After an overnight stay at the hospital for observation followed by an entire day of having his statement taken at the police bureau, Ying Wan eventually ended up following Yu Baiqing back home.
Seated at the jeep’s front passenger seat, Ying Wan stared blankly at the swaying car accessories in front of the window. Yu Baiqing’s grip remained on the steering wheel the entire journey as well, not uttering a word.
Ever since their parting in front of the school gate, he and his ge had not met for a full two and a half years.
Ying Wan did not proactively ask Yu Baiqing whether he had ever tried searching for him upon the completion of his mission and his return to Fan City. Yu Baiqing also didn’t ask Ying Wan why he had disappeared that year after leaving behind a letter and only returned after so long.
Having reunited under such circumstances, it seemed there really wasn’t much that could be said to each other.
The jeep proceeded along the city center’s main road. Halfway, it turned into what looked like a somewhat old residential district.
The municipal bureau had specially built a few dormitories in the police district. Police officers and their colleagues in the force all lived nearby, so it was quite a suitable living place for older singles who were on the move the entire day and didn’t have much of a private life.
Most of the criminal investigators in the force lived in the dormitory, except for Yu Baiqing who rented an apartment outside. Setting aside the fact that it was a distance from the bureau, the rent was also significantly higher than the dormitory.
Everyone said that Captain Yu’s brain had short-circuited, which was why he was renting an apartment meant for two despite living on his own. Out of the two bedrooms in the apartment, Yu Baiqing only stayed in the master bedroom. The neighboring bedroom was left vacant with the door locked.
Till today, when the bedroom welcomed its owner.
The photo frame on the table. The cane that leaned against a corner of the wall. The cushion pads stuck on the corners of the table, beds and chairs. The multi-colored foam padding laid out on the narrow corridor, extending all the way to the door.
It was obvious that the room had been arranged in a manner identical to the old alley house that they’d lived in together in the past.
Silently taking in everything about the room from behind Yu Baiqing, Ying Wan blinked.
“The toilet is opposite the kitchen, just turn left from the door,” Yu Baiqing fished out a key from his pocket and tossed it beside Ying Wan’s hand. “This is the spare key for this apartment. I’ll be working during the day and won’t be at home, remember to lock the door when you go out.”
After informing Ying Wan of whatever he needed to know, Yu Baiqing looked like he intended to leave. He still needed to return to the bureau at night to write the report, so after picking up his uniform jacket hanging on the door, he opened the door and made to walk out.
“Ge,” Ying Wan suddenly called out before the door closed. “I didn’t do all those things they were talking about.”
Yu Baiqing heard Ying Wan’s voice and his hand that was gripping the handle paused midway.
Yu Baiqing glanced back at his gentle-looking didi seated at the side of the bed. His response was a little unnatural. “Such as?”
“I heard everything Ruan-dage and his friend were talking about today at the bureau downstairs.” Ying Wan said without the slightest change in his expression, “His friend said that the money I earn in a single night rivals what you guys earn in a month. And if I bump into someone who’s willing to spend, I can earn even more than that if I accompany them for a night. Ruan-dage was very angry when he heard that.”
“His friend even said that I came back because the rich businessman doing me immigrated and threw me away.”
Yu Baiqing hadn’t expected all these stories circulating throughout the streets to have been heard clearly by Ying Wan. Momentarily, there was a rather colorful expression on his face.
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.
Ruan Tianjie’s friend couldn’t be said to be shooting his mouth off. Ever since the day Yu Baiqing returned to Fan City half a year ago after completing a secret mission, he often heard all sorts of rumors about his own didi circulating around Bar Street at the port.
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A rich second generation who was childhood friends with Ruan Tianjie had been captivated by Ying Wan for a very long time. Back then, he would spend an amount going up to six digits every week for the sake of supporting Ying Wan, yet he never successfully succeeded in bringing the beauty home.
After that, Ying Wan left Fan City and concealed his whereabouts. Because of this, that guy even brooded over it for a long time.
Seeing that Yu Baiqing had remained silent for a while, Ying Wan knew that they had both gone down memory lane.
“Not more than a few months after you left, granny fell sick and had to undergo surgery as soon as possible,” Ying Wan’s tone was relaxed, as if everything he was saying had not happened to him. “The hospital could only waive half of it. Ge couldn’t be reached at that time. Ruan-dage said he would lend me some emergency money; I was embarrassed about not returning the money owed to him.”
The granny Ying Wan spoke about was an elderly woman who lived alone opposite them in the alley. This elder looked after both of them like they were her biological sons, practically raising them from young.
At this point, Yu Baiqing’s eyelids jerked heavily. A preposterous thought popped up in his mind.
Could it have been because of him that Ying Wan was left with no choice and had to go with those rich, despicable animals–
“During granny’s hospitalization, I went to class at the school for the blind during the day, and moonlighted at bars during the night to earn money. I was learning to mix drinks,” Ying Wan stated. “That’s all, nothing else.”
“…Where were you the past two years?”
Yu Baiqing asked after a period of silence.
He’d originally wanted to ask if Ying Wan had been well the past two years, but on second thought, even Ruan Tianjie would be better qualified than him to ask such a thing.
After all, he was the first one to leave without saying anything back then.
Ying Wan cocked his head slightly after hearing Yu Baiqing’s question. There were traces of confusion and bewilderment in his gaze. “Isn’t that what I should be asking ge?”
This face of Ying Wan’s was incredibly enchanting and gave him the appearance of being gentle and well-behaved. Yet, it didn’t give others the impression that he was weak. Especially his eyes. His eyes might have no way of focusing on one spot, yet it seemed like a bottomless spring, his gaze containing two-tenths of seriousness and eight-tenths of warmth.
When such a gaze was leveled on him, Yu Baiqing’s heart felt like it had been gently pricked by something.
“When I went home after school that day, I realized that there was no one in the house. Everything related to you had all vanished. I went to the bureau and asked Ruan-dage, Officer Liu, everyone I knew. But nobody was willing to tell me where you’d gone. They only said you went on a very important mission. They asked me to obediently go to school and wait for you to come home.”
“Ge, where have you been the past two years?”
The air quietened. The door to the room closed.
Yu Baiqing’s answer never came.
Hearing the sound of footsteps vanish into the distance, Ying Wan let out a breath of air. He spread out both arms and slowly fell onto the bed. He reached out an arm, spreading out all five fingers under the dim lighting. He scrutinized his palm and the back of his hand.
Just like how he wouldn’t tell Yu Baiqing that he’d regained his vision, Yu Baiqing also wouldn’t tell him why he had only left behind a sum of money two years ago and then abandoned him without bidding goodbye.
Both of them had their own secrets they could not divulge.
But what Yu Baiqing didn’t know was that he’d already seen the photo frame standing on top of the television set when they entered the house.
The photo frame enclosed a gold medal, the following words written on the certificate beside: [Officer Yu Baiqing, awarded the First Class Meritorious Service Medal for outstanding achievements in combating transnational crimes and pursuing fugitives abroad.]
–
Two whole weeks after the submission of his report, Yu Baiqing received the outcome of his punishment by the bureau.
Due to the immense societal impact of the ‘7.13 hostage-kidnapping case’, the higher-ups decided to temporarily relieve him of his duties as captain. Vice-Captain Zhang Yu of the narcotics unit would be transferred to the criminal investigation unit and temporarily take on the role of captain.
The first day Zhang ‘Octopus’ Yu took up official appointment, all the old foxes in the team awakened their melon seed-eating souls and slipped into the office early for a good show.
There was no one in the municipal bureau who didn’t know that Zhang Yu and Yu Baiqing were once classmates in Fan City’s police academy. Both had specialized in investigation and police command. The two of them graduated from the system, placing first and second. Ever since their schooling days, they’d each found the other displeasing to the eye.
Zhang Yu did indeed live up to his nickname ‘Octopus’. In the words of their Captain Yu, Zhang Yu had a very loose management style and would stick his hand into everything.
At night, the entire criminal investigation team received a notification from the Octopus to stay behind for the first case briefing since his appointment.
Zhang Yu strode into the office with the information in hand. He scanned the meeting room and very quickly locked in on Yu Baiqing, who was seated at the last row.
As if deliberately provoking his old rival, the corner of Zhang Yu’s lips hooked up. He said meaningfully “I just went to the food street to get supper and saw your family’s Ying Wan behind the alley.”
“Old Yu, it’s already so late, isn’t it bad for you to let a small child set up a stall in that rotten place?”
Yu Baiqing couldn’t be bothered to spout nonsense with Zhang Yu. He crossed his arms over his chest, eyelids rising slowly. “If you have to fart, do it quickly.”
It was Ying Wan’s own idea to set up a stall outside. Though he wasn’t aware that that guy hadn’t gone home and was still waiting for him to get off work when it was already approaching nighttime.
Ever since he stopped Ying Wan from working at red-light districts like the club, every day when he drove his jeep back to the neighborhood after work, his di would either be squatting beside the big tree in the resident common area, licking a popsicle while listening to a group of aunties dancing, or sitting at the entrance of the stationery shop by the road and listening to crosstalk with a group of uncles.
Gradually, Yu Baiqing discovered a problem. Ying Wan couldn’t remain at home. He simply liked being in places where there were many people.
After playing the idle, unemployed youth in this manner for a few days, Ying Wan said that he was done observing the neighborhood. He pleaded with Yu Baiqing to allow him to sell a pile of cartoon t-shirts for ten yuan that he’d bought at a wholesale price of five yuan. Then, he got Yu Baiqing to help him apply for a permit to set up a stall. And that was how he started working at the food street behind the municipal bureau.
Zhang Yu didn’t continue with his nonsense after ridiculing his rival. He switched on the projector and gestured for everyone to look at the projected scene. “The crime occurred at Mucheng Times II, it’s another unwitnessed murder.”
The projector displayed the surveillance recording of a construction site. The time indicated on the top right corner was 2.14am today.
There were a total of four surveillance cameras in operation at the construction site during the night. The cameras were aimed at the trench, the carpark in front of the workers’ dormitory, the safety passage, and the steel-reinforced backdoor covered in cement.
A few minutes later, four workers wearing safety helmets appeared on camera. They stood there and chatted for a while. Three of the workers then pointed outside the main gate and subsequently walked out of range of the surveillance camera.
The last worker remained standing at his position and played with his phone for a while. Seemingly discovering something interesting, he suddenly extended his phone towards the night sky.
At this instant, the loader a few meters away from the worker abruptly started up.
The big metal shovel at the front of the machine slowly raised up high behind the worker. It resembled an enormous monster cloaked in darkness as it opened its bloody mouth towards the construction worker that was just turning around.
“The victim died on the spot. Apart from the head which was uninjured due to the safety helmet, all four limbs and the chest were heavily deformed from the immense pressure exerted on them. The actual photos of the scene aren’t very pleasant, let’s wait for the results from the forensic investigator first,” said Zhang Yu.
“This was originally a case in Gaoxin District, why was it transferred to us?” Ruan Tianjie asked after reading through the information in his hands. “Since they’ve dispatched people to conduct a trace inspection, why haven’t they identified any criminal suspects? What about the three people who appeared at the beginning?”
“That’s where the problem lies,” A vaguely thought-provoking expression appeared on Zhang Yu’s face. He leaned back against the front of the meeting table. “These people all have perfect, logical alibis. Take a close look at the inside of the loader.”
He magnified the image. The camera focused on the driver’s seat.
After high-definition processing, it was remarkably clear that there was nobody in the driver’s seat.
Gaoxin District’s criminal investigation team could not identify any suspects and chose to seek the assistance of the municipal bureau to conduct an even deeper investigation. After all, according to the surveillance camera, the machine had killed a person on its own.
But how could a machine take the initiative to kill someone?
Yu Baiqing’s brows furrowed slightly. He didn’t say anything for a long time.
Just as the surrounding criminal investigators were starting to engage in discussions, he commented all of a sudden, “2.14am, no witnesses. This isn’t a coincidence.
“I have similar thoughts as Old Yu,” Zhang Yu nodded approvingly. “In the latter half of last year, there was a serial murder case. Criminal investigators like you guys will have an impression of it. The criminal also selected this sort of time to commit the crime. There were no witnesses either. I think we can investigate in this direction.
“…But Captain Zhang, wasn’t the suspect of last year’s serial murder case already arrested by Bingzhou’s authorities?” An officer seated in the first row raised their hand.
Yu Baiqing: “It could be a copycat murder.”
Staring at the scene projected on the wall, Zhang Yu’s face turned grave. “We’ll know whether it’s a copycat murder when we find that person.”
Ruan Tianjie’s mouth opened a little upon hearing Zhang Yu’s words. He glanced back at Yu Baiqing, looking as if he had something to say.
“About that…Old Zhang.”
“It hasn’t been long since you were transferred to our team, so I haven’t been able to inform you of certain pieces of information in time,” Ruan Tianjie paused. The tone of his voice was cryptic. “Just last week, our informant reported that ‘Robin’ is already dead.”
I already got addicted T^T I want more
Thanks for the chapter
I really don’t get why be was punished in the first place. He didn’t seem to do anything wrong ay the scene as written.