the boy. His hands left two bloody handprints on the glass door. He cocked his head, pressing his entire face against the door of the washing machine.
The boy’s eyes widened in terror. The bloody handprints on the door and the face outside were reflected in his limpid eyes.
The man’s gaze was hollow. There was nothing in them.
The man patted the door of the washing machine. He said with a smile, “I’m going to start it, yeah?”
–
“Someone’s coming.”
A man’s low voice sounded beside his ear, pulling Ying Wan from his endless, absurd memories back to reality.
He blinked slowly. The incandescent lights had not gone out, and everything in front of him had returned to normal. He and Yu Baiqing were still standing at the end of the corridor. There was no creepy gramophone music, nor was the floor a pool of blood.
The sensation of losing his vision had felt extremely real, to the point where he thought he had once again lost his eyesight.
Before he could reply, Yu Baiqing had already turned back and picked up his cane at a corner of the wall, handing the long rod to him.
“Let’s head to the dressing room first,” Yu Baiqing said.
Ying Wan accepted the cane handed to him with a slightly befuddled look.
He had thought that Yu Baiqing would realize there was something fishy about his eyes after those two gunshots. So why was he still acting like nothing had happened?
Yu Baiqing didn’t wait for him, but instead moved towards the dressing room on the other end of the corridor. He opened the door halfway and stood at the doorway of the dressing room, waiting for Ying Wan to slowly make his way over with the help of his cane.
Ying Wan pursed the corners of his lips. Under the watchful gaze of an expressionless Yu Baiqing, Ying Wan extended his cane and tapped it against the ground as he walked forward step by step, just like he had in the past.
When passing by the two men on the ground, he deliberately made a few subtle mistakes. For example, subconsciously lifting his foot to evade the arm of the tall skinny man lying on the ground.
Yu Baiqing watched Ying Wan walk over cautiously yet perfectly avoid all the obstructions along the corridor. There were no visible changes in his expression, as if he were disregarding all of Ying Wan’s abnormal actions.
Yu Baiqing closed the door after Ying Wan stepped into the dressing room.
He retrieved his personal articles from the cabinet before silently heading to the storage room in the innermost section of the dressing room. He opened the dusty metal door. He stepped in first and then extended a hand to the person behind him. “Come.”
The sound of footsteps along the corridor was becoming increasingly loud. The group of people who had responded to the noise was already rounding the corner. Ying Wan didn’t know what exactly Yu Baiqing was planning. He hesitated for a second, but eventually still listened to Yu Baiqing and stooped over to enter the storage room.
With a bang, Yu Baiqing bolted the metal door shut from the inside.
This hidden room at a corner of the dressing room was only seven or eight square meters. Half of the space was taken up by piles of bath towels and discarded boxing covers. There was an unused PVC mattress leaning against the wall. In front of it was an empty space just enough for some people to stand.
There were no lights in the storage room. It was dark everywhere. Ying Wan could only discern Yu Baiqing’s location from the faint scent of tobacco he gave off.
Ying Wan was standing in a space that didn’t have any junk. He heard Yu Baiqing’s voice close by. “When was that?”
Sensing that Yu Baiqing had taken a step forward in the darkness, Ying Wan firmly pressed his back against the mattress behind, subconsciously widening the distance between them. “Ge…I don’t understand what you mean.”
When had he regained his sight? Or when had he learned how to use guns?
He wouldn’t have any difficulty explaining the former, but if it was the latter, he would need to stall for time before he could come up with a completely rational reason that would not fan the flames of suspicion.
Ying Wan was forced to a corner of the wall, leaving him no choice but to press his back tightly against the wall. Though Yu Baiqing could not see Ying Wan’s face, he could feel his chaotic breathing. This was something that rarely happened; a panic that Ying Wan would only show in front of him.
Yu Baiqing interrupted Ying Wan as he was wavering. “Give me the gun.”
Ying Wan took out the pocket pistol from his cuff. He had just placed the gun in Yu Baiqing’s palm when Yu Baiqing took firm hold of his hand. Turning the gun handle, Yu Baiqing pointed the muzzle towards the other side – his chest.
The slender figure took another step forward. He pressed the muzzle against his own chest. “Why aren’t you shooting now?”
His warm palm was plastered against the ice-cold metal. Ying Wan felt Yu Baiqing’s fingers hooking lightly around the trigger and moving the muzzle down his own abdomen. Ying Wan’s heart abruptly skipped a beat. His lips trembled slightly. Subconsciously, he cried out the other person’s name, “Yu Baiqing, don’t–”
“Tranquilizer bullets are effective for three hours,” stated Yu Baiqing. “If you render me unconscious now, you’ll have more time to think of a new excuse.”
Ying Wan swallowed the words at the tip of his tongue. Yu Baiqing had hit the nail on the head, completely exposing Ying Wan’s schemes.
He was just about to explain when there was a flurry of footsteps at the entrance of the dressing room. A man was standing outside the tightly closed door, giving out instructions fluently to the surrounding people in a foreign language. After finishing what he had to say, someone kicked open the door.
Before Ying Wan entered the narrow storage room with Yu Baiqing, he’d specially used his cane to draw a small mark on the dust-covered floorboards outside the door.
Just from hearing the voices along the corridor, he had already identified Otto as one of the people outside. As long as Otto discovered that the two men had been shot with tranquilizer bullets, he would know that the bullets had been fired by Ying Wan. If he was meticulous enough, he would see the mark outside the door and very quickly guess that he was hiding inside.
He needed someone to get him out of this situation right now. Since Yu Baiqing had already misunderstood his relationship with Otto, there wasn’t anything inappropriate about further utilizing the blonde-haired man.
However, contrary to his expectations, Otto had just been beaten half to death in the boxing ring and his brain was buzzing with blood. His IQ was at best only half of its usual level.
Otto completely overlooked the mark Ying Wan left outside the door. He brought several bodyguards and circled the dressing room, checking every single bathroom and changing room, but missed out the tightly-locked storage room at the corner.
“Mister, there are no suspicious people.”
The bodyguard stationed outside the room reported to Otto.
Ying Wan was going to make some noise to attract Otto’s attention, but his ge covered his mouth.
Yu Baiqing said mildly, “Don’t make any noise.”
The sound of footsteps along the corridor gradually disappeared. Immediately after Otto led his men out, the phone in Ying Wan’s pocket rang.
Ying Wan took his phone out. He subconsciously wanted to press the button to end the call, but then Yu Baiqing uttered slowly, “Pick up.”
Under Yu Baiqing’s distant gaze, Ying Wan pressed the button to pick up the call and then coughed lightly twice.
He was hinting to the caller to take note that someone other than him was present.
The boxing ring was built underground, so the signal wasn’t the best.
“Boss..you..where?”
A young male voice could be heard intermittently from the receiver. It was evident that he had not heard Ying Wan’s hint due to the poor signal.
“…Otto just called to tell me that you were attacked at his place,” Grayback swiveled the office chair so that the back was facing the technical reconnaissance team’s busy officers. He lowered his voice. “Are you okay?”
Only half a apple core remained in his hands. Grayback got up and made his way behind the office table. He patted Guan Xingwen, who was currently facing a computer screen and typing out code, gesturing for him to pass a bigger peach to him.
After a short pause, Grayback’s voice gradually increased in volume, seemingly on purpose for a certain someone to hear. “There’s a youngster surnamed Guan in the police bureau. He ran into something that he couldn’t decide on and asked me to stay behind to help him out.”
“I didn’t ask you to freeload a meal here. If you can’t help, then scram now!”
Before Grayback could finish his smug statement, another enraged voice was heard on the phone, so loud that it nearly deafened the two men who had put the call on speaker.
“I can’t leave now, Owl just finished following…I’ll get her to pick you up along the way.”
The signal started cutting out intermittently again and all Ying Wan heard was grayback’s mischievous laughter. All of a sudden, Grayback asked, “Oh right. Boss, why didn’t you tell us that that person…at…is your ge?”
The strength of the signal turned from two bars to one bar. The line was automatically cut.
Silence returned to their surroundings. The dim green screen of Ying Wan’s phone emitted a faint glow in the narrow room. Because of it, Ying Wan could just barely make out Yu Baiqing’s face.
Yu Baiqing was leaning against a metal cabinet less than half a meter away. He was staring at Ying Wan, calm and unruffled, seemingly waiting for Ying Wan to give him an explanation.
Ying Wan: …
The moment Grayback was in a good mood, he would shoot his mouth off nonstop just like a machine gun. Ying Wan had not expected him to spout so much nonsense in one call as if they hadn’t spoken for half a lifetime!
Ying Wan snuck a glance from the corner of his eye at the man in the dim lighting. He steeled his heart and seriously pondered if he might as well just shoot Yu Baiqing.
Even rendering his ge unconscious for a few hours wouldn’t be much worse than the current situation.
As if picking up on the schemes Ying Wan was hatching, Yu Baiqing pressed a hand against the wall above Ying Wan’s head and extended a hand towards him again. “Give me your phone too.”
Yu Baiqing’s handphone was still in the hands of the baldie at the entrance to the underground boxing room. In their current situation, Ying Wan’s phone was their only means of contacting the outside world.
“No.”
The child shook his head hurriedly and hastily hid his phone behind his back. His lips trembled. A long time later, he forced out a few words, “I have my own privacy too.”
It was precisely because he was certain Yu Baiqing usually wouldn’t look through his phone that he dared to so brazenly use it to contact others.
Ying Wan’s feeble retort made Yu Baiqing recall something a few years ago. Back when Ying Wan was still schooling, there was a period of time when he didn’t allow Yu Baiqing to look at his phone. Yu Baiqing had chalked up this behavior to him reaching puberty and hence having his own secrets.
One day, Ying Wan accidentally broke his phone screen. When Yu Baiqing sent the phone for repair, the store employee provided him a backup before conducting a factory reset. It was then that he saw the many diary entries the child had typed out on his phone.
Teenage years were the best time in one’s youth. But the child’s virtually daily writings all concerned him.
Yu Baiqing didn’t continue to insist on having Ying Wan’s phone. After confirming that there wasn’t anyone outside along the corridor, he attempted to undo the bolt on the iron door. However, he realized that the bolt had jammed and could not be undone no matter how much strength he exerted.
Yu Baiqing’s brows furrowed slightly. An ominous premonition suddenly surfaced in his heart.
Rolling up his sleeves halfway, he used ninety percent of his strength in an attempt to push up the iron rod extending horizontally across the door. However, he discovered that the bolt had already rusted, likely due to an extended period of disuse.
He turned back, instructing Ying Wan who was standing at the corner, “Call that person and tell him to pass the phone to Guan Xingwen.”
Ying Wan dialed Grayback’s number. The ringtone sounded in the enclosed space for a long time before the other party picked up.
After getting Grayback to hand the phone to Guan Xingwen, Ying Wan gave it some thought and eventually decided to pass the phone to his ge.
“Hello?”
“Old Yu?” Guan Xingwen was startled upon recognizing who it was. “Aren’t you on leave?”
“I’m going to send you an address,” Yu Baiqing put him on speaker. “Gather a few people and come to the address with equipment for breaking down doors.”
He was just about to give their location when Ying Wan’s phone let out a buzz. The phone was out of battery and had automatically shut down.
With the abrupt dimming of the screen, they also lost their sole source of light in the storage room.
“…”
This time, Yu Baiqing truly had nothing to say.
Shortly after, he felt a gust of warm air against his nape. At some point, Ying Wan had come behind him. He asked Yu Baiqing with uncertainty, “…Ge, are we stuck here?”
AHHHHHH IVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS CHAPTER
THANK YOU FOR YOUR HARD WORK TRANSLATOR
Wow that snippet of Ying Wan’s past was so scary. The author should write horror if they haven’t already. Yu Baiqing discovering a different side to his didi is so juicy. Can’t wait for him to find out more lol
Welp, now all the more time for these two to have a heart to heart talk 😌