The news of Robin’s death was already circulating throughout the black market.
It was said that Yuan Shan’s men had pursued Robin for an entire day and night to kill him. Tens of men had surrounded Robin at an unregulated zone at the border and gunned him down for more than ten seconds. The gunshots had incited a mass of flying birds in the forest.
But according to the police’s informant, Robin had died from a normal gunfight along the streets.
Nobody knew what exactly the underlying truth was.
Yu Baiqing was expressionless upon hearing what Old Ruan had said. His Adam’s apple moved, but he remained silent.
When he gave it careful thought sometime later, there was already a sign at this time.
After Old White’s jailbreak, the criminal investigation department’s informant had carried out their final exchange of intelligence with Robin. They had requested for the other party to provide information on the buyers and sellers of ammonium nitrate – a raw material for explosives – during the period when Old White had procured them.
Even with the secure network constructed by the cybersecurity team, communications between their informant and Robin still could not be considered a hundred percent secure. The other party only knew that they were in contact with the police, but didn’t know the exact identity of the liaison every time. Similarly, nobody in the police force knew Robin’s true identity.
In order to prevent information leakage, both parties only sent and received encrypted documents each time they made contact online. Not a single extra word was said.
But at that time, after they had finished exchanging information, Yu Baiqing’s informant received an unencrypted statement from the other party for the first time.
A second before Robin terminated the connection, a line of characters was sent via the secure line – [Au revoir].
– French for ‘goodbye’.
“That fellow actually died?”
Zhang Yu’s complexion didn’t look too good.
The criminal investigation department wasn’t overly affected since they mostly investigated cases within the country. The frequency at which international collaboration was required was on the lower end. However, the anti-narcotics team that Zhang Yu was from often had dealings with police across borders. Intelligence was of utmost importance to them.
To him, whose origins were in anti-narcotics trafficking, Robin’s death wasn’t any different from a bolt from the blue.
Maggots in the sewers were not the only things that treated darkness as a cloak of protection, fearing the light. So did the vipers that roamed between the two. They hid within shadows, never seeing light, eternally unable to become heroes.
Even their deaths were quiet. When their outer shells were cast off and all previously-present traces erased, a person’s entire lifetime was encapsulated in a single codename.
“…No matter what has happened, let’s wait till we’ve seen the site before saying anything more,” Ruan Tianjie broke the silence in the meeting room. “Even if Robin is still alive, he would only be familiar with the previous cases. If it really is a copycat crime, he probably wouldn’t be of much help either.”
“Old Ruan, bring some men to Bingzhou tomorrow and bring back last year’s files,” Zhang Yu instructed. “The rest of you go to the scene of the crime with the technical reconnaissance team tomorrow morning. Old Zhao from Gaoxin District is very careless when managing affairs, make sure you keep a close eye on things.”
After assigning work to the respective team members, he thought about it for a while before raising a brow at the venerable one seated at the last row. “Old Yu, come with me to the victim’s house tomorrow morning?”
Yu Baiqing: “Anything’s fine.”
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.
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Vfflcu atja Itjcu Te tjv cbatlcu firf ab lcragema, Te Djldlcu qlmxfv eq tlr eclobgw jcv rabbv eq ogbw atf mtjlg. “P’w ifjnlcu.”
“…”
Zhang Yu clicked his tongue. Turning around, he asked Ruan Tianjie, “Does that fellow always leave early at every meeting or does it only happen when I’m holding the meeting?”
It was the first time Ruan Tianjie saw Yu Baiqing leave in such a hurry. Watching Yu Baiqing stride off from behind, he suddenly understood.
Little Wan’s stall along the food street was still open at this time. For Old Yu to be running off so quickly that even his shadow couldn’t be seen, he had to be rushing to fetch his di.
Yu Baiqing found a parking lot at the street crossing. He peeled off his police uniform and threw it into the car before following the stream of people along the food street towards Ying Wan’s stall.
Ying Wan’s small clothes stall was positioned beside Cheng Huang Temple. To his left was a Tuina massage stall that was helmed by a blind person and to his right was a blind person doing fortune-telling. According to Ying Wan, their circumstances were more or less similar, so they shouldn’t have an issue getting along.
After squeezing through the throng of people watching the Lantern Festival carnival in front of Cheng Huang Temple, Yu Baiqing located Ying Wan’s stall and discovered that the goods and jar of change were still at the stall, but not his di.
His eyelids twitched abruptly. He made his way to the bearded man who was in the midst of telling fortunes and asked in a low voice, “What happened to the stall owner beside you? Do you know where he went?”
The bearded man pushed up the circular sunglasses he was wearing. Confusion was written all over his face. “Boss, I can’t see anything.”
Yu Baiqing: …
–
The weekend was nearing. There was much more human traffic at the food street compared to a working day.
Cheng Huang Temple was holding carnivals these few days to celebrate the Lantern Festival. Tourists and couples who had come to pray for blessings and guess the riddles written on lanterns filled the temple’s entrance. The stall with the best business was the barbecue stall selling skewers opposite the temple. The stall with curls of smoke drifting out was packed with customers and the strong fragrance of meat permeated the entire street.
Even the Tuina massage and fortune-telling stalls beside Ying Wan’s stall had much better business. A group of university students were lined up in front of the fortune-telling stall, each gripping a bamboo stick they had drawn. They waited with faces of delight for Mr Fortune-Teller to tell their fortune and love lives. The Tuina-dage on the other side also had his sleeves rolled up and was massaging the shoulders and neck of the older woman seated in front of him on a stool. He didn’t forget to make some small talk with his customer midway.
It was a hubbub of voices all around him, bustling with noise and excitement. This was how Ying Wan ended up caught in the center.
A wooden board was erected in front of his stall. The two lines of words written on the board were extremely striking – ‘A blind person’s small business, ten yuan a piece’. His ge had written it.
His ge’s sense of aesthetics indeed weren’t very good; the clothes from the wholesale market were either in garish colors or in outdated styles. The clothes wouldn’t sell at all.
Once in a while, girls who passed by and saw this little handsome blind man standing pitifully at an empty stall would inch closer and secretly take his picture. Along the way, they would add some money to the jar of change in front of the stall.
Every time the clinking of coins sounded from the jar, Ying Wan would thank them with a smile.
As time passed, the jar of change would see a considerable increase in coins despite not more than a few articles of clothing being sold.
It was no wonder that the fake fortune-teller nearby, who was feigning blindness, mocked him for being a ‘little beggar’ every day when they set up their stalls.
The hour hand on the clock tower in the public square jumped to 9pm. Ying Wan took out his phone from his pocket, hesitating over whether he should call Yu Baiqing.
Though they were living under the same roof, they were more like two entirely independent individuals. Very rarely did they take the initiative to contact the other party. Every day, Yu Baiqing would drive to the road opposite after work and honk twice to signal to him that he’d reached. Ying Wan didn’t need Yu Baiqing to leave the car and lend him a hand either. He would quietly pack up the stall, place the items in the trunk of the jeep, and then go home with Yu Baiqing.
The few hours at his stall every day was spent diligently scrutinizing every single passerby. This was the best method to survey and familiarize himself with the world.
Day after day passed just like this. Slow and unhurried, yet also seemingly lengthy.
Things were a bit odd today. It was already very late at night, but Yu Baiqing still hadn’t appeared.
Waving away the smoke that had drifted over from the barbecue stall, Ying Wan started searching his surroundings for his ge’s gray jeep. His line of sight had just landed on the road opposite when his face abruptly stiffened for an instant.
A figure dressed in a black singlet was walking hastily towards the alleyway opposite. The man’s back was facing the food street. His hair was swept back. He had a very robust physique, the muscles on his upper body taut and sturdy.
That tattoo–
Ying Wan’s gaze landed on the man’s nape. His pupils contracted abruptly.
…Impossible!
The man was about to vanish into the alleyway. Ying Wan couldn’t be bothered to pay any more heed to this broken stall of his. Standing up, he grabbed his cane, turned, and squeezed into the surging waves of people.
He murmured apologies while attempting with his cane to open up a path through the people blocking him. He was jostled forward. The distance between him and the alleyway narrowed as well.
Neon lights flickered through the display windows on both sides of the street. Lights and silhouettes floated before Ying Wan’s eyes. All sound around him vanished gradually. Only that near yet far silhouette remained in Ying Wan’s field of sight, and the sound of the man’s footsteps as he stepped into puddles of water.
[Patter–patter–]
–
[Patter—]
His small body was curled up in a washing machine. Human figures roamed back and forth under dim lights.
The same tattoo was imprinted on every single person. They carried shotguns in their hands, their every step stamping out footprints on the floor covered in blood and tears.
The woman he called ‘mother’ had hidden him amongst dirty clothes, stuffed into the washing machine with a pile of clothes. Before closing the washing machine’s glass door, the woman stroked his face lightly with a trembling hand.
She asked him to pretend he was an article of clothing and to conceal himself. Regardless of what he saw, he absolutely could not make any sound.
After that, another group of people opened the door to the room.
They flung his father’s corpse in the middle of the room and dragged his mother over by her hair, getting her to kneel beside his father. He saw his father lying on the floor with wide-open eyes. His father gazed at him with eyes that spoke of the grievances he’d died with.
The group of people aimed their guns at the back of the woman’s head. The woman looked at him through the washing machine’s glass door.
She told him: be good.
Gunshots rang out in the room. The little boy hidden in the washing machine watched everything that happened outside. At no point did he obey the woman’s words to obediently close his eyes.
“Mister, would you like to come in for a drink?”
The swift appearance of a voice jerked Ying Wan out of his memories. The waiter standing at the door walked forward with good intentions, handing Ying Wan an alcohol menu.
The street with an endless stream of traffic was behind him. He stood alone at the entrance of a bar along the alleyway. His back had long since been covered in cold sweat.
The music and clamor from the bar became louder and louder with every wave. He’d lost the man in the black singlet.
It was then that he realized that every person, whether it was the bar waiter or the customers who’d just left the bar, had the image of a ‘screaming faceless woman’ plastered on their body. It wasn’t a tattoo, but a sticker that functioned in similar ways to a tattoo.
Gradually slowing down his breathing, Ying Wan reached out and took the alcohol menu. He pointed at the arm of a customer passing by and asked the waiter in an unconcerned tone, “This is…”
A look of understanding very quickly appeared on the waiter’s face. “Ah, that’s what you were asking about. Our bar is having an opening event today. As long as you scan a QR code and become a member, you’ll be given a sticker. The sticker represents your identity as a member. As long as you show the sticker, you will be given a twelve percent discount off your total bill today.”
Which was to say – there was no meaning to the tattoo on the back of the man in the black singlet and that it was just a coincidence?
Ying Wan furrowed his brows tightly. The corners of his lips slowly pressed into a straight line.
At this moment, a familiar voice sounded from behind.
That person’s footsteps came closer and closer. The faint smell of cigarettes met his neck. A familiar smell that put him at ease coiled around him.
His ge asked him in a low voice, “…Why did you run all the way here?”
If not for the boss of the barbecue stall seeing the little blind person hurriedly entering the alley with his cane, Yu Baiqing wouldn’t have found him so soon.
Seeing the groups of people that came and went nearby the bar, Yu Baiqing’s brows creased. The urge to reprimand Ying Wan for not informing him and running to this sort of shady place on his own rose within him.
Ying Wan opened his mouth, all ready to offer an explanation to his ge, when he heard a sudden vibration from Yu Baiqing’s pants pocket.
“Old Yu,” Yu Baiqing answered the phone in front of Ying Wan. The Octopus’ helpless voice came from Yu Baiqing’s phone. “Are you back home? If you aren’t, hurry and come back to the bureau. We’ll probably have to spend the night at the bureau today.”
“The victim’s autopsy report is out,” Zhang Yu explained. “The cause of death is not internal organ failure from the shattering of the lumbar spine. He was dead even before being crushed.”
Ooh, the mystery keeps pilling up. And poor ying wan… What a rough childhood 😔
Thank you for the chapter 💖
It’s getting more interesting!
And I also wonder for how long Ying Wan will keep his secret…
so he wasn’t born blind? interesting